1. There were a couple of big moves involving players that will be eligible to play next season. The biggest involves Memphis who announced that incoming freshman Kuran Iverson had been cleared academically by the NCAA to play this season. Iverson, a 6’9″ forward who is ranked in the top 40 by most recruiting services and happens to be the cousin of Allen Iverson, can add quite a bit to the Tigers lineup that is still waiting to hear if Michael Dixon and Rashawn Powell will be eligible to play. At this point it seems like neither will be eligible to play, which makes the addition of Iverson even bigger. The other move, which is also pretty significant, but is of a shorter duration involves Arizona State, which picked up Penn State transfer Jermaine Marshall, who will be graduating next month and can play for the Sun Devils this coming season. Picking up a player of Marshall’s talent (averaged 15.3 points per game in the Big Ten) is a huge addition for a team that has hopes of contending in the Pac-12 next year. It will be interesting to see how committed Marshall is to the team since he initially was planning on going to Europe rather than look at another college. If his minutes dwindle or he struggles to fit in with his new teammates, we wonder how long it will take him to start looking at international flights out of Phoenix.
2. Coming off a surprising Final Four appearance Wichita State appears to be flying high. Their hiring of Steve Forbes as an assistant coach might not register with casual fans, but it is quite a pick-up. You may remember Forbes from his time at Tennessee as an assistant before he received a one-year show-cause penalty for being evasive when NCAA authorities tried to investigate Bruce Pearl’s meeting with Aaron Craft at a cookout. Forbes had served as head coach at Northwest Florida State (a junior college) and becomes the first member of Pearl’s former staff to get a Division 1 job. Wichita State should benefit from Forbes’ experience as one of the top recruiters in the nation.
3. This past Friday a US District Court Judge ruled that the plaintiffs in the Ed O’Bannon case can amend the lawsuit to include a current NCAA athlete as a plaintiff. Of course, the obvious concern for any athlete would be that the NCAA will single out this individual for additional investigations that the individual would not otherwise be subjected to. Yesterday, the lawyers leading the anti-trust lawsuit sent the NCAA a letter asking the NCAA to agree that no such actions will be taken against such an individual and that joining the lawsuit would not jeopardize the individual’s eligibility. In theory this is nice, but we have a hard time believing that the NCAA would give a current athlete blanket immunity and since they will not we suspect that they will miraculously stumble upon evidence that leads to an investigation of that individual.
4. Winning international titles might have been a foregone conclusion for the US National Team for years, but as we have seen in recent years that is not necessarily the case particularly when we are not sending our “A” team. So the Under-19 team winning the World Championship is certainly worth celebrating even if it will not get mentioned in most sports sections. The team, which was led by Billy Donovan, Shaka Smart, and Tony Bennett, defeated Serbia 82-68 to win the gold medal. Arizona fans will be particularly pleased with the performance of Aaron Gordon who was named Tournament MVP. Gordon was joined on the All-Tournament Team by Jahil Okafor (class of 2014; uncommitted). We expect several players from this team–primarily rising freshmen and sophomores–to have big seasons including Marcus Smart, who did not make the All-Tournament Team, but will probably be a Preseason First-Team All-American.
5. With the World University Games going on most college basketball fans will be paying attention to the performances of some college stars, but as Andy Glockner points out the more interesting aspect might be the shot clock. It seems like we hear every year about how scoring is down in college basketball and how decreasing the shot clock from 35 seconds to 24 seconds would speed up the game and increase scoring. As Glockner points out international competitions use the 24-second shot clock and from the comments of many college players and coaches it seems that they prefer the 35-second shot clock. It may seem obvious that they would prefer something that they are used to, but the argument that Colorado coach Tad Boyle makes about a shorter shot clock making the game more homogeneous in terms of playing style is an interesting one. In the end, the NCAA should probably base their decision on the length of the shot clock around what makes it a better product for the public, but we are guessing that coaches will prefer to keep the status quo even if it hurts the popularity of the game.

1. The Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Draft lottery for the second time in three years on Tuesday night, which means that the team that selected rising superstar Kyrie Irving #1 overall in 2011 will get a chance to pair another potential star next to him. Will it be Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel, Kansas’ Ben McLemore, Georgetown’s Otto Porter, Indiana’s Victor Oladipo, or some other prospect who hasn’t yet risen up the draft boards? Whoever it is, and this is a solid mock with explanations from NBADraft.net, keep one thing very much in mind. If you redrafted the 2010 NBA Draft right now — just three years later — the top overall pick would probably be an overlooked athlete from Fresno State who never so much as sniffed a winning season in two years in the Central Valley, Paul George. So no matter what anyone says between now and June 27 (including ourselves), take it with a healthy dose of NaCl. 
2. While on the subject of George and his Indiana Pacers, his head coach Paul Vogel took quite a bit of heat last night for removing center Roy Hibbert from the game in the closing seconds, allowing the freight train known as LeBron James to power his way into the lane for an easy layup to win the game (beating George badly to his left, incidentally). Still, Vogel appears to be a rising star himself with the way he has developed this Pacers group, but we’re betting that you didn’t know that his dream job was actually to become a college basketball coach. He got his first start by basically begging then-Kentucky coach Rick Pitino for a spot on his staff as a student manager in the mid-1990s, eventually becoming UK’s video coordinator and alighting to the NBA ranks when Pitino left Lexington for the Boston Celtics. It’s a rags-to-riches underdog sort of story, and one well worth familiarizing yourself with. If Vogel continues to play his cards right in the NBA, he may find that elusive major college head coaching job available to a guy like him after all.
3. It was open secret for most of the week, but SI.com confirmed on Wednesday that Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski will in fact return as the captain of the Team USA men’s basketball ship for the next three years (which includes the 2014 World Championships and the 2016 Summer Olympics). We’ll have more on this decision later today in a separate post, but while on the topic of international basketball, USA Basketball invited 24 rising freshmen and sophomores to try out for its U-19 team that will compete later this summer in the World Championships in Prague. The most recognizable candidates who will battle for one of 12 roster spots next month are Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart, Duke’s Rasheed Sulaimon, Tennessee’s Jarnell Stokes, and Oregon’s Damyean Dotson. Notably missing from the two dozen players are any of Kentucky’s impressive haul from the Class of 2013, several of whom already have had international basketball experience. But John Calipari says that the group as a whole is itching to get to Lexington and would rather spend their summer months working out to prepare for what everyone believes could be a phenomenal year.
4. Last week we mentioned that a Brown University player named Joseph Sharkey had been assaulted on the street and put in the hospital with critical head injuries as a result. As of yesterday he remained in a Providence hospital, but the better news is that local authorities have arrested a suspect for the brutal crime, a reserve Marine who served in Afghanistan named Tory Lussier. We’re in no way going to loft unfounded accusations at this “hero” without a full accounting of the details of the night in question, but it’s worth noting that Lussier was already under suspicion for assault of an elderly person from an incident in a Connecticut parking lot last fall. Whether this is the guy who committed such a senseless crime or it was someone else, we really hope that justice is served in one way or another.
5. There were a couple of notable comings and goings yesterday. In some bad news, Florida’s Will Yuguete had his right knee scoped on Wednesday and is expected to miss the next four months of action. The French wing had suffered numerous injuries during his career in Gainesville, so the hope here is that this particular course of treatment and rehabilitation will allow him to have a strong, injury-free senior season in 2013-14. Up the coast a bit in Storrs, Connecticut announced on Wednesday that center Enosch Wolf‘s suspension for an on-campus domestic dispute has ended. He is cleared to return to the team if he likes, but here’s the catch — he no longer has a scholarship. With the school’s announcement this week of the transfer of GW’s Lasan Kromah, there simply isn’t an available spot left. Funny how things like this work themselves out. Wolf expects to make his decision in the coming weeks.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The NBA Draft deadline can be a harrowing time for programs, coaches and their ever-vigilant fan bases. Player defections – particularly those of the lottery breed – not only control the fates of specific teams, they create massive rippling effects on college basketball writ large. Based on who does or doesn’t make their talents available to the most exclusively competitive sports league in North America, college basketball takes on a certain median composite talent distinction. Last season, that measure was low, and fans of all kinds made sure to scream and wail and cry foul about the dearth of “elite talent” and the oncoming barrenness of prospective upside on this year’s draft boards. “No dominant team” was a meme raised just as frequently, and by the end of the season, when two of the nation’s most talented teams navigated the predicted upset-laden waters of the NCAA Tournament and staged an epic final game – and when the nation’s “dominant team,” Louisville, actually won the whole thing – the conversation quickly turned to 2013-14.

With McDermott back, Creighton has every reason to be excited about its move into the Big East (Getty Images).

That brings us to Sunday’s NBA Draft deadline, the real draft deadline, the one that actually forces players to make decisions about their professional futures, rather than the teethless NCAA-imposed early date created for the supposed benefit of coaches’ scholarship and recruiting calculations during the recruiting spring signing period. There were some notable departures this year, National Player of the Year award-sweeping point guard Trey Burke chief among them, but all in all the final count leaves college basketball with an immensely intriguing selection of returning players that – when mixed with one of the most highest-touted recruiting classes of the past 10 or so years – should produce a general quality of play that far exceeds last season’s occasionally-ugly level. I’ve come up with five players (or pairs of players) whose reappearance in the college ranks will contribute most directly to making this season not only hugely appealing for its freshmen stars – as is often the case in the one-and-done era – but experienced and deep and seasoned enough to produce a boundlessly exciting pool of players and teams. We are going to see a host of really good returning players in college basketball next season, and unlike last year, many of these guys won’t come off as totally unfamiliar. There’s some star power here – as in not in the NBA. Rejoice.

Doug McDermott – Creighton. The end of last season, brought upon by a Round of 32 NCAA Tournament loss to Duke, ushered Creighton into a programmatic transition: Beginning this season, the Bluejays will become members of the new Big East. They leave behind a good but measurably inferior Missouri Valley Conference, and the step up in competition promises to be fierce. It would have been a completely reasonable move for McDermott to stare down the present, understand the rigors of a more challenging conference schedule, the increased defensive attention from better athletes across a larger number of quality teams, and cut loose with program and father-coach after a successful three-year career. It would have made the most possible sense.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Every year brings its share of puzzling NBA Draft decisions, and most of the frustration is typically captured by one underlying theme: he left too early. This year’s draft enigma was confusing for an entirely different reason. It was confusing because Marcus Smart, a consensus top-five pick in next month’s draft, elected to return to Oklahoma State for his sophomore season. The commentary on Smart’s decision has been a disconcerting mix of perplexity, misunderstood motives and an unexpected dose of condescending admonishment, with almost no reactive excitement – the best freshman in college basketball, and one of the best players overall, is returning next season, and no one has anything positive to say about it?! Isn’t this the exact development we spend countless words and digital ink groaning about each and every summer?!

No decision has generated more Buzz than Smart’s choice to play another year at Oklahoma State (AP Photo).

The early draft decision headlines have served as collective petri dish dissection of Smart’s purportedly misguided decision. But guess what? Other players are making very important decisions about their professional futures, too, and not all of them are as procedural and predictable and academic as Smart’s relative draft-media monopoly might lead you to believe. I’ll offer you two recent decisions (or non-decisions) that, while nothing close to Smart-level Big 12 rippling waves, will change the ways their respective teams are evaluated entering next season.

First up is James Michael McAdoo, who announced Tuesday he plans to return to North Carolina for his junior season. It’s difficult to fathom now, but McAdoo was once considered among the very best players in the country last summer. He was supposed to help bridge the gap between the Kendall Marshall-Tyler Zeller super team and a new and customarily talented re-tooled Tar Heels group. You probably didn’t hear much about McAdoo last season, for reasons good and not, but as UNC picked up steam in February and into March, and the true latent potential of Marcus Paige and P.J. Hairston began to turn a mediocre transition season into a legitimately scary Third Round proposition, North Carolina offered an entertaining preview of the high-win outfit it can and should rightfully become next season. McAdoo was a major collaborator in coach Williams’ midseason small-ball transformation – wherein UNC eschewed a traditional two-big lineup in favor of using McAdoo at the five and Hairston as a “power forward” – and UNC can rekindle that dynamic next season with a highly touted recruiting class, more experience and a better collective comprehension of the system. The upshot for McAdoo is more wins, a bigger national spotlight and another chance to round out his game for NBA scouts. Good deal.

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1. As we mentioned yesterday Marcus Smart announced that he would return to Oklahoma State and now he will have some company as Le’Bryan Nash and Markel Brown also announced that they will be returning to Stillwater. We has won’t get into the debate about whether or not Smart should have left because every writer has either chimed in for it, against it, or (our personal favorite) railed against those who were for it or against it. Although they did not rise from a stage in a ridiculous ceremony held in Miami three summers ago it should be cause for celebration as the Cowboys are now legitimate Big 12 contenders. We still would not bet against Bill Self, but the Big 12 race just got a lot more interesting.
2. The mood in Ann Arbor was not quite as festive, but the decision by Tim Hardaway Jr. to leave Michigan a year early was expected by many. We are not completely sold on Hardaway Jr. ever becoming a NBA starter, but he certainly has the requisite physical skills and a good enough outside shot that he will get some looks from NBA teams. One of the more interesting things about his game is how little it has progressed (at least in terms of his statistics) over his three years at Michigan. We don’t normally advocate players leaving school early unless they think they are guaranteed a NBA roster spot (read: are assured of being a first round pick), but Hardaway Jr. has not shown as much progression from one season to the next as you would hope and this year’s class is weak (and his family should be financially secure) so we think it is a reasonable decision.
3. If Hardaway Jr or any other Michigan players need any advice they can always turn to team captain Josh Bartelstein, the son of NBA agent Mark Bartelstein who has a fairly impressive list of clients, Based on the advice that Josh offered for the article it sounds like he would be a pretty good place for these players to start. We are sure that plenty of other schools have alumni that offer advice to players about whether or not they should or should not go, but probably very few are able to do so through current players. It will be interesting to see if the Michigan players decide to sign with Josh’s father.
4. Florida Gulf Coast has had one of the more unique coaching searches for a mid-major given the sudden popularity of “Dunk City”, which the city is still calling itself in press releases. Yesterday the school announced that Kansas assistant coach Joe Dooley would be the school’s head coach. Dooley may not be the huge name that some people thought the school could get, but realistically an assistant at one of the top programs in the country who also has head coaching experience (with a winning record) is a solid get for a school that most people did not know existed two months ago. Dooley has a reputation as a great recruiter although you can argue that being at Kansas helps a lot in doing that, but he should have some advantages (location and a style of play that appeals to recruits if he chooses to keep it) that could help him be successful in his new job.
5. Yesterday Cincinnati announced that it would be extending Mick Cronin‘s contract, which should not be a surprise, but we have to say we are somewhat surprised by the length of the extension: one year with the possibility of three more years. Cronin, who already has four years left on his contact, can have the extension go from one year to three years if the Bearcats in either of the next two years. Cronin certainly is deserving of an extension given his team’s performance, but we have to wonder why the school would give him such a short extension with the understanding it is planning on keeping him for at least five more years. We just don’t see the point in adding on one year at this point.

1. In one of the least surprising early entry decisions ever Shabazz Muhammad announced that he would be leaving UCLA after one season during which he became two years older. Muhammad’s recruitment and arrival at UCLA was one of the more controversial ones and portended a career that was more hype than production. After Muhammad was reinstated (in part due to comments made by the boyfriend of a NCAA investigator on a cross-country flight) he showed flashes of ability that reminded people why he was considered the best player in his class for much of his senior year of high school, but those moments were separated by stretches of mediocrity and more ridiculous scandals including the ridiculous Gucci backpack controversy and the recent admission that he was actually a year older than he had previously stated. In the end, Muhammad did not live up to the ridiculous hype given to a recruit of his caliber, but he will probably end up being a lottery pick so we cannot really fault him for heading to the NBA, which he was been destined to do this summer even before he headed to Westwood.
2. If Muhammad needed any extra motivation to head to the NBA the performance of James Michael McAdoo this past season should help Muhammad feel more secure in his decision to strike while the iron is hot. Now we will start of by admitting that Muhammad was a much more highly touted prospect and produced more as a freshman than McAdoo has done in either of his first two seasons at North Carolina, but McAdoo was considered to be a potential All-American this season. In the end his play was so uninspired that he has decided to return to Chapel Hill for his junior season. Writers and fans can make all of the comments about improving his game that they want, but the fact is that McAdoo probably played himself out of the late lottery this season. With a solid year next season McAdoo could get back into the lottery and make himself more money, but he will have to compete with what is expected to be a much deeper draft class in 2014.
3. Unfortunately for Roy Williams, McAdoo will not be joined in the locker room by Reggie Bullock, who was named the team’s MVP yesterday and then promptly announced that he would be declaring for the NBA Draft. Bullock showed quite a bit of improvement between his sophomore and junior seasons (or he just started playing on a weaker team that focused more of the offense on him) as his points per game jumped from 8.8 to 13.9 and his shooting (field goal, three-point, and free throw) all improved. At this point Bullock is a borderline late first round pick so it is not unreasonable for him to leave school especially with how loaded next year’s Draft could be, but he needs to shoot well in his workouts if he doesn’t want to have his name called by Adam Silver.
4. We have no idea who is in Vander Blue‘s ear, but they are costing him a year of free education and are probably sending him straight to Europe or the NBDL as he announced yesterday that he would be entering the NBA Draft. Blue put together a solid junior season, but even the most optimistic projection we have seen for Blue has him projected as a late second round pick. For all of Blue’s ability he cannot reliably hit a college three-pointer (30.3% last season) and he is undersized for a shooting guard, which is a bad combination. While we won’t have to watch Blue deal with the consequences of his decision (don’t watch much NBDL or Euroleague action), we will probably see Marquette suffer as a result of the loss of senior leadership in the backcourt next season.
5. We already know plenty about the four players we have already mentioned, but there is one intriguing NBA Draft prospect who was highly regarded coming out of high school about  whom we know very little–Norvel Pelle. After failing to meet the NCAA’s academic qualifying standards, Pelle, who was once the #1 center in the class of 2011, has been floating in a no-man’s land and now must prove himself to NBA teams in a series of workouts over the next few months. Pelle certainly has the tools and at 6’1o or 6’11” he is very close to the magic 7′ mark–time to let the hair grow a little–that gets you drafted as long as you can walk and chew gum a the same time (and sometimes even if you can’t) so we don’t doubt that he will get looks from NBA teams, but he needs to prove himself in workouts if he wants to get drafted.

Bonus: Late last night news broke that Oklahoma State star freshman Marcus Smart would be returning for his sophomore season. Honestly, we have no idea why he would do this as he is a top-five pick on every mock draft we have seen. With how loaded next year’s incoming freshman class is there is no guarantee that he will improve his draft position. He clearly has some things that he can work on with his game (29% from 3 and 1.25 assist-to-turnover ratio), but we have no idea why he would have to work on that in Stillwater. Having said that the Big 12 suddenly got a lot more interesting next season.

In a big-picture sense, the Big 12 provided us with no surprises this season. Kansas won the league again, TCU finished in last place, five teams made the NCAA Tournament, and all was right with the world. It wouldn’t have taken Nostradamus to make those predictions. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an interesting six months, however. There were flops–most notably from the state of Texas. There were overachievers–most notably from the state of Oklahoma. There were thrilling finishes, blown calls, standout freshmen and that one time Kansas somehow lost to TCU. Oh, and one team even won a championship this season in, well, the wrong tournament.

Game of  the Year: Kansas 68, Oklahoma State 67 (February 20)

This showdown in Stillwater was simultaneously the best and worst game of the Big 12 season. How’s that for logic? After the Cowboys stunned Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse earlier in the winter and literally celebrated by doing back flips on the court, this revenge game took on even more importance in the league standings. Had Oklahoma State won, it would have seized the proverbial driver’s seat along with Kansas State and would have made the Jayhawks’ path to the regular season title very difficult. We had drama. We had overtime. Two, actually. And we had a game-winner in the final minute of regulation by Naadir Tharpe, who shook off a rusty performance to hit the go-ahead jumper with 16 seconds to play. Instant classic, right? Certainly. The problem was, it was perhaps the ugliest game ever played by two top-15 opponents on the same floor. Kansas did not make a field goal in the first overtime and it did not make a field goal in the second overtime until Tharpe’s game-winner. That’s almost 10 minutes of basketball without a basket. In overtime! Overall, the two teams combined to shoot five for 32 from beyond the arc. Ben McLemore played 49 minutes, missed nine of 12 shot attempts and finished with seven points after barely touching the ball in the overtime periods. And that’s the best game of the year? We still stand by our decision. This was the game that changed the complexity of the Big 12 title race, and two free periods of basketball is never a bad thing.

Bill Self Won Another Big 12 Title (Photo credit: AP Photo).

Honorable Mentions:

• Kansas 108, Iowa State 96 (February 25): Asterisk on this one. Kansas beat Iowa State in Ames — where the Cyclones hadn’t lost in more than a year — but it needed a blown call at the end of regulation to get the opportunity. You remember the situation. Elijah Johnson‘s charging toward the basket with five seconds left in the game, his team trailing by two points. Georges Niang sets his feet and takes what appears to be a pretty standard charge. But there’s no call, the ball bounces on the floor and the officials eventually blow the whistle on Niang during a scramble. That allows Kansas to tie the game and win in overtime behind Elijah Johnson’s epic 39-point performance. The Big 12 would later admit its referees should have called a charge, but that’s a moot point right now. It’s a shame we’ll remember this game as the No-Call Game as opposed to the Elijah Johnson Game.
• Oklahoma State 74, Baylor 72 (March 14): The Bears needed a victory in this Big 12 quarterfinal to give themselves a chance for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament. Then they fell behind by 20 points. Dead in the water. Except Pierre Jackson started raining jumpers and floaters all over the place, and Baylor inexplicably tied the game in the final minute of regulation. But the officials made a controversial foul call (that’s a trend this year, across all conferences) and sent Phil Forte to the line, where he made both. That’s an exciting finish in and of itself. But it got even better: Nobody’s quite sure how it happened, but with just seconds left on a desperation, mad-dash possession, Jackson dribbled straight through two Oklahoma State defenders and found himself absolutely, completely wide open from three-point land. He had a chance to win at the buzzer. No hands contesting him, no defender in sight. He missed. That sent the Bears to the NIT, and at least they won that tournament. But Jackson’s failed buzzer-beater signaled the end of Baylor’s tourney chances, and it was another dark moment during an underachieving season.

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As we move into Final Four weekend, it’s time for us to reveal our National Player, Freshman and Coach of the Year Awards. As mentioned in yesterday’s RTC All-America teams, we tend to believe that the postseason is an integral part of a player and team’s overall season, so unlike the other awards, we include everything up to this point. This season, our NPOY and FrOY awards were near-unanimous choices, but our COY selection had some dissent. Here are the choices:

National Player of the Year

Trey Burke is the RTC NPOY (AP Photo)

Trey Burke, SO, Michigan (18.8 PPG, 6.8 APG, 1.6 SPG, 3.1 A/TO). After a promising freshman campaign when he averaged 14.8 PPG and 4.6 APG and was unanimously named to the Big Ten’s All-Freshman team and voted by the media as the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, expectations were high for Trey Burke and Michigan heading into the 2012-13 season. Compound a strong nucleus of returning players with a talented incoming freshman class, and the Wolverines were picked by many as a preseason Top 10 team. For Burke individually, there certainly was unfinished business to take care of as he struggled in Michigan’s opening round NCAA Tournament loss to Ohio as a #4 seed shooting just 5-of-15 from the field and hitting only two long-range attempts. As Burke goes, so does Michigan, and the Maize and Blue have produced a 30-7 season and advanced all the way to the Final Four this year thanks in large part to his masterful play. He has scored in double figures in every game this season except Michigan’s opening game against South Dakota State in the NCAA Tournament, and his offensive rating and assist rate both rank among the nation’s top 50 players. Burke will be most remembered this year for his clutch play in the waning minutes against Kansas in the South Region semifinals, though. Michigan trailed 74-69 with just over a minute remaining in regulation, and Burke scored 13 of the Wolverines’ next 18 points to lead the team to the Elite Eight, and ultimately, to its first Final Four in 20 years. Not only does Burke have all the tools to excel at point guard, but he also has the “it” factor. No player has arguably meant more to his team than he this season, and he is an appropriate choice for the 2012-13 RTC National Player of the Year.

Others Receiving Votes: Russ Smith, Louisville.

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As the season winds down and Big 12 teams continue to find themselves eliminated from the post-season, we’re taking a look back on a team-by-team basis at the 2012-13 season. Next up: Oklahoma State.

Final Record: 24-9 (13-5)

The Expectations: Oklahoma State was considered a mixed bag before the season began. There were whispers that Travis Ford should worry about his job status, and even though he’d brought in stud freshman Marcus Smart, Ford had gained an undesirable reputation as the Guy Who Recruits But Can’t Coach. Everybody universally agreed that with Smart, sophomore Le’Bryan Nash, Markel Brown and several other returning contributors, this team had good enough individual players to compete near the top of the Big 12. But would they be the right assortment of pieces? This had been a bad team a year ago, and heart-and-soul guard Keiton Page had graduated. Luckily, scouts and opposing coaches raved about Marcus Smart in the preseason. They told us he wasn’t a typical freshmen — that he was mature beyond his years and the missing piece that would help Nash reach his expectations as a scoring wing. He wasn’t necessarily a natural point guard, though, so there were questions as to whether he’d be effective in that position.

The Actual Result: Smart can play point. Pretty freakin’ well, actually. So well that he was named Big 12 Player of the Year. As the team’s top defender, top scorer, top assists man and second-leading rebounder, Smart was that rare freshman leader who demanded respect from his teammates and completely revamped the attitude within his program. He opened up more opportunities for Nash, and that was evident right away. In the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Cowboys dismantled North Carolina State thanks to 43 combined points from Smart and Nash — the Wolfpack were ranked in the top-10 at the time. The Cowboys struggled from a New Year’s hangover and lost four of six games from December 31 to January 21. They couldn’t close the deal at home against Gonzaga in one of the more anticipated home games at Gallagher-Iba in quite some time, and then they lost three road games at Oklahoma, Kansas State and Baylor. That’s when the light truly went on in Stillwater. On February 2, the Cowboys won at Kansas and rode into mid-February with a seven-game winning streak. With a chance to take control of the league and sweep Kansas on February 20, Oklahoma State dropped a double-overtime heartbreaker to the Jayhawks an in ugly game that set basketball back by at least five decades. It couldn’t break KU’s hold on the Big 12, but it prevented Kansas State from winning the league outright by knocking off the Wildcats at home in the regular season finale. KSU returned the favor by handling OSU fairly easily in the Big 12 semifinals the next week. Then, the NCAA Tournament selection committee decided to play a cruel joke on Oklahoma State, rewarding its 24-win season with a #5/#12 match-up against Oregon. The Ducks, ranked in the Top 25 for much of the year, were probably under-seeded by at least four lines. At least. Guess what happened? Oklahoma State lost.

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1. Your move, Texas Tech. Five-star recruit Keith Frazier just tentatively committed to play for the Red Raiders, but he wants to play for interim head coach Chris Walker. That means Tech might need to keep Walker on as the permanent coach for Frazier to stay true to his word. Is it worth it? Frazier is, after all, a consensus top-25 recruit with the potential to change the entire landscape of this program. The shooting guard from Dallas is a McDonald’s All-American. Fan interest in Lubbock could be at an all-time high if he does indeed step on campus, but it appears that will hinge on Walker’s status. As the interim coach, Walker didn’t win very many games, but don’t judge him on the mess he inherited from Billy Gillispie. He kept things together fairly well, knocked off Iowa State at one point and avoided a complete catastrophe. Frazier or no Frazier, Chris Walker isn’t a bad candidate as the permanent head coach of this program.
2. Amath M’Baye‘s short stay at Oklahoma is over. The swingman announced he’ll skip his senior year to enter the NBA Draft, a decision made partly because he needs to financially support his family overseas. He also feels he’s mature enough to make the move, considering he’s now almost 24 years old. The former Wyoming transfer was a solid addition for Lon Kruger this year, but he wasn’t an elite player and a few heads were scratched with his decision to forgo his senior year. M’Baye has a life to live, though, and his choice makes sense on a lot of levels. It’ll leave the Sooners looking for a versatile wing to fill the void, since M’Baye did a lot of different things with his blend of size and athleticism in the frontcourt.
3. You’ve probably heard of Andrea Hudy before. She’s already been featured on ESPN, but here’s another look at the woman behind the magic at Kansas. Hudy is the strength and conditioning coach for the Jayhawks, and she’s built quite a reputation as a fierce motivator and frightening trainer. In the background of all this is her role as a female trainer in a largely male world of men’s college basketball. It’s admirable that she’s able to do her job — and do it well — without complaint from either the players or Bill Self’s staff. It’s proof that regardless of gender, a trainer’s a trainer. And they’re almost all as scary as Andrea Hudy. Judging by Self’s dominance of the Big 12, it looks like Hudy’s a step above her competition.
4. Oklahoma State‘s roster will depend on whether Markel Brown, Le’Bryan Nash and Marcus Smart all return to school. That’s huge. But here’s a more detailed look at exactly what Travis Ford might have to work with next year. We know Philip Jurick is gone. Ford will miss that big body, but he ran into legal trouble before the season and isn’t irreplaceable. Michael Cobbins could be primed for a big year up front, as could Kamari Murphy, who’ll be a sophomore. Oklahoma State returns a good group of guards, too, including Phil Forte and Kirby Gardner. Beyond that, the Cowboys will welcome five newcomers who could get big minutes if the OSU Big Three decide to leave for the NBA.
5. Let’s get this over with. You probably don’t like the NIT, but you need to know that Baylor knocked off Providence to advance to the semifinals at the Garden. The Bears will now face BYU, a team it defeated in Waco earlier in the year. That was an odd game, as it turned out — Baylor fell behind early, then went on a masterful run to seize control of things and win fairly easily. At that time, it seemed like that might be the win that could turn the season around. Instead, Scott Drew’s team is playing BYU in the NIT. So much for that.