1. Connecticut forward DeAndre Daniels showed his toughness on Saturday by returning from what appeared to be a bad ankle injury in the Huskies’ victory at Rutgers. The junior forward went down with 4:11 to go in the first half, but eventually returned to produce a gutty seven-point, five-rebound performance in limited time. Daniels had been criticized for his lack of… well, anything and everything in the prime time game against Louisville last weekend. But he bounced back with a 31-point performance in a mid-week win over Temple, and it was his toughness returning after Saturday’s injury that may have UConn fans hopeful for the remainder of the season. After all the criticism, maybe Daniels is out to prove something. The Huskies certainly need him to play at his best is they hope to have a special season.
2. Louisville needs Chris Jones in its lineup if the Cards hope to win another national title, but a different version than the one before he was sidelined with an oblique injury. Jones will most likely come off the bench going forward, since in his absence Terry Rozier has played exceptional basketball. The main difference between the two players is that, according to head coach Rick Pitino, Rozier understands the russdiculousness of Russ Smith while Jones does not. Smith doesn’t always make the obvious choice — such as passing to an open Jones, for example — and that could become frustrating for a score-first player who likes the ball in his hands. Regardless, the idea of Jones, along with forward Wayne Blackshear (and streaky-shooting Tim Henderson), coming off the bench could provide an offensive spark even more dangerous than last season’s group.
3. South Florida has signed an agreement with a Texas-based executive recruting firm to assist with its athletic director search, at a cost of $100,000. The firm’s president, Bob Beaudine, is reportedly a friend and associate of Rob Higgins, the overwhelming local favorite to replace retiring athletic director Doug Woolard. Higgins, a USF grad, currently heads the Tampa Bay Sports Commission. In the ever-changing climate of conference alignment in college sports, there’s never been a more important time to have the right person leading an athletic department, especially for schools like South Florida that are currently on the outside of the football-driven conference landscape.
4. Longtime friends and point guard rivals, Quentin Snider and Tyler Ulis, look to continue their rivalry at the college level by attending Louisville and Kentucky, respectively. Ulis attends Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, while Snider plays at Ballard High School in Louisville. The two have played with or against each other in AAU and basketball camps since the second grade, including a stint as roommates at Chris Paul’s elite point guard camp in August. The two are excited to become a part of one of the country’s best rivalries. “Us going to rivals [in college] is going to be pretty fun,” Snider said. “He knows my moves. I know his moves.” Ulis is the No. 6 ranked point guard by Scout.com, a spot ahead of Snider.
5. The Cincinnati coaching staff wore “4 Pete’s Sake” lapel pins yesterday in the Bearcats’ overtime win against Temple. The pins were worn to recognize former assistant coach Dan Peters, who is fighting pancreatic cancer. Peters is currently the director of basketball operations at Akron, and he was at Cincinnati for six seasons (1999-2004) under Bob Huggins. Akron held a purple-out last week in honor of Peters, and this weekend was also dedicated to the Coaches vs. Cancer suits and sneakers program, where coaches all around the country wore sneakers to support the good cause.

1. Friday’s major commitments turned out to be a case of the rich get richer. The big announcement was the simultaneous commitment of Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones to play for Duke next year. As we said on Friday morning just the addition of those two should give Duke the #1 recruiting class in the country this year and quite possibly make them the preseason favorite for the 2015 national title. In perhaps the most controversial move of the day Cliff Alexander selected Kansas, but not before picking up an Illinois hat, putting it down, and then finally putting on a Kansas hat. The move generated a fair amount of criticism with many Illini fans and possibly the coaching staff thinking that they had the inside track on Alexander, an Illinois native. We doubt that the two teams will play next season, but we imagine the reception that Alexander would receive would not be unlike what Eric Gordon received on his only trip to Illinois. In the wake of the other news, Stanley Johnson‘s commitment to Arizona got lost in the shuffle, but the addition of another Mater Dei star (Aaron Gordon is also from there should help the Wildcats reload and help ensure that they will still be a force when Gordon presumably leaves Tucson after this season.
2. In a reminder that fans should not be too hard on a recruit when he spurns your school, Quentin Snider announced that he was backing out of his commitment to Illinois (Friday was not John Groce’s finest day) and recommitting to Louisville. Snider originally committed to Louisville in August 2011 before backing out of that commitment at the end of July 2013 and chose Illinois in September 2013, but when Jaquan Lyle backed out of his own commitment to Louisville the Cardinals needed a point guard for the class of 2014 and Snider decided to return to his original commitment. Although Snider never officially announced it, Lyle’s committment and backing out of his committment at Louisville likely played a large role in Snider’s vascillation.
3. The case involving Duke Mondy and Dante Williams that led the two Oakland players to temporarily be arrested on rape charges before being dropped. Without getting into too many details (you can go to TMZ for that, seriously) it appears to be a case of the players getting involved with a woman after their curfew while on a road trip and the woman becoming upset at the end and accusing the players of rape. While the players were able to avoid any serious legal repercussions it appears that they may be facing a rather stiff punishment from the school.
4. At this point in the season we do not know what to think of Florida with their ever-changing roster. While Billy Donovan did reinstate Dorian Finney-Smith, who responded with 17 points and nine rebounds in his first game back, they are still without Damontre Harris, who remains off the team. With all of the uncertainty around the Gator lineup they remain one of the harder teams to get a handle on early in the season. Having said that if Donovan can get some semblance of a rotation by Christmas time they could be a tough out in March once again.
5. Last year, Jack Taylor made international headlines with his 138-point performance. This year, he barely gets a mention in the Morning Five with his 109-point outburst yesterday. Taylor’s performance yesterday is third all-time trailing just his effort last year and a 113-point game in 1954. His stat line (and his output) would be a solid five game stretch for most players: 35-of-70 from the field, 24-of-48 3, and 15-of-17 from the  free throw line. Perhaps our favorite part of the game summary is the school mentioning the “big games from others” who scored between 10 and 15 points. For perspective, Taylor scored 53 in the first nine minutes of the second half.

Louisville’s weekend is already off to a spectacular start before the basketball game versus Cornell even tips off this evening. Homegrown Class of 2014 Ballard High School product and four-star point guard Quentin Snider elected to return to the red and black by signing with the Cardinals Friday morning. Snider, a lifelong Louisville fan, had committed to Rick Pitino’s squad during his sophomore season before rescinding his commitment earlier this year and verbaling to Illinois. Sound familiar? James Blackmon Jr. recently did the same thing with Indiana by first committing, then backing off, then coming back to sign with the Hoosiers. Blackmon Jr. never committed to another team, however, so that makes Snider’s waffling back and forth a bit different.

Quentin Snider Decided to Stay Home After All

The Louisville coaching staff quit recruiting Snider after he decommitted, while the Hoosier staff reportedly kept after Blackmon. Regardless, a practice that before was rare — a player recommitting to a team he had previously decommitted from — has now happened twice in a matter of weeks. Snider originally cited the bevy of backcourt players on the roster and  other recruited as a reason to look elsewhere. But, since then, JaQuan Lyle decommitted from the Cardinals, which opened up an opportunity for Snider to slide into his place. He made it official by signing his letter of intent earlier yesterday. He also took to Twitter to break the news. Snider stabilizies the point guard position for the Cardinals for the next few years, which brings a sigh of relief to Louisville fans since Pitino recently said junior Chris Jones would make a good offensive spark off of an NBA bench.

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1. When last season ended many college basketball fans bemoaned the end of some of college basketball’s most significant rivalries including Georgetown–Syracuse. Both of last season’s match-ups between the two schools were hailed with a great degree of anticipation as they were expected to be the last time the rivals faced off for the foreseeable future and rightfully so. Well except for the fact that the two schools are now reportedly negotiating a ten-year deal that we would bring back the rivalry again. According to Syracuse officials their side has agreed to the “concept” of it, but are still waiting on a response from Georgetown officials. For his part, Georgetown coach John Thompson III also appears to be in favor of this. We doubt that there is anybody who would oppose rekindling the rivalry on purely basketball terms so we hope that conference and administrative politics do not get in the way of one of the best rivalries in college sports.
2. The deicision by Quentin Snider, a point guard who is ranked 28th overall in the class of 2014, to commit to Illinois over UCLA is a huge get for John Groce. The second year coach already had picked up a commitment earlier this month from Leron Black, a power forward ranked 36th overall, so this is shaping up to be one of the better classes in recent memory for the Illini. On the other end of the spectrum, this is a fairly significant blow for the Bruins who lost out of Jordan McLaughlin one day earlier. The Bruins should be able to weather the storm thanks to the presence of Kyle Anderson who will probably be staying at UCLA longer than he anticipated, but it still raises questions as to who will succeed him when he eventually leaves.
3. According to Myron Medcalf, Wichita State freshman guard D.J. Bowles underwent an unspecified surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota yesterday morning. Bowles had gone to Mayo earlier this week where he underwent a series of tests after collapsing while working out on September 3. We have no idea as to what kind of surgery Bowles underwent or when (if ever) he is expected to return to the court as the Wichita State staff is appropriately releasing extremely limited information. We could speculate as to what type of procedure Bowles had, but instead we will just wish him the best of luck in his recovery.
4. It turns out that schools with limited resources and questionable academic standards are not the only ones with issues with APR scores. A column in The Harvard Crimson earlier this week pointed out the relatively low APR scores of many programs including men’s basketball. Now, we will start off by saying that Harvard‘s APR scores for basketball are well above the numbers required to participate in the NCAA Tournament, but the article and more specifically the comments, which appear to be from Harvard students and alumni, indicate some of the sociological issues–seen more clearly in the big academic fraud scandal at the school a year ago–within the campus and these APR scores only seem to add to that.
5. We are getting to that point in the year where various publications start unveiling their preseason All-American teams. The Sporting News is one of the first we have seen and for the most part we tend to agree with their picks (you can watch the video and ignore the slideshow if you refuse to click through a slideshow). Our biggest issue with their first team is also their biggest issue with their first team, which is the omission of Julius Randle. To be fair it is hard to criticize them for leaving off a freshman, but we probably would have given him the nod over Mitch McGary. There should be plenty of other preseason All-American lists coming out over the next month or two, but we suspect that most of them will look fairly similar to this one.

Seven Sweet Scoops is the newest and hottest column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting analyst. Every Friday he will discuss the seven top stories from the week in the wide world of recruiting, involving offers, which prospect visited where, recent updates regarding school lists, and more chatter from the recruiting scene. You can also check out more of his work at RTC with his weekly column “Who’s Got Next?”, as well as his work dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account @CLykinsBlog for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene.

Note: ESPN Recruiting used for all player rankings.

1. Wiggins Got Game?

Down in Tallahassee, Florida the nation’s No. 1 overall ranked senior, Andrew Wiggins, took his first official visit to Florida State this week. The 6’8″ Canadian small forward out of Huntington Prep (West Virginia) is highly regarded as the best high school basketball player in the country and rightfully so. However, the visit is now being highly publicized for the off-court attention he received more than just basketball. Before watching the Seminoles’ intrastate match-up between No. 6 Florida, in which they were routed 72-47, the big story that has gone viral since Wednesday came from one small tweet from @NosillaDraw, a Florida State co-ed, who was one of Wiggins various “tour guides” on Tuesday. “If my girls and I didn’t convince you to come to FSU last night I don’t know what would,” tweeted the young female, attached with a photo of Wiggins and three other FSU co-eds. The tweet, which was picked up originally by Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio, caused quite the recruiting stir in Lexington and in Tallahassee moments after being sent to the masses. Wiggins, who is also considering Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio State, was then spotted behind the FSU bench along with his parents and FSU alums, Marita Payne and Mitchell Wiggins, for the game. Fans and cheerleaders alike also made their case for why he should become a Seminole, with chants, signs taking shots at Kentucky, and white T-shirts that spelled out “We Want Wiggins!” across the chest. While Florida State has a lot of work to do on the court this season, landing Wiggins would give the Seminoles their most coveted recruit during head coach Leonard Hamilton’s tenure. One thing is for certain — the Seminoles faithful reassured Wiggins that he is their No. 1 priority; however, time will tell in the spring if Wiggins agrees and makes Florida State his No. 1 choice.

A group of Florida State co-eds tried their hand at luring Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 overall ranked senior, to Tallahassee

2. Jabari Parker Returns To Court

He’s back. The nation’s No. 2 overall ranked senior, Jabari Parker, made his on-court return on Saturday night for Simeon Career Academy (Illinois) at the Chicago Elite Classic after nursing a fracture in his right foot suffered in the summer while participating with the U-17 Team USA squad. Parker was not expected to play for Wolverines as of the night before, but felt well enough to suit up and return to the court with his teammates in their season opener. Limited to just 10 minutes of action, Parker finished the game with six points, four rebounds and two assists as Simeon got a win in which they led wire-to-wire. Parker, who is deciding between BYU, Duke, Florida, Michigan State and Stanford, showed some signs of rust, but viewed it as just another hurdle in the recovery process. “I felt good,” the 6’8″ small foward said. “Of course I had some bumps and bruises coming in, but as the game progressed I was a little sore. But I’m learning how to get my wind back and trying to get back in shape.” He has taken four of his five official visits and will prepare to trip to Stanford before making his highly anticipated decision either in January or February. Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo was on hand at the Chicago Elite Classic as the Spartans, along with Duke, have been mentioned as the co-favorites to land his services.

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Seven Sweet Scoops is the newest and hottest column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting analyst. Every Friday he will discuss the seven top stories from the week in the wide world of recruiting, involving offers, which prospect visited where, recent updates regarding school lists, and more chatter from the recruiting scene. You can also check out more of his work at RTC with his weekly column “Who’s Got Next?”, as well as his work dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account @CLykinsBlog for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene.

Note: ESPN Recruiting used for all player rankings.

1. Julius Randle To Miss Three Months. Julius Randle, the No. 4 overall ranked prospect in the class of 2013, is expected to miss three months after fracturing a bone on the top of his right foot. From Prestonwood Christian Academy (Texas), Randle suffered the injury during the Thanksgiving Hoopfest on November 24. He underwent surgery on Tuesday and is targeting a return to the court either during the high school playoffs for Prestonwood, or the postseason all-star games for the senior class at the latest. Among the schools pursuing the 6’9” power forward include Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina State, Oklahoma and Texas. Randle has already made visits to Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma and has finalized visits to Texas (December 15-16), Kansas (December 28-30) and NC State (January 25-27), with a spring decision most likely. One day prior to his injury, Randle had notched a double-double in his first and possibly only game for Prestonwood this season with 27 points and 13 rebounds in their season-opener.

Julius Randle is considering Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina State, Oklahoma and Texas

 2. Andrew Wiggins Scheduling Florida State Visit. The No. 1 overall ranked prospect in the class of 2013 and widely regarded as the best high school basketball player in the nation, Andrew Wiggins is planning his first official visit to Florida State. Although the date has yet to be confirmed, it is likely that the visit will come in the first weekend of December. Since his reclassification into the senior class, Wiggins has received new interest from the likes of Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio State. However, throughout his entire recruitment two schools have been viewed as the leaders for the 6’8” small forward, Florida State and Kentucky. When speaking of the Seminoles, the Wiggins name is synonymous with their program as both of Andrew’s parents — former NBA player Mitchell Wiggins and former Canadian Olympic track star Marita Payne-Wiggins — attended Florida State. A member of Huntington Prep (West Virginia), Wiggins most recently participated alongside teammate and Florida State commit Xavier Rathan-Mayes at the Charlotte Hoops Challenge in front of Seminoles’ head coach Leonard Hamilton and associate head coach Stan Jones. With a hectic playing schedule ahead of him, Wiggins is expected to plan more visits when he can in the future with a spring decision targeted.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Jon Hood scheduled for surgery: “Just a quick note on the recovery process of Jon Hood, who tore his ACL a couple of weeks ago and will most likely miss the season. Hood was on Twitter commiserating with North Carolina guard Leslie McDonald, who suffered the same injury recently, when he noted that he will be undergoing knee surgery on August 12th.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)
• McDonald Has Knee Surgery: An update on Leslie McDonald, who underwent durgery on Wednesday morning. (Tar Heel Fan)
• Coach Cal Makes Twitter Waves: “During an appearance on a Memphis program this morning, Coach Cal talked about college athletics and his ideas to change it and all of the other good nonsense that usually comes with those appearances. During the course of it, he touched on restrictions regarding phone calls and issued a line that launched a blog post at CBS and a million (that’s an estimate) re-Tweets about his ”shot” at Coach K.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)