Who’s Got Next? is a bi-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. Twice 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 in the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Introduction

Last week it was the Nike EYBL, this week it’s the Pangos All-American Camp. Last week Class of 2012 small forward Shabazz Muhammad (#3) got his own section and this week Class of 2013 power forward Julius Randle (Watch List) gets his own section. Last week Class of 2012 point guard L.J. Rose (#20) named UCLA as a favorite and this week he elaborated on that. As you can tell, there are a lot of parallels between last week’s column and this week’s column but there are some things (or should I say people) that weren’t mentioned in the previous Who’s Got Next? column: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Candace Parker and ‘The Jewish Jordan”… not to mention a Twitter recruiting scandal.

What They’re Saying

Junior Brandon Ashley (#4) looks to cut his list in the next couple of weeks.

1. If you remember the name Pete Lisicky, a Penn State guard during the mid-90s, you’re probably either a Big Ten fan or some kind of stat nerd savant for college basketball.  Expect to hear his name a lot this weekend, as Ohio State’s Jon Diebler is set to break his Big Ten record for threes made (332) in a career.  Diebler currently sits one behind Lisicky, who spent the last eleven years draining treys in Europe before coming back to work in mutual funds in Arizona, for the record.  OSU plays Purdue on Saturday, so place your bets now on the times of the game when Diebler will both tie and pass the mark — he’s only made fewer than two treys in a game five times this year.
2. Temple forward Michael Eric will miss the rest of the season with a fractured patella.  He suffered the injury earlier this week during practice when he ran into another player, but is expected to make a full recovery.  The 6’11 big man was averaging 7/6 in twenty minutes per game, but the Owls didn’t seem to miss him last night against Richmond, blowing out the Spiders, 73-53.
3. This story from the Baltimore Sun revisits the “Jewish Jordan,” Tamir Goodman.  Goodman was a one-time Maryland recruit who never realistically could have lived up to the hype he received coming out of high school.  He played for a bit at Towson before heading overseas until injuries forced him to retire at the age of 28.  It’s a good read about a guy who is using his life lessons in a positive way.
4. Of the various Billy Gillispie rumors that have floated around the past couple of seasons — Texas Tech, Houston, etc. — this one where he would take over for Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel seems the best fit.  OU is a top-tier basketball program when it wants to be but will never be confused with football in Norman, and with Gillispie’s pipeline into the fertile Texas recruiting landscape, this would appear to be a home run situation for both sides.  The question, of course, is whether the administration will give Capel another year to turn things around there.
5. This is so amazing that we’re not sure whether to be scared of these two or ready to send them campaign contributions.  Henry Sims, a junior center at Georgetown, has decided to run for student body VP, and his campaign ad (along with presidential candidate, Jed Felman), is comedic gold.  Who shares a salad, and what’s going on with the Oprah joke?  Just bizarre, but hilarious.

It was a very quiet weekend in college hoopsland, which is a good thing, because the RTC staff is working madly behind the scenes to get things together for the upcoming season.  You guys realize that we’re seven weeks to the day away from the first game, right (Nov. 9 – FIU @ UNC in the CvC)?

• Jeff Goodman wrote a post on his blog last week that asked the question of which teams in 09-10 could be categorized as the deepest in college basketball.  He concluded that Big 12 stalwarts Kansas and Texas along with Kentucky are all bursting at the seams with nasty talent.  We have no dispute with him there – you’d have to be blind to state otherwise.  But after thinking about it a bit, we were left with the so-what question.  Having 10-12 players at your disposal doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you’re willing to use them, and we wondered what Self, Barnes and Calipari’s coaching history could tell us about just how important that depth will be for them this season.  Thanks to KenPom’s site, we did a quick analysis of how these coaches used their benches over the last three years (data was only available from 2007-09).  As you can see in the table below, the two Big 12 coaches are much more likely to ride their starters over the course of a season than Calipari will.  But none of them will often be accused of leading the way in bench usage.  Of course, if we had players like Kevin Durant, Brandon Rush, Derrick Rose and so forth at our disposal, we’d probably be hesitant to bring in their backup also.
• 
• Luke Winn broke down his top ten nonconference schedules last week (among the good teams), and we really don’t have much else to say about his analysis, which is spot-on as usual.  Calling out Big East teams Pitt and Syracuse was great, especially since we all know that they’ll use the excuse of being young this year (true), even though they always pull this never-leave-home stuff in the preconference slate (also true).  We also noticed another oddity in Winn’s “Major Generosity” section, where he points out that UNC, Georgetown and Michigan St. will visit such titans as Charleston, Savannah St. and The Citadel, respectively, this season.  Strangely enough, these three homestanding schools are within about a two-hour drive of each other.  A weird confluence of luck , friendships and payback games means that the Low Country will be privileged to host three of the best teams in the nation on their turf within a six-week period starting November 21.  If you live around there, get your tickets now – this will probably never happen again!  Oh, and back at ya, Luke.
• Quick Hits.  Bilal Batley: yeah, this was it.  The Jewish Jordan: retires at 27.  Greg Monroe: ready to forget about last season.  Gene Iba: one more season for Hank’s nephew.  Freshmen in 09-10: seems eminently reasonable.  Arkansas Gangbang: someone will be punished for something.  The New Myles Brand:  Michael Adams?  Junior Cadougan:  Marquette’s presumed starting PG out for the season.  Truck Bryant: was there ever a question?  Josh Tabb:  Tennessee guard suspended indefinitely.