We’re going to try something new today, and you’ll likely never see it again… but it’s August, and we’re absolutely frothing at the mouth over some of the schedules coming out three months from now, so we’re sure you’ll forgive us.

1. We’ve laid off this story, but we’re glad to see former Alabama forward Mikhail Torrance off the ventilator and in stable condition after a reported heart attack last weekend.
2. This story by Golden Grizzlies Gameplan focuses on several returning players including Virginia Tech’s Jeff Allen, Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates and Wake Forest’s Tony Woods as players who haven’t quite lived up to potential yet.  Mmmm… potential.
3. Illinois head coach Bruce Weber believes in his Illini.
4. Who has been more successful in the last 30+ years of college basketball — Florida or Wake Forest?  These questions and many others will be answered in Basketball Reference’s countdown of the top 31 programs in the last 31 years of college hoops.  Honestly, the fact that this is even in question begs huge questions about this analysis.  Maybe they should put the name “Harvard” in front of it.
5. C’mon DeCourcy, you’re better than that — where’s our TSN preview mag in the RTC mailbox?  For those of you who also didn’t receive the copy, here’s their important info… bold to go with the Spartans over Duke.

TSN Top-25

1. Michigan State
2. Duke
   
3. Purdue
   
4. Kansas
5. Ohio State
   
6. Kansas State
   
7. Syracuse
   
8. Kentucky
   
9. North Carolina
   
10. Pittsburgh
    
11. Villanova
    
12. Memphis
    
13. Missouri
    
14. Gonzaga
    
15. Illinois
    
16. Baylor
    
17. Georgetown
    
18. Wisconsin
    
19. Butler
    
20. Florida
21. Virginia Tech
22. Tennessee
23. Washington
24. Wichita State
25. Florida State

TSN All-American teams:

First team

• Kyle Singler, Duke
• Marcus Morris, Kansas
• Harrison Barnes, North Carolina
• Jimmer Fredette, BYU
• Jacob Pullen, Kansas State

Second team

• Durrell Summers, Michigan State
• Malcolm Delaney, Virginia tech
• Kris Joseph, Syracuse
• Kyrie Irving, Duke
• Jared Sullinger, Ohio State

Third team

• LaceDarius Dunn, Baylor
• Enes Kantor, Kentucky
• Nolan Smith, Duke
• JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
• Elias Harris, Gonzaga

1. Minnesota received good news yesterday when much-maligned forward Trevor Mbakwe finally reached a conclusion in his assault case that will allow him to suit up for the Gophers after over a year in limbo.  He will enter a pre-trial intervention program that will wipe the slate clean so long as he performs 100 hours of community service and pays a $100 fine.  With several solid contributors returning to Minny along with the addition of Mbakwe, Tubby Smith’s team suddenly looks a little better than they did a few days ago in the stacked Big Ten.
2. Florida, Mississippi State, Dayton, Illinois and Penn State.  What do theses five schools have in common?  Andy Glockner believes that each is ready to make a substantial leap in their luck next season.  He’s not being facetious either.  In using the Pomeroy definition of “luck,” a calculation that measures whether a team is playing above or below its statistical expectations, he finds that the above five teams should show a bump this season if for no other reason than they were fairly unlucky last year.
3. Mike DeCourcy gives us his five prospects coming out of the July recruiting period who most helped themselves.  Two New Englanders, Maurice Harkless and Naadir Tharpe, were among his list.
4. An NCAA proposal would require incoming NCAA freshmen to essentially prove their academic worthiness through summer school prior to their first season if their academic credentials were found lacking.  Upperclassmen would also have their academic records reviewed at the end of each school year and determine whether summer classes were needed; if they were, coaches could use part of the players’ summer terms for strength/conditioning and some skill development.  How long until every coach figures out that all of his players (including the 3.0 students) miraculously require the additional summer classwork?
5. ESPN analyst and former Duke superstar Jay (don’t call me Jason) Williams recently showed that he still has some game, especially the kind suited for summertime street ball.  He played so well at  Dyckman in NYC recently that he earned a new nickname: the Bourne Supremacy.  We’re very anxious to see what the other ESPN analysts and commentators will do with that next season.

1. The big news of the day came from East Lansing, as twice-consecutive Final Four team Michigan State announced that it will no longer require the services of rising senior guard Chris Allen, a player who started 27 games last season and averaged 8/3/2 APG in a balanced offensive attack.  Tom Izzo stated that Allen had not met the standards required by him as a player in the MSU program, but he will help Allen transfer to another D1 program for his senior year (incidentally, Allen is the first player Izzo has ever booted).  After a year sitting out as a transfer, some lucky school will be the beneficiary of an athletic perimeter defender with the ability to knock down threes in rhythm (40% last year and 97 on his career).  As for preseason top five team Michigan State, the general consensus is that this loss will be negligible.  Their depth in the backcourt just got much thinner, but the feeling is that Korie Lucious, Durrell Summers and Keith Appling will be able to handle the additional burden.  Frankly, we believe that Izzo could take a team filled with incorrigible circus animals to the Final Four, so the Spartans will be fine.
2. If you believe Tre’Von Willis‘ lawyer, the senior UNLV guard facing domestic battery charges in Sin City expects to play a full season for the Runnin’ Rebels this coming season.  Willis is accused of choking his girlfriend in late June, but his attorney pleaded not guilty for him today and his preliminary hearing will not occur until November 22.  This could mean that any possible trial on this matter (if it came to that) could begin well into 2011, potentially freeing him up to play the entire season.
3. The Big 12 announced its conference composite schedule yesterday, and we’re happy to report that both Sunflower State showdowns will be televised nationally this year.  The game in Lawrence is slotted for Saturday, January 29 (ESPN), and the return game in Manhattan is two weeks later on Valentine’s Day.
4. Can you imagine a 20-team Big East that covered land from Kansas to NYC east-west and Boston to Tampa north-south?  Yeah, half the country, basically.  Adam Zagoria reported yesterday that the conference was looking at this opportunity should the Big 12 have ultimately disbanded earlier this summer.  In a related matter, Big East commissioner John Marinatto emphatically denied the persistent rumor that the conference was set to add Memphis to its lineup.
5. Count Mike DeCourcy among those who think the renewed calls for Rick Pitino to be fired from Louisville to be meritless.  It doesn’t really make much sense to us either, so little in fact that even last summer we never seriously entertained the idea that Pitino might actually lose his job there.  As we all know, basketball is serious business in Kentucky, and Pitino has done very well (although not extraordinarily so) there.  To fire him now (or last summer when the allegations came out) would not only put a huge financial burden on the school, but it would also set back the recruiting arms race that the arrival of John Calipari on the scene in Lexington has put into overdrive.  As for the Sypher trial, the prosecution rested its case on Tuesday; it’ll now be up to the defense team to poke tortellini-sized holes into it.

1. It’s not every day you wake up to a Twitter argument about John Wall’s grades (Eric Bledsoe’s were notably not discussed), but that’s what happened to Mike DeCourcy yesterday after writing the following tweet before bed Tuesday night:  Tsnmike: So all the people squawking about one-and-dones not going to class in spring — how does that reconcile with John Wall on SEC honor roll? DeCourcy was attacked on several fronts but the most compelling line of inquiry was whether Wall academically represents the ‘typical’ one-and-doner.  Those guys get up way too early for us to have joined the conversation in real time, but our uneducated sense is that Wall is an exception and the one-and-doners are probably no different than any other athlete who decides to leave school early.
2. The best piece on Dean Smith’s current condition that we have seen is by Joe Posnanski over at SI.  The piece about Brian Reese potentially blowing a trip to the Final Four by not following Smith’s precise orders is phenomenal.  Read it.
3. While we’re discussing Tobacco Road legends, we should mention this article by Dan Wiederer who discusses all the Duke fingerprints that are on the US national teams this summer.  A great point by Coach K when he notes that many of the top high school prospects chose to play for the national teams rather than AAU ball, a development that will undoubtedly mature their games in ways they could not imagine on the summer circuit.
4. Former Seton Hall head coach Bobby Gonzalez pleaded not guilty to the charge that he shoplifted a $1,395 Ralph Lauren bag from the Mall at Short Hills in Essex County, New Jersey.  We’d like to say that at least he has good taste, but, uh, well…
5. Andy Katz reports that the NCAA’s top official, John Adams, has spent much of the last month meeting with the four Final Four head coaches and listening to feedback as to how to improve his teams of zebras.  We think Katz hits on the correct point in his piece when he points out that Adams only has limited control of officials, more specifically only during the NCAA Tournament.  If any real change is to occur, he needs to get the leagues on board with it so that a foul in the Big Ten is the same thing as one in the ACC.

1. Iowa State is set to hire former Cyclone star Fred Hoiberg as its new head coach after Greg McDermott took off earlier this week for greener pastures in Omaha.  “The Mayor” is a legend at ISU, but he’s never coached at any level of basketball before so this hire is raising some eyebrows.  The Big 12 is no place to learn on the fly, after all.  Gary Parrish thinks this move is either brilliant or imbecilic, but he makes a comparison to John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his veep and we know how well that gamble worked out.
2. In an effort to increase Pac-10 representation in future NCAA Tournaments, the University of Washington got its man into the catbird seat at the NCAA yesterday, as UW president Mark Emmert will take over for Jim Isch as the next president of the NCAA.  We were obviously joking about the above comment, but now, how does he feel about expansion?
3. We’re going to see a lot of these types of articles in the next two weeks discussing  those players who are in the NBA Draft pool who should return to school next season.  Here are a couple that are already out — Mike DeCourcy’s five players who should return (M. Delaney, M. Davis, J. Crawford, S. Samuels, G. Hayward) and Luke Winn’s ten teams awaiting decisions (with a healthy implication that most should return).
4. UNLV’s Matt Shaw, a key junior forward who started a handful of games for Lon Kruger’s NCAA Tournament team this year, has tested positive for a banned substance and has been suspended for the entirety of next year, his senior season.
5. Are there NCAA violations pending at UConn this spring?  According to this Wall Street Journal article, an NCAA source has stated that the university is facing a report on violations which is due to be released soon.  Furthermore, despite repeated admonitions to the contrary, head coach Jim Calhoun still doesn’t have a signed and sealed contract.  His current deal is set to expire at the end of June.

If you’re like us today, you’re probably feeling a little bit like you do when you realize that the blue lights in your rear view mirror weren’t intended for you even though you were about +15 over the speed limit.  As the friendly patrolman roars by on your left, that adrenaline-fueled fear of getting a ticket (or worse) melts into a somewhat euphoric state of well-being as you realize that you’ve dodged a terribly unpleasant situation.  We all spent the last two months lying hogtied on the tracks watching the 96-team locomotive steaming toward us, and the surprising (shocking?) news that the NCAA will instead move to only a 68-team scenario feels like Clint Eastwood or Rambo or freakin’ Michael Cera stepped in at the last moment to save the day.  Perspective is everything.

NCAA HQ Can Cancel That Security Detail Now

Yet imagine for a moment if we’d never heard about the 96-team debacle from the inner circles of the NCAA.  Without that particularly bilious perspective to abhor, excoriate, lambaste and dread for months leading up to today, the news that the NCAA was expanding to 68 teams would probably have been met with complete and utter derision across the board.  Four play-in games, pfshaw!  Yet when considered against the alternative, today’s news was met with guarded optimism and in some cases downright celebration.  Was this a brilliant strategem of managing expectations pulled off on us, the unsuspecting public, by the cunning NCAA (probably not), or simply a realization that the organization was treading ever so closely to killing off the goose that laid the golden egg (more likely)?  Either way, the decision is a reasonable and defensible one that we can all live with, so let’s get to the business of reviewing it now and analyzing it to death in coming weeks.

Here’s what some of the best in the business have to say…

Luke Winn, CNNSI – More importantly, it represents a major victory for college basketball. The NCAA did the right thing. While I’d prefer a pure, 64-team format without play-in games, 68 teams is immensely more palatable than 96. The sanctity of the NCAA tournament has been preserved for the time being, and that’s something to celebrate, even if Jim Isch, the NCAA’s interim president, admitted that 68 wasn’t guaranteed to be the format for the entire length of the new TV deal. […]  Public reaction had to have played at least some role in them settling on 68 rather than 96. The public’s response to the 96 idea was overwhelmingly negative, and I wonder if Isch, Shaheen, CBS and Turner didn’t want to be regarded as the villains who ruined college sports’ crown jewel.  […]  Eventually, we’ll get back to worrying about how Isch left the expansion door open by saying two words: “for now.” But for now, at least, we can rejoice. The NCAA tournament has been saved.

Mike DeCourcy, Sporting News – Turns out, they were listening. Nobody came out and said the public’s revulsion at the prospect of a 96-team field was a factor in settling on 68, but if you’d loved the idea like chocolate-chip cookies, we’d be talking about a far different NCAA Tournament next March.  It wasn’t at the start of negotiations that someone with CBS/Turner suggested a 68-team tournament would be workable with the dollar amounts being discussed. That came after the general public declared 96 teams to be a product no more appealing than the XFL.  […]  How should a 68-team tournament work?  That’s fairly obvious. Although it might be most fair to have the teams at the bottom of the field play for the right to be No. 16 seeds, it’s hard to imagine anyone at CBS or Turner Sports, the networks that just agreed to pay roughly $740 million annually to televise the tournament, being thrilled about showing four games that this year might have involved such matchups as Robert Morris-Winthrop or Morgan State-East Tennessee State.  The solution would be to have the last eightat-large teams play for the right to be seeded into the middle of the field—as No. 12s or No. 11s. This season, that might have meant Virginia Tech-Minnesota and Illinois-Florida.  People would watch those games. CBS and Turner saved us from the dread of a 96-team tournament. They deserve something for their money.

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1. Mike DeCourcy correctly skewers USC officials for throwing its basketball program under the bus to save the cash-cow football program.  It’s a classic negotiation technique that nobody will ever admit on the record to doing — give up something you don’t really care about to protect the thing that you do (apparently others have seen through this mirage as well).  Sad for Mike Gerrity and company.  The hope here is that these players win the Pac-10 regular season and celebrate in style (see: Kentucky 1991). 
2. Bill & Mary: the plucky little Tribe that could. 
3. Bruce Pearl apologized to anyone who would listen — including Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summit — for his four players’ arrests last week where they were found with drugs and guns in a rental car.  That’s all fine and well, but what’s going to be the verdict on these guys, Coach? 
4. Jeff Goodman analyzes what people are calling Kentucky’s x-factor this year: the head of talented center DeMarcus Cousins.  If he keeps it, the Cats could go all the way; if he doesnt’…
5. Step right up!  Get your official signed logo UConn basketball from “HOF Legend” Alex Oriakhi.  Yes, for $99.99 you can be the proud owner of this certain treasure as you watch its value exponentially grow on your mantle!  (for those of you wondering, Oriakhi is a nice player… he averaged 5/9/2 blks in 29 MPG… he has a long way to go to be worth paying $100 for a signed ball, though)

The news that the Big Ten was looking to expand from 11 teams (yeah I know 11 > 10) to 12 teams (yeah I know there is already a Big 12) set the college sports world abuzz with speculation about who the 12th team would be. And that set off a chain reaction of questions about who would fill in the spot in the conference that the Big Ten’s 12th member would leave vacant and so on. We will leave the latter for another post if and when the Big Ten finally commits to expansion and selects a school. Right now the schools I have heard mentioned most often are Cincinnati, Connecticut, Iowa State, Louisville, Missouri, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Syracuse, Texas, and West Virginia. I’ll go ahead and make this simple for everybody. Despite what Mike DeCourcy says Texas is not going to the Big Ten. The prospect of Texas leaving the Big 12 is too disastrous for the Big 12 officials to let happen. He can argue about TV revenues and how Texas is a much bigger TV draw than any of its Big 12 competitors, but he is missing a key element here. Unfortunately for Mike, geography destroys his grand scheme of having the Longhorns leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten. As the graphic clearly illustrates, Austin, Texas, is very far away from the members of the Big Ten. In fact the closest school would be Illinois, which is just a short 1,004 mile trip away from Austin (or 3 Mike DeCourcy Sporting News glamour shots).

While I understand a college team expects to have its fans outnumbered in road games, I can’t imagine that they would want to have a scenario where none of their students could go to a road game and none of the opposing team’s fans could watch games in Austin. So in my mind that pretty clearly eliminates Texas from consideration in the Big Ten. You can use this same argument when Mike suggests that UCLA join the Big East after the Big Ten poaches one of their programs for this round of expansion.

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This fall I’ve had the pleasure to travel around a little and attend several college basketball games as a media member, but as I walked by the loading docks and into the back of the Cintas Center on Sunday night, I felt it as soon as I got inside.  I’ve attended Xavier basketball games on a media credential in the past, but this time, the buzz, the sounds, the aura…

This was different.

I had expected a different experience, because this was my first Crosstown Shootout.  But this was beyond expectation.  I made a quick detour through the media room and, without being asked, one of the very helpful Xavier Sports Info workers showed me to my seat.  I was positioned just around the corner from the Cincinnati bench, a short bounce pass away from UC head coach Mick Cronin, himself.  If you’re familiar with the Cintas Center setup, you’ve probably already realized — I was right in front of the Xavier student section. 

Total.  Freaking.  Mayhem.

Now, that period-after-every-word emphasis thing you see above is an overused tool by everyone ranging from amateur tweeters (myself included) to professional sportswriters (myself not included), and it’s losing a little luster.  I use it here because…well, if I had to use it once in my life to get a point across, this is when I would choose to use it.  As I said, I’ve been to a number of games in this part of the country this season.  The only way I can think to describe this particular student section on this night is…”beautifully ridiculous.”  I turned around, saw their painted faces and myriad noise-producing implements, heard the unbelievable roar that flowed from them, and I honestly thought I’d see Mel Gibson as William Wallace riding around in front of them on a horse.  They were both exhilarating and horrifying.  And I mean that in the best way possible.  I didn’t grow up in Cincinnati, I didn’t go to either one of these schools, and I brought no allegiance with me for either program to this game.  I was there as an observer.  But they numbered in the hundreds and sounded like thousands.  They were already putting in a legendary performance — and the game hadn’t even tipped off.

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1. Want some John Wall hype beyond what you got here on Wed. night?  Try this, or this, or this, or this.  Is that enough gushing for you?  Put simply, Wall is the most talented player in America.  But if you’re here, you already knew that.
2. Well, Mike DeCourcy got half of it right (Graeter’s ice cream: right; the Cincinnati chili: wrong).
3. Fanhouse checks in with Isiah Thomas at FIU after the initial blast of media attention withered away.  In case you missed it, FIU is now 3-8 with wins over Florida Memorial, NC Central and Florida A&M.  The last one was at least an away game.  It’s clear that FIU has a long, long way to go toward competitiveness, but it also appears that they are improving under Thomas.
4. Here’s Luke Winn’s weekly power rankings.  Always a good read with numerous I did not know thats.
5. Good news: Iowa’s Todd Lickliter is expected to be back coaching next week with no long-term negative effects from his surgery for a torn carotid artery over the weekend.