Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic-10. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

First Week: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

• The Good: Charlotte is one of three teams still undefeated in conference play. Neither win was against a conference powerhouse, but both were good signs. Beating La Salle at the Holton suggests they will do well at home, while taking their road game versus Rhode Island was a sign that they should be able to win games there as well.
• The Bad. Temple’s loss to Xavier will not preclude the Owls from drawing an NCAA bid, but it makes the conference-wide bid picture, expected in the preseason season to be five, possibly very murky. The preseason NCAA short list included Saint Joseph’s, Xavier, Butler, VCU, Temple and Saint Louis, but poorer than expected non-conference results for Saint Joseph’s and Xavier seem to have pared that list. Xavier’s win over conference rival Temple may boost morale among the Musketeers’ faithful, but it undercuts the prospects for Temple (who has a very poor outing versus Duke on it’s resume), one of the stronger prospects on conference’s shrinking list.
• The Ugly: Saint Bonaventure was not expected to perform at the same levels as the Andrew Nicholson-led teams, but the double-figure road loss to rebuilding George Washington lowers the ceiling on the Bonnies’ prospects for this season. That was a game they would have won last year (and the year before). This is a larger-than-expected step back for the program.

Impact Players

CBS Sports named two A-10 players to their mid-season Top 50 Impact players. Butler’s Rotnei Clarke, a senior guard who transferred in from Arkansas and sat last season, was ranked #42 with the comment “Best shooter in the country?” Treveon Graham, Virginia Commonwealth’s sophomore guard, was ranked #45. Recognized as a integral part of VCU’s Havoc defense, Jeff Goodman went on to comment “Makes plays at both ends of the floor.” The list, a collaboration by CBS Sports’ four basketball beat writers — Jeff Goodman, Gary Parrish, Matt Norlander and Jeff Borzello — focused on the 50 players who they felt had the greatest impact on the first two months of the college basketball season.

Rotnei Clarke May Be The A-10 POY If The Season Ended Today, But Will Miss Time With An Injury. (AP)

Power Rankings

Conference play opened last week with every team playing twice before the end of the first weekend. While the top – and bottom — of the power rankings remains largely unchanged from the end of December, there is some shuffling within the middle eight.

1. Butler (14-2, 2-0) – A 2-0 start to conference play has extended the Bulldogs’ winning streak to 11. The run is jeopardized by guard Rotnei Clarke’s neck injury, sustained when the senior was fouled as he completed a layup at the end of a breakout play in Butler’s 79-73 win over Dayton. A day-after MRI showed no spinal fractures (or other damage), but Clarke will be held out of the Bulldogs’ next two games (Richmond on Wednesday and Gonzaga on Saturday), pending a medical review. The Butler team doctor took issue with NBC Sports Network which had a crew covering the Dayton game. The crew overzealously opened a nearby microphone and broadcast the injured player’s conversation with attending medical staff, an act Dr. Thomas Fischer contended that was intrusive and unethical. Dr. Fischer will determine when Clarke can return to play. Richmond, without junior Derrick Williams, will be hard pressed to match the Bulldogs’ front court contingent, but Gonzaga, ranked #8 by the AP, could prove to be a very difficult opponent. Freshman Kellen Dunham, sophomore Alex Barlow and senior Chase Stigall will have to take up Clarke’s scoring contribution for at least the next week. Given Clarke’s contribution is 16.5 per game, that will be a task bigger than the collection can probably handle. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

The Weekend’s Lede. Embrace a New National Champion. The hustle and bustle of conference play boils down to one of two objectives: 1) scramble and fight and scrap your way into the NCAA Tournament; or, for the elite teams, 2) pile up enough evidence to be deemed worthy of a favorable draw and seed. The goal that ties those two together is reaching the championship game and, ideally, winning it. Kentucky made it look easy last season, and based on the way Calipari reloaded with another top recruiting class (albeit less heralded than the 2011 group), it was not unwise to believe he could do it again. That avenue remains open, in the crude sense that the Wildcats are still eligible for postseason competition. In actuality, the fate of their title defense season was sealed this weekend, when Kentucky allowed Texas A&M – a low-rung team in an uncharacteristically weak SEC – to deliver the Wildcats’ second home loss of the season. Given the talent at his disposal, and his experience in grooming, molding and motivating said talent, John Calipari could well propel his young team back into the national conversation. I just don’t see it. Saturday’s loss marked the unofficial retirement of UK’s faint repeat hopes. But don’t worry, next season’s rejiggered squad, anchored by what some are calling the greatest recruiting class of all time, can bring everything full circle. The championship trophy will not return to Lexington in March. That’s not official; it’s what my eyes tell me. There will be a new champion in 2013, and the weekend’s action shed more light on the race for that top prize.

Your Watercooler Moment. Number One Goes Down. (Wheelchair, Ahoy!)

The hyperbolic reviews surrounding Duke’s sterling nonconference performance were completely warranted. The Blue Devils navigated a minefield of ranked opponents, including three top five teams in a two- week span, and the conquest of an absolutely loaded Battle 4 Atlantis Field. Few teams have ever pieced together a November and December stretch with so many quality wins against so many good teams – wins that, in regard to Minnesota, VCU, Temple, Clemson and Santa Clara, are looking better and better by the week. The totality of accomplishment is almost immeasurable. The Blue Devils were thrust atop the polls and praised for their offensive efficiency. Mason Plumlee seized the early lead in the National Player Of The Year race. Seth Curry’s toughness (he has battled chronic leg pain all season) and resolve was eulogized. The outpouring of national praise almost made it feel like Duke was the only real team that mattered in the ACC. UNC had fallen off the map. NC State got tabbed with the “overrated” tag. Florida State was a sinking ship. What many seemed to conveniently forget was that the Wolfpack – the same team that (gasp!) lost to Oklahoma State on a neutral floor and at Michigan, causing large swaths of college hoops fans to write them off as a specious product of the preseason hype machine – were selected by the coaches and media in separate preseason polls to win the league outright. Those two early-season losses threw everyone off the Wolfpack bandwagon, which, come to think of it, might just be the best thing that ever happened to NC State’s season. While the nation fawned over Duke’s top-50 RPI wins and Plumlee’s double-doubles and Rasheed Sulaimon’s youthful verve, the Wolfpack were slowly, surely, methodically rounding into form. When the opportunity presented itself Saturday, as a Ryan Kelly-less Blue Devils team strolled into Raleigh, the Wolfpack did what every coach and media member predicted they’d do before the season began. They took care of the gaudy Blue Devils, and afterward, in the midst of a delirious post-game court-storming, the Wolfpack reveled in the culmination of their roller coaster season.

Also Worth Chatting About. Take Your Pick: Indiana or Michigan.

The Hoosiers’ offense didn’t miss a step in Saturday’s home win over Minnesota (Photo credit: AP Photo).

It required less than two weeks for conference competition to slay college basketball’s remaining unbeaten teams. Michigan had looked flawless in its first two Big Ten games, blowout wins over Northwestern and Iowa, generating all kinds of national championship hype along the way (the home win over Nebraska wasn’t as pretty, but it didn’t discredit the Wolverines’ glowing stature). Ohio State, meanwhile, exposed real flaws in a 19-point blowout loss at Purdue earlier in the week. Their faint hopes of pulling an upset at home against Michigan were, well, exactly that: faint. Michigan’s seeming invincibility, Ohio State’s disproportionate offense – any discussion of the Buckeyes invariably panned to a common concern over a lack of complementary scorers to supplement DeShaun Thomas – and the matchup advantages that implied, conveniently glossed over the fact that the Big Ten is a ruthless, rugged, unforgiving road, particularly when rivalries are involved. Ohio State’s victory proved, if nothing else, that the most extreme evaluations of each team to date – that Michigan is the best team in the country, and Ohio State a middle-pack-to-lower-tier Big Ten outfit – were a bit ambitious on both ends. In fact, the former trope may have been discredited before Michigan even took the floor Sunday, because Indiana, in its first real test since losing to Butler in early December, reminded everyone why the national consensus settled so firmly on the Hoosiers as the preseason number one team in the country. The final score at Assembly Hall Saturday will skew the reality of Indiana’s home toppling of Minnesota. The first half showcased an overwhelming offensive onslaught, fueled by rapid ball movement, aggressive and attentive defensive work, can’t-miss shooting aggressive and a booming home crowd. It was the epitome of Indiana’s basketball potential, bottled up into a 20-minute segment, unleashed on one of the nation’s best and most physical teams (Minnesota). An informal poll measuring the Big Ten’s best team following this weekend would favor Indiana, but I’m not so sure we can make that assumption based off two critical games. The conference season is a long and enduring grind. We’ll gather more evidence and draw that distinction later this winter. Deal?

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Winning the NCAA Tournament requires a fortuitous boost of momentum. Getting hot at the right time is just as important as crafting a gaudy NCAA Tournament resume. The tourney is a sprint, not a long-winded journey, the very essence of the regular season. Teams face 30-game gauntlets of varying difficulty, but getting through unscathed – regardless of schedule strength – is immensely difficult. To go undefeated in the regular season is to survive dozens of potential pitfalls and enormous mounting national pressure. You’re pestered with constant questions about “the streak” and “the goal.” Coaches dedicate extra hours to engineering the foolproof game plan that will slay the giant. Student sections get geeked up beyond reason in the hopes of helping their favorite teams spring the upset. Only special teams can make it without bowing to those pressures. There are no special teams in 2012-13; no one is running the table this year. There are no dominant teams, no 2012 Kentuckys or 2009 North Carolinas – two all-time great teams who couldn’t make it through the regular season without taking at least one loss. Three undefeated teams entered Thursday night’s games, all nationally prominent programs from high major conferences. Two now remain, and the other two will meet their unbeaten doomsday sooner rather than later.

Your Watercooler Moment. A Close Game Arizona Couldn’t Win.

Dominic Artis (left) celebrates the win over Arizona with a fan after the student section rushed the court. (Photo by Rockne Andrew Roll)

A universal theme in advanced statictical analysis at the team level is skepticism over narrow margins of victory. Over time, close wins balance out, luck turns into late-game misfortune, and all those last-possession victories stacked up early in the season are joined by a near equal number of nail-biting losses. Four of Arizona’s best wins this season – at Clemson, vs. Florida, vs. San Diego State and vs. Colorado – came down to the final moments. It’s most recent closer-than-close triumph against Colorado was the best reminder of the fine-tooth comb that is late-game management. The difference between winning and losing hotly-contested fixtures can be a missed jump shot, a pass thrown out of bounds, an errant dribble off one’s leg, a clanked free-throw. Or, an outdated replay monitor can blur the referees’ review efficacy and rob one Sabatino Chen of a classic buzzer-beating upset. Arizona had the looming specter of karmic reprisal hanging over its heads as it traveled to Eugene to take on a quality Oregon team. The stage was set for the Ducks to dethrone Arizona on the final possession and end the Wildcats’ streak of late-game fortune. Instead, Oregon battled Arizona from the start with physical defense, a hyper-athletic frontcourt, a couple of really intriguing freshmen (Dominic Artis and Damyeon Dotson can really play) and a balanced offensive attack. The victory wasn’t sealed until Nick Johnson committed a crucial turnover near the three-point line with Arizona down just three and less than 10 seconds to go, but the Ducks held double-digit leads for large stretches in the second half. This wasn’t a fluky, home-crafted upset. Oregon was every bit the better team tonight.

Tonight’s Quick Hits. 

• About That “Crushing” Reggie Johnson Injury. The prevailing view on Reggie Johnson’s thumb injury was that Miami was really going to miss its senior big man. Johnson isn’t the most skilled or the most athletic frontcourt player around. What he is – and I mean this in a totally positive, not-Josh Smith way – is massive, an immovable force who eats up space and hoards prime positioning under and around the basket. Plus, Johnson really gets after it on the offensive and defensive boards, protects the rim and physically dominates whoever enters the painted area. Since Johnson went on the mend around Christmas, Miami has won four of six games, its only losses coming against Arizona and Indiana State at the Diamond Head Classic. None of its wins (Hawaii, LaSalle, Georgia Tech) really cemented the belief that Miami could thrive without Johnson in the lineup, but Thursday night’s triumph over North Carolina did exactly that (UNC is no world-beater, but a solid win nonetheless) especially because forward Kenny Kadji – an extremely talented but inconsistent frontcourt piece – was excellent. Once Johnson returns, throw him into a frontcourt rotation with Kadji, and this team is as qualified as any to make a run at Duke for league bragging rights. Read the rest of this entry »

Bennet Hayes is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @HoopsTraveler on Twitter. Night Line runs on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s games.

No team endured a more difficult first month of the season than the Saint Louis Billikens. November was a struggle on the court, as they listlessly stumbled to a 3-3 beginning. Not the opening that the preseason Atlantic 10 favorites had hoped for, but all that mattered little on December 2 when news came that former coach Rick Majerus had passed away. The controversial Majerus’ legacy is still being sorted out, but what cannot be denied is the SLU basketball revival he oversaw. More importantly, as he had done at each of his previous coaching stops, the charismatic Majerus profoundly impacted many of his players’ lives along the way. His passing left this Saint Louis basketball season at a crossroads; a disappointing year could easily head into complete freefall, or a core that Majerus brought to SLU could use their old coach’s passing as inspiration for a turnaround. Nine wins and zero losses later, it appears quite clear which direction the Billikens have chosen.

Saint Louis Is Happy To Have Kwamain Mitchell Back

Majerus’ death will be a motivator for St. Louis right up until the moment their season ends, but there are practical reasons for the turnaround as well. For starters, none of the three early season losses look especially bad anymore, now that Santa Clara has surprisingly continued its winning ways (12-5 on the year) with the Broncos even giving Duke a scare at Cameron Indoor Stadium at the end of 2012. The December schedule also relented somewhat for the Billikens, as their next six games came in the friendly confines of Chaifetz Arena, and only one pitted St. Louis against a top-200 team (Valparaiso). Six straight wins had to help their confidence before the Billikens’ next real test, and SLU responded against a solid New Mexico team, delivering a resounding 60-46 New Years’ Eve victory. Also making things easier against the Lobos was the return of senior guard Kwamain Mitchell, who had made his season debut just three days earlier. Mitchell may not have been his sharpest self against New Mexico (or even tonight against UMass), but SLU head man Jim Crews has to feel better with his star player back on the floor.

Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic-10. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Looking Back

Another Saturday, Another Scalp: Reeling from an inexplicable 10-point loss to Canisius (72-62) on December 19, Temple bounced back with a stunning 83-79 upset of #3 Syracuse, all the more surprising given that it happened in the confines of Syracuse’s “second home”, Madison Square Garden, on December 22. The Orange, notorious for not leaving the state of New York before the start of conference play, were unable to contain Khalif Wyatt and sophomore center Anthony Lee as both scored career-high points. Wyatt, a slasher who can play either guard spot in addition to the small forward was a perfect 15-of-15 from the line on the way to scoring 33 points. Lee was manhandled by Duke’s Mason Plumlee two Saturdays before, schooled fellow Philadelphian Rakeem Christmas and his teammate James Southerland to grab nine rebounds to go with his career-high 21 points. Butler traveled to Nashville the next Saturday and housed the Commodores of Vanderbilt by 19 points, 68-49. The Bulldogs’ backcourt paced the team with 40 points (Rotnei Clarke – 22, Kellen Dunham – 12, Alex Barlow – six) while Khyle Marshall missed a double-double by a single point (nine points and 11 rebounds).

Versus Other Conferences

With nearly 98% of the non-conference schedule on the books (as of January 1), the Atlantic 10 has compiled an outstanding 64.3% winning percentage (126-70). Bettering their 2011-12 winning percentage of 62.6% (107-64), the conference posted a number of superb wins over power conference teams in the process.

The mark is not without a few blemishes, especially with respect to the seven power conferences where the A-10’s conference-wide record declined over their mark last season. Especially disappointing was the conference mark versus the ACC (3-10, 0.231) and Big East (6-11, 0.353). While they continue to dominate against those non-power conferences with whom they share a similar profile (the CAA, Mountain West, Missouri Valley, West Coast Conference, and Western Athletic Conference), the overall record masks losing records versus the Missouri Valley Conference (3-4, 0.429) and the West Coast Conference (1-3, 0.250).

Reader’s Take

Power Rankings

The teams largely wrap up non-conference play over the mid-winter break, with only a few standings-changing games on the last and this week.  Games/records are through January 2.

1. Butler (9-2, #18 AP) – The defense of 2011-12 is starting to round into form for the Bulldogs. Coach Brad Stevens’ squad has allowed opponents on average 0.93 points per possession in the six (Division I) games since their loss to Illinois on November 21. After five starts, freshman Kellen Dunham returned to his sixth man role and appears to be thriving. If Player of the Year polling commenced today, transfer Rotnei Clarke would garner more than a few votes outside of Indianapolis, but as much as the newcomers (Clarke and Dunham) have sparked the Bulldogs, the contributions of the front court, Roosevelt Jones, Khyle Marshall and Andrew Smith are key. Though not the focal point of the offense, Smith and Marshall are a devastatingly efficient combination, contributing over 1.1 points per possession on offense while hauling in over 12% of the offensive rebounds apiece when they are on the court. Butler will host Penn and New Orleans before opening conference play on the road against Saint Joseph’s (see below) on January 9. Read the rest of this entry »

On New Year’s Eve Monday the Gonzaga Bulldogs played (and won) their fifth non-conference game against a Big 12 opponent when they beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater. They won their first four games against West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas State and Baylor… which got me thinking: Why shouldn’t the Big 12 consider bringing along basketball-only institutions to help shore itself up in conference realignment? The Big East’s attempt at having football and basketball schools coexist was unsuccessful for two primary reasons: The league was created for basketball, not football, in the late 1970s; and the conference’s mainstays in football, Miami and Virginia Tech, were ultimately poached away by the ACC.

Don’t know about you but I’d love to see Gonzaga and Baylor play on the regular (James Snook/USA Today Sports)

The Big 12 is arguably the second best power conference in college football. The league will enter a new alliance with the Champions Bowl in New Orleans, which will place the Big 12 football champion against the SEC champion each season. A new television deal with ESPN/ABC and FOX will keep their football anchors in place (Oklahoma and Texas) through the year 2025. With Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby saying recently that larger isn’t necessarily better, he would however listen if adding a school geographically or financially “moved the needle.” Whether that would happen in this scenario is up for debate, but that’s what makes it fun. Now if the Big 12 were to look at adding hoops-only schools, two would be the best number to add in order to get back to the original 12-team format. The league would have to move quickly as the seven basketball-only schools leaving the Big East are expected to meet Friday to discuss their options. With a “lot on the agenda,” you can bet expansion will be a big part of the conversation. So who should the Big 12 pursue?

Read the rest of this entry »

Danny Spewak is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report following Saint Louis’ 60-46 victory over New Mexico at Chaifetz Arena. You can follow him on Twitter @dspewak. 

For 20 minutes, Steve Alford watched in silence as his New Mexico team suffered through a nightmare of a first half against Saint Louis on Monday night. Sixteen turnovers. Five field goals. Thirteen points. In one series of possessions, the Lobos coughed the ball up seven times in a row. Alford could have torn off his jacket, stomped his feet, berated his players or, god forbid, thrown a chair like his mentor Bob Knight did, but he instead sat obediently on the bench and hardly made a sound. At the conclusion of the half, Alford glided slowly to the locker room with his head down. No words, no outward emotion.

It was like he was preparing for something.

Our amateur cell phone camera captured Steve Alford walking to the locker room after an ejection.

Fast-forward to the 9:26 mark of the second half, when Alford signaled for a timeout. It was the last thing he did all night. “We came out of a timeout and the coach was gone,” SLU forward Cody Ellis said. “I don’t even know what happened.” He wasn’t the only one confused.  “I did not see a thing,” said Jim Crews, the Billikens’ interim head coach. They were too busy huddling up and discussing how to continue pulverizing 20^th-ranked New Mexico en route to a 60-46 victory. On the other end of the floor, though, Alford’s calm demeanor had turned into a full-fledged temper tantrum. Immediately after the timeout, the first whistle blew. Technical number one. Seconds later, the second whistle blew. Technical number two. The official then burst his right hand into the air, clenched his fist and signaled for an ejection of Alford, leaving New Mexico in the hands of associated head coach Craig Neal. “I’ve been doing this for 22 years,” Alford said.” I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s nothing I can say. Obviously, if I say things, I get suspended, so I’m obviously not doing that.”

Then, he said things:

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Conference Play Rocks. Analyzing and prognosticating and laying out bold analytical claims about teams is a fun debate this time of year. Teams are assigned permanent labels. Players earn reputations, rightly or wrongly, that stick around far longer than they should. All of this is premature – the best advice in November and December is to reserve judgment. Because once conference play begins, teams’ identities shine through, and many of the perceptions and conclusions we make are rendered useless. Two of the best leagues in the country, the Big Ten and Big East, kicked off their conference slates Monday in grand fashion. And if you got a taste of Pittsburgh-Cincinnati, or Indiana-Iowa, or Michigan State-Minnesota, you can already infer the obvious: conference competition entails a whole new level of competitiveness and intensity. With that, it is now time to get into your first weekday of league play, with a hope that the rest of the reason brings the same if not more entertaining hoops action.

Your Watercooler Moment. Minnesota’s Good; Michigan State’s Almost There. We Knew That Already.

The Big Ten is a cluttered jumble of Tournament hopefuls and championship contenders.What Minnesota showed monday is that its nonconference work was no anomaly (photo credit: AP Photo).

For anyone who watched Minnesota and Michigan State play any portion of their nonconference schedules, this game was a perfect precursor for the type of gritty, hard-nosed, highly-competitive Big Ten showdowns that should play out in high frequency over the next two months. Minnesota’s win also confirmed what most already knew about the Gophers: this team is a serious threat to vie for the Big Ten crown. Loaded and Top-heavy as the Big Ten is this season, Tubby Smith’s team has it all: Andre Hollins is a heady lead guard with a wide arsenal of perimeter scoring skills. Trevor Mbakwe belongs in the NBA today. Rodney Williams is one of the two or three best pure athletes in college basketball. And Austin Hollins is a stingy on-ball defender who’s offensive game isn’t all that far behind. Put it all together, and what you get is Tubby Smith’s best team at Minnesota. The way both teams have looked so far this season, Michigan State taking the Gophers to the wire at the Barn is not an altogether bad outcome. The Spartans are still sorting out their frontcourt rotation, still trying to leverage all of Gary Harris’ creative intuition and still searching for the defense-and-rebounding identity that Tom Izzo’s teams gradually assume over the course of a season. Basically, the Gophers’ win confirmed most every empirical insight we had about both teams coming in. That’s comforting for my basketball brain, if anything.

Your Quick Hits…

• Hoosiers Flaunt Road Chops. The biggest skeptics of Indiana’s preseason No. 1 ranking were fairly unanimous on one perceived flaw: Indiana can’t win on the road. And you know what? They’re weren’t totally off their rockers. The Hoosiers did take their lumps last season when away from cushy Assembly Hall and the enormous home field advantage it awards them – particularly in Big Ten play, where they pulled out just three of nine road tests. There’s no telling how last year’s Indiana team would have responded to Monday’s road date at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where a retooled and vastly improved Iowa squad gave the Hoosiers their best shot. In the end, Indiana’s immensely talented and deep roster overcame Iowa’s very best efforts, and that’s a huge relief if you’re an Indiana fan. If the Hoosiers can go into tough environments like Iowa and win the games they just weren’t ready for last season, there’s nothing standing in the way of a Big Ten regular season title. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

College basketball gave us plenty of memorable moments and stories in 2012. After sorting through the main headlines, we’ve come up with the 10 most consequential items and, for the sake of maintaining publishing sequence symmetry, releasing two per-day over the next five days to lead into the New Year. It was an excellent year for the sport, though I can’t promise you won’t regret reliving at least one or two of the choices. In any case, here’s to summing up a great year and to hoping that 2013 is better than the 365 days that preceded it.

The outpouring of nostalgic literature produced in the immediate aftermath of Rick Majerus’ passing bore a common theme. Everyone had a personal anecdote to relate, a unique encounter that spoke louder than general platitudes and standard obituary prose. For some, the stories dealt with Majerus’ shameless discussion of personal toils with health issues. Others described his astounding disregard for normative comportment – Majerus would often receive guests in his hotel residence with nothing but a towel cloaking his massive figure – or the wacky recruiting tactics, or the borderline obsessive eagerness to talk hoops at all times. The post-mortem compendium of Majerus remembrances painted a picture of a basketball coach, teacher of the game and man whose underlying trait was an adherence to the obscure and the outlandish, and a resistance to the conventional.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. The biggest news of the day doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but Bruin Report Online is reporting that UCLA is currently leaning toward replacing head coach Ben Howland. Tracy Pierson notes that booster and donation support has diminished considerably, and the tip of the iceberg came when UCLA lost three of five games from late November to early December this season. Howland has already had a pair of players transfer out of the program in the first two months, and while that kind of stuff gets excused when you’re winning, losing games in front of small crowds to the likes of Cal Poly and nearly UC Irvine brings the issue to the forefront. This report comes at a time when the Bruins have won three in a row, and if they can extend that streak into Pac-12 play it would mean wins against Fresno State and Missouri. Gaining back respect from AD Dan Guerrero and Bruins boosters will start by winning that high-profile non-conference game.
2. So far in this 2012-13 season, just about the only thing Washington fans should be happy about is the play of its backcourt. The one-two punch on the perimeter between fifth-year senior Scott Suggs and C.J. Wilcox is one of the Pac-12’s finest, with each player averaging at least 14 PPG. To show how important Suggs is to the Husky offense, the Dawgs dropped a game to Albany when the senior suffered a concussion just 90 seconds into the game. He also missed UW’s 18-point loss to Colorado State with a sore foot, and they nearly dropped games to Saint Louis and Cal State Fullerton without him. Needless to say, as Suggs goes, so does this Washington team.
3. One of the more intriguing games/tournaments to be played directly around, and on, Christmas (okay, so these are the only college hoops games) features Arizona. The Wildcats are spending the holiday in paradise, and they’ll start play in the Diamond Head Classic tomorrow against East Tennessee State. The Bucs and Cats of course have a short but storied history, with 14-seed ETSU upsetting Arizona in the first round of the 1992 NCAA Tournament. Tougher games will be in store for Sean Miller’s club as it progresses through the bracket, as possible meetings with Miami (FL) and San Diego State could be on tap.
4. There’s nothing I love more than some good tournament talk, and the California Golden Blogs roundtable delivers in this discussion. As they note in the opening, California put up a big goose egg in its big three-game series, yet the Golden Bears were competitive for two-thirds of them. The general consensus between CGB writers is that Cal will receive either a 12-seed or flat out miss the tournament altogether, but it’s still too early to tell. At this point, I’d say they are firmly atop the NCAA bubble along with UCLA, and the two Bruins/Bears match-ups in January and February could go a long way deciding who gets the Pac-12’s final spot.
5. Stanford missed out on one of the top recruits in the nation Thursday when Jabari Parker announced his intentions to play basketball at Duke. The Simeon High School (IL) forward also revealed that Stanford and BYU were the only schools in Parker’s top five to not make the final cut of three. What makes Parker so special is his versatility. He could have played anywhere on the floor for Johnny Dawkins, and his superb ball-handling and passing abilities would have helped the Cardinal as well.