Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @themulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.
The 2011-12 college basketball season tips off with the regional rounds of the 2KSports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. We will not see a full slate of games until Friday but if you are starved for college hoops like we are, there are two games tonight that should whet your appetite.
William & Mary @ St. John’s – 7 pm EST on ESPNU (**) (RTC Live coverage begins at 6:45 pm)
Lavin's Ridiculously Young Team Tips Off the Season Tonight
With the exception of a few holdovers, St. John’s brings an entirely new squad into the 2011-12 season. The Red Storm will rely heavily on freshman like Maurice Harkless, Dom Pointer, and D’Angelo Harrison. Although young, SJU should be able to shoot on a William & Mary squad that allowed opponents to shoot an eFG of 50.1% last season. It will take Steve Lavin’s team some time to jell over the coarse of the season, especially with three highly touted recruits being ruled ineligible for the fall semester. However, this game may be a case where overall talent outduels experience.
William & Mary essentially brings back its entire 2010-11 team that went 10-22 overall. Tony Shaver’s squad returns its two leading scorers, Quinn McDowell (15.5 PPG) and Brandon Britt (10.9 PPG). Although a relatively solid shooting team last year (52.1% eFG), the Tribe struggles with scoring beyond those two players. If W&M can get scoring from another player and continue to shoot the ball well, they may be able to keep it close on the road against an incredibly inexperienced St. John’s team. However, if either of those two players gets into foul trouble or is cold from the floor, it will make for a challenging night for the Tribe.
This game probably will not be a defensive clinic. William & Mary ranked 254th in the nation last year in adjusted defensive efficiency and a young team like St. John’s will probably take time to develop on that end. If either team can create any turnovers at all, they will have a clear advantage. Unfortunately, only three teams in the country were worse than the Tribe last year at causing turnovers. However, with many of the St. John’s players seeing their first action at the Division I level, turnovers should be expected. Look for William & Mary to take advantage of SJU’s freshmen mistakes to keep this one close. It will then come down to McDowell and Britt’s ability to convert points off turnovers.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be previewing each of the Pac-12 teams as we head into the season.
Arizona Wildcats
Strengths. Sean Miller’s modus operandi in his time in Tucson has been to play a lot of guys every night. This year, he’ll be able to do that again; the only question may be who doesn’t find his way into the regular rotation. This Wildcat team has so much depth, there are 12 players who could rightfully expect consistent minutes. There are two players, junior wing Kevin Parrom and senior center Alex Jacobson, who are still working through injuries, but at least in the case of Parrom, he is expected to be back soon and to be a major contributor. The other great strength of this team is its athleticism, which has only been bolstered over the offseason with the addition of a highly athletic four-man freshman class of Josiah Turner, Nick Johnson, Angelo Chol and Sidiki Johnson. Those four may have their struggles adjusting to the higher caliber of competition, but they likely won’t be fazed by the athleticism of Division I performers.
Solomon Hill Is Just One Wildcat Who Must Play A Bigger Role
Weaknesses. Not only do the Wildcats lose all-everything forward Derrick Williams, but they also lost their second-leading scorer from last season, Momo Jones. And for all the talent on this team, there is not one standout performer nor is there anyone who has proven his ability to consistently create offensive opportunities for himself. All four of the freshmen have shown flashes of those abilities, but they’ll need to prove they can do it consistently, just as returnees like Kyle Fogg, Solomon Hill and Jesse Perry need to prove that they can handle larger roles.
Nonconference Tests. Arizona gets their season started with the 2K Sports Classic, which will start with a game against St. John’s on their home floor at Madison Square Garden. The Wildcats then will either face Mississippi State or Texas A&M to wrap up that tournament, a good test either way. A tough non-conference slate continues with a visit from San Diego State, then a tough three game stretch in the middle of December where they travel to Florida, then host Clemson before playing Gonzaga in Seattle. Read the rest of this entry »
Arizona came into the season with big expectations. The Wildcats ranked in the preseason Top 25 with Kyle Fogg and Solomon Hill returning and Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson coming to Tucson. Then Seattle Pacific happened. The Falcons came into the McKale Center last Thursday and shocked the Wildcats, 69-68. On Tuesday, Humboldt State made its way into Tucson and battled the Wildcats for the first 30 minutes before falling, 60-51. The two exhibition games shocked Wildcat fans and sent them into states of confusion and panic, but in reality, the games may have provided a wake-up call for the team. With its regular-season opener coming on Monday against Valparaiso, the coaches are reevaluating the starting lineups and rotation, which most likely would not have happened if not for the exhibition surprises.
A new era is set to begin in Salt Lake City and with it comes a new attitude. “Defense,” says senior Josh Watkins, Utah‘s point guard. “We’re playing way more defense, we pressure the ball.” The team is looking for an identity, and the defensive side is a great place to start considering the Utes were second-to-last in the Mountain West in scoring defense last year. Utah will also be looking to senior center David Foster to plug the middle after averaging 3.2 BPG last season.
Washington guard Terrence Ross didn’t put up outrageous numbers in his freshman year, but all of that changed in the Pac-10 Tournament. Ross averaged 15.3 PPG that week and was named to the all-tournament team. That performance combined with the praise he received over the summer on the progress he made with his jumper has fans expecting big things from him, so much so that he was the number one player in the “Counting Down the Huskies” features that Percy Allen has been rolling out the past couple of weeks. Ross will man the backcourt for the Huskies along with junior Abdul Gaddy and freshman Tony Wroten, Jr.
Earlier this week the Oregon got a commitment from four-star point guard Dominic Artis. Artis comes by way of Findlay College Prep (NV) and is rated as the number eight point guard in the nation in this year’s class. For a team that is looking mighty bare at the point for next season, this was a huge pickup for coach Dana Altman. Bruce Barron and Johnathan Loyd are the only true point guards on the team this season, but while both are solid players, Artis has the talent to come in and take their jobs quickly.
Last week Drew and I began our Pac-12 football predictions and I promptly went 6-0. Drew went 4-2 on the week, so I have a two-game lead already. (It should be noted that Drew changed two of his picks so we wouldn’t both have the same, but whatever… scoreboard, baby). This week there are plenty of interesting games, ranging from Utah-Arizona to Oregon-Washington. Our “predict the score” game will be Stanford-Oregon State, for the pure fun of seeing how many points the Cardinal offense can pin on the depleted Beaver D. Here are our picks for this week:
Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. 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 who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.
Lead Story: Arizona Secures Top 2012 Recruiting Class
Next Year These Heads Will Be Of Gabe York, Brandon Ashley, Grant Jerrett And Kaleb Tarczewski (C. Morrison/US Presswire)
Tarczewski Takes To Tucson. This is something I’m not used to, this is something you aren’t used to, this is something no one on the recruiting circuit is used to. For the first time in four years, a head coach has assembled a downright dirty collection of talent into one recruiting class and his name isn’t John Calipari. Arizona head coach Sean Miller has beautifully crafted his 2012 recruiting class so it will resemble North Carolina’s group of big men this year when center Kaleb Tarczewski committed to Arizona pm Monday. Not only do the Wildcats have commitments from three of the top nine recruits in the senior class [according to ESPN] in addition to a top shooting guard in Gabe York, but they have two of the top three power forwards between Brandon Ashley and Grant Jerrett and the second best center in Tarczewski. This front court talent is scary considering the versatility and skill level of the players. If Miller doesn’t want to sit one of his star recruits, he could possibly slide Ashley to small forward since he’s a combo forward who likes playing on the wing as well. All of these big guys can move and get up and down the court and can be game-changers in so many ways. Here’s another thing to think about, the Wildcats got two of the top guards in the Class of 2011 with point guard Josiah Turner(#13) and shooting guard Nick Johnson (#28) and both players will definitely be staying longer than one year. I’m not going to go around and start predicting 2013 NCAA tournament Final Four teams, but I wouldn’t bet against Arizona.
What They’re Saying
Senior standout Dominic Artis on committing to Oregon: “I really thought it was the best fit style-of-play wise after watching practice and I liked the athletes that are already in the program. [Class of 2011 shooting guard] Jabari [Brown] and I have been together since fourth or fifth grade. Him being there sure didn’t hurt. It gave me a nice comfort level and someone I could relate to.”
The Pac-12 Basketball Media Day took place on Friday in Los Angeles. Here is part two of our coverage, where we will take a look at the top three quotes from each of the six southern schools. Yesterday we covered the northern schools.
Coach Sean Miller on the results of the preseason media poll: “There’s no way in the world we’re the third best team in the Pac-12. You can say every coach says something like that. I didn’t say that last year. Hopefully I won’t say it next year, but I’m saying it now. There is no chance at all that’s where we are.
Miller on Kevin Parrom: “Not having him hurts us. His status, I really believe he’ll return to the court this year.We’re pointing towards late November, early December if he continues to experience the same progress that he has.”
Parrom is Key to Arizona's Post-Derrick Williams Success
Miller on freshman point guards Nick Johnson and Josiah Turner: “I’ll start with Nick Johnson. To me he’s shown early on he’s the most ready [of the team’s four freshmen]. Playing in the high school program that he played at the last two years, to me, has given him a leg up. He was one of the bright spots in last night’s game. He played in the game the way he practices. To me, continuing to develop and give Nick a bigger role was something that we have to do. Josiah, the hardest position, I think, to transfer from high school to college is point guard. With continued work, he’s going to be a much better player four weeks from now, two weeks from now, than he is right now, and I’m confident in saying that.”
Thoughts: Miller’s right when he says that the Wildcats aren’t the third best team in the conference right now. But as Turner, in particular, gets his legs underneath him, and once Parrom returns, the Wildcats will be very good.
Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences as well as a Pac-12 microsite staffer. You can find him on Twitter @AMurawa.
Reader’s Take I
With only two of the ten players named to last year’s All-Pac-10 team returning, the race for the conference player of the year is wide open.
Top Storylines
Twelve Is The New Ten: After 33 seasons, college basketball fans on the west coast are getting used to calling their conference the Pac-12. With Colorado and Utah along for the ride (and currently taking their lumps in football), gone are the days of the home-and-away round-robin schedule on the basketball side of things. But lest the traditionalists complain too much, it could have been much different, as schools from Oklahoma and Texas (obviously the very definition of “Pacific” states) flirted with changing their allegiance for the second consecutive year before heading back to the Big 12.
Fresh Blood: As mentioned above in our poll question, the conference loses eight of the ten players on last year’s all-Pac-10 team, with just Jorge Gutierrez of Cal and UCLA’s ReevesNelson returning. In other words, it is time for a new set of players to step up and take the reins of the league. The most likely candidates are a talented group of freshman guards – names like Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson at Arizona, Tony Wroten, Jr. at Washington, JabariBrown at Oregon, NormanPowell at UCLA and ChassonRandle at Stanford.
Jorge Gutierrez Is A Lightning Rod Of A Guard For Mike Montgomery's Golden Bears, And Big Things Are Expected.
The Carson Show On Hold. A seventh highly-touted freshman guard, however, is stuck in limbo. Arizona State’s JahiiCarsonhas yet to be cleared for practice while an investigation continues into an online course the 5’10” point guard took this summer at Adams State in Colorado. That school has yet to release his course transcript, and until that happens, Carson is unable to practice with the Sun Devils, making an already difficult situation (being regarded as a savior for a team coming off a 12-19 campaign) even worse.
Hard Times for Kevin Parrom: Sometimes, just when everything is going well, life conspires to deal you a set of circumstances that just suck. It’s not bad enough that Parrom took a couple of bullets on September 24 during a home invasion, while in the Bronx visiting his sick mother. But on October 16, Parrom’s mom then passed away after a long battle with cancer. While both incidents will have lasting effects on Parrom, the bullet wounds are the biggest obstacle to him getting back on the court, with bullet fragments lodged in his right leg, a boot on his right foot, nerve damage and his left hand currently wrapped up to protect lacerations sustained in the attack. Parrom is rehabilitating his injuries and as of this writing, no hard timetable is set for his return. But if anybody is due for a good break or two, Parrom’s the guy. Get well soon, Kevin.
Monday was a big day on the recruiting front in the Pac-12, with Arizona garnering the biggest headlines by getting a commitment from 7’0” center Kaleb Tarczewski – the sixth rated 2012 recruit according to ESPNU and eighth according to Scout. Tarczewski puts a nice bow on Sean Miller’s second-straight top-five recruiting class and likely seals up the top overall ranking for Arizona. Joining Tarczewski in Tucson next year will be 6’8” power forward Brandon Ashley (Scout’s #3 recruit, ESPNU’s #4), 6’10” center Grant Jerrett (Scout #23, ESPNU #9) and 6’2” shooting guard Gabe York (Scout #42, ESPNU #36). And, Miller’s still got a line in on the recruitment of the top recruit in the 2012 class, Shabazz Muhammad, although it appears UA trails a few others schools in that race. Most impressive, perhaps, about the job Miller has done is the fact that the Wildcats are once again recruiting on a national basis, pulling not only kids from California and the Southwest, but going back east and stealing Tarczewski away from Kansas, among others.
Miller Just Scored The Sixth-Ranked Recruit In The 2012 Class
Regardless, Miller has put together an impressive cast of characters in the desert. With his four-man 2011 recruiting class still just getting its feet wet, the Wildcats could have an impressive two-deep roster next year, allowing him to play a full ten-man (or more) rotation, as he seems to prefer. Check out this potential depth chart for 2011-12:
The first exhibition game for a Pac-12 team this year went down on Thursday night, and while the rest of the sports world was enthralled by a magical World Series Game Six, or even Case Keenum throwing like nine or 12 or 15 touchdowns (sorry, lost count) against Rice, defending Pac-10 champion Arizona was busy losing to Seattle Pacific. Sure, it was an exhibition game, and sure, anyone who wants to overreact to this game needs to remember Syracuse losing to Le Moyne a few years back and then proceeding to be a top five team all year, but we got a couple of things out of the game Thursday night. First, and foremost, we got to watch college basketball again, and we got to see an entertaining game and a close finish. More importantly for the long haul, we got a look at the new Arizona. Freshman guard Nick Johnson looked like a guy unafraid to take a big shot in the closing minutes, while back court mate Josiah Turner looked very much like a freshman playing in his first collegiate game. He got the start at point over Jordin Mayes, but despite a few flashes here and there, he looked like a work in progress. For a bit more detail on this surprising game, check out our debut version of After the Buzzer, Pac-12 Edition from late last night.
As was mentioned in yesterday’s Morning Five on the main RTC site, a scrimmage between current Washington players and Washington alumni was cancelled after head coach Lorenzo Romar mentioned the game on a local radio station and some of the players invited fans on Twitter. Holding the scrimmage would not have been a violation, but publicizing the scrimmage in such a manner would have qualified as a secondary violation. Dumb, right? Well, luckily for the players (both current and former), the scrimmage did occur, with former Huskies like Isaiah Thomas, Nate Robinson, Brandon Roy, Quincy Pondexter and others apparently playing for the alumni team. Unfortunately for fans, security was in place keeping anybody from seeing the game. Well done, NCAA.
USC’s redshirt sophomore center Dewayne Dedmon is just one among the several Trojans battling injury concerns in the early going (Jio Fontan and Curtis Washington, the two other prominent injuries on the roster). But for Dedmon, at least, there is a bright side to his injury. A natural lefty, what little basketball Dedmon has played (he didn’t start playing organized basketball until his senior year in high school), he has mostly played with his right hand. However, since breaking his right hand on October 11, Dedmon has spent the past few weeks giving his left hand some work. While the injury may not be ideal for the undermanned SC roster, head coach Kevin O’Neill thinks “in the long run, it’s going to help.” Dedmon’s hand will be re-evaluated next week with the hope that he’ll be ready to go when the Trojans open their season on November 11 against Cal State Northridge.
In yesterday’s Morning Five, we talked about how Arizona State was toying around with the idea of using two seven-footers, sophomore Jordan Bachynski and junior Ruslan Pateev, in the lineup at the same time. If you wondered why, consider these troublesome stats: Last year ASU didn’t outrebound a single conference opponent, opposing post players typically went off against the Sun Devils (for example, career-highs for Derrick Williams, DeAngelo Casto and Matthew Bryan-Amaning in three straight games, which were preceded by double-doubles by Josh Owens and Markhuri Sanders-Frison), and the trio of Kyle Cain, Pateev and Bachynski combined to average 10.6 points and 8.5 rebounds in Pac-10 games. Suffice it to say, there is room for improvement up front for ASU, and with Cain bulking up and Bachynski getting more comfortable after a two-year Mormon mission, advances should be on the horizon.
Finally, we’d like to unveil a little Friday fun at the five spot. Connor and I will engage in a little pick ‘em on Friday mornings, starting with Pac-12 footballgames for now, but moving onto some of the more interesting basketball games as the season progresses. Each week we’ll put our picks for the weekend games here, keep track of them as we go along, and eventually declare a winner and award Paul Bunyan’s Old Oaken Skillet (okay, we’re still working on the name) at the end of the year. Each week we’ll pick the most interesting game and try to call a score on that one (in bold below), while the other games we’ll pick straight up. Here are our picks for this week:
The Lede. In the “Did that just happen” category, we have the Seattle Pacific Falcons, who promptly marched into the McKale Center on Thursday night and stunned the Arizona Wildcats, 69-68, in the first Pac-12 exhibition game of the season. This wasn’t your usual “LeMoyne over Syracuse” upset, where a D-II team gets very lucky and catches multiple breaks. The Falcons came in with an excellent game plan, executed it to perfection, and just flat out-played the Cats for 40 minutes. SPU understandably came out tight, with the Wildcats scoring the first six points of the game and the Falcons not making a basket until Jobi Wall put home a three two and a half minutes in. From there until the final ten minutes of the SECOND half, it was all Falcons, building up a thirteen-point advantage that they would hold on to for most of the game.
Get 'Em Out of Your System Now, Coach... (credit: Az Republic/D. Kadlubowski)
Arizona would finally regain the lead at 63-61 with 4:03 left, but Wall put the Falcons back on top with a layup two minutes later. The last minute of the game was absolute nuts, beginning with Arizona’s Solomon Hill bringing the Cats to within three with a free throw with 23 seconds remaining. After an SPU miss on the free throw line, Arizona pulled within one on a layup with five seconds to go. The inbounds pass would then be intercepted at half court, but a desperation three at the buzzer by the freshman Nick Johnson would fall short, clinching the surprising one-point victory for the Falcons. Read the rest of this entry »
After skipping out on the hysteria that is Midnight Madness, both Arizona and Arizona State gave their fans a treat last weekend with events centered around open scrimmages on their home court. For the ambitious desert hoops fan, they were even scheduled appropriately enough to allow the truly committed to make it to both events.
Jesse Perry will be a major factor up front for the Wildcats this season.
For the last three years under head coach Sean Miller, Arizona has opted for using the Red-Blue Game, an intrasquad scrimmage played at the McKale Center, as a chance to present his team to the fans. Calling Midnight Madness little more than “playing a glorified pickup game,” Miller has instead turned the annual game into an event, complete with player introductions, a dunk contest, and the honoring of former players. For instance,in front of a capacity crowd that included former Wildcat greats such as Andre Iguodala, Richard Jefferson, Jason Terry, Jerryd Bayless, Lute Olson and others, as well as a handful of recruits, Arizona this year inducted Derrick Williams and Chase Budinger to its prestigious Ring of Honor.
As for the game itself, it was a good chance for UA fans to get a first glimpse at their highly-touted freshman class of Josiah Turner, Nick Johnson, Angelo Chol and Sidiki Johnson, who went for a combined 49 points in the scrimmage. The two Johnsons (no relation) were arguably the most impressive players on the day by all accounts, with Nick hitting three three-pointers, playing tough defense, throwing down a put-back dunk (on top of winning the pre-game dunk contest) and even running a bit of point. Sidiki, meanwhile, hit all seven of his shots from the field, including a couple of threes (a skill he was not known for in high school) and looks to be slightly ahead of Chol in the chase for minutes. Senior forward Jesse Perry led all scorers on the day with 20 points, including three threes, an addition to his game since last year. He will seemingly be the main offensive threat in the frontcourt for the Wildcats. Junior wing Kevin Parrom, who is recovering from being shot in New York about a month ago, dressed for the game but did not play. Nevertheless, there was good news on the Parrom front in the postgame press conference, as Miller mentioned that the team is unlikely to redshirt him this season, although he is expected to miss some of the Wildcats’ early games while his rehabilitation continues.
Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @themulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.
