1. After a few bumps to begin the season, it appears that the Larry Brown experiment at Southern Methodist appears to be getting back on track. The latest addition to the Mustangs is Duke transfer Semi Ojeleye who committed to SMU over the weekend. Although Ojeleye only put up modest numbers–3 points and 2.3 rebounds per game–in limited playing time this season, he was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school and might flourish in an environment where he is not sitting behind multiple McDonald’s All-Americans. The 6’8″ sophomore will be eligible to play in December 2015 since he will have to sit out a year. When he does return, he could be part of a dynamic frontline that will probably have Markus Kennedy, Jordan Tolbert, and Ben Moore back next season.
2. If you were expecting to see Dwayne Polee II back in a San Diego State uniform any time soon, you might want to reconsider that after Steve Fisher revealed that Polee had a similar event last season during a practice. Given this new information, we certainly understand why the school is not offering a time table for Polee’s return as he will now have to go a much more extensive medical work-up. Polee, a senior forward who is averaging 8.4 points per game, will likely be out for quite a bit more time and given the data in recent years about sudden cardiac death in Division 1 men’s basketball players we cannot fault them for being extremely cautious.
3. It has been a rough few weeks for UCLA basketball. After the embarrassment of going down 24-0 and only scoring seven points in the first half against Kentucky, they lost to Alabama yesterday after only scoring 17 points in the first half and that is better than it seems because they only had scored five points with 5:15 left in the first half. Things will not be getting any easier for the Bruins who lost Wanaah Bail for the season after he was declared academically ineligible. On the surface, Bail’s paltry output of 1.5 points and 2.6 rebounds in 9 minutes per game might not seem like much (and it isn’t), but on a team with as little depth as UCLA has it only exacerbates that weakness even more.
4. We tend to stay away from the AAU scene for a variety of reasons, but have heard plenty of horror stories involving the people who bankroll some teams. So when we heard about a a banker in Houston who financed a prominent AAU team, we we intrigued. Unlike the typical AAU stories we read, the key piece in this story–Steve Trauber–does not appear to have any intention of using the players for his own financial gain (and it appears that he is already doing quite well financially anyways). In fact, one of the players on the team last year was Trauber’s son, J.T., who is currently a walk-on Rice. We doubt that we will see many similar stories of rich individuals backing youth basketball teams, but it is nice to see it happen.
5. For years we have heard arguments about which city produces the best basketball talent. We usually hear cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta thrown around, but it might be time that we expand our horizons. As Scott Cacciola of The New York Times notes Toronto is quickly becoming a basketball hotbed. Although they do not have the tradition of major cities in the US, the talent produced by Toronto (at least the very top tier) in recent years rivals that of any major US city. While we are not quite ready to get on board with the idea that Canada will be a legitimate threat to the US in the 2016 or 2020 Olympics, the spread of basketball outside of the US and its impact on the game and college basketball recruiting is certainly something to keep an eye on.

The man in the red suit is a busy guy right about now, but more than a few college basketball teams should be hoping Santa has time to swing by campus before his work is done. No milk and cookies were left fireside in Lexington, KY, or Durham, NC (reinforcements not needed), and some programs need seek only a stocking stuffer or two (hey there, Virginia and Wisconsin). But most teams have wish lists that stretch far longer. Conference play is here, and the blissful ignorance of the non-conference season? Long gone. In its place arrive true days of reckoning – grinding tests against peers that won’t allow deficiencies to go unpunished any longer. With conference season looming, we take a look at a handful of college basketball teams in desperate need of a gift this Christmas.

Which College Basketball Teams Will Receive A Visit From Santa This Year? (Photo Credit: AP)

Iowa: Last Season’s Shooting Touch

Shoddy defense destroyed the Hawkeye’s promising start a season ago, but things have changed this winter. The defense has been much improved (22nd nationally in defensive efficiency), but a sputtering offense has left Iowa just 9-4 heading into conference play. All eight of the Hawkeye returnees have seen their three-point percentage drop this year (team: 259th nationally in three-point percentage), while only Gabriel Olaseni has improved upon his 2013-14 two-point field goal percentage (team: 232nd nationally in two-point percentage). The widespread nature of the shooting epidemic would seem to indicate some sort of systemic explanation. No Roy Devyn Marble? A lack of comfort with a quicker tempo? A coaching staff that has lost its players? Any or all of these questions could be a dig at the root cause, but even if they are, expecting some reversion to the more efficient levels of 2013-14 is entirely fair. The defense has been there; can Santa bring back the Hawkeyes’ shooting strokes?

Arkansas: Road Victories

For most of Mike Anderson’s tenure at Arkansas, the New Year (and conference play) has brought two things in bunches: home wins, and road losses. The Razorbacks are well positioned to earn their first Tournament appearance under Anderson after a 9-2 start, even if old habits die hard. The Hogs are undefeated on the home hardwood (8-0) and less perfect on the road: Both of the Hogs’ losses (Iowa State and Clemson) have come in enemy arenas. A November win at SMU should not be overlooked, but Arkansas needs to prove they can win games away from Bud Walton Arena in 2015. A depleted SEC should play the role of enabler.

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1. Cincinnati‘s loss on Saturday took a back seat to the bigger news that Mick Cronin would be out indefinitely after being diagnosed with an “unruptured aneurysm” during a workup for persistent headaches. Cronin, who turned around a program that appeared to be in disarray when he started there, has led the Bearcats to four straight NCAA Tournament appearances after failing to do so in his first four years at the job. With Cincinnati being one of the top medical centers in the country we would assume this will be a fairly quick work-up although that does not necessarily mean Cronin will be back any quicker than he otherwise would be.
2. After a rough past few months Southern Methodist finally got some good news when they found out that Markus Kennedy had been cleared to play prior to their game against Michigan. Kennedy, an All-AAC performer who averaged 12.4 points and 7.1 rebounds per game last season, had been ruled academically ineligible for the first semester. In his first game back, Kennedy had five points and three rebounds in ten minutes of action during SMU’s 11-point win at Michigan.
3. If Rick Pitino was worried about keeping his Louisville team focused with two games remaining before their showdown on December 27 against Kentucky he may have found his solution with Montrezl Harrell‘s one-game suspension. Harrell, the Cardinals’ All-American junior forward who was averaging 16.7 points and 10 rebounds per game this season, was ejected from Saturday’s win at Western Kentucky for throwing a punch. While we never expected Harrell to miss the Kentucky game as a result of this suspension he got off about as light as he and Pitino could have hoped for given the circumstances.
4. At this point we are ready to call Fred Hoiberg the John Calipari of transfers as he seems to be almost as successful in landing big-name transfers as Calipari is at picking up McDonald’s All-Americans. His latest addition is Marquette transfer Deonte Burton who committed to Iowa State. Burton, a consensus top-100 recruit, averaged 6.1 points and 1.4 rebounds per game as a sophomore after being expected to see more playing time this season. With Marquette’s strong incoming class it appeared less likely that Burton would see a big increase in his playing time in coming years so the decision makes sense. As for Iowa State, they seem to be reloading on transfers every year with no apparent end in sight.
5. Mitchell Wilbekin, who had been averaging 7.6 points per game this season, has been suspended for six games for an undisclosed NCAA violation. Interestingly the first game Wilbekin missed was Saturday’s loss to Florida, his older brother Scottie’s former team. For their part, Wake Forest will appeal the ruling saying that they disagree with the NCAA both in terms of the violation and the length of the suspension. Wilbekin’s suspension means that he will miss the team’s first two ACC games, which are against Louisville and Duke that we would consider likely losses except that they are in Winston-Salem.

Let’s start by putting it bluntly — the teams in the AAC did not have a very good week. The conference’s final three unbeaten teams — Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF — all lost for the first time this season and the supposed standard-bearers for the conference — UConn, Memphis, SMU, and even Tulsa — all lost high-profile games and the Huskies were the only team with a realistic shot to win their game. We are now nearly a month into the season and UConn’s 11-point win against Dayton remains the best win by an AAC team. These are not fun days to be an AAC basketball fan, but the season is young, and there is time for some of these teams to turn things around. So let’s get into the best and worst of the week:

For Ryan Boatright and the rest of the AAC, Thanksgiving week wasn’t too kind. (US Presswire)

• Worst Inbounds Defense With The Game On The Line: UConn had a chance for the conference’s first statement win of the season yesterday as they led Texas at home for most of the game. But Ryan Boatright missed a free-throw to put the Huskies up by three and Texas’ relatively simple play out of the timeout worked to perfection as Jonathan Holmes was left open to bury the game-winning three-pointer. Give the Longhorns credit, they executed the play about as well as it could have been executed. But Holmes is the Longhorns’ best player and it is inexcusable that he should be left all alone no matter how good the screen was and no matter how badly injured Boatright was on they play.

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When the NCAA Tournament Committee shocked many bracket prognosticators by leaving a ranked SMU team out of the field of 68, committee chairman Ron Wellman was quick to point out that the Mustangs’ non-conference schedule was a bit of a joke. Wellman had a point. The Mustangs played just two teams (Arkansas and Virginia) ranked among KenPom’s top 50 teams and lost to the both. The rest of the team’s non-conference wins — against the likes of Arkansas Pine Bluff and McNeese State — were easy for the committee to ignore.

Larry Brown Needs Some Quality Wins, and Fast (Cooper Neill/Getty Images)

When SMU released its 2014-15 basketball schedule, it was evident that the school had listened when Wellman dumped on its non-conference schedule.The patsies are still really, really bad, but road games against Gonzaga, Indiana, and Michigan as well as home dates with Arkansas and Wyoming were supposed to make up for those RPI killers. The only problem is that in order for those games to boost the team’s RPI, SMU needed to actually win a few of them, which they haven’t done thus far.

Last night was the Mustangs’ latest lost opportunity as they let Arkansas run out to an early double-digit lead in the first half on the road and then were unable to claw all the way back into the game, eventually losing 78-72. That loss comes just five days after SMU kicked away a second-half lead on the road in a loss to Indiana. And that loss came just three days after the Mustangs were blown out by Gonzaga in Spokane. Individually, none of these losses are truly that bad. The Razorbacks, Hoosiers, and Bulldogs are all really good teams who should make the NCAA Tournament. But together, these losses show that SMU has now nearly struck out on its chances to get a non-conference win that would impress the NCAA Tournament Committee.

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“Bests and Worsts” is a new Monday feature where we will recap the best and worst from the previous week of college basketball in the AAC. 

It was not a great week for the AAC as all of the expected top teams in the conference lost in uninspiring fashion and the conference still doesn’t have a marquee win to hang its hat on — unless you count UConn beating Dayton. But we never pretended that the AAC would be the best conference in the country, just that it would be an entertaining season to follow, and that much still holds true. While other conferences have seen teams emerge from the pack, the American is still totally up in the air and that’s what makes it interesting for us to cover.

Best Reason for UConn Fans Not to Panic: UConn basketball fans aren’t quite as unhinged on Twitter as say, Kentucky fans, but they can be pretty active. So obviously it wasn’t long after UConn‘s disappointing loss to West Virginia in the final of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off that the Huskies’ faithful started speculating on what the loss meant. The Huskies were very bad from downtown (3-of-17) and turned the ball over a lot (19), but the tweet that best summed up how UConn fans should feel about the loss came from our friends at the Bleed Blue Blog.

Nothing proves a point better than some well-placed snark. Also, Bleed Blue makes a larger point, even if they weren’t trying to. It’s easy to overreact to early season games because there is nothing else to go on. But none of the teams around the country as anywhere near as good as they will be in January and February, so reading the tea leaves of an early-season loss to West Virginia isn’t the best way to evaluate the Huskies’ chances of repeating.

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What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Griffin Wong (@griffwong90) is your weekly host.

Texas Looks Like a Top Ten Team

The Longhorns came to play late last week, taking the 2K Sports Classic event at Madison Square Garden rather handily. Jonathan Holmes, the tournament MVP, emerged onto the national scene after going for 40 points and 18 rebounds in Texas’s two convincing wins over Iowa and California.

Holmes of Texas is multi talented -so so underrated on the national scene !

— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) November 22, 2014

Jonathan Holmes is playing like an All-American.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) November 22, 2014

Plus, mentioning Texas gives me the excuse to show you Cameron Ridley‘s insane block!

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On Tuesday the American Athletic Conference released what they are calling a “public service announcement” that is really just a quick pump-up campaign featuring some video and stills of the league’s 11 coaches in action. I am probably the only one (at last count, only 38 people have even viewed it), but I loved every second of it and that’s because any content focused on this group of coaches is worth examining. The marketing folks over at conference headquarters are smart to use the coaches as the league’s primary selling point. This is not only because most casual college basketball fans would have trouble naming five AAC players even if we gave them Emmanuel Mudiay, but because the league’s coaches are characters with colorful backgrounds and track records that make it far more interesting to follow. I legitimately got fired up about the upcoming season. And since I was fired up, I decided to channel some of that energy into capturing some of the best moments of the 30-second video to help everyone else understand why these coaches are so awesome. I’m not the only one fired up either…

That’s right, even #Haith is excited for the new season. But he isn’t the only colorful coach in the conference. We’ve got UCF‘s Donnie Jones, seen below looking out onto the court as he realizes that Isaiah Sykes graduated last season. Either that or he is just remembering that Kevin Ware never actually made it to campus and that he really shouldn’t have followed that convicted felon on Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, RTC national columnist Bennet Hayes asked if Louisville’s departure from the AAC would “cripple” the conference and rightly pointed out that the Cardinals’ consistent excellence and national pedigree would be sorely missed by a new conference still looking to find its way. But with all due respect to my colleague, he isn’t asking the right question. The AAC will absolutely miss Louisville, and the prolonged irrelevance of the teams replacing the Cardinals’ program should be a major concern. But the conference still has enough competitive programs to stay relevant in March. The real question is whether the top five or six teams can ever be consistently nationally relevant. The reason the answer to that question isn’t obvious is because the league can’t seem to attract much NBA-level talent and that all starts with recruiting.

Daniel Hamilton Was The AAC’s Only Five-Star Recruit And Is Maybe Its Best NBA Prospect

The early signing period for the recruiting class of 2015 officially came to close today, and after landing just one five-star prospect (UConn’s Daniel Hamilton) in the Class of 2014, things again look bleak for the conference. Only two five-star prospects (UConn commitment Jalen Adams and Memphis commitment Dedric Lawson) signed their letter of intent with an AAC school last week, and not coincidentally, UConn and Memphis are the conference’s only programs that can currently boast top 30 recruiting classes. Let’s break down just how unfavorably the AAC recruiting classes stack up to those from the rest of the major basketball conferences.

• The AAC, the Big 12, and the Big Ten are the only three conferences without a commitment from one of the country’s top 20 players, but it’s almost a certainty that Kansas will land one if not two or three of the uncommitted five-star prospects.
• The AAC has only six of the top 100 prospects in the country currently committed, far less than the Pac-12 (15), Big Ten (13), SEC (14), and the ACC (17). The Big East currently has seven top 100 prospects committed and the Big 12 has just five (again… Kansas).
• Only the Big 12 has fewer schools among the top 30 recruiting classes in the country after the early signing period, and it seems highly unlikely that any other school from the conference will break into that group, although SMU is probably close.
• Of the top remaining uncommitted prospects, only five-star center Diamond Stone is seriously considering an AAC school (UConn) while the rest of the uncommitted prospects seem to be considering SEC, Big 12 or Pac-12 schools.
• UConn and Memphis are responsible for four of the six top-100 prospects committed to play in the AAC, and Memphis’ highly ranked class has as much to do with their coaching hires and Dedric Lawson’s decision to reclassify as it does with Josh Pastner’s recruiting prowess.

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SMU didn’t exactly make a great impression in its nationally televised showdown with Gonzaga last night. The final score was 72-56 and that was after the Mustangs closed the gap late against the Bulldogs’ scrubs. It started early when Larry Brown’s team gifted Gonzaga way too many open looks, and continued in the second half as the Mustangs suffered through a poor shooting performance — at one point in the second half, they were 3-of-23 from the field — so bad it’s unlikely to be repeated this season. The second half got so out of hand that it gave the Gonzaga student section time to audition some new chants for this season (the “You need Mudiay” version was the best of the bunch, in my opinion). The Mustangs are too experienced and talented to be blown out so easily, but despite a disappointing showing in a marquee match-up during the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon, there were a few positives to take away from the game. Gonzaga is really good and Spokane is a difficult place to play, so I don’t think that this game will be reflective of the team that SMU will become by the end of the season.

Brown Had A Similar Pained Look On His Face Often Watching Gonzaga. (AP)

Here are the four things that stuck out to me about last night’s game:

1. Did I mention how good Gonzaga is yet? The Bulldogs haven’t been a true mid-major team in years, but this may be the season that Mark Few’s club looks the least like a punchy underdog. Gonzaga has more size than almost any team in the country outside of Kentucky; it has one of the best point guards in the country in Kevin Pangos; it has plenty of shooting; and its rotation might be legitimately nine-deep. The Bulldogs fed off an explosive atmosphere in having their way with the Mustangs all game long. Domantas Sabonis and Kyle Wiltjer are a pair of frontcourt players with NBA futures, and Pangos is one of the most versatile offensive weapons in the country. What am I trying to say is that there is no shame in losing to the Zags in their building this early in the season.  At one point Fran Fraschilla said that if there are “12 teams in the country better than Gonzaga, they must be really good.” Yeah, there is no way that there are 12 teams in America better than that team right now. Read the rest of this entry »