1. One of the main reasons Louisville has been successful this season, specifically lately, is its ability to take care of the basketball. Before the season began, Rick Pitino was worried about the team’s ball handling with the departure of stalwart point guard Peyton Siva. So, every time a player turned the ball over his name was taped on the wall at the practice facility. Everyone’s name is on the wall. The gimmick must have worked, because the Cards are on pace to set a school record for fewest turnovers per game (averaging 10.2 per game). How far back do you have to go to find the record holders? Not very. It was set last year with the national championship team, who averaged just 12.4. Louisville ranks second in the country in turnover margin at plus 6.8. Freshman Terry Rozier is leading the way with 3.4 assists for every turnover and Chris Jones’ number is close to 3. Solid work for two first-year Division 1 players.
2. SMU could be a scary opponent for someone in the NCAA Tournament, assuming they do what they have to and earn a bid. ESPN’s John Gassaway said the Mustangs should be thought of as lil’ Ohio State because second-year coach Larry Brown has his team playing some of the best defense in the conference. That’s high praise when the AAC is home to Cincinnati and Louisville. No team has allowed more attempts from three-point land in all of the seven top conferences than SMU so if a team does not get hot from beyond the arc, the Mustangs should have a very good chance to win a game or two in the tournament. Down low SMU has rim protectors in Markus Kennedy and Cannen Cunningham. SMU could probably wind up anywhere between a six and 11 seed, depending on how it finishes the regular season and in the AAC tournament.
3. Trying to keep Cincinnati forward Justin Jackson out of foul trouble is nothing new, coach Mick Cronin said. That, however, doesn’t make it any less of a pressing issue. Jackson averages 11.3 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots per game and is essentially the only other consistent offensive threat for the Bearcats outside of superstar Sean Kilpatrick. Jackson is quick and athletic and tries to block every shot and snag every rebound, which often gets him in foul trouble. Cronin said anyone that is an aggressive rebounder (Jackson no doubt qualifies) is always in risk of foul trouble. Against Louisville, Jackson picked up two fouls in just more than two minutes, sending him to the bench for the reminder of the half. Cronin said he’s actually done a better job with fouls this year, and the Louisville game was a glaring exception. He said no one was more upset than Jackson about spending so much time on the bench. Starting tomorrow at Connecticut, Jackson will need to stay on the floor for Cincinnati to reach its lofty goals of an AAC championship (or two) and a deep run in the NCAA tournament.
4. At this point in the season it’s all about execution. Sunday against SMU, Connecticut simply didn’t do it. And until they had a second-half surge to get past South Florida Wednesday night, the Huskies weren’t very impressive again. “It’s always frustrating not when you’re broke yourself, but your whole team is broke,” Ryan Boatright said. “We’ve got to get better, man, at all aspects of the game.” Kevin Ollie continues to preach trust and ball movement to his group and not to bog down if the first or second offensive option is unavailable.
5. Rick Pitino is not worried about his team letting up — it hasn’t all season — because he has a great group of seniors. Russ Smith, Luke Hancock, Stephan Van Treese, and Tim Henderson have all been to two Final Fours but have not let up a bit. Pitino said the greatest sign of maturity from his team was after Smith’s shot went in against Cincinnati, all five guys got right back into defensive position and it was a tipped pass that officially sealed the game.

As the season sprints to its finish, it appears clear that the American is going to be a five-bid league. It’s hard to envision a scenario in which any of the top five teams in the league could miss the NCAA Tournament, even by losing out the rest of the way. Each has at least three wins against the RPI top 50, including one or more on the road, and that’s more –- much more -– than the teams on the bubble can claim. In fact, it’s more than teams like Virginia, Kentucky, Wichita State or San Diego State, among others, can claim. Because the league backloaded the schedule with so many match-ups between what ended up being the best five teams, there’s relatively little to lose at this point, because any defeat between the group are going to be considered “good” losses.

Russ Smith’s game-winner has Louisville fans wondering if last season’s champs can earn another #1 seed. (Cincy Enquirer)

So the focus necessarily shifts to seeding. It seems possible that if the quintet of AAC contenders can simply avoid bad losses and maybe not all gang up on one of their own, all five could end up in the top half of the NCAA draw, seeded at #8 or higher. That’s how Joe Lunardi lists them as of Monday; a #4 (Cincinnati), a #5 (Louisville), two #7s (SMU and UConn) and a #8 (Memphis). There’s a lot of basketball left to be played, but all five teams staying that high remains a strong possibility. So let’s take a look at what each team faces the rest of the way.

• Cincinnati: 24-4 (13-2), 6-4 vs. RPI top 50, RPI #21, KenPom # 21, BracketMatrix #4 (3.73). Despite absorbing a home loss against Louisville, the Bearcats still have perhaps the best resume of any AAC team, but one that’s still in flux. As of this writing, they have six top 50 wins and no losses outside it, but both numbers are at risk. They lost to #50 Xavier and have wins over #44 Pitt, #49 Nebraska and #58 NC State, so they might become the best example for the arbitrariness of the cutoff of the top 50. Seems like anything from a #2 to a #5 seed remains in play for Cincinnati.

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1. It was easy to see Saturday that Cincinnati needs a third offensive threat behind Sean Kilpatrick and Justin Jackson. Jackson found himself in early foul trouble and the Bearcats struggled to keep up with Louisville in the first half. In the second half, Kilpatrick played the role of superman and nearly pulled off a single-handed comeback with 22 second half points. He was the only Bearcat to reach double figures. The three starters not named Jackson or Kilpatrick combined for just seven points Saturday. Shaquille Thomas or Jermaine Sanders will have to be the ones to step up if Cincinnati wants to hold on to first place in the AAC or make a significant postseason run. Cincinnati not only has to worry about finding production offensive outside of Kilpatrick, they also need to be mindful of the possibility that he could wear down. Playing so many minutes and doing so much for the team may be too much for him to continue on the torrid pace he’s on. Will the Bearcats be able to survive in a one and done situation if Kilpatrick has an off night?
2. If the defending national champion plans to make a serious run at defending their crown, free throw shooting is priority number one. Louisville is shooting just 65 percent from the line, good enough for 300th in the nation. “We’ve got a nice basketball team,” Pitino said. “If we make our free throws we’ve got a hell of a basketball team.” Of likely NCAA tournament teams, there’s less than a handful worse at the line than Louisville. Louisville’s woes are most evident with forward Montrezl Harrell. Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin made a point to foul Harrell and make him earn his points at the line. He’s only shooting 38 percent form the line in conference play. Louisville is flat-out not a contender to do much of anything if Harrell isn’t on the floor. From this point forward, look for teams to utilize Cronin’s philosophy and make Harrell toe-the-line.
3. Larry Brown’s SMU team secured a statement win on the road Sunday beating Connecticut to most likely move on the right side of the bubble for good, as long as they take care of business in the games they should win from here on out. SMU has a couple of chances to boost their resume and potential seed even further with Louisville (home) and Memphis ( road) still on the schedule. SMU is firmly planted in the 10 slot in the majority of the national bracket predictions and are left out of only three out of 82 projections.
4. Connecticut’s troubles begin early and never really stopped Sunday afternoon in the ugly loss at home to SMU. It took the Huskies more than six minutes to finally get on the scoreboard. Connecticut never led. Coach Kevin Ollie said his team just has to get tougher and even though it’s late in the season, he said his team can still learn from it. He also said his players have to get to a point where they trust each other, like SMU. With just four games remaining before the postseason, time is running out for the Huskies to figure it out.
5. While the final result of the game Sunday didn’t go the way Connecticut fans hoped, the fans still had some good vibes coming out of Gampel Pavilion because the 1999 national championship team was honored. The team and guard Khalid El-Amin were inducted into the Huskies of Honor. It was also Richard Hamilton’s first stop back to a Connecticut game in the on-campus facility since his playing days. Hamilton was able to see the coach that led him to a national title, Jim Calhoun, and the head man from his NBA championship Detroit Pistons team, Larry Brown. Hamilton and El-Amin say they remind former Duke players and fans of the night they “shocked the world.”

The story of last week in college basketball was previously-unbeaten Syracuse suffering its first two losses of the season. On Wednesday, the Orange were stunned at home in overtime by Boston College – a team that entered the game with a 6-19 overall record. Hoping to dust off Wednesday’s disaster, Syracuse traveled to Duke on Saturday for a rematch of February 1’s instant classic. The Blue Devils prevailed in the rematch thanks in large part to a controversial charging call that went against Syracuse and led to coach Jim Boeheim’s ejection in the final 10 seconds of the game. Duke’s victory was much needed for the Blue Devils’ slim hopes in the ACC race after it had suffered its fourth conference loss on Thursday at North Carolina. Atop the Big Ten standings, Michigan was able to gain a one-game lead in the loss column over second-place Michigan State after the Wolverines completed their season sweep of the Spartans in Sunday’s 79-70 victory in Ann Arbor. The conference race in the AAC became even tighter Saturday when Louisville knocked off Cincinnati to trim the Bearcats’ conference lead to merely a half-game there. Both teams will be tested this Saturday, as the Cards will travel to Memphis and the Bearcats will travel to Connecticut. As the season continues into its final stretch, it will be very interesting to see how these conference races end up shaking out. The quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll is after the jump.

 Quick n’ dirty analysis.

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1. Today’s topics will center on what was the game of the year so far in the AAC, Saturday’s last-possession contest between the conference’s top two teams. While Russ Smith will garner most of the spotlight for his game-winning shot at Cincinnati Saturday, it could not have happened without the assist from freshman guard Terry Rozier. Rozier, following the lead of captain Luke Hancock, said what fans saw at the end of the Cincinnati game is what the Cardinals are made of, not the previous late game losses. With Russ Smith on the bench with foul trouble, Rozier and fellow backcourt mate Chris Jones combined for 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting for a stretch in the second half to not only keep the Louisville in the game but extend the lead. Rozier finished with 11 points, six rebounds, two assists and a steal in just 22 minutes. If Rozier and Jones continue to develop alongside Smith, Rick Pitino may have his team poised for another March run after all.
2. Louisville forward Montrezl Harrell excelled when given the opportunity to perform in what Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin described as a bloodbath of a basketball game Saturday. Harrell collected 21 points and 10 rebounds and continually found ways to put the ball in the basket on an afternoon when where it was quite difficult to do so on both ends of the court. “That game was very physical,” he said. “It was physical on both ends. But I’d rather a game be physical like that. It brings back memories from the Big East.” While Russ Smith buried the shot that will be remembered, Harrell scored the two previous buckets to get the Cardinals in position to pull out the win. Harrell will have to find a way to improve his free throw shooting going forward, because team’s will follow Cronin’s lead and send the big man to the foul line where he could only connect on 5-of-12 Saturday. Rick Pitino said Harrell’s, and the team’s, woes from the line will be corrected. If a trip to Dallas is in this team’s future, it better do so.
3. Outside of the final shot by Russ Smith, the story of the game was the officiating and physical play allowed by the guys in stripes. While many Cincinnati fans blamed the officials for the loss, coach Mick Cronin did not, even though he was asked about it on two occasions after the game. The officials conducted a seven-minute video review with 1:30 left to decide who would have possession after Russ Smith lost control of his dribble. After the original call said it was Louisville’s ball, the officials went to the monitor and switched it to Cincinnati, only to regroup for another review and give it to Louisville. Smith eventually made one free throw on the possession. Cincinnati athletic director Mike Bohn said the university will address the situation through the appropriate channels.
4. ESPN analyst Jay Bilas identified Cincinnati Sean Kilpatrick as one of the most underrated players in the country last week. And after seeing the senior guard almost single-handedly bring the Bearcats back in the second half of an eventual one-point loss to Louisville, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind what Kilpatrick is capable of. The 23-year old scored 28 of Cincinnati’s 57 points Saturday, 22 in the second half. He surpassed the 2,000-point mark for his career. The only other Cincinnati player to do that was Oscar Robertson.
5. Former Connecticut guard Khalid El-Amin, a member of the 1999 national championship team, sees a little bit of himself in Shabazz Napier. Napier met El-Amin at Saturday’s practice before yesterday game against SMU. “My mother loves him more than she loves me,” Napier said. “She would always say, ‘El-Amin, El-Amin — I like the way he plays, with that swagger.” Nappier leads Connecticut in scoring, rebounding, and assists. The team has a long way to go to be compared to El-Amin’s squad, especially after suffering a loss to SMU yesterday. Larry Brown’s SMU squad has impressed all season. But yesterday the Mustangs did something they haven’t done thus far, beat a ranked team on the road when they took out Connecticut 64-55 to complete the season sweep.

1. With Cincinnati‘s rout of UCF complete, the focus shifted to the biggest AAC matchup of the weekend: Louisville‘s visit to the Bearcats at noon Saturday on CBS. Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said it will be much tougher to get a second win over the Cardinals; the Bearcats beat Louisville 69-66 on January 30, and the Cards haven’t lost since. “My belief is that we probably surprised their players a little bit with the kind of team that we have and what we’re capable of and we’re not going to catch them off guard this time,” Cronin said. The game between the top two players in the league standings kicks off a wild 15-day period when all of the AAC contenders have multiple games against teams still in the hunt for a league title.
2. Speaking of Pitino, when anyone does, John Calipari cannot be far behind. Earlier this week, an out-of-context quote from Pitino about social media caused a kerfuffle, and now the UK coach has publicly taken a stance opposed to that of his Louisville counterpart. Shocking, we know. Coach Cal said coaches who hate social media “know nothing about social media,” and that he teaches his players to use social media to build their brands. Eric Crawford weighed in and said both Pitino and Calipari had valid points, which is fair enough, but the more interesting aspect is the inability of these two not to appear at odds at every opportunity.
3. The CBS college basketball crew identified 15 coaches on the hot seat in both blog post and podcast form, and two of them stalk AAC sidelines: James Dickey at Houston and Stan Heath at USF. Both are predicted to be gone at season’s end, and it’s pretty easy to see why. Heath led the Bulls to two tournament wins two years ago, but has gone 6-26 in conference since then. Dickey brought in some nice recruits, but a New Year’s Eve win over UConn is the Cougars’ only victory over a KenPom top 150 team this year. Houston has more talent on hand, and therefore might recover more quickly with the right hire, but both programs are close enough to talent-rich areas to potentially have much more success than they’re enjoying now.
4. SMU’s Larry Brown continues to draw attention to the Mustangs’ renaissance, and by extension himself, with HBO’s Real Sports in Dallas this week to do a piece on SMU for Tuesday’s show. The resurgence of the until recently dormant SMU hoops program was a good enough story to lure show host Bryant Gumbel to Dallas to interview Brown, who was widely considered crazy to take the job less than two years ago. Just as screenwriter William Goldman said of Hollywood, in sports nobody knows anything.
5. Amazingly enough, this year marks 15 seasons since UConn first won a national championship. The Huskies will honor the 1999 champs when they host SMU on Sunday, including current assistant coach Ricky Moore and director of basketball administration Kevin Freeman, both members of the team. Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun will return from a vacation to attend the ceremony, and it offers a chance to reflect on his amazing success, building one of the best programs in college basketball from basically nothing in less-than-metropolitan Storrs, Connecticut.

North Carolina Flying Under the Radar

 Heading into tonight’s showdown with rival Duke, the North Carolina Tar Heels have won seven straight games since a 1-4 start to ACC play that had some folks wondering if this team would even make the NCAA Tournament. North Carolina has assuaged those concerns while ascending the ACC standings where it sits fourth entering tonight. Roy Williams’ team has done it with defense. Since allowing 1.23 points per possession in a January 20 loss at Virginia, North Carolina has held all but two opponents under 42 percent shooting with lower defensive efficiency numbers to match that effort. While the competition hasn’t been brutal, the Tar Heels are playing like the team that beat Louisville, Michigan State and Kentucky in non-conference play. James Michael McAdoo seems to be finally asserting himself as a go-to guy but his free throw shooting remains a liability on one of the nation’s worst teams from the charity stripe. However, that can be misleading. When the game is on the line, Williams can put the ball in Marcus Paige’s hands and not worry too much. Paige is an 89.4 percent free throw shooter. The Tar Heels have two games with Duke left plus a tricky trip down the road to Raleigh to face NC State. Other than that, there isn’t a game North Carolina shouldn’t win left on the schedule. An 11-7 or 12-6 conference record is definitely possible for this group and I am not sure many people would have predicted that after the Tar Heels lost four of their first five ACC games.

Marcus Paige is a great guy to have on the foul line late in games.
(Photo: Robert Willett/ Raleigh News & Observer)

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1. Russ Smith flirted with the NBA after Louisville won a title last year – his father in fact said that he was going to declare for the draft – but he ultimately decided to return for his senior year in an effort to boost his draft stock. So it has to be pretty exciting to hear an NBA scout tell the Courier-Journal that Smith is “a clone of Allen Iverson. He has a similar body type. He gets to the basket. He scores and has that mentality.” Rick Pitino has been been pumping his star guard as an NBA prospect all year long, and said after Tuesday night’s game that he hoped his hometown Knicks drafted his current star player. While the Iverson comparisons might be a bit too much, there has to be a spot in the league for a guy with Smith’s motor and ability to score.
2. Russdiculous wasn’t the only potential NBA player Rick Pitino talked about after the Cards’ win over USF. The Hall of Famer and former NBA coach said Victor Rudd, who scored 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for the Bulls, could play in the NBA if he worked to develop certain aspects of his game. “Victor Rudd is the type of basketball player that the pros like. … He needs to go left better, he need to offensive rebound more. He needs to get inside more.” Pitino compared Russ to Rodrick Rhodes, a star recruit for Pitino at Kentucky who had an up-and-down career there before eventually transferring; Rhodes could do many things well, but he was determined to prove that he was a long-distance shooter. Rudd still has a long way to go to reach the next level.
3. Memphis won the Conference USA title in six of the past eight seasons, but after a step up in competition Josh Pastner’s team now finds itself in fifth place in the AAC standings. The Tigers haven’t given up on their goal of winning yet another conference title, even it if will require some help from the teams ahead of them: Cincinnati, Louisville, UConn (whose sweep of Memphis gives them a tie-breaker) and SMU. While the large number of games remaining between all the teams keeps Memphis’ slim hopes alive for now, the better shot at a league title will come in the AAC Tournament that will be played on the Tigers’ home floor.
4. Despite a couple of recent stumbles, the renaissance of SMU basketball under the tutelage of 73-year-old basketball nomad Larry Brown remains among the most unlikely stories in college hoops this season. Brown, a Hall of Famer and the only coach to win both NCAA and NBA titles, describes as “pretty awesome” everything that has happened to him with the Mustangs. “I just feel lucky I’m still coaching. I love what I do, I love being in this environment, I enjoy the players and look forward to practice every day and being around them.” Most observers – this one included – were mystified when Brown took the job in Dallas two years ago, but it’s impossible to deny that the coaching legend is adding to his tremendous accomplishments with his work there.
5. When they met a month ago in Storrs, UConn cruised past Temple by 24 points. When the teams meet again tonight, the Huskies might have a tougher time with the Owls, whose improvement was most recently evidenced by their win over SMU on Sunday. Temple head coach Fran Dunphy has reached six straight NCAA Tournaments, but the combination of many top players graduating with an improvement in competition by joining the AAC have resulted in a rare rebuilding year in Philadelphia. Given Dunphy’s track record, that rebuild should come quick.

1. Rick Pitino has made no secret of his distaste for certain aspects of social media over the years, but a Twitter firestorm about some comments he made about Twitter was based on quotes actually taken out of context. Pitino was addressing questions about race and discrimination in basketball (the school honored its first three black players at Tuesday night’s game), and it led into a question about players on the receiving end of racially-charged comments via social media. Pitino’s answer was chopped up into a quote that made it sound as if he thought all people who used the Internet were underachievers. The Big Lead and Louisville Courier-Journal beat writer Jeff Greer (who asked the question that elicited the quote) quickly sought to squash the controversy. Let’s hope they did.
2. On the court, a couple of Cardinals reached major milestones in Tuesday night’s win over USF. Sophomore Montrezl Harrell set the school single-season record for dunks with five regular-season games remaining, passing Pervis Ellison and Chane Behanan. And Russ Smith, who famously almost transferred to Manhattan after his freshman season, passed Hall of Famer Wes Unseld and Billy Thompson to reach #10 on the school’s all-time career scoring list, and reached second place on the school’s all-time career steals list, 29 behind former backcourt mate Peyton Siva. After two Big East titles, two Final Fours and a national championship, we almost seem to take Russ Smith for granted, but his is maybe the most improbable career imaginable.
3. Shabazz Napier has been getting most of the attention this season, and rightly so, but his backcourt partner Ryan Boatright has fought through adversity to make major contributions to UConn’s success. He missed a game to attend his cousin’s funeral last month, and has been hampered by a shoulder injury that has dropped his shooting percentage, but still managed to score 21 points in Saturday’s overtime win over Memphis. “I keep telling you guys he might not be shooting well, but I can never question his heart, his effort and his enthusiasm to win,” coach Kevin Ollie said of Boatright, whose contributions will be the determining factor in how far the Huskies play into March.
4. Memphis ends the season with games against Louisville, at Cincinnati and SMU, but before that it has to deal with three teams much closer to the bottom of the AAC standings. Head coach Josh Pastner, though, knows that avoiding bad losses might be just as important as adding quality wins at this point, and his team is trying to keep his team focused on the next game rather than the brighter lights to come. The Tigers have six losses, but all of them came against top 50 RPI teams, so none do the serious damage to their seeding potential that a loss to Rutgers, Temple or Houston – their next three foes – would do. And they have a very recent example in SMU’s loss to Temple on Sunday to remind them of the necessity of keeping their eye on the ball.
5. SMU locked down the top point guard in the 2014 class a while back in hometown hero Emmanuel Mudiay, and now has secured insurance against him departing after a single season. The Mustangs and 73-year-old coach Larry Brown have received a commitment from class of 2015 point guard Sedrick Barefield. The 6’2″ Coronoa, California, native is ranked as the #85 junior by Rivals.com, and continues the unlikely recruiting success of a program with no tradition to speak of led by a coach in his seventies who hasn’t completed four seasons at a single job in more than a decade.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Shaqquan Aaron’s Long Journey

Take a current look at the MaxPreps Top 25 High School basketball rankings. The top two teams in the country are separated by over 1,000 miles, but Mater Dei (CA) and Rainier Beach (WA) share a common link. That link is four-star small forward Shaqquan Aaron, a player who stands 6’7” and is currently ranked No. 34 in the class of 2014 (No. 11 SF). Next year he will put on the red and white for Rick Pitino, but before heading to Louisville the sinewy wing is trying to close out his tumultuous high school career with one more state title.

Before Aaron even played a game in high school, the word was out about his talent. After a summer day in Las Vegas, well-respected talent evaluator Dave Telep wrote the following: “This isn’t going to be a very difficult evaluation. The word out of the West was that he’s the best freshman prospect in a long time. OK, we’ll buy that. He turned 15 on July 21 and celebrates the occasion by coming off the bench for SCA and looking like a major prospect. He’s 6-foot-5, drills threes and oozes potential. Catch him if you can!”

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