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.

Note: Scout.com used for all player rankings.

Jayhawks Sign First Recruit For 2014

Last Tuesday, Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks landed five-star small forward Kelly Oubre from Houston, Texas. Oubre is currently the fourth-ranked small forward in the class and 11th overall and is the first player to make a commitment to the Jayhawks in the class of 2014.  The commitment took place after a whirlwind tour that first saw Oubre visit Lawrence for KU’s version of Midnight Madness, “Late Night in the Phog,” on October 4.  As soon as this event ended Oubre took a weekend trip to Colorado Springs to participate in the USA Developmental Camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center before returning back to school. After getting back, Oubre cancelled his upcoming official visit to Kentucky and on October 8 announced his intention to play for Kansas.

Kelly Oubre is Kansas’ Heir Apparent on the Wing

Oubre is a 6’6” athletic wing who is known for his outside shooting ability. Last year he led his Fort Bend Bush High School to the Texas State Championship where they ran into current Kentucky freshmen Andrew and Aaron Harrison. After averaging 22.7 points per game as a junior, Oubre made the decision to transfer to Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada. This past spring and summer Oubre shot up the national rankings with his play in the camps and on the AAU circuit. He joined two other five-star wings in Justin Jackson (#8 – Scout 2014) and Justise Winslow (#9 – Scout 2014) on the Houston Hoops AAU team which also played in the Nike EYBL. Oubre averaged 15.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game while shooting 31.5% from the three-point line.

Kansas gets a small forward who is known for his effortless left-handed stroke. He prefers to launch threes from just below the foul line extended and can shoot out to NBA range. Oubre has the athleticism and skill to get to the basket and finish in the paint, but he prefers to rely on his shooting touch to get baskets. Sometimes this can get him into trouble when he continues to launch from deep when his shot is off. While this situation occurred several times during AAU play, Oubre turned in one of the top performances at the USA camp. Right now Kansas is also heavily involved with five-star power forward Cliff Alexander (#5 – Scout 2014) and five-star center Myles Turner (#2 – Scout 2014). Alexander joined Oubre in Lawrence for “Late Night” while Turner traveled to Colorado Springs for the USA Camp. The Jayhawks are also one of three finalists for the package duo of Jahlil Okafor (#1 – Scout 2014) and Tyus Jones (#4 – Scout 2014), both top five players nationally. Oubre got the ball rolling for the Jayhawks. Who’s next? Read the rest of this entry »

1. The month of Midnight Madness celebrations continued over the weekend, with a number of schools choosing to reveal their 2013-14 teams to the public on Friday night. The most prominent basketball school of this weekend’s group was Marquette, entertaining some 4,000 fans at the Al McGuire Center for Marquette Madness. The event trotted out the tried-and-true Madness standards: a three-point shooting contest (won by Jake Thomas), a dunk contest (won by Deonte Burton), etc., but one unique aspect of this version was that the school also handed out a “Lifetime Achievement Award” as part of the proceedings. Chris Otule, a Golden Eagles center who has played a full season in only two of his five years in Milwaukee and was recently granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA, was the recipient (see the tribute video here). Otule earned substantial national recognition in 2010 when it was learned that he was playing major college basketball with only one working eye (he’s been blind in his left eye since birth), but he also has become something of a hard-luck case due to the three significant injuries (two broken feet and a torn ACL) that he has suffered during his career at Marquette. By all accounts a genuinely nice guy, let’s hope that his final year in Marquette is productive and injury-free.
2. News came out last week that longtime Texas athletic director, DeLoss Dodds, will retire from his post overseeing the wealthiest athletic department in all of college sports. The 76-year old’s decision to retire, though, comes at a time when the school’s revenue-producing programs — football, basketball and baseball — are all suffering through relatively tough times. Notwithstanding the football Longhorns’ upset of unbeaten Oklahoma on Saturday, the team had lost badly to BYU and Ole Miss earlier this season, and rumors are swirling about the security of Mack Brown’s head coaching job there. Similarly for basketball, Rick Barnes’ Longhorns were just picked to finish as the eighth-place team in a 10-team league (only ahead of the hoops disasters known as Texas Tech and TCU), raising significant questions as to how a program and coach who makes so much money and has access to so much local talent could have gotten itself in such a mess. Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News examines the political and operational realities of Dodds’ retirement, ultimately concluding that the new AD will certainly have some hurdles to overcome upon arrival at his new job. And apparently, Louisville’s Tom Jurich is not interested.
3. While on the subject of athletic directors, the AP reported on Friday that a group of 65 ADs attached their names in support of a nine-page memorandum sent to a legal team convening in Chicago later this month to discuss updating the Uniform Athlete Agents Act (UAAA). Tired of dealing with agents, runners and other interested hangers-on associating with student-athletes in their revenue programs, the group requests that the penalties attached to violations of the UAAA contain higher fines and additional prison time. Specifically, they ask that changes to the law must “increase the incentives for and ease of prosecuting violators,” offering a number of recommendations to make it easier to catch the wrongdoers. Perhaps the strongest part of this proposed legislation is the idea of classifying someone as an agent for purposes of the law regardless of whether they are registered as one — although difficult to implement, this could help with the runner/go-between problem that has become all too familiar in recent years.
4. Connecticut head coach Kevin Ollie may have jumped the gun in revealing his school’s latest APR score on Friday, but who can blame him given that his team was forced to miss the NCAA Tournament last season because of prior years’ academic troubles. The second-year coach proudly told the media: “We got a thousand. If you want to wait until May, you can find out in May. But it’s a thousand.” The “thousand” he mentions equates to a perfect score on the APR metric, which basically means that all of UConn’s student-athletes in the basketball program are in good academic standing and on track to graduate. According to Ollie, the program has emphasized the importance of education through accountability (i.e., players run if they miss class, etc.), which of course is all fine and well. But perhaps more than anything else, this improvement to a perfect score shows that the APR can be gamed like any other arbitrary metric if a school simply takes it seriously and correspondingly incents the players to do the bare minimum in the classroom.
5. One of the interesting aspects to the NCAA’s new rule allowing practice to start in September is that coaches are limited to only 30 practice sessions in those 42 days between September 27 and November 8. Not only does the extra time between sessions let coaches ease into their practice plans and teaching points a little more thoughtfully, but it also allows teams to do some other character-building exercises that they simply wouldn’t have had time for under the old model. Case in point: Duke‘s four-day trip to New York over the weekend. On Saturday, Coach K transported his charges to West Point, his alma mater and site of his first head coaching job, allowing the Blue Devils to take in the pride and spectacle of the school responsible for educating the nation’s future military leaders. By all indications the players loved the experience, and one might suspect that if the Blue Devils go on to enjoy a great upcoming season, they’ll reflect often on this preseason trip to New York as the bonding experience where things started to come together. Have a great holiday, everyone.

1. So apparently the concept of amateurism still has some supporters in the college basketball world, and it probably won’t surprise you that one of its most ardent proponents is a head coach who has never shied from giving his honest opinion. Venerable Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim told the Post-Standard yesterday that the notion of paying student-athletes is “really the most idiotic suggestion of all time.” His tirade on the subject is well worth the read, and we highly suggest that you trudge through the entire thing this morning. Over the course of several minutes, Boeheim managed to come dangerously close to a Jim Calhoun-esque “not a dime back” moment when discussing his salary; he lobbed a grenade at Chris Webber’s illicit behavior while at Michigan; and he closed things out with an avuncular comment about people “just crying for a cause” [presumably Jay Bilas, whom Boeheim respects, is one of those whiners]. If you read nothing else today, read Boeheim’s diatribe.
2. Midnight Madness is still a couple weeks away at most schools, but no program’s fans in America take it more seriously than those at Kentucky. With tickets for Big Blue Madness set to release Saturday morning in Lexington, UK fans anticipating the “best recruiting class in 20 years” [according to Rick Pitino] have already built a tent city numbering 650+ domiciles outside the UK ticket office. Fans began lining up on Wednesday morning, some 72 hours prior to sale of the tickets (which are free, actually), and rumors are running rampant about the names of the star-studded lineup that John Calipari will have performing at Rupp Arena this year. For most fans, though, the only performers that will matter are the ones named Randle, Harrison (x2), Johnson, Young and Lee. Everyone in the college basketball world is anxious to see what this group can do.
3. If you need a head start thinking about the Wildcats, The Dagger‘s Jeff Eisenberg has us covered with a highlight post (along with translations) of John Calipari‘s recent Q&A with reporters (posted in its entirety on CoachCal.com). Eisenberg picked out what he calls the four most significant quotes from the head coach, and it’s clear that he’s well-versed not only in coachspeak but also in Caliparispeak. The most compelling quotes from our perspective were the first, where Calipari tried to explain/excuse last year’s disastrous season, and the third, where he skirts around the notion that Julius Randle could become a bigger version of the national championship team’s heart and soul, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. No matter how this year’s team turns out, Calipari’s mood is a lot different from the one we all witnessed last October when he was contemplating how to run his system without a reliable point guard.
4. Some tough luck out of the Colorado State program, as redshirt senior Jesse Carr, projected to be the team’s best returning player after losing all five starters, re-injured the ACL in his left knee on Monday this week. Given that he had already received a waiver from the NCAA to suit up for a sixth year, this injury effectively ends his college basketball career. Two seasons ago Carr contributed a nice all-around floor game of 7/3/3 APG as CSU earned its first bid to the NCAA Tournament in nine seasons. Now, head coach Larry Eustachy must try to make do with few experienced returnees, although Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year Jon Octeus is a fine place to start the rebuild.
5. Speaking of knee injuries, NBA superstar Dwyane Wade made some interesting comments on Wednesday about his ongoing joint issues. Specifically, he blames surgery that he had on his meniscus while at Marquette in 2002 for hampering his professional career. As he put it, the push at the time was simply to get him back on the basketball court as soon as possible: “the way you approach things was different.” His medical team didn’t take a long-term approach to his career, and he believes that removal of the entire meniscus 11 years ago has strongly contributed to the myriad problems that he’s had with the knee ever since. While we’re sure that every successful athlete thinks that they could be even better if XYZ had not happened, the fact remains that Wade has already had a HOF career with three world championships to his name. As Ball Don’t Lie‘s Eric Freeman writes, there’s no guarantee that a longer view of the injury would have resulted in an equally fulfilling career because so many other variables would have then been brought into play. And that’s true with any regret. Well said.

1. It seems like just yesterday that Adam Morrison was engaged in a nightly duel with J.J. Redick before exiting the NCAA Tournament crying. The years since have not been much kinder to Morrison than the Internet was after his infamous exit. Now it appears that Morrison will be returning to his roots at Gonzaga where he will serve as a student assistant coach. Morrison may not be the most accomplished former player serving as an assistant coach, but he might be the most iconic given his recent fame and ridiculous mustache. This hiring will certainly make headlines, but we remain skeptical as to whether it will have any impact on Gonzaga or whether Morrison will ever become a legitimate coach, but it should be an interesting experiment.
2. With all of the news swirling around the Rutgers program in the past few months we have grown kind of numb to much that comes out of the campus, but the news that new athletic director Julie Hermann revealed in her official school biography that she is a lesbian (the very last sentence) caught our attention. Now her sexual preference is none of our business and we do not particularly care, but we were surprised by the amount of attention the announcement has received. Ideally, we as I society would one day progress to a point where Hermann’s sexual orientation is not even a story. We all know she had plenty of other things going on at Rutgers to worry about and this should not be one of them.
3. If you are looking for another reason to visit Las Vegas we have found one. Well at least for the next three years. Beginning this December 21 the MGM Grand will host a doubleheader for the next three years. This year’s event will feature Marquette against New Mexico and Oklahoma State against Colorado and will be broadcast on ESPNU and ESPN2 respectively with proceeds going to the American Cancer Society via Coaches vs Cancer. Outside of match-ups, which should be interesting we are somewhat surprised to see another big college basketball event being held in a casino (we have been to the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic at Mohegan Sun, which is not even in the same league as any of the Vegas casinos). If you are interested in attending any of the games, tickets are already available.
4. We are a little less than four months away from the start of college basketball season, which means that it is time to start familiarizing with the incoming and returning players for various teams. If you are still struggling to figure out who is going to be good and bad this year (outside of the obvious teams from last season), ESPN.com has a decent recap of which teams are going to be vastly improved this season and which teams are going to be taking a step back. Outside of a few picks the predictions are not particularly revelatory, but Myron Medcalf and Jason King do a solid job of explaining their rationale and might even remind you of significant arrivals and departures since last season before we start getting flooded with college basketball previews.
5. Both the NCAA and North Carolina may not be taking the academic fraud scandal at the school as seriously as we would like, but it appears that the White House is taking the matter a little more seriously. Sort of. A new petition was created asking President Obama to investigate the academic fraud at UNC because the school receives federal funds. We are not sure which fans (Duke or North Carolina State are our best guesses) created this and the lack of response so far speaks volumes to how ridiculous the idea is in theory, but it would be amusing at some level if this actually got enough votes to merit an actual response from the White House (aside from the fact that it would be a waste of the government’s time to address this issue when there are more pressing concerns facing our country.

The Golden Eagles earned a share of their first Big East regular season championship with their second consecutive 14-4 conference record. As the No. 3 seed in the Big East Tournament, Buzz Williams’ squad was dispatched in their first game by a lower-seeded Notre Dame team. But it rebounded in the Big Dance, visiting the Sweet Sixteen for the third straight year before suffering an Elite Eight loss to Syracuse in Washington, D.C.

Preseason Expectations

Despite coming off the program’s best season as a Big East member in 2011-12, most anticipated a rebuilding year as Buzz Williams sought to replace leading scorers Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder. The Golden Eagles were tagged seventh at Big East Media Day (behind Pitt, Notre Dame and Cincinnati), while we here at the Big East microsite ranked them fifth (still behind the Irish and Bearcats) in what was perhaps our most glaring collective miscalculation.

Vander Blue has spread his wings and flown away, but Marquette’s backcourt remains in good hands (AP)

The Good

The Golden Eagles surpassed everyone’s expectations, which in large part was attributable to the coaching abilities of Williams. Even with elite talent –– a luxury that Williams has never had –– nobody takes a program to three straight Sweet Sixteens without having a pretty good notion of what they’re doing. Vander Blue (14.3 PPG, 3.2 RPG) finally bloomed into the explosive scorer everyone expected him to be when he joined the program two years ago, becoming the team’s leading scorer while shooting 45% from the floor. Much in the way that Kadeem Batts developed in 2012-13, so too did Davante Gardner (11.5 PPG, 4.8 RPG) fashion himself into a trustworthy asset on both ends of the floor, becoming one of the best free throw-shooting big men in the league.

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The deadline to declare early entry for the NBA Draft has passed and as is apt to be the case with a league as good as the Big East, there were a number of teams in the conference that were waiting down to the wire to see who they would lose to the professional ranks and who they would get to keep on campus for one more season. 45 players officially announced they were declaring for the NBA Draft and six of those players came from the Big East. Here is some brief on analysis on which teams are feeling good about who they got back, and which teams were left wishing for just one more year. And yes, we do realize some of these teams won’t be in the Big East next season, but we are nostalgic and are looking into the past for as long as we can.

Winners:

Louisville

Smith’s Return Makes The Cardinals A Candidate To Repeat (AP Photo)

Gorgui Dieng knew his stock wasn’t going to get any higher and so he headed off to the NBA, but Louisville expected that. What they likely didn’t expect was that All-Big East guard Russ Smith would announce his return to school, especially after his father was quoted as saying his son was as good as gone. Smith immediately becomes an early favorite for Big East Player of the Year honors and his play-making and shot-creating ability will be even more important to the Cardinals’ success now that Peyton Siva has graduated. The Cardinals defense will undoubtedly take a step back without Dieng, but Montrezl Harrell is ready to be a starter and don’t sleep on Stephan Van Treese, who showed signs in the NCAA Tournament of becoming more than just a serviceable backup.

Providence

There is no doubt that Ricardo Ledo could help the Friars next season and you could easily make the argument Ledo would be the most talented player on the team from the first day of practice but it is still good news that Ledo declared for the NBA Draft and is leaving the program without having played a single minute. It’s nothing against Ledo, who was only forced on to a college campus because the NBA barred their gates and has clearly had the NBA on his mind since he graduated high school, but in order to rebuild Providence for the long haul, coach Ed Cooley needs to build a foundation and one-and-done players like Ledo don’t help. The Friars have a chance to plant their flag near the top of the new Big East, and if Ledo came back, he would absolutely make the Friars better, but there is no guarantee  there would be enough shots to go around with chucker Bryce Cotton as his backcourt mate. There is also no chance that Ledo would be back for his junior season, which means a year of development for Ledo would be a wasted opportunity to get valuable experience for another guard. Ledo has always had his eye on the NBA and good for him, he shouldn’t have been dropped onto a college campus in the first place, now the program and fans can let him go and focus on the improvement of his classmates who will be back — Joshua Fortune or Kris Dunn.

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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.

If Preseason Top 25s are an exercise in futility, polls the day after the national championship game are an exercise in imagination. We don’t know exactly what rosters are going to look like next season, what with early entry announcements, transfers (both in and out), late signees and the inevitable summer run-ins with trouble still pending. So, below, we’ll try to project, using the partial information that we have, just who are the 25 teams most likely to win a national title next season. After the NBA Draft deadline has passed, we’ll do a more educated Top 25, but until then…

1. Kentucky – Many will be leery to pick the Wildcats #1 based on the missteps of 2012-13, but the talent here is hard to deny. Joining returnees like Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein, John Calipari adds another stellar recruiting class with (so far) four top-10 recruits (Julius Randle, the Harrison twins and James Young) and another pair in the next 10 (Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee). The program will again have a huge spotlight on it as they try to get six or more future first-round draft picks to play nice together, but despite his failures this season, Calipari has done enough to earn the trust that he’ll fold these guys into a cohesive unit. They may not be the best team at the start of the year, but they’re the favorites to cut down the nets in Cowboys Stadium next April.
   

   The Harrison Twins Are Just A Small Part Of The Talent John Calipari Will Have In Lexington Next Year

2. Florida – After a down year in the SEC, we’re projecting a return to dominance at the top. The Gators lose Kenny Boynton, Mike Rosario and Erik Murphy, but with ESPN’s #9 recruit, point guard Kasey Hill, and #14 recruit, power forward Chris Walker, coming in, along with a pair of newly eligible frontcourt players in Dorian Finney-Smith and Damontre Harris, Billy Donovan’s squad could be even better.
3. Arizona – Sean Miller’s got a ridiculous front line chock full of McDonald’s All-Americans, with Kaleb Tarczewski, Brandon Ashley and Grant Jerrett all expected back and Aaron Gordon and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson arriving. Throw in Duquesne transfer T.J. McConnell as a true point and Nick Johnson back for his junior campaign and this Wildcats team should dominate the Pac-12.
4. Duke – Coach K loses a lot, with Seth Curry, Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly all gone, but Quinn Cook and Rasheed Sulaimon will be joined by Andre Dawkins returning from a year off and elite recruit Jabari Parker arriving for his freshman year. If the Blue Devils can find some toughness up front from guys like Amile Jefferson, Alex Murphy and Josh Hairston, they’ll again be in the thick of things.
5. Michigan State – Let’s make the assumption that a 6’10” guy with jump-out-of-the-gym ability and a nice three-point stroke like Adreian Payne is heading to the NBA. Nevertheless, with Keith Appling, Gary Harris, Branden Dawson and Denzel Valentine returning and Tom Izzo back on the sideline, pencil the Spartans in as a the Big Ten favorite. Read the rest of this entry »

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. Mach Five speed. There reached a point in Sunday’s regional final between Louisville and Duke where lateral movement ceased to exist. There was Peyton Siva, there was Russ Smith, and there was 94 feet of court from end to end. It didn’t matter where and when they got the ball – they were heading straight to the hole, and you could try to keep up if you wanted. Those two bring a dimension that no other team in the country has, and they made some decent Duke guards look downright tortoise-like on both offense and defense throughout the second half rout. They ran ‘em straight out of the gym.

I LOVED…. Wichita State “shocking” (sorry, too easy) the world and making it out of the West Region, and more importantly striking another solid blow for mid-majors with its convincing win over a very good Ohio State team. While Gonzaga making it just two games as a #1 seed was rough, this WSU run helps erase some of that damage for quality schools in small conferences going forward.

I LOVED…. Trey Burke deciding to become The Man. For nine minutes against Kansas, literally everyone in the building knew exactly who the ball was going to and what he was trying to do. Didn’t matter. Ping, ping, ping, ping – the jumpers just kept raining in as he willed his Wolverines into overtime and on to victory. Any Player of the Year questions should have been answered right there.

Trey Burke Took Over, and Michigan Advanced…

I LOVED…. just how dumb the NCAA Tournament selection committee looked by putting Oregon as a #12 seed. I honestly believe it was one of the worst hack jobs in selection history, and the Ducks, who were possibly underseeded by about five slots or so, powered their way to the Sweet Sixteen and hung with a star-studded Louisville team for the full 40 minutes. Someone needs to take a long hard look at what went wrong there, and make sure we don’t ever, ever see it again.

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1. Georgetown fans received some measure of consolation after a disappointing Second Round upset when the AP named Otto Porter a first-team All-American yesterday. Tying Trey Burke for the most first-team votes received, Porter became the first Hoya to claim the honor since Allen Iverson did so in 1996, and was the sixth first-team All-American in program history. (Patrick Ewing earned the distinction in three difference seasons, so Porter’s appearance is actually the eighthin Georgetown history.) Joining the Big East’s Player of the Year with AP team honors was Louisville’s Russ Smith (third team), while teammates Gorgui Dieng, Peyton Siva, Syracuse’s Michael Carter-Williams and Notre Dame’s Jack Cooley captured honorable mentions.
2. Shortly before going into surgery to repair the compound leg fracture he’d suffered against Duke on Sunday, Louisville guard Kevin Ware borrowed a nurse’s cell phone to contact his mother, knowing “she’d be freaking out.” Six hundred miles away in suburban Atlanta, Lisa Junior was just as much in the dark regarding her son’s status as anyone watching the CBS broadcast: “He didn’t even say hello. He just said, ‘Mom, I need you to calm down.’ He knew I’d be a mess. Once I heard his voice, I was better.” Ware was walking with the aid of crutches yesterday after surgeons successfully stabilized his broken tibia with a metal rod and closed the ghastly wound where it had broken skin. He will reportedly travel to Atlanta with the Cardinals this week and sit on the bench for the Final Four match-up with Wichita State.
3. USF has inked a home-and-home deal with Detroit, to begin in Tampa in 2013-14. Detroit’s visit to the Sun Dome will feature three returning rising senior starters, including star Ray McCallum Jr. (18.8 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 4.5 APG this season). But the return trip to Detroit in 2014-15 will be a homecoming for native sons head coach Stan Heath and incoming guard Byron Ziegler, while freshman JaVontae Hawkins will be playing an hour down the road from his hometown of Flint. It will also probably be a rebuilding year for the Titans, giving Heath a golden opportunity to recruit the area and sell the idea of a non-conference series close to home to Detroit prospects.
4. Tulsa is slated to announce in a late-morning press conference that it will join the New Old Zombie Big East in all sports. The impending additions of Tulsa and ECU reflect an emphasis on football stature in Mike Aresco’s new lineup, but Rob Dauster points out that Golden Hurricane basketball isn’t a complete disaster, and says “[coach Danny] Manning has the team going in the right direction, despite a depleted roster from transfers.” After winning 17 games in 2011-12, Manning held serve at around .500 in his first year as head coach, going 17-16 before losing to Wright State in the CBI.
5. Just to salt the wounds from last weekend’s loss, Carmelo Anthony subjected Marquette fans to further indignity yesterday when he shamed Golden Eagles alum and fellow Knick Steve Novak on Instagram yesterday. Novak was apparently on the losing end of a bet on the Elite Eight game between their alma maters, and well, he made good on his wager in this shot:

Carmelo’s Orange got the best of Steve’s Golden Eagles