In 2001, when Michigan and then-athletic director Bill Martin announced they had hired then-Seton Hall coach Tommy Amaker to try and rebuild the turmoil-riddled program in Ann Arbor, the fan base and the state’s pundits all hailed the move as an excellent one. Of course they probably would have been singing a different tune about the decision if they knew how close Martin had been to landing then-failed Boston Celtics’ coach Rick Pitino. Of course no one knew how close Pitino was to ending up with the Wolverines until the now-Louisville coach shared the story with Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski on SiriusXM radio earlier this week.

Rick Pitino In Ann Arbor? You’re Right, We Can’t See It Either

According to Pitino, he had already signed an agreement to become the next coach at Michigan and had even managed to convince his wife the move was a good one. Everything was basically finalized, that is until Martin decided to go play squash and tell his secretary he didn’t want to be disturbed; at that exact moment, another team from Kentucky came calling and Pitino’s wife felt the pull of familiar territory. In fact, let’s just let Pitino tell the story himself.

I was living right on Thom Avenue in Boston, and she came up and threw her book at me, and said, ‘You know, you’re afraid to go to Kentucky.’ It’s once every two years, what’s the big deal? They’re going to boo you, they’re going to yell things, for one game. What is the big deal? You don’t know anybody at Michigan, you’ve never been there, and now you’re going to pass on all your friends and your children, you’re older son, who’s settled down there, why would you do that?’

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1. After spending time in Louisville, Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis has some strong convictions about this year’s Cardinals team: “They have depth, athleticism, and they are as good defensively as any team in America. And to state the obvious, they are very, very well-coached. In other words, the sky’s the limit. It says here they’re going back to the Final Four.” After gelling so well down the stretch last season on their run to the Final Four, it’s easy to see why Louisville is such a trendy championship pick this year, and Davis does a great job of outlining it in this piece. The Cards have a great mix of veteran leadership and young talent, they play tenacious defense as Rick Pitino-coached squads are wont to do, and they have a number of unique, dynamic players who should blend well on the court.
2. Elsewhere on SI.com, Andy Glockner named the Big East as his second-ranked conference in his preseason conference power rankings, right behind the top-ranked Big 10. Glockner is also on the rapidly-filling ‘Ville bandwagon, saying the Cardinals “could be the best team in the nation.” Glockner goes on to say that Syracuse has “national title sleeper potential,” and has kind words to say about some of the conference’s second and third-tier teams like Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Marquette, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, and even Connecticut. The Big East loses points here due to their weak teams at the bottom of the conference. The Big 12, SEC, and ACC round out the top five.
3. Things haven’t been easy for Rutgers seniors Dane Miller and Austin Johnson.  The two have not seen the postseason since coming to Piscataway, and would like to see that change in their final year. Mike Rice expects the two to have a big impact in leading this year’s Rutgers team, where he expects to see improvement due to added experience, strength, and depth. Last season, Rice was criticized a bit after setting rather lofty expectations for his team, stating that he saw his team going 10-8 in conference play.  The Knights fell way short of that goal, going 5-13 in the Big East, but that hasn’t discouraged Rice, who is optimistic about this season:
   

   “I like coaching this team,” he said. “I’m more excited and energetic after practice than I am when I start the practice. That’s always a good sign. It wasn’t like that last year. It was a drain. […] The players took the energy and focus. Now they’re giving it. It’s fun to be around and that’s important. We had some growing pains, but I think we should bear the fruits of that youth and inexperience.”

4. Despite stating that he’s “walking side by side” with recently-retired coach Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie hasn’t been afraid to implement some changes to the normal Connecticut practice. One of these major adjustments is the implementation of live referees in practice. Shabazz Napier has already seen this move pay dividends: “You can tell it’s different. When you mess up, it’s good to have somebody on your back, but at the same time giving you that positive push. A lot of guys need that — keep pushing them.” Despite the change in coach and the fact that the Huskies will not be allowed to participate in any postseason play in 2013, the players seem to be coming together well as a team under Ollie’s brand of leadership, which will be important if he is to have the interim tag removed moving forward.
5. Notre Dame made some notable adjustments to its normal routine as well, moving one day of practice to the South Bend Kroc Center. The move allowed the Fighting Irish to engage with the local community as well as benefit from a change in scenery. Mike Brey invited local kids to take part in Notre Dame’s lay-up lines, and from all accounts, everyone involved had a great time… except, perhaps, Jack Cooley, who really wanted to go down the water slide: “I asked if I could come here whenever, but they said that you needed a membership, so I don’t know.” One day, Jack, one day. In crucial Brey mock turtleneck news, because he has eclipsed the 5,000 Facebook ‘Like’ plateau, the Notre Dame coach will be wearing a pink mock in the upcoming scrimmage against D-II Quincy University in support of breast cancer awareness month.

1. UCLA is lately starting to challenge Kentucky in terms of its news-making prowess as it seems like we’re discussing some new twist with Ben Howland’s team virtually every day in this space. The latest news out of Westwood is that still-ineligible superstar freshman Shabazz Muhammad injured his right shoulder in practice on Wednesday and underwent an MRI last evening to determine if there is any damage to the joint. He’ll be re-evaluated as a matter of course today, but at least so far, sources around the Bruins have been mum on the possible extent of his injury. This comes on the heels of an injury to David Wear’s ankle that has kept the big man out of practice for the last several days, not to mention the continuing dark cloud hovering over the program as a result of the ongoing NCAA investigations of Muhammad (the best wing in college basketball, according to CBSSports.com) and Kyle Anderson. Is there a turning point coming soon or are this year’s Bruins simply doomed from the start?
2. One school that has found clarity on the eligibility of one of its key players is Murray State. School administrators have made the difficult but correct decision to suspend guard Zay Jackson for the entire 2012-13 season as a result of his dastardly actions last month in using his car as a human battering ram in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We wrote in this very space last week that athletic director Allen Ward had no reasonable choice other than to bring the hammer down on Jackson, and it appears that in light of the shocking video showing Jackson’s rage, he certainly acceded to public pressure. Ward stated that Jackson could earn his way back on to the team next season, but it would take a showing of steps “above and beyond… [those] of an exemplary citizen” to prove to Ward, head coach Steve Prohm, and his teammates that he deserves a second chance. We’ll say this — the legal system will have its pound of flesh (Jackson will be sentenced next week for wanton endangerment) and now the school will have its penance as well. If Jackson wants to atone for his sins, he’ll have what should be a one-time opportunity to make things good in the next 50 weeks until the start of the 2013-14 season.
3. Don’t you hate when you read a piece that you wish you had already written? That’s exactly how we felt yesterday when we became aware of a fantastic article from The Atlantic‘s Stephen A. Miller that discusses an eminently reasonable solution to much of the perceived and actual inconsistencies in the NCAA‘s application of its rules. Outsource it. Miller argues that the NCAA carries so many inherent risks with its existing enforcement structure — conflicts of interest, inadequate funding, arbitrary and capricious rulings, a perception of playing favorites — that paying an outside entity to build a fair, transparent and consistent body of case law would result in growth in the one thing that the NCAA has trouble selling to the public right now: a strong perception of integrity. Miller’s piece is well worth the time for a read, but in the protect-your-own environment that we live in today, this has about as much chance of happening as Mark Emmert sprouting wings and delivering papers to Shabazz Muhammad’s dorm room.
4. A really interesting bit of news was released as part of a SiriusXM show Wednesday hosted by Mike Krzyzewski (“Basketball and Beyond“) with Louisville head coach Rick Pitino giving some insight as to how he ended up back in the Bluegrass State after an unsuccessful stint with the Boston Celtics. According to Pitino, it was his wife, Joanne, who talked him out of his commitment to become the new Michigan head coach by — are you ready for this? — challenging him for being “afraid to go back to the state of Kentucky to coach at Louisville, his old school’s arch-rival.” Now, we don’t claim to listen to or read every single comment that the loquacious Pitino has made over the last 10 years, but we’re pretty sure about one thing — the Louisville coach has gone on record dozens of times stating that he expected those same Kentucky fans to embrace him after his return to collegiate coaching. If this is in fact true — and, of course, we know it is not — what would he possibly have been afraid of? As a side note, props to Coach K for his investigative reporting in getting such a jewel of honesty out of Pitino — maybe he has a career on 60 Minutes ahead of him, as even in his 70s, he’d certainly mesh with the median age of its reporters.
5. Let’s close today with a list, as those are always fun for some debate no matter how ridiculous they turn out to be. Luckily, SI.com‘s Andy Glockner does his homework year-round, so his opinions are on the positive side of the cut line. He ranks all the Division I conferences from #1 to #33 with brief descriptions explaining why, for example, the Pac-12 ended up at #8 (ouch!) or the Big East shows at #2 in its last season as we typically think of it. Keeping in mind that people generally rate conferences based on the quality of their better teams — nobody really cares if your conference’s worst two teams would beat another league’s worst two teams — Glockner chooses the Big Ten as the top conference for the second year in a row. As we discussed on our Big Ten Preview Podblast yesterday, the top five teams in this league are legitimately good-to-great basketball teams. The four or five below that group are all good enough to threaten to make the NCAAs, although not all of them will do so; and so you’re left with just a couple of bottom-feeders whose fans are already thinking of next year. That’s an excellent and talented basketball league.

1. It’s now been about 10 days since the beginning of practices around the nation and you have to figure that coaches have started to get a sense as to what kind of team they’ll be able to put on the floor this season. But running against yourself only gets you so far by way of learning about your squad, so the NCAA allows coaches to set up so-called “secret scrimmages” between Division I schools so long as nobody other than the competitors are invited and nobody ever talks about them. CBSSports.com‘s Jeff Goodman has mined his sources to put together a list of non-games for the next week and there are a few of which we’d like to see some surreptitious 47%-style tape released afterward — a Xavier-West Virginia battle on Saturday; a Georgetown-North Carolina tilt as well as a Creighton-Iowa contest on Sunday; and, a Stanford-St. Mary’s game late next week. How about we just tip off the season this weekend instead — these are good games!
2. One of the few teams in America who would probably be better off from a competitive perspective playing five-on-five in its own gym rather than schlepping around to find its match is Louisville. Seth Davis reports from his time spent observing the Cardinals, and after describing in detail why he thinks that Rick Pitino truly is having the most fun coaching that he’s had in years (perhaps decades), he believes that Louisville brings back enough heart, defensive scrap and offensive firepower to make a return trip to the Final Four in 2012-13. While it’s true that outside shooting is probably going to remain a problem area and the Cards are prone to injuries, we really can’t disagree with him. With a healthy Wayne Blackshear and the continued improvement of Chane Behanan, we feel that Pitino’s offense will be quite a bit more fluid than the train wreck they often put on the floor last season.
3. If you had to pick one college basketball team that was the most influential — not necessarily the best, mind you — in the history of the game, who would it be? The 1966 Texas Western team that shocked all-white Kentucky and blew off the doors of the stereotype that black players were undisciplined and couldn’t play championship basketball? Perhaps the undefeated 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, the last team to run the table with an undefeated season and become the archetype for “perfect basketball” forever more? These teams and many others are considered in Alexander Wolff’s latest SI piece examining this very question. His choice: the 1964 UCLA Bruins, John Wooden’s first national championship team, a group that shocked the college basketball world in how it redefined how the very game was played (did you know that this unbeaten team wasn’t even ranked in the AP Top 20 to begin the season?). It’s an interesting read, and one frankly we find more compelling than the tired debates over which teams were “better,” an impossibly futile question to answer.
4. If you’re a college basketball junkie who loves mid-major hoops, you may want to considering finding the NBC Sports Network on your cable or satellite package this season. The network will show more than 50 games this season, but the majority of those will involve teams from four non-power leagues — the Atlantic 10, the Mountain West, the CAA, and the Ivy League. It is also the only place to find realistic television coverage of the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament in the Bahamas (apparently something called AXS.tv will cover two quarterfinal games), which for our money is by far the best of the various preseason tournaments this year — VCU, Duke, Memphis, Louisville, Northern Iowa, Missouri, Stanford and Minnesota will all be there this year. The network will also show both semifinals and the championship game of the CAA Tournament next March.
5. Finally, we’ll end with injury news. If you still have some college eligibility left and possess some semblance of a passing game and floor leadership at the point guard position, give Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard a phone call. His only legitimate point guard, sophomore Aaron Cosby, has sprained the PCL in his right knee and will be out of action for the next four to six weeks. Although the news could certainly be worse, entering the first month of the season and facing games against the likes of Washington, LSU and Wake Forest prior to the semester break isn’t exactly a recipe for winning without someone to run the offense.

1. WE GOT OURSELVES A COUPLA FEUDIN’ COACHES AT BIG EAST MEDIA DAY! Jim Boeheim and Rick Pitino coach teams that do not play in the Big 12, obviously. But a reporter at Big East Media Day asked Boeheim about Rick Pitino saying the additions of Memphis and Temple to the Big East will “more than make up for” the losses of Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Jimmy B responded by saying that Pitino was full of, uh…”Schmidt” if he said that and added that if he were in the Big 12 “like he wanted to be,” he’d call them the best league. OH SNAP! Pitino responded to Boeheim’s quote by saying Boeheim was also full of “Schmidt.” While understanding the loss of Syracuse isn’t ideal, Pitino remained optimistic about the new teams coming next season. I think it’s only a matter of time before Louisville will be a member of the Big 12 but man I wish I was at Big East Media Day! If you’re a reporter going to one of these things, you could only dream of hearing something other than PC statements and coachspeak. It makes them seem like regular people.
2. Calling fouls in the paint are probably the toughest thing to do if you’re a college basketball official. So Curtis Shaw, supervisor of officials for the conference, shone a little light on the issue and laid out how this league will rule on such fouls. I’m not a fan of coming out and saying how refs are going to rule on this because now teams are going to practice charges in a way to get the bang-bang plays to go in their favor every time. If I were Shaw, staying quiet and keeping everything ambiguous maintains a balance within everyone in the league.
3. Can you keep a secret: The freshmen in the Big 12 are pretty good. The Oklahoma State Cowboys, Texas Longhorns and Baylor Bears are all quite similar. Opposing coaches like them to finish in the top-third of the league and now they each have players on the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Watch List. Seems like everything that’s been said about how much Marcus Smart can make an impact has already been said, but not enough has been said about Texas’ Cameron Ridley and Baylor’s Isaiah Austin. Remember how epic DeJuan Blair vs Hasheem Thabeet was, before they played against each other and Thabeet was found to be nothing more than a tall stiff? Yep, it’ll be just like that. But better.
4. Speaking of the Baylor Bears, it received a recent commitment from 2013 forward Ishmail Wainwright.  The former Missouri commitment considered St. John’s, Texas, Ohio State, and Baylor in his final four. In this Rumble in the Garden link, the Johnnies seem to have been the favorites to land the wing but Wainwright becomes the second big-time talent to have seriously considered St. John’s to end up with Baylor (Ricardo Gathers is the other). If you think Baylor recruiting hasn’t truly gone national yet, then you are sadly mistaken.
5. The 2007-08 Kansas basketball team will be inducted into the Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame during K Club and Homecoming Weekend next week. This is hardly a shock. The Kansas-Memphis national championship game gave college basketball one of the better ends to the season in recent memory. It won’t be long before Bill Self has his own Hall of Fame induction ceremony, KU and the Basketball HOF included.

1. Marquette blog Cracked Sidewalks cites a new article by Dan McGrath as symptomatic of the growing cognitive dissonance suffered by MU fans, boosters and administrators, as they try to reconcile integrity with the realities of building an elite basketball program. The sex scandal involving basketball players that rocked Marquette last summer is the kind of sensational event that forces introspection and re-evaluation. The schism between fans who strictly prioritize success and those who stress doing things “the right way” is a theme that resonates throughout college basketball, but is an acutely sensitive topic at the Catholic Big East schools. CBS’ Jeff Goodman had recently raised doubts that the ambitious Buzz Williams and hyper-vigilant athletic director Larry Williams could coexist without stepping on each other’s toes. It remains to be seen if their priorities are entirely compatible.
2. According to Jeff Borzello at CBS, Providence coach Ed Cooley floated the idea of redshirting Kris Dunn during Big East Media Day. “It’s a possibility. But I’m trying to get him for every Big East game. I need him,” Cooley admitted, before qualifying, “but I’m in it for the long haul.” Should Dunn return, the Friars’ coach plans to use him and fellow point guard Vincent Council simultaneously, leaning on a talented starting lineup to carry a pretty shallow depth chart. Cooley did suggest that Providence could have “the best backcourt in the country” next year, though it’s hard to imagine Ledo sticking around for a second year unless his draft stock arbitrarily plummets. (h/t Friar Blog)
3. John Thompson III ended the week empty handed on the recruiting trail. Roddy Peters committed to Maryland earlier in the week, and on Thursday Memphis forward Johnathan Williams III picked Missouri over the Hoyas, Michigan State and Tennessee. The Casual Hoya depicted the scene as a bizarre caricature of a commitment ceremony: “After an endless slideshow to the tune of R. Kelly’s “World’s Greatest,” a moving speech by his Aunt Lynn and a sermon by some guy in a blue shirt, ‘JW3’…put on a Missouri hat while leavings hats for Georgetown, Michigan State, Tennessee and George Mason on the table to high five themselves for dodging a bullet.” Ostentatious announcement notwithstanding, it’s hard to characterize missing out on a top-50 recruit with Williams’ length and skill as “dodging a bullet.”
4. Rick Pitino –– a constant fixture in this week’s M5 –– made some interesting comments to St. John’s blog Rumble in the Garden on Wednesday about a flawed recruiting philosophy in the post-Carnesecca era, which he believes had stunted the program for years. Pitino explained, “The mistake that St. John’s made after Louie was that they didn’t recruit outside the city… In Louie’s time, he could do that, when it wasn’t the world of AAU basketball.” New York City basketball has developed a kind of diaspora in the last couple decades, concentrated in prep schools across New England whose blue chip recruits seldom return home. Pitino points out that St. John’s is taking the correct recruiting approach under these circumstances: “Lavin can go to Chicago and to Indiana (to recruit), because now the kids from all over the nation want to come here.” Quinn Rochford astutely points out how unthinkable it would have been 20 years ago to envision a St. John’s team whose best players are from Houston, Los Angeles, Ohio, Nigeria, and the Dominican Republic.
5. On Wednesday, USA Today published a comprehensive look at the basketball-crazed triumvirate of Indiana, Kentucky and Louisville, and the intense rivalries that develop at the geographical nexus of this year’s top title contenders. One Pitino quote in particular insinuated that having three basketball-centric schools dominate the national consciousness headed into the season is good for college basketball in general. Perhaps having fervent fan bases in such frenzy will counteract the recent common tendency to subordinate basketball to football, and view college sports through the lens of football-driven realignment.

1. Big East Media Day took place yesterday and produced some excellent quotes. Ed Cooley stole the show with his dry and profane take on the Big East landscape. In response to his team’s last-place ranking in the preseason coaches’ poll, the Providence coach told the media “I like when we’re overlooked, we’re going to bite some asses.” Cooley also articulated his recruiting philosophy ––“I love the ‘us against the world’ mentality. I want guys that are edgy, pissed off” –– and praised Vincent Council as “the best point guard in the country.” Buzz Williams contributed a colorful metaphor of his own when he described Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom as “a really good drug for us… we became addicts to what they gave us every day.”
2. The eccentric egos we’ve come to expect from Big East coaches were on full display when Rick Pitino and Jim Boeheim traded barbs at Media Day. Pitino, a vocal advocate of Big East basketball, downplayed the significance of losing Syracuse to the ACC, and wondered aloud “how many fans they’re going to bring to Tobacco Road.” After catching wind of Rick’s comments, Boeheim went off: “He’s full of s**t if that’s what he really said. If he was in the Big 12 like he wanted to be, he’d be saying the Big 12 is the best. That’s the bottom line…I’m really tired of him saying what Syracuse should be or should have done because they would have left in a heartbeat. Everybody knows it.” Pitino responded by reiterating his point that while they won’t replace the fan presence of the Orange, conference newcomers Temple and Memphis will bring comparable basketball quality to the table. He also quipped that “I think [Boeheim’s] full of s**t, so we’re both full of it.”
3. Speaking of Pitino, the Louisville coach heaped praise on interim UConn coach Kevin Ollie during interviews yesterday. He characterized the hiring as a “no-brainer” and said “there’s not a coach in the country Connecticut can hire that’s better than Kevin Ollie. He’s extremely bright; his players are going to love him. Technically, he’s very sound… Overachiever as a player, college and pro.” Learning of Pitino’s flattering comments, Ollie keenly observed “He still cut me [from the Celtics roster]. I wasn’t that smart.”
4. The Hartford Courant produced some thorough and nuanced coverage of Media Day, including a piece on UConn players being unfazed by low expectations, heading into the season ranked in the bottom half of the Big East. Said Tyler Olander, “[In 2010], we went from 10^th [in the Big East] to number one in the country. Preseason is preseason.” It’s a message of blue-collar work ethic that Kevin Ollie –– the consummate journeyman during his 13 seasons with 12 teams in the NBA –– is surely emphasizing heading into an otherwise bleak season with no postseason prospects. What’s becoming increasingly obvious in the aftermath of Jim Calhoun’s retirement is how much this Huskies team seems to adore Ollie. It will be interesting to see how the players respond with both their collective pride and their coach’s job on the line this year.
5. The same day Mike Aresco revealed that Madison Square Garden is extending its contract to host the Big East’s postseason tournament, the Washington Post revealed that the Verizon Center has placed a bid to host the ACC Tournament. The home floor of the Georgetown Hoyas, which had hosted the tournament in 2005, is an appropriate choice for a conference in the midst of northern expansion. But the idea of Syracuse and Pitt playing on Georgetown’s home court in the ACC Tournament also highlights the acute absurdity of conference realignment.

1. Where many midnight madness events favor glitz and glamour over basketball substance, Louisville‘s event at the Yum! Center was all business. The Cardinals are a few months removed from a Final Four berth, and enter the 2012-13 season as one of the favorites to return, so it is little surprise that the team is taking their practice time seriously. Point guard Peyton Siva said as much about Louisville’s midnight madness event: “It’s definitely all business here,” Siva said. “I wish we could Midnight Madness and play around, but Coach P is a business-first type of guy. We have our fun after practice, but once we lace it up and step on the court, it’s all business and that’s how we play.” Don’t worry though, the Cardinals did find time to dance to “Gangnam Style”, because it is still in fact the fall of 2012.
2. Pittsburgh’s Steven Adams continues to receive praise from various publications in their preseason lists and rankings. Today, it is Athlon Sports, who lists Adams at the top of its “Top Impact Freshman of 2012-13” rankings heading into this season, noting that Adams is the highest-rated recruit to ever sign with Pittsburgh, and that though he is raw, his talent should allow him to be very productive for the Panthers this season.
3. That whole “will he stay home in Syracuse or join Kentucky’s stellar 2012 recruiting class” thing?  Syracuse freshman big man DaJuan Coleman said that was never even much of a debate for him. “I wasn’t close at all,” Coleman told the Post-Standard’s Donna Ditota. “I had a feeling I was going to come here since my junior year. I just wanted to go through the recruitment and everything.” Coleman joins former high school teammate Brandon Triche at Syracuse this season, and unlike some other recent Syracuse freshman bigs, many believe that Coleman has the polish to be an effective player on both ends of the court immediately. If anything, the bulky Coleman should help shore up the major rebounding problems that plagued the Orange in 2011-12.
4. It is no secret that this basketball season in Storrs is going to be a trying one for all involved. The players have no postseason to play for, Kevin Ollie is fighting for a multi-year contract, and the administrators who need to make decisions that will impact the program going forward will be doing so under the gaze of legendary head coach emeritus Jim Calhoun, who is expected to remain a major part of the program. With all of the pressure that is being heaped on the Connecticut program, Ollie’s utilization of a sports psychologist with the whole team may be a very wise move early in his tenure. UConn is working with Dr. Joe Carr, a psychologist who worked with UMass last year en route to a strong year for the Minutemen, to work through many of the chemistry issues that plagued the Huskies in 2011-12.  Carr is no stranger to helping teams come together, as noted in the Courant’s article, and he describes the positive effects of sports psychology further: “If we can get players to develop blind trust and buy into a principle, they are going to outplay a lot of people. They are playing for something else, and that’s each other. The teams that win are usually the ones that make the most sacrifices.”
5. Prized recruit Tyler Roberson is on the radar of many Big East teams, but he chose to head to Rutgers for this year’s midnight madness.  Roberson would be an absolute recruiting coup for Mike Rice and company, as he holds offers from Big East rivals Syracuse, Villanova, and rival-to-be SMU, as well as perennial national power Kansas.  Kentucky is also involved, as Tyler Roberson is an elite high school basketball player, and that’s sort of their thing.

1. Louisville coach Rick Pitino went on the radio earlier this week to talk about all things Cardinals’ basketball and The Card Chronicle was generous enough to extract the key points from the conversation. The most interesting tidbit for us was Pitino’s praise of sophomore guard Kevin Ware. Ware landed at Louisville last season after a mini-recruiting scandal involving his courtship to Central Florida but he struggled picking up the offense after only gaining his eligibility in December and he was asked to play out of position as a backup point guard. Now, according to Pitino, he has worked hard to improve his shot and his athleticism and has stood out so much in practice that Ware is currently the team’s starting shooting guard… ahead of the mercurial Russ Smith. Of course you will probably see a lot of Smith this season, but if Ware starts living up to his vast potential, Louisville will be scary good this season.
2. The list of College Basketball’s Top 100 players from CBSSports.com came out Monday and while we don’t want to spend too much time trading in irrelevancies, we do want to talk about how happy we are to see that the Big East’s top representative is Georgetown sophomore Otto Porter, who checked in at No. 16, ahead of the more recognizable and popular picks, Gorgui Dieng and Peyton Siva. You will see next week that we didn’t pick Porter as our preseason player of the year, but some of us feel like we may regret that choice as the season goes on. Porter is still relatively unknown on the national scene, but you can expect that to change quickly now that he is the focal point of the Hoyas’ offense.
3. Apparently Villanova‘s recent on-court struggles have not adversely affected Jay Wright’s ability to recruit, especially in Washington, DC. The Wildcats recently collected a commitment from 6’5″wing Josh Hart who couples with 6’6″ power forward Kris Jenkins to give the program a pair of top-100 recruits from the District. Jenkins is an undersized bruiser in the mold of a less-skilled, more physical JayVaughn Pinkston. Hart will likely play on the wing, but he is versatile and athletic enough to play multiple positions. If he can become more aggressive offensively and continue to develop his outside shooting, he will be a big-time, multi-year contributor for Wright.
4. Early in September we learned that precocious Providence freshman Ricky Ledo would only be allowed to practice with the Friars this season, not play. While the NCAA isn’t going to tell the public why Ledo is only a partial-qualifier, it seems pretty clear to those in the know that Ledo’s one semester stint at Notre Dame Prep played a role in the NCAA’s decision. The NCAA is investigating the Massachusetts prep school for shady academic and financial issues, and as a result, a number of Division I recruits, including Ledo, were ruled ineligible to play this season. The good news for Friars’ fans is that Ledo plans to stick around and play next season as a redshirt freshman, which will be a small consolation for fans hoping to see the program’s fabulous recruiting class in action next month.
5. For many teams in the conference, Midnight Madness kicks off this Friday. Every school takes a different approach to this event but it is always fun to see which coaches get dressed up, which musical stars show up to perform, and which walk-on will dump 18 points on his teammates in the intrasquad scrimmage. While we like to think of ourselves as analytical minds here at the Big East microsite, that doesn’t mean we don’t love the occasional dose of frivolity either, especially when it is guaranteed to involve Doug E. Fresh. Check back tomorrow morning as we run with a light-hearted but essential guide to Friday’s Midnight Madness festivities.

1. The NCAA this week released its annual financial report on on the spending patterns of its member institutions’ athletic departments, and the results, while not groundbreaking, are certainly interesting. The report (found in its entirety here) deals in aggregate numbers — meaning individual schools are not named — but the data from 2011 is still valuable. For example, among FBS (I-A) schools, the median revenue for a basketball program approached $5 million with profits of $812,000. By comparison, football programs created over $15 million of revenue with profits of around $3.5 million each. Because every other collegiate program from rifle (-$26,000) to women’s basketball (-$1.26 million) operates at a significant loss, only 23 of 120 FBS schools had a net positive revenue stream in 2011 (one more than 2010, but nine more than 2009). You don’t have to see their names on a report to more or less guess who the lucky ones are. 
2. ESPNU’s Recruiting Nation may end up with its highest rated October ever if it keeps this up. According to the Detroit News, elite Class of 2013 wing James Young will announce his college decision on the 5 PM episode this evening, and his choice will once again make for a very happy weekend in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Young has been considered a UK lock for some time, especially after his home state Michigan State program discontinued his recruitment when a trip to East Lansing never materialized. Young is in everybody’s top 10 and is rated as the overall #7 player in his class, according to RSCIHoops. Along with the top five Harrison twins, John Calipari is well on his way to grabbing an entirely new starting five quite possibly filled with only top 10 prospects (Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon, and Andrew Wiggins if he reclassifies are still possibilities). Like him or not, the man has quite simply redefined college basketball recruiting. 
3. Down the road an hour in Louisville, the Cardinals’ head coach Rick Pitino would be wise to push his loaded squad to the Final Four in Atlanta and cut the nets down this year. But even if Louisville falters along the way, it appears that the 60-year old Pitino will have several more opportunities as he is now backing off his previous statements that he expects to retire in 2017. On a SiriusXM radio show with Jeff Goodman on Wednesday night, Pitino said that he expects to sign a contract extension and plans on staying on board as a head coach “for as long as [he’s] healthy.” We’ll say this, from personal experience — the Pitino we saw during last year’s Final Four run was as light-hearted and as happy as we’ve ever seen from the guy. He seemed to actually enjoy what he was doing again.
4. From the top of the heap to the bottom… only two days before the start of practice, UMBC head coach Randy Monroe resigned his position, effective immediately. It was no secret that Monroe had struggled there in recent years — going a disastrous 13-77 in his last three seasons — but the timing of his resignation is incredibly odd. Monroe was the head coach at UMBC for eight seasons, taking the Retrievers to the NCAA Tournament in the 2007-08 season. His top assistant coach, 33-year old Aki Thomas, will take over this season on an interim basis. We’ll not speculate further as to the precipitating cause for such a weirdly-timed resignation, but we figure that if there’s a story here it’ll come out eventually.
5. Finally, we have fresh news of an NCAA investigation of a player and it doesn’t involve an incoming recruit! CBSSports.com reported on Wednesday night that Texas point guard Myck Kabongo may have accepted impermissible benefits while working out in Ohio over the summer. You may be wondering what Kabongo, a Canadian who goes to school in Austin, Texas, was doing in the Buckeye State, but the answer relates to his former teammate (and countryman) Tristan Thompson, a current employee of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The question is whether Kabongo paid his own way for his travel and stay there, or if Thompson’s agent, someone by the name of Rich Paul (also LeBron’s agent) may have chipped in on his expenses. It’s probably not a huge problem even if Kabongo dipped into the pool a bit, as the preseason all-Big 12 selection likely would have to pay the money back and miss a handful of games as a result. But we’ll have to wait to see where this goes.