Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter.

With the news on Monday that top unsigned big man Tony Parker is headed to UCLA next season, the Bruins now have a super-stacked recruiting class for next year that should give Ben Howland’s squad a great chance to become elite right away. Recall that last week we discussed that bringing in an elite recruiting class doesn’t necessarily result in program success, with one of the highlight examples being Ben Howland’s #1 class of 2008 Bruins. That UCLA team brought in the top recruiting class and also had some returning veteran talent, but the team badly failed to meet expectations (some of the roots of UCLA’s transgressions were recently highlighted in a popular Sports Illustrated article in late February). Fair or unfair, the 2012 class and next year’s team is going to have to deal with comparisons to those 2008 Baby Bruins, at least until it starts to win. This time around, though, their coach’s job is on the line too. Let’s take a quick look at how the two classes and situations match up, and why UCLA fans should have no reason to expect a repeat performance this time around.

Now That Tony Parker Signed with UCLA, the Bruins Have Huge Expectations Again (Photo: Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Back in 2008, UCLA was coming off of three straight Final Four appearances, one of the best runs of team success of the past decade for any program. Bringing in the top recruiting class that offseason was no surprise, and that group of freshmen was expected to continue the long tradition of winning in Westwood. Jrue Holiday, Malcolm Lee, and Drew Gordon were part of a group of five top-50 recruits who were quickly dubbed the Baby Bruins, players who “were famous before they played a game,” as the SI report claims. The freshmen also got to play alongside some returning veterans, most notably senior All-American Darren Collison. But UCLA was unable to win with this group right away that season nor during the next four years. Instead of stacking up Ws and bringing home banners like the previous groups led by Jordan Farmar, Arron Afflalo and Kevin Love, the Baby Bruins never made the Sweet Sixteen in four years and failed to make the NCAA Tournament twice. The disastrous chemistry on the team throughout this period led to players fighting and transferring, and it all ended up in far more losses than anyone expected. UCLA entered this offseason really in need of a talent (and attitude) infusion.

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Over the course of the next two weeks, the Pac-12 Microsite will break down each team’s season: what went well, what didn’t, and a look ahead at the future. Today’s subject: UCLA.

What Went Wrong

Team chemistry. While Reeves Nelson is the fall guy for this, after displaying abominable behavior for two-plus years on this Bruin team before eventually being dismissed in early December, the problem went deeper than that. There was supposed senior leader and point guard Jerime Anderson getting busted for stealing a laptop in the offseason and earning a light two-game suspension as a result. There was center Joshua Smith showing up for his sophomore season in worse shape than his rotund, breathless freshman edition. And given that he was close friends with Nelson, it appeared at times that his buddy’s bad attitude rubbed off on him. Aside from behavioral issues, there was also a case of mismatched parts on this team, with a talented frontcourt supported by guards that were in a bit over their heads (despite the relative success that Anderson and backcourt-mate Lazeric Jones enjoyed). And there was head coach Ben Howland who had undoubtedly one of his poorest seasons on the sideline. He was unable to respond to the attitude issues with Nelson in a timely fashion, struggled to meld newcomers like the Wear twins in quickly and in the end, was widely questioned for his inability to find playing time for guys like freshman guard Norman Powell and sophomore center Anthony Stover.

Ben Howland Is In The Midst Of A Three-Year Downswing With UCLA (Jamie Squire, Getty Images)

What Went Right

Still, after the Bruins got around to ditching their Nelson anchor, the team developed into a solid Pac-12 squad. After getting off to a terrible 2-5 start with losses to Loyola Marymount and Middle Tennessee mixed in with more reasonable defeats in Maui, the Bruins went 17-9 the rest of the way. Travis and David Wear, regarded as Charmin-soft early in the year, turned into the team’s top two leading rebounders and solid interior players. Smith showed some progress on the conditioning front and somehow Howland turned the combination of Jones and Anderson into a quite competent Pac-12 backcourt.

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Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Top-20 Power Forward Tony Parker To Announce His Decision Monday

Class of 2012 Power Forward Tony Parker Will Commit Monday.

Second-Best Undecided Senior Will Decide Between Five. Class of 2012 power forward Tony Parker has had one of the most secretive recruitments in the Class of 2012. The 6’9″, 273-pound big man has kept all of the recruiting analysts guessing since the beginning and many popular guesses have come and gone ranging from Ohio State and Duke to more recently UCLA and his hometown team, Georgia. But Monday at around 3:30 or 4 PM, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Parker will finally announce his college intentions. His final five consists of Duke, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio State, and UCLA. I doubt he will go to Kansas or Georgia so that leaves Duke, Ohio State, and UCLA. It seems to me that the two schools with the best shot at him are Ohio State and UCLA and if I had to bet on where he goes I would pick UCLA, but honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he choose any of the five schools except for Kansas. So, in order, I think the schools that have the best shot with him are UCLA, Ohio State, Duke, Georgia, and then Kansas. If he does indeed choose UCLA, that would give them arguably the best recruiting class in the country between their class of Parker, point guard Kyle Anderson, and small forwards Shabazz Muhammad and Jordan Adams.

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1. Last time we did a Morning Five, we still didn’t know for certain the future whereabouts of Shabazz Muhammad. A week later, we’re still processing some of the additional recruiting news that has come in. The biggest news since the Muhammad announcement last week has centered around the Washington program. While Lorenzo Romar hasn’t signed any high school seniors for the 2012 class, he did get a commitment from Perris Blackwell, a transfer from San Francisco who will have one year of remaining eligibility beginning in 2013. Blackwell was a fixture in the USF starting lineup over the past three seasons, averaging 12.7 points and 6.1 rebounds last year. Romar, however, struck out in his bid to convince 2012 center Robert Upshaw to sign with the Huskies, as the former Kansas State recruit chose his hometown Fresno State program over UW. However, there may be good news on the distant horizon, as the top recruit from the class of 2013, Jabari Parker, has Washington on his very short list.
2. Arizona found out last week that freshman point guard Josiah Turner would be transferring out of the program, leaving Sean Miller without an obvious choice at the point for 2012-13. In an attempt to shore up that weakness, the Wildcats got a commitment from 2012 point Jacob Hazzard, who will join the program as a preferred walk-on, leaving UA with an additional unfilled scholarship for next season. Hazzard, the grandson of former UCLA star Walt Hazzard, shot over 40% from deep as a high school senior, but would be a long shot to become a significant factor for the Wildcats next season.
3. Speaking of UCLA, their monster recruiting class may get bumped up a notch on Friday when big man Tony Parker announces his plans for college. The Bruins are considered the heavy front-runner for the 6’9”, 280-pound center from Atlanta, but his home-state school, Georgia, is still in the mix, along with Kansas, Duke and Ohio State. Why is UCLA considered the favorite to land Parker? Among other things, his former AAU coach, Korey McCray, was hired last summer by the Bruins as an assistant coach and one of his teammates with that AAU team, the Atlanta Celtics, was Bruin commit Jordan Adams. Also of note for the Bruins this week was the announcement that their game with Texas next season will be played at Reliant Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Houston Texans. The game is a return engagement from the Bruin/Longhorn matchup this year that was played at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and it is expected to be a part of a two-game doubleheader, the other game of which has yet to be determined.
4. Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak has been scrambling to find new players for his program to up the talent level in Salt Lake City, but this week he actually went out of his way to turn away a player. Krystkowiak asked commit Josh Hearlihy to withdraw from the National Letter of Intent he signed last November. Hearlihy was under no requirement to do so, but given his concern about not being wanted, he granted Krystkowiak’s request. Hearlihy missed most of his senior season in high school with a medical condition and the Ute head coach was concerned about his ability to be healthy, so now Hearlihy has to reconsider his potential options with very little time to spare.
5. Lastly, NBC Sports’ Eric Angevine asks the question, “is Oregon ready to contend in the Pac-12?” Aside from the fact that Oregon was already in contention in the Pac-12 last season, it’s an interesting question. At first glance, a team that loses three of its top four scorers should have no business contending in a conference that should be quite a bit tougher next year, but anytime Dana Altman is prowling the sidelines, that team should not be counted out. This is especially so when he’s got a strong four-man recruiting class coming in. Still, while we expect the Ducks to once again overachieve in 2012-13, the discussion at the top of the conference should begin and end with UCLA and Arizona, with Stanford and potentially Colorado the best bets for sleeper contention.

Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter.

On the heels of Nerlens Noel and Shabazz Muhammad’s signings as the top two high school recruits, everyone is looking forward to next season. There’s especially great hype surrounding Kentucky, UCLA, and Arizona, the prize winners of 2012’s recruiting trail. While those fan bases should certainly be excited, we decided to conduct some research as a reminder that a top incoming recruiting class doesn’t necessarily guarantee future success. The incredible success of Kentucky’s one-and-done recruiting strategy over the past couple of years (two Final Fours, one National Championship) has helped foster the idea that top recruiting classes will result in immediate hardware. But let’s not forget that winning titles with youngsters has been more of an anomaly than the norm. A review of recent history shows that top recruiting classes have resulted in failure nearly as much as sustained winning.

Top Player Nerlens Noel is Headed to Kentucky, But That Doesn't Guarantee Success for UK (SI Photo)

It takes more than one top incoming recruiting class for a program to achieve top-level success. Kentucky’s 2012 National Championship will be synonymous with the “one-and-done” strategy, but it wasn’t like the Wildcats employed all freshmen to win the title. Of their top six players, three were freshmen. Sure, Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist were their best two players, and Marquis Teague was crucial as well, but UK would not have won the championship based on that recruiting class alone. Doron Lamb, Terrence Jones, and Darius Miller were massive contributors as well, meaning that the team’s success was a culmination of several years of top recruits, not just one haul that came in and won it all. This is the thesis that is established when reviewing recent history.

Let’s take a look at the past 10 years of recruiting history, analyzing a team’s success after it brings in a top-three recruiting class. We get our recruiting class rankings from Rivals.com. In 2003, it was Florida State, Oklahoma, and Maryland that took in the top high school recruits. The result? Just one of these three teams qualified for the NCAA Tournament the following season, with Maryland advancing to the round of 32. The Terrapins’ four years after this top class resulted in just two NCAA Tournaments and zero Sweet Sixteens. Oklahoma also qualified for just two NCAA Tourneys in four years with one postseason win. And Florida State, the owners of the top recruiting class of 2003, did not qualify for a single NCAA Tournament in the following four seasons.

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Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Top Recruit In the Country Chooses Kentucky

Noel's Commitment Gives UK the Number One Recruiting Class. (Sports Illustrated)

Noel’s Commitment Gives Wildcats Top Recruiting Class. Class of 2012 center Nerlens Noel, the best player in the high school ranks, committed to Kentucky yesterday over Georgetown and Syracuse. Noel joins shooting guard Archie Goodwin, small forward Alex Poythress and center Willie Cauley-Stein to give head coach John Calipari the best recruiting class in the country again. Goodwin and Poythress are both top-15 guys whereas Cauley-Stein is a top-50 recruit. Noel, a 6’11”, 216-pound big man, is the only person on this planet capable of filling Anthony Davis’ shoes at Kentucky and will provide an even better defensive presence and a great target in transition. The Massachusetts native is an excellent finisher and has good explosiveness and athleticism all over the court. He also has done a great job developing his offensive game and has shown an improved 15-foot jumper as well as better interior scoring moves. His rate of development is an extremely good sign for Kentucky fans since he’s already very talented. The good news for Wildcat fans doesn’t stop there since Coach Cal isn’t done yet in the Class of 2012. They’re still after power forward Anthony Bennett, a top-10 recruit, and have a very realistic shot at landing him too. The addition of Bennett would put this Kentucky recruiting class in the conversation of one of the greatest recruiting classes of all-time.

What They’re Saying

• Anthony Bennett on how he would fit in at Kentucky: “I can see myself fitting in [with] all schools but Kentucky, they produce great players. Coach Cal produces them to the league and makes them better and also they win national championships on top of that so it’s a great fit.” Read the rest of this entry »

It was a big day of comings and goings in the Pac-12 on Wednesday as the picture surrounding the two historic basketball powers in the conference crystallized a bit. UCLA and its embattled head coach Ben Howland got a piece of great news as the nation’s #2 recruit – Shabazz Muhammad – announced his intentions to attend the school next year, while Arizona finally cleared up the status of freshman point guard Josiah Turner when it was announced he would be transferring out of the program.

Shabazz Muhammad Gives The Bruins Plenty Of Talent And Plenty Of Options

First, the Bruins. Despite UCLA’s struggles over the past three seasons (their 56-43 record since 2009-10 is the worst three-year record in program history since Wilbur Johns went 38-36 from 1945 to 1948 prior to the John Wooden era), Howland was able to add Muhammad to an already strong recruiting class that already featured the #5 recruit in the nation (according to ESPNU) – Kyle Anderson – and highly touted sharpshooter Jordan Adams. And, with the program still in hot pursuit of widebody Tony Parker, their haul could get even gaudier. Muhammad is an explosive offensive talent with the ability to throw down highlight-reel dunks with the best of them as well as knock down threes or score in a variety of ways in between. He will join a roster that features plenty of depth and versatility. Muhammad can play either the two or the three, and he is joined on the wings by returnees like Tyler Lamb and Norman Powell, a pair of nice pieces as well as Adams. Anderson as well can play the two or the three, but he is very adept with the ball in his hands and will play a part at the point, along with controversial North Carolina transfer Larry Drew Jr. And then up front, there are the Wear twins as well as big man Joshua Smith (although there is still a chance, somehow, that Smith could decide on his own or be encouraged to leave early), and perhaps Parker. In short, Howland has put together a ton of pieces in Westwood, but he’ll need to prove his ability to congeal those parts into a gestalt. Is Drew the answer at the point or can Anderson run the Bruin offense? Can Howland open up the offense enough to take advantage of Muhammad’s vast skills in the open court? Can Smith lose half a hundred pounds and be effective for 25 minutes a night? Can the Wear twins develop their offensive games and their defensive toughness? And can Lamb or Powell be counted on to knock down threes when called upon, or will Adams jump ahead of them in the rotation? There are plenty of questions to be answered at UCLA, but one thing is for certain: it should be fun to see it all play out.

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1. Last night the college basketball world was hijacked by announcements from Shabazz Muhammad and Nerlens Noel about where they would he headed next season. The news from Muhammad’s camp leaked before he could announce that he was headed to UCLA while the news out of the Noel camp was a little bit of misdirection as initial reports suggested he was headed to Georgetown when in fact he was headed to Kentucky. While the decision by Noel may help decide next year’s national championship, Muhammad’s arrival in Westwood could help save Ben Howland’s job as he should make the Bruins one of the best teams out west the moment he steps foot on campus. Of course, if they are not…
2. Let’s give it up for Gary Parrish, a voice of supreme reason. When Muhammad announced for UCLA last night, many college basketball fans around the country had trouble understanding why a top prospect would choose a program coming off a rough season where fan support is lukewarm at best rather than one of the more rabidly supported programs located in Lexington or Durham. But, as Parrish notes (and notwithstanding that two of the top 10 or so players in the NBA are Howland guys), the answer at least partially lies in the powerful influence that the major shoe companies have on elite prospects behind the scenes. Muhammad is an adidas guy and UCLA is an adidas program. But before anyone starts singing sour notes about this obvious example of subtle coercion, Parrish notes that it happens every single year with a number of top prospects. There’s perhaps no greater an example than NPOY and Final Four MOP Anthony Davis — a Nike kid who ended up at a Nike school just one recruiting season ago. If Parrish is reading this, we’d love to see a list of these ‘coincidences,’ from say, the last decade or so.
3. We wrote Tuesday that Baylor had successfully played a compelling game of risk/reward in building its men’s basketball program to an elite level. The assumption underlying that thesis was that the NCAA would accept Baylor’s self-imposed penalties for exceeding mandated limits on phone calls and text messages to recruits from 2007-10 — the standard “probation” of recruiting restrictions as to time/place, loss of scholarships, etc. Sure enough, the NCAA did just that on Wednesday, accepting Baylor’s penalties and tacitly agreeing with our contention that the ends (recruiting enough studs to achieve two Elite Eights in three seasons) more than justify the means.
4. So let’s get this straight… Colorado State reportedly offered its open head coaching job to former Oregon head man Ernie Kent earlier this week, but it was nixed by an unknown high-ranking school administrator. So the back-up plan became to hire the guy who was once photographed partying with students while at Iowa State? We don’t know what the real story is here, and no disrespect at all is intended to Larry Eustachy (who has clearly turned his life around by doing well at Southern Miss), but goodness, something doesn’t smell right in Fort Collins. For what it’s worth, Kent says he was never offered the job by CSU and therefore it could not have been rescinded, but he also clearly wants to get back into coaching and it wouldn’t help his prospects to cause a ruckus over this situation.
5. Not every Pac-12 schools got good news on Wednesday. Well, Arizona got both good and bad news, with Sean Miller’s program announcing that two players were transferring in and two others were leaving after the semester. The headliner is that Josiah Turner, a former top 10 recruit from the class of 2011, is leaving Tucson for a destination unknown — his freshman season was marred by suspensions and inconsistent play at the point guard slot. Junior center Kyryl Natyazhko is also leaving Arizona, choosing to head back to Europe to pursue professional opportunities there. The good news it that the Wildcats will welcome Duquesne transfer TJ McConnell, a rising junior who averaged 11 points, six assists and four rebounds per game last season, and Matt Corcheck, a junior college transfer who will have three years of eligibility remaining. With Turner, Alex Oriakhi, Trey Ziegler and several others transferring this offseason, it’s a good year to have an extra scholarship lying around unused.

The Ben Howland era that appeared to be on life support just a few weeks ago may have received the shock it needed to bring it back go life tonight when Shabazz Muhammad announced that he would be heading to UCLA this fall. While there are still issues regarding Muhammad’s eligibility related to his family’s relationship with financial advisors that need to be sorted out the addition of Muhammad to go along with Kyle Anderson, a point forward who is one of the top recruits in the country, suddenly makes this UCLA class one of the best in the country.

Shabazz Is Taking His Show To UCLA

News of Muhammad’s commitment to UCLA broke shortly before ESPNU’s nationally-televised extravaganza where the nation’s top two players–Muhammad and Nerlens Noel–announced their choices as multiple sources confirmed that Muhammad informed coaches at Duke, Kentucky, and UCLA today that he is headed to Westwood. Muhammad is expected to formally announce his choice of UCLA any moment now and for Bruins fans who have endured a season from hell–injuries, suspensions, SI cover stories, and discontent–they will have to wait on pins and needles for final confirmation from the spectacular scoring wing himself.

The addition of Muhammad and Anderson instantly makes UCLA one of the top, if not the top, team out west. With the two spectacular freshmen, the Wear twins, and potentially Josh Smith the Bruins could have a very scary lineup although a lot of how lethal they will be depends on how willing Howland is to let the talent of his freshman shine even if it makes him go away from his usual methodical style of play.

Spring signing day takes place Wednesday and several of the nation’s top prospects have withheld making a decision until the spring. The SEC, notably Kentucky, looks to add some of these blue-chippers. Here now are six of those top-level prospects and the SEC schools pursuing their talents.

Nerlens Noel – 6-10, C, Tilton, N.H. (No. 2 Rivals.com/No.1 Scout.com/No. 1 ESPN.com) – Noel was added to the 2012 class in early February setting off a mad recruiting scramble for this coveted big man. His list is rumored to be down to Syracuse, Georgetown, and Kentucky. All three boast great traditions of shot-blocking big men, but Kentucky certainly featured to most recent with Anthony Davis. When ESPN calls him “An absolutely incredible shot blocker with uncanny defensive instincts” it is not hard to imagine Calipari envisioning a Davis 2.0.

Shabazz Muhammad – 6-6, SG/SF, Las Vegas, Nev. (No.1 Rivals.com/No. 2 Scout.com/No. 2 ESPN.com) – Kentucky appears locked in a tight three-way battle with fellow blue-bloods Duke and UCLA for the left-handed scorer. Reports had him committing to UCLA last week, but nothing official came from the mouth of Muhammad. Like Noel, he make his announcement on Wednesday on television.

Where Will Shabazz End Up Going?

Anthony Bennett – 6-8, PF, Henderson, Nev. (No. 7 Rivals.com/No. 7 Scout.com/No. 7 ESPN.com) – Both Kentucky and Florida are in the power forward who is not likely to commit on Wednesday and could possibly delay his decision until May. He said in article earlier this week that “Yeah, it is tough (making a decision). That’s why I haven’t made my decision yet, but hopefully after I take all my visits it won’t be so hard.” In addition to the Gators and Wildcats, he has Oregon, Washington, and UNLV on his final list.

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