Welcome back to our weekly RTC Live schedule update.  Just looking back last week, we covered fourteen more games in holiday tournaments from Anaheim to New York City, and our frequent flyer miles are starting to add up around here.  Now that we’re moving back into a more normal schedule of games, we’ll be lightening up our travel schedule a little bit, but don’t worry, we’ll still be making it to as many games of national interest as we can.  Here’s this week’s schedule, and as always, check back for updates because often we add games at the last minute.

Tuesday December 1

• Wake Forest @ #4 Purdue – this game, as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge will have more gold and black than you can handle.  We ultimately think Purdue as the home team will win the game, but watching Robbie Hummel match up against Al-Farouq Aminu should be fantastic.

Wednesday December 2

• Oklahoma State @ Tulsa – Oklahoma State makes a visit to in-state rival Tulsa for what will undoubtedly be a packed house to watch Jerome Jordan and Ben Uzoh match up against James Anderson and Obi Muonelo.  OSU is 6-0 and was very impressive over the weekend in Las Vegas Invitational.  A win here and they could be in the top 25 next week.
• BYU @ Utah State – people in Logan, Utah, are calling this the greatest week of basketball they’ve ever had on campus at USU, as BYU visits midweek followed by WCC power St. Mary’s over the weekend.  USU is 3-2 with two heartbreaking losses to Utah and Northeastern, but don’t mistake their pedestrian record for evidence that they’re not a good team.  The Aggies will give BYU in their first real test this season all they can handle.

Friday December 4

• Kent State @ Xavier – Xavier returns from a tough weekend at the Old Spice Classic (1-2) to take on a Kent State team that has aspirations of winning the MAC this season.   We know that the Musketeers have talent, but we’re interested to see if they can start getting consistency from their stars Jordan Crawford and Jason Love.

Saturday December 5

• St. Mary’s @ Utah State – St. Mary’s will take its 5-1 record to Utah State on Saturday, and you can read the above as to why we also think this will be a good game between two middies looking for respect.

Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net and Travis Mason-Bushman of Vandal Nation are the RTC correspondents for the Western Athletic Conference.

Current Standings:

1. Louisiana Tech (4-1)
2. Idaho (3-1)
3. Nevada (2-1)
4. Boise State (3-2)
5. Fresno State (2-2)
6. Hawai’i (2-2)
7. Utah State (2-2)
8. New Mexico State (2-3)
9. San Jose State (1-2)

The general consensus among the WAC’s head coaches during the preseason media day teleconference was that on paper this was one of the strongest, deepest set of teams in league history.  Through the first two weeks of play, that depth and strength has not translated into as many non-conference wins as the league had hoped.  At a combined 21-16, the league has not had the type of showing early that it wanted or needed to prove that it was capable of once again becoming a multiple bid league.

In the first two weeks of play, the WAC had eight head-to-head games against the Mountain West.  Only Idaho has come away with a victory, an impressive 94-87 decision on the road in Salt Lake.  Only two of the seven other WAC/MWC games, all WAC losses, have been decided by single digits.

Consistently inconsistent would be the best way to describe the league thus far.  Idaho followed up that big victory over Utah with a head-scratching 72-65 loss at Texas Southern.

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Hopefully by now you’ve realized that ESPN is running its second annual 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon beginning tonight at midnight ET.  If you haven’t and you still call yourself a college basketball fan, you should probably turn in your credential right now.  RTC’s John Stevens will be hooked up to his caffeine drip all night long live-blogging the entire event from start to finish, but you know us, that’s not nearly enough.  So we’ll help keep him awake with a 2 am ET RTC Live from the beautiful campus of St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA, as the Gaels host San Diego State.  Both teams have played one home game thus far, resulting in a blowout win for each (SMC 100, New Mexico State 68; SDSU 77, UC San Diego 52), and the Gaels and Aztecs both have serious aspirations of surprising folks in their respective leagues this year.  SDSU was the second selection in the preseason poll of Mountain West media (behind BYU), and St. Mary’s was predicted third in a competitive race for the top of the WCC.  The Aztecs, however, may be without the services of three of its stars, as star forwards Billy White and Tim Shelton along with guard Tyrone Shelley are suffering a variety of ailments and sat out the last game against UCSD (today’s reports are inconclusive on all three’s status).  The two teams have played in each of the last two seasons (and seven times in the last six), with a split last season — SDSU taking last year’s NIT quarterfinal 70-66 behind 17 pts from White, and St. Mary’s winning a close battle 67-64 the December prior.  We expect another good one tonight as we burn the midnight oil in Moraga.

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Good day, friends. John Stevens, here, one of your faithful RTC contributors, with a quick reminder. ESPN’s 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon begins tonight at midnight on Monday night/Tuesday morning, and I’ll be live-blogging the whole thing in our famed Boom Goes the Dynamite format. I did this last year during the same event, and once again I’ll be happily disregarding the recommendations — nay, the very pleas — of my family, friends, and internist, and staying up the whole 24 hours, all the while absorbing those tasty rays from my TV and computer screens. I hope you’ll stop by and hit the refresh button a few times, and even lend a comment or two.

Here are the games ESPN is showing:

• 12:05 am Cal State Fullerton at UCLA
• 2:00 am San Diego State at Saint Mary’s – RTC Live Simulcast
• 4:00 am Northern Colorado at Hawaii
• 6:00 am Monmouth at St. Peter’s
• 8:00 am Drexel at Niagara
• 10:00 am Clemson at Liberty
• 12:00 pm Northeastern at Siena
• 2:00 pm Arkansas-Little Rock at Tulsa
• 4:00 pm Temple at Georgetown
• 5:30 pm Binghamton at Pittsburgh (ESPN2)
• 6:00 pm Charlotte at Duke (ESPN)
  
• 7:30 pm Arkansas at Louisville (ESPN2) – RTC Live Simulcast
  
• 8:00 pm Gonzaga at Michigan State
• 9:00 pm Duquesne at Iowa (ESPNU)
• 10:00 pm Memphis at Kansas – RTC Live Simulcast
  

Last year, if I recall correctly — and there’s a good chance that I don’t! — because I had worked a full day beforehand and gotten almost no sleep the previous night, I started hallucinating about 18 hours into this. I look to be a little better rested going in this time, so I anticipate it’ll be a total cake walk. Yeah, we’ll see. The executives here at RTC obviously think so, too, since my written requests for a short-term insurance policy were denied (read: returned to me in paper-doll-chain form). Alas.

Anyway, I hope you’ll join me for as much of it as you can endure.  The updates will begin below promptly at midnight tonight.  See you there!

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11:53pm (11/16): And so here we find ourselves, again, my friends.  Welcome to the RTC 24-hour live blog for ESPN’s 24-hour Hoops Marathon.  This will be done in our Boom Goes The Dynamite format, meaning this post will update every so often, so keep hitting that refresh button during the time that you’re joining us.  When three of us do this during a day’s games during the regular season, sometimes it’ll start with NVR, then I’ll take the baton, and rtmsf will finish the night with the late games.  When that happens, I use an old basketball term and call it…the three man weave.  I’m the only one who finds that clever, though.  But I”ll say it…what we have here is a one man weave.  I’ll have help from rtmsf as he goes all RTC Live on us from the San Diego State at St. Mary’s game at 2 am ET, and then again from St. Louis with the Arkansas-Louisville and Memphis-Kansas games later on Tuesday night.  But I’m flyin’ solo without a net and I’m going caffeine-free, baby!  That’s my pledge to you tonight.  I, John Stevens, will be kept awake merely by my love for college hoops.  I promise.  We’ll get it goin’ with Cal State-Fullerton at UCLA in just a bit.  Welcome!!

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Ed. Note: the previous posts in this series (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Atlantic South, Deep South, Mid-South, Lower Midwest, Upper Midwest, Mountains and Southwest) are located here.

It’s time for the tenth and final installment of our RTC 2009-10 Impact Players series, the group of cool, wet Pacific states known as the Northwest Region.   Each week we’ll pick a geographic area of the country and break down the five players who we feel will have the most impact on their teams (and by the transitive property, college basketball) this season.  Our criteria is once again subjective – there are so many good players in every region of the country that it’s difficult to narrow them down to only five  in each – but we feel at the end of this exercise that we’ll have discussed nearly every player of major impact in the nation.  Just to be fair and to make this not too high-major-centric, we’re also going to pick a mid-major impact player in each region as our sixth man.  We welcome you guys, our faithful and very knowledgeable readers, to critique us in the comments where we left players off.  The only request is that you provide an argument – why will your choice be more influential this season than those we chose?

Northwest Region (AK, WA, OR, northern CA)

• Matt Bouldin – G, Sr – Gonzaga.  As anyone in Spokane or among Gonzaga’s growing national fan base can tell you, most of the talk about Gonzaga this off-season has concerned itself with what the Bulldogs have lost.  Understandable, as the excellent Zag firm of Daye, Heytvelt, Pargo, and Downs are a tough bunch to replace, to say the least.  Consider also that Gonzaga is bringing in something like 37 freshmen onto this year’s squad, and one can easily conclude that Mark Few finds himself with his most interesting coaching predicament yet.  With such an inexperienced squad, what’s the one thing Few needs most?  A savvy, intelligent senior leader.  Enter Matt Bouldin, a 2010 preseason Wooden Award nominee to absolutely nobody’s surprise.  Check these stats from last year:  49.1% from the field, 42.3% from three-point range…but only 13.6 PPG.  Even with several other offensive options on his team, you’d expect a shooting guard with those percentages to average more than 13.6 PPG.  But, this means that when Bouldin does shoot, it’s usually a good shot in terms of shot selection, something coaches will tell you is one of the real keys to winning at this level, and an incredibly difficult thing to teach.  Mind you, those percentages are up from his sophomore season even though he registered more attempts as a junior.  Without a doubt, Bouldin’s touches and minutes will increase this season, despite leading last year’s team with 31.7 minutes a game.  He might need to get to the line a little more this year, but with his ability to take care of the ball, Coach Few should have no apprehension adding this to Bouldin’s responsibilites, if he chooses.  Bouldin’s 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio was third in the conference (behind two of his teammates!) and is exceptional for a shooting guard.  So go ahead, feel sorry for Gonzaga if you must.  We know what they lost, and we know Portland might be a fun pick in the WCC.  But with a coach like Few, a leader like Bouldin, and a non-conference pressure-cooker like the one Gonzaga has in store, if Portland so much as twitches, Gonzaga will take them down.  And look at their NCAA Tournament history.  Except for 2007, Gonzaga does best when they get a 10-12 seed and nobody’s looking.  Mark Few is spectacular when it comes to keeping numerous talented players happy and, perhaps better than anyone in the country, instilling in all of his players an immense pride in the name on the front of the jersey as compared with the one on the back.  When you watch Few’s Gonzaga teams, you can almost feel the love the players have for that uniform.  Matt Bouldin possesses this pride just as much as any of his Wooden-list predecessors like Morrison or Dickau.  We guarantee you — he will not go quietly.

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Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.   Click here for all of our 2009-10 Season Preview materials.

Predicted Order of Finish:

1. Portland (11-3)
2. Gonzaga (10-4)
3. Saint Mary’s (8-6)
4. San Diego (7-7)
5. Santa Clara (6-8)
6. Loyola Marymount (6-8)
7. USF (5-9)
8. Pepperdine (3-11)

All-Conference Team:

• Matt Bouldin (G), Gonzaga
• Kevin Foster (G), Santa Clara
• Dior Lowhorn (F), USF
• Kevin Young (F), Loyola
• Omar Samhan (C), Saint Mary’s

6^th man. Nik Raivio, Portland

Impact newcomer. Matthew Dellavedova, Saint Mary’s

What You Need to Know.

• Going International.  The 2010 season marks the WCC’s most pronounced bow to international athletes, with every team having at least two foreign-born players and two of the predicted top three finishers – Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s – pinning their season hopes on the performance of foreigners. Saint Mary’s gave the trend its biggest boost by establishing an Australian pipeline that produced Daniel Kickert, the Gaels’ all-time leading scorer, and Patty Mills, who opted for the NBA after two sensational seasons. The Gaels continue as the Koala’s best friend this year, with five Aussies expected to make contributions and one, freshman guard Matthew Dellavedova, looming as a potential star.  Gonzaga’s Pacific Northwest pipeline that supplied stars Adam Morrison, Dan Dickau and Blake Stepp, among others, may be temporarily clogged, but the Zags have turned to Canada (Manny Arop, Robert Sacre and Kelly Olynyk), Germany (Elias Harris), and Sudan by way of Canada (Bol Kong), to maintain their position atop the conference. USF joined the crowd in a big way this off-season, luring a Czech (Tomas Bruha), two Frenchmen (Moustapha Diarra, Nikola Stojiljkovic) and a Canadian (Perris Blackwell).
• Room at the Top: Gonzaga, with nine WCC titles in a row, and Saint Mary’s, a perennial runner-up under Randy Bennett, have dominated the conference in recent years. But Gonzaga lost four of its main contributors from last year’s Sweet Sixteen team (Austin Daye, Josh Heytvelt, Jeremy Pargo and Micah Downs) and Saint Mary’s said goodbye to Mills, all-time leading rebounder and shot-blocker Diamon Simpson, starting forward Ian O’Leary and a trio of valuable back-ups in Yusef Smith, Lucas Walker and Carlin Hughes. That’s why Portland, with all five starters back from last year’s 19-13 team that finished third in the conference, can’t wait to shove its way into the top spot. Santa Clara’s Kerry Keating and USF’s confident newcomer Rex Walters, entering his second year, have recruited aggressively and well, indicating that they, too, are up to challenging Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s in the next few years.
• Multiple NCAA Bids: The conference was shocked last year when Saint Mary’s, 25-6 overall and second place in the conference behind Gonzaga, did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, leaving the Zags as the sole WCC entrant. Just the year before, Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s and San Diego received bids, the first time in anyone’s memory that three teams had gone to The Dance. Whether the conference elevates itself in the NCAA Selection Committee’s eyes in 2009-10 is one of the biggest question marks looming over the season.

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Once again, ESPN is kicking off its college basketball coverage with a 24-hour hoops marathon on the various networks. For a sport that has long lacked a definitive opening day/night, ESPN deserves of a ton of credit (that was painful to say) for getting creative and implementing this marathon for us hoops nerds. Our own John Stevens is expected to be back for another coma-inducing live blog for the event (last year’s transcript), and in today’s daily Katz blog entry, the schedule was officially announced. Here are the games (all times EST on November 17):

Midnight- Cal State Fullerton @ UCLA (ESPN)– First chance to see if Malcolm Lee seems ready to take over the point guard role for the unproven Bruins.

2 AM- San Diego State @ Saint Mary’s (ESPN)– A possible MWC title contender heading to a raucous environment. Look out for the Aztecs star freshman Kawhi Leonard.

4 AM- Northern Colorado @ Hawaii (ESPN)- A reasonable 10 PM start for the Fightin’ Rainbows.

6 AM- Monmouth @ Saint Peter’s (ESPN)– Think the first half might be a little sluggish?

8 AM- Drexel @ Niagara (ESPN)– Don’t sleep on the Purple Eagles. This team has the talent to challenge Siena this season in the MAAC.

10 AM- Clemson @ Liberty (ESPN)– In exchange for filling a spot on their schedule last season, Clemson must travel to Lynchburg to take on the Curry-less Flames. This is our first look at the inside-outside combo of Trevor Booker and Noel Johnson for Clemson, whose fans should begin to worry if they get off to a good start.

12 PM- Northeastern @ Siena (ESPN)- Two teams that could be dancing this season. The Huskies spent much of last year near the top in the Colonial and returns four starters. We’re all very familiar with Siena at this point and coach Fran McCaffery has plenty of talent back in the fold.

2 PM- Arkansas-Little Rock @ Tulsa (ESPN)- This could be the year Memphis is dethroned from the top of Conference USA. The team most likely to do the unseating is the Golden Hurricane, led by seven footer Jerome Jordan.

4 PM- Temple @ Georgetown (ESPN)- This will be our first opportunity to see if the Hoyas can turn their negative campaign a season ago into a positive motivator in 2009-10.

5:30 PM- Binghamton @ Pittsburgh (ESPN2)– The Panthers lost DeJuan Blair, Levance Fields, Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs. Jermaine Dixon is unlikely to play due to a broken foot. This should be Jamie Dixon’s toughest coaching job yet. Ashton Gibbs is a player to watch this season.

6 PM- Charlotte/Elon @ Duke (ESPN)– Our first look at a Duke team that is much bigger than in previous seasons with the additions of Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly. Kyle Singler takes his first step towards a possible All-America honor in this Preseason NIT contest.

7:30 PM- Arkansas vs. Louisville in St. Louis (ESPN2)– Two teams that could go either direction this season. Louisville needs Samardo Samuels to make the leap and freshman Peyton Siva to contribute immediately. Arkansas fell apart a season ago and their last ten months have certainly been tumultous, but still boast talent in guard Courtney Fortson (so long as he’s not tweeting) and rookie forward Marshawn Powell.

8 PM- Gonzaga at Michigan State (ESPN)– The Zags will be a guard-oriented squad this year with Matt Bouldin, Demetri Goodson and Steven Gray. Michigan State has balance with Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers outside and Delvon Roe and Raymar Morgan inside. The Spartans could make another Final Four run.

9 PM- Duquesne at Iowa (ESPNU)– The Hawkeyes should be bottom-feeder in the Big Ten yet again, meaning Damian Saunders and the Dukes could keep this competitive.

10 PM- Memphis vs. Kansas in St. Louis (ESPN)– Our first look at the best team in the nation- Kansas. We know they’ll be great. The team to watch here is Memphis. Kansas poses an incredible test in November for a team dealing with a horde of losses from a season ago. Roburt Sallie, Willie Kemp and Elliot Williams must lead the way if the Tigers wish to win another conference title.

11:30 PM- TBA at Arizona State (ESPN2)– Could be a rebuilding year in Tempe with James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph no longer involved.

Gonzaga-Michigan State is the highlight of the slate, but there’s plenty of other reasons to tune in. I’m curious to see who will emerge for UCLA, if Memphis can hang with Kansas for even a half, if Arkansas can play more like their non-conference season a year ago than their SEC record, if Ashton Gibbs can be a star for Pitt and whether a Monmouth or St. Peter’s player falls asleep on the court. Should be another 24 hours of fun, and RTC will be back with John Stevens the whole way again.

The 2009 NBA Predraft Camp ended Friday in Chicago, and as we mentioned last week, there were twelve underclassmen who were still on the fence about whether to stay in the draft or return to school.  Given that this is a college basketball site, those are the players we’re interested in.  So let’s take a look at what we’re hearing about each of the dozen and how that may have impacted their decisions.  Thanks to ESPN’s Chad Ford, DraftExpress‘ Jonathan Givony, and NBADraft.net for their reports, which we borrowed liberally from.

Derrick Brown, Xavier – Brown is not returning to school.  He officially announced his intentions on the first day of the camp, but he says that he’s known for several weeks.  He’s already graduated from school and with the move of his head coach Sean Miller to Arizona, he wasn’t interested in starting over with a new coach.  In drills, his mechanics apparently looked poor, but he has freakish athleticism and will hover in that guaranteed-money cutoff between the first and second rounds.

Austin Daye, Gonzaga – Daye measured out very well at 6’11 in shoes with a 7’3 wingspan, but at 192 pounds he might get blown away by a stiff breeze.  He also excelled in the workouts, showing a strong fundamental basis and a sure stroke from everywhere on the court.   There are still concerns about his relative strength, but according to Chad Ford, a couple of lottery teams were willing to give him another look after his workouts.  Probably leaning draft after this camp.

Taj Gibson, USC – Also measured well, standing 6’10 in shoes with an absurd 7’4 wingspan.  Given that Gibson will be 24 on draft day and he’s on the fence of the first round, he’s probably not returning to school.

Luke Harangody, Notre Dame – ‘Gody did not measure well, standing only 6’8 in shoes, a full inch-and-a-half shorter than his counterpart Tyler Hansbrough.  According to this report, though, he may have the best jumpshot in the entire draft class.  Still, he’s painfully unathletic and it would be a surprise to see Harangody stay in the draft.

Jrue Holiday, UCLA – Another winner in the measurement department, as Holiday showed he’s a big point guard (6’4 in shoes) with a long wingspan.  He was also extremely impressive in workouts, with one scout saying, “that’s the kid we fell in love with in high school.”  Given the exceptional workouts he was having in Chicago, Holiday was getting more buzz than any other guard there and is unlikely to return to Westwood.

Damion James, Texas – James must not have impressed much because most reports failed to mention him.  Given that he’s a projected second-round pick at this point and he told Andy Katz that he’s looking for a guarantee, he would probably do himself well to return to school another year.

Gani Lawal, Georgia Tech – Lawal showed explosiveness and good size for a PF prospect, but according to Andy Katz, he may not be willing to take the chance unless he can secure a first round guarantee.  Not sure he’s going to get that, which would mean probably a better than even chance that Lawal would join Derrick Favors and Iman Shumpert back in the ATL next season.

Jodie Meeks, Kentucky – Meeks is another player looking for a first round guarantee, and he’s unlikely to get it.  He looked like he’s in tremendous shape and he shot the ball well in the camp, but there are still visible holes in his game (most notably, defense).  This Wildcat is probably heading back to Lexington to play off-the-ball with John Wall in 2009-10.

Patrick Mills, St. Mary’s – Mills impressed scouts with his speed and shooting mechanics, but his size makes him a borderline first rounder.  He said that if he is going to be a second round pick, he’ll return to St. Mary’s for his junior season.  It says here that we don’t think that’ll be a problem.

Tyler Smith, Tennessee – Measured in at only 6’6 in shoes, so what position is he at the next level?  Shot the ball well in drills, but remains on the fence depending on whether he’ll be a first or second round pick.  Sound familiar?

Jeff Teague, Wake Forest – Gone.  Says he’s leaving Wake Forest so long as he’s a first rounder, and he assuredly is one.  Athletic point who had a longer wingspan and reach than expected, which helps to explain how a 6’1 guy can throw down such ridiculous dunks in transition.

Greivis Vasquez, Maryland – Vasquez measured well for a combo guard, and his quotes made it sound like this was just for show.  He has little to no shot at the first round this year, and it appeared that he acknowledged as much.  He should be back in College Park next season.

So of the twelve players still sitting on the fence, we’ve got the following staying in the draft: Brown, Daye, Gibson, Holiday, Mills and Teague.  Really only Daye seems to be questionable at this point.  The other six: Harangody, James, Lawal, Meeks, Smith and Vasquez are largely hoping for a first round guarantee that will not be forthcoming (Lawal excepted  in this group).

Once the measurements including the athletic combine stats come out (vertical leap, speed, etc.), we’ll re-visit the 2009 Predraft Camp.

This is admittedly a really stupid exercise given that it’s not very easy to project how these teams will look in six months, but everyone does it anyway, so as your full-service college basketball service provider, we feel obligated to disseminate the information for you.  Send us more links as they come available and we’ll add them to the list.

Update: here are some insanely too early all-americans for 2009-10, courtesy of CHN.

Update 2: here are the new aggregate rankings, taking into account Parrish, Goodman and Katz’s rankings.

Note: for the aggregate ranking, we only aggregated the top ten, and teams that were named on every list were ranked higher than those ranked on all but one, all but two, etc.  Then teams were ranked within that criterion (ie, KU, Syracuse, MSU and Purdue were each ranked by all five lists, but UNC was only ranked on four).

Some very quick notes on these rankings:

• Clearly most everyone thinks Kansas is going to keep Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich around for another year.   Fair pick there, but Pete Thamel at the NYT must think differently in that regard.
• Same thing with Syracuse and Jonny Flynn.
• North Carolina will probably lose Lawson and Ellington, but we all know they’ll still be a top ten team next year.  Undoubtedly Vitale would have had them there if he’d bothered to list more than five teams.
• Duke will likely lose G-Henderson, but they’ll have more than enough coming back and entering the program to keep themselves squarely in the top 10.  Not sure what the NYT and Chicago Tribune are thinking there.
• Wake Forest and Kentucky are wildcards at this point.  Wake could end up losing both Al-Farouq Aminu and Jeff Teague, which would put the Deacs back in the NIT, while Kentucky could end up with largely the same team it had last year if none of the top recruits follow Calipari to Lexington.  These are two huge stay-tuneds.
• People overrate Tourney performance.  Texas, UCLA, Cal, Texas A&M… even Florida should be strong next year.  St. Mary’s if they keep Patty Mills and Davidson if they keep Stephen Curry as well.