We continue our preseason Big Ten rankings today with spots #9 through #5. The bottom tier of teams, #14 to #10, released earlier this week. These middle tier teams will be fighting to be on the right side of the bubble — and providing us with great drama — all season long.

9. Maryland

• What they do well: Defense. Mark Turgeon has had a top 40 squad in adjusted defensive efficiency the past couple seasons and it’ll likely be his area of focus once again.
• What they don’t do well: Retention. Seth Allen, Charles Mitchell, Nick Faust, Roddy Peters and Shaquille Cleare all transferred out of the program in the offseason — not exactly inconsequential players.

Dez Wells is one of the few familiar faces in College Park this year. (Charlie DeBoyace/The Diamondback)

• Get to know: Melo Trimble. The top 40 recruit will need to use his offensive skill set to help replace all the lost scoring from last season.
• Why they’ll finish 9th: The exodus of key players and unfamiliarity in the Big Ten will cause some very sharp growing pains for the Terrapins.
• Why they’ll finish higher: This team still has talent and is used to playing top-notch competition. If they can get all their new pieces to gel together, they can compete in a relatively down Big Ten.

8. Iowa

• What they do well: Offense. Last season, the Hawkeyes were fifth nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency and they bring a majority of that roster back this year.
• What they don’t do well: Mental toughness. Last season, Iowa wilted in close games against Villanova and Iowa State. Things really spiraled out of control at the end of the season when they lost seven of their last eight contests.

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1. It seems like Rutgers cannot get anything right. Even the hiring of Eddie Jordan, which seemed like a no-brainer, has turned into a public relations disaster as Jordan never graduated from college. This is not at the level of George O’Leary and his fake degree with at an institution that never existed, but it is still an ugly mark against an institution that has already been dragged through the mud with its handling of the Mike Rice situation. From what the school is saying Jordan never represented himself as a graduate of the school and it was simply a media relations error. If that is in fact true and the school claims that it does not require its coaches to have college degrees (Who cares since they do not count against the APR, right?), this issue will probably be swept under the rug, but we imagine that opposing coaches will use this to recruit against Jordan by pointing out that if he did not bother to complete his college degree it seems a little less credible that he would make sure your son ends up with a college degree when his basketball career is over.
2. It appears that the recruitment of Andrew Wiggins, the #1 high school player in (North) America, will be coming to a close as he is expected to announce his decision at 12:15 PM today. Many fans and several analysts have voiced their displeasure with Wiggins taking so long to announce his decision, but with the way that schools get put on probation and players or coaches leave it makes sense for the top player in the country (or any coveted recruit for that matter) to wait as long as possible to make their decision. Wiggins is set to decide between Florida State, Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina. If Wiggins winds up in Lexington, you can be sure it will set off another round of hysteria about Kentucky’s incoming class. Interestingly, the most frequently cited destination we have seen from college basketball analysts is Florida State. If that were to happen, Wiggins would make the Seminoles a legitimate NCAA Tournament team and would create some very interesting match-ups against Duke and Jabari Parker.
3. The Miami investigation is the mess that never seems to go away. The latest update is that Frank Haith‘s petition to question Bank of America employees on whether they gave unauthorized access to his bank accounts (allowing the NCAA to analyze his accounts) was denied by a federal judge in Miami on Friday. Based on what has been released about the case it appears that Haith will still be able to get the information if he decides to file a lawsuit, which he may be doing in the near future. If the NCAA did in fact illegally obtain Haith’s financial records it could be dealing with a very messy legal case and one that it cannot rely on its own jurisdiction to help it evade substantial penalties.
4. Georgia Tech lost a pair of players over the weekend. The most significant was Julian Royal, who is headed to George Mason (announced via that Instagram picture) and will finally get to play for Paul Hewitt after Hewitt recruited him to Georgia Tech before moving to George Mason. On the surface, the addition of a player who was the odd man out in Georgia Tech’s rotation may not seem like a big get, but coming out of high school Royal was considered the best player in the state of Georgia and a player that Hewitt thought fit his system so perhaps playing for Hewitt in his system (and new scenery) will help Royal realize his potential. The other move from Georgia Tech was Brandon Reed‘s decision to transfer after his junior season. Reed, who averaged 5.2 points per game on 38.4 percent from three-point range last season, will graduate this summer as he also sat out a year after transferring from Arkansas State. As a result Reed will be able to transfer again without having to sit out a year if he picks an appropriate graduate degree program.
5. We are still waiting on a few recruits from the class of 2013 to commit (see the big one in bullet #2), but a pair of highly rated recruits in the class of 2014 appear to have already made their choices. The more firm of the two commitments comes from Daniel Hamilton, a top 30 recruit, who verbally committed to play at Connecticut. The addition of Hamilton should give the Huskies a very potent backcourt for the 2014-15 season (when Rodney Purvis is eligible) as they will be looking to replace more experienced players. The other quasi-commitment comes from Chris Chiozza, who is a top-100 player, and appears to be headed to Florida with a formal announcement tomorrow. The news on Chiozza is not particularly noteworthy except for the fact that he is a high school teammate of Leron Black, a top-20 player in the junior class so perhaps Chiozza’s decision will offer some clue as to where Black is headed.

Seven Sweet Scoops  is the newest and hottest column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting analyst. Every Friday he will discuss the seven top stories from the week in the wide world of recruiting, involving offers, which  prospect visited where, recent updates regarding school lists, and more chatter from the recruiting scene. You can also check out more of his work at RTC with his weekly column  “Who’s Got Next?”, as well as his work dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at  Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account  @CLykinsBlog  for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene.

 Note:  ESPN Recruiting  used for all player rankings.

1. Roy Williams Sees Andrew Wiggins For Third Time

If you’re a fan of North Carolina, you have to be extremely impressed with the amount of attention head coach Roy Williams is showing the No. 1 player in the class of 2013, Andrew Wiggins, as of late. On Thursday, Williams was in Huntington, West Virginia, to watch Wiggins for the third time this season. The recruiting efforts have essentially paid off for the Tar Heels for now, as Wiggins is expected to take a trip to Chapel Hill at the conclusion of his senior season at Huntington Prep (West Virginia). Including North Carolina, who has signed three top-100 prospects from the class of 2013 in Isaiah Hicks, Kennedy Meeks, and Nate Britt, the 6’8” small forward is also considering Florida State, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State, and Syracuse. He has also already taken his first official visit to Florida State and has plans to also visit Kansas and Kentucky at season’s end.

North Carolina will receive an official visit in the spring from Andrew Wiggins

2. Junior Leron Black Backs Out of Baylor Commitment

For a number of underclassmen, the recruiting process can prove to be exciting for those that feel desired by a number of specific programs, thus leading to a quick and abrupt decision without carefully examining each and every option. Such was the case for Leron Black, the No. 11 overall ranked prospect in the class of 2014, who gave a verbal pledge to Baylor back in September after taking an unofficial visit to the school. On Wednesday, Black announced his intention to re-open his recruitment, citing that he made a rushed decision. John Martin of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal was the first to break the news. Shortly after backing out of his Baylor commitment, the 6’7” small forward out of White Station High School (Tennessee) had already heard from Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Louisville, Memphis, Missouri, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. Baylor will still remain in the mix; however, the odds will not be in their favor to re-establish a commitment. This time around, Black will be much more patient and disciplined prior to making his final decision, as he will be one of the most highly sought-after juniors in the class due to his great athleticism and ability to finish around the rim. Read the rest of this entry »

1. It’s not too often you see Baylor on the bad side of recruiting news, but Scott Drew’s 2014 class took a hit when Leron Black announced his de-commitment from the Bears this week. Black, a 6’7” forward from Memphis, originally made a pledge to Drew in September, but he said he rushed the decision, so now he’s re-opened his options to just about every other major program in college basketball. Interestingly, Black was Drew’s only 2014 commitment, but there’s no reason to think he’ll shun Baylor entirely at this point. It’s just that the Bears have some competition now.
2. Jason King always knows the ins and outs of the Big 12, so here’s a nice read on the state of the league heading into conference play this weekend. No surprises with Kansas atop the conference, but King makes a notable argument hidden in the middle of his article. He said he “wouldn’t be surprised if [Iowa State] finished as high as second in the Big 12 standings.” Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Lost among Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Baylor, it’s easy to forget that Fred Hoiberg’s three losses all came away from home to good competition, including UNLV and Cincinnati. The Cyclones slammed BYU, too, and they’re getting much better play from point guard Korie Lucious after a difficult start to his Iowa State career. We need to see more from ISU before picking it above any of the aforementioned contenders, but it’s clearly a step above the bottom-dwellers and has serious potential.
3. Iowa State’s non-conference season may not have gotten much attention, but that’s because nothing significant really happened. It wasn’t terrible, and it wasn’t great, either, so nobody said a word. That’s not the case for West Virginia, which actually has the worst record in the league at this point and had to suffer through a nationally-televised debacle at Gonzaga to start its season. According to at least one website, however, maybe the Mountaineers are OK after all. That article points out that West Virginia’s RPI ranks seventh in the Big 12 and its strength of schedule is fourth. Of course, nobody’s going to hang a banner for ranking seventh out of 10 teams in a league, and Bob Huggins’ team has no wins of note unless you think beating Virginia Tech by a point on a game-winner by Juwan Staten is notable. The Hokies subsequently lost by 36 to Colorado State and 26 to BYU, so that should tell you something. Yes, the Mountaineers are indeed in bad shape, and they’ll need a terrific Big 12 season to make up for it. Not just good — that won’t cut it. They need to be world-beaters.
4. Did Myck Kabongo get a fair shake in the court of public opinion? After reading this well-done piece, we’re not so sure. For weeks, every media outlet has painted Kabongo as some sort of liar to the NCAA, and that’s why he originally received a season-long ban from the governing body. After more facts emerged and the NCAA amended his suspension to 23 games, it’s apparent now that Kabongo lied, but not to the NCAA. He lied to Texas officials. Is that as bad as lying to the authority? We’ll let you decide that. Either way, the fact that most jumped to the conclusion that Kabongo lied to investigators shows that not everybody knew the real story at the start of this whole ordeal.
5. Bill Self is a basketball coach. Nothing’s ever good enough for basketball coaches. So while we gush about Kansas’ defense, Self isn’t impressed. Here’s the full quote for your enjoyment:  “I’ve watched us play (on film). People are saying too much about our defense. It’s not that good. It’s not… Of all the possessions we have defensively in a game, I guarantee you, 50 percent are bad possessions compared to 50 percent good possessions. The result may end up good because they may miss a shot or they may fumble the ball or make a bad pass or something that doesn’t have much to do with us. I think the biggest area of improvement for us would have to be the defensive end.” And there you have it. Pretty harsh words for the team allowing the fifth-lowest field goal percentage in all of college basketball.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Syracuse Basketball Exhibition Slate Includes Cal-State Los Angeles, College Of St. Rose: “The Orange will begin the 2011-2012 season with their usual two exhibition games in the Dome and they’ll playing two familiar exhibition foes, Cal-State Los Angeles and College of St. Rose. The Orange and the CSULA Golden Eagles will square off on Tuesday, November 1, and SU will host the CoSR Golden Knights on Tuesday, November 8.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)

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