1. Evan Daniels has over 10,000 Twitter followers. Dave Telep has almost 11,000. This should surprise nobody. The Louisville Courier-Journal takes a look at how the reportage of college basketball recruiting is getting to be just as big a national sports obsession, and is getting to be just as competitive, as the race to sign the recruits themselves. Interesting fellows, those chaps. We thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Mr. Telep a few weeks ago, and our own informers and operatives tell us that not only is Daniels a platinum mine of recruiting information, but that he can’t go anywhere without legions of female followers running after him. We can neither confirm nor deny that Daniels started that rumor himself.
2. According to the Lansing State Journal, the season is over. In an article yesterday, it bullet-pointed every game on Michigan State’s schedule and provided a short description on how each will play out. Shockingly, the Journal predicts the Spartans will finish the season on a 14-game winning streak that includes clinching the Big Ten regular season title on Michigan’s floor, a Big Ten Tournament title, and another national championship for Tom Izzo. Fun stuff, here — especially when their prognostications get to NCAA Tournament time. And especially if you’re an MSU fan.
3. Conference realignment continues. Andy Katz reported yesterday that Denver, Texas State, and Texas-San Antonio are headed for the WAC for the 2012-13 season. They’ll replace Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada who left for the Mountain West. Again, a lot of this seems to be motivated by something called football, so we’ll do some investigative reporting to find out exactly what that is. If we ever knew, we forgot after October 15th.
4. The first day of the hoops signing period didn’t yield any massive surprises, but some schools at or near the top of the overall recruiting rankings heard from each (or most) of the prospects who verbally committed to them earlier, and good things seem to come in fours. John Calipari discusses the four letters Kentucky received; Illinois also received a quartet of goodness yesterday; Virginia Tech saw ink from its foursome of top-100 signees; and here are four great write-ups on four prospects St. John’s officially signed yesterday, with one more likely to come tomorrow.
5. West Virginia fans are steppin’ up. Correction: make that have been stepping up. On the strength of last year’s Final Four appearance, Mountaineer faithful have set a season-ticket sales record for the sixth straight year. Pretty impressive by itself, but more so when you factor in the still-limping economy, and that these babies aren’t exactly going for chicken feed. Hold on, here — two straight perfect graduation scores, a Final Four, a top-25 recruiting class…we’re going to have to try to get over to Morgantown. Sounds like these are good days to be an ‘Eer.

[Ed. note: we don’t know if he’s a Mountaineers fan, but #5 is humbly dedicated to Frank Woodruff Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia. Currently 109 years old, he is the United States’ last living veteran from World War I. RTC extends its heartfelt gratitude on this day to all the military veterans who have served our country, whether it was yesterday or 92 years ago.]

David Ely is an RTC contributor.

Welcome to Frosh Watch! With college basketball becoming more and more an underclassman’s game it’s imperative that we keep tabs on just who is living up to his potential and who is struggling to adjust to the college game. Is Harrison Barnes really the answer to all of UNC’s problems? Does Kyrie Irving make Duke even better? Will Kentucky’s Enes Kanter ever get to play? What about Tony Mitchell over at Missouri? Those questions — and many more — will all be answered eventually. But that’s a job for another week. First we need to introduce you to some of the rookies we’re most excited about this year. What we’re going to do is look at some of the impact rookies in each of the six BCS conferences, and then give you four freshmen from the non-BCS conferences.  During the seasson we’ll re-visit some of the players on this list (and some not) as part of our weekly wrap.

DISCLAIMER: This is just a taste of the 2010-11 freshmen class — not a finite list. Don’t worry if one of your team’s top signees didn’t make the cut (i.e., Kanter and Mitchell), as he’ll have every opportunity to earn recognition down the road. Consider this first group a hoops aperitif. Just something that teases your college basketball appetite before games start and preseason hype takes a backseat to on-court reality.

ACC

• Harrison Barnes, forward, North Carolina — Barnes became the first freshman to ever earn AP first team preseason All-America honors when he received 17 votes on Nov. 1. Expect the future lottery pick to lead UNC in points, ‘wow’ plays, and fan hearts won as the Tar Heels storm back into the national picture after a one-year hiatus.
• Kyrie Irving, guard, Duke — Irving is the most heralded backcourt recruit to come to Durham since Jason Williams, and we all know how that turned out for Coach K. With Irving running the attack, the Blue Devils won’t miss Jon Scheyer.
• C.J. Leslie, forward, NC State — If Sidney Lowe saves his job this year, it will be because Leslie lived up to the hype. Leslie’s ability to slash into the lane should make the Wolfpack a more well-rounded offensive team, in addition to freeing up space down low for big man Tracy Smith.

Big East

SU Fans Hope Melo Smiles Like This All Season Long (Post-Standard/D. Nett)

• Fab Melo, center, Syracuse — Melo’s name should be enough to get him on this list (it really is fantastic), but the 7’0, 244-pound monster also is the preseason Big East Freshman of the Year. Paired with Rick Jackson, Melo gives the Orange one of the most tantalizing frontcourts in the nation.
• Vander Blue, guard, Marquette — Blue somewhat flew under the radar during his high school career, but all that changed after his stint on Team USA this summer in the FIBA Americas U18 Championships. Blue scored 13 points to help USA win the gold medal, and now he’ll be expected to be an instant impact scorer for the Golden Eagles.
• Roscoe Smith, forward, Connecticut — There are few things to be excited about if you’re a UConn fan. Smith is one of the bright spots in what was a miserable offseason for the Huskies. Smith hasn’t played a game yet, but coach Jim Calhoun already has declared him to be the second best power forward on the team.

Big Ten

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1. The NCAA ruled on Monday that there would be no penalty forthcoming as a result of Kutchergate at the University of Iowa. We use that portmanteau in jest, of course, since there was never really any chance of the NCAA seeing anything sinister about what they agreed was an “unintentional and incidental” encounter. Still, we think that if Iowa’s going to have celebrities from their state visible at Hawkeye athletic events, they might want to take steps to keep it on the level of, say, Tom Arnold, or even Cloris Leachman. That way, there’s less chance that visiting high schoolers will end up talking about it in the papers or show up in a tweeted photo.
2. Tom Izzo has suspended Korie Lucious for Michigan State’s exhibition against Saginaw Valley State tonight and the November 12 season-opener versus Eastern Michigan as a disciplinary action for Lucious’ DUI arrest back in August. Lucious eventually pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor reckless driving. It’s obvious that he’d rather be playing, but at least he’ll have that much longer to rest that surgically repaired left knee.
3. We were at Rupp Arena last night for Kentucky’s exhibition game against in-state NAIA opponent Pikeville College, and even though it was an exhibition it still got our juices flowing to commense our travels this season. Less excited about the whole affair was UK head coach John Calipari, who, despite a 97-66 victory and a 22-point performance from new floor general Brandon Knight, lamented his team’s lack of toughness and energy, noting in the post-game presser that right now his players “don’t get it yet; we need to get more physical…the guys are going to have to accept it.” While praising Pikeville’s effort and confirming that the NAIA squad “outworked” his team, Calipari (who coached this one sans necktie, oddly) drove home his frustration with his players seeming lack of interest by adding, “this isn’t about cool, this isn’t about style points,” and insinuated that Tuesday’s practice might divide the men from the boys.
4. As of yesterday, a pair of schools “be gettin’ over in the Big Sky Coun-try…” OK, if you can’t tell by the lyric, the Big Sky Conference just got bigger. It announced yesterday that it will add Southern Utah and North Dakota to its roster starting with the 2012-13 season. While the decision was motivated largely by something called “football,” it shouldn’t be ignored that the revenue sharing bonus nets each athletic team at the schools an extra $135,000. And you thought conference realignment was all through.
5. Is it possible that West Virginia’s Kevin Jones rebounded 12% of all shots missed by the Mountaineers last season? And that WVU rebounded 41.8% of their misses as a team?!? Both of those are staggering figures, and just part of the reason you should check out this article from SI.com’s Luke Winn as he crystal balls the Big East. Six days until the first games, people…

1. Thursday was a big day in the recruiting world, as three top prospects in the Class of 2011 made their commitments public with the result that two Big 12 schools not named Kansas and Texas will also be bringing elite talent onto their campuses.  The #4 player in that class according to Rivals, LeBryan Nash, committed to Oklahoma State, while the #5 player, Quincy Miller, and his teammate and #43 player, Deuce Bello, committed to Baylor.  Nash and Miller are program-changing forwards, while Bello is a ridiculously athletic shooting guard.  As an aside, Scott Drew is absolutely getting it done on the recruiting trail — Miller represents the third top ten player to commit to the Bears in the last two years (Perry Jones arrives this year; seven-footer Isaiah Austin will arrive in 2012), and he’s beating out the likes of grizzled veteran recruiters such as Rick Pitino for these kids.  When you also consider that Baylor had to rekindle an entire program from the ashes of the Dave Bliss debacle merely seven years ago, seeing this kind of talent commit to play ball in Waco is nothing short of extraordinary.
2. The preseason USA Today/Coaches poll came out on Thursday, and as expected, Duke was at the top with 29 of the 31 first-place votes.  Michigan State was second and received the other two first-place votes.  Kansas State, Pittsburgh and Ohio State rounded out the top five.  For a little historical perspective, last year’s Final Four teams were ranked #2 (Michigan State), #8 (Duke), #9 (West Virginia) and #10 (Butler) in the preseason.
3. Could the summer evaluation/recruiting period become a thing of the past?  According to a report released Thursday, the Conference Commissioners Association voted last month to recommend abolition of the summer period.  The NCAA’s Board of Directors will make the final decision on this, but many coaches are already harping on the proposal as a disaster in the making.  In an email sent to coaches from NABC president Tom Izzo, he noted that it will become much more difficult and costly to evaluate prospects individually rather than in the summer camp group setting, and that the cancerous influence of agents, runners and other hangers-on during the summer will only become more powerful without the coaches and NCAA around to lend an air of propriety.
4. Scary news from the DC area that former Georgetown star guard Charles Smith was shot twice in the chest on Thursday and was taken to the hospital in critical condition.  Smith was the Big East POY in 1989 and played on the 1988 bronze-medal US Olympic team, the last US international basketball team comprised solely of collegians.  The suspect who shot Smith is still at large, but we certainly hope that Smith comes through this ok and his assailant is brought to justice.
5. The Atlantic 10 media made their predictions yesterday in NYC, with Temple receiving the burden of expectations to win the conference while Xavier, Richmond and Dayton fell in line behind the Owls.  The preseason all-A10 first team consists of Lavoy Allen (Temple), Kevin Anderson (Richmond), Andrew Nicholson (St. Bonaventure), Damian Saunders (Duquesne) and Chris Wright (Dayton).

You may have heard that a little thing called Midnight Madness went down Friday night in packed gyms across the college basketball landscape.  From Duke to Kentucky to Marquette to Kansas to Gonzaga to even little ol’ Cal Tech (ok, they celebrated Thursday, but give ’em a break, they’ve lost 300 conference games in a row), fans filed into arenas to celebrate the return of roundball.   Despite the fact that we remain on the record that MM has lost its uniqueness over the years and could stand to get back to its roots, we’ll admit that even the over-produced pyrotechnic-style monstrosities we saw on the tube enabled a few pangs of excitement in our tummy.  How can it not?  After all, bad college basketball is still college basketball, and from the perspective that the Madness is a celebration of the sport, we’re completely on board with that.

Make sure that you check out our Boom Goes the Dynamite from Friday night where we commented on all the goings-on where we could find them in real time.  Today’s postmortem will share some of the biggest highlights we noted from the evening.  If you think we missed something major, send us a tip at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or tweet at us @rushthecourt.

Duke

Duke’s Countdown to Craziness was, as expected, a celebration of the 2010 national champions, replete with the unfurling of Coach K’s fourth national championship banner and a collection of hardware at center court (starting at the 1:15 mark).

Those championship rings are HUGE!  We much prefer seeing Nolan Smith this way instead of the creepy-as-hell video he did at last year’s CTC.

Kansas State

As we referred to last night, Jacob Pullen has only trimmed the beloved beard, not shaved it, so major meltdown averted there.  As if he wasn’t already one of our favorite players in the country, Pullen further endeared himself to us by running around in the scrimmage with his jogging pants still on.  He looked like a cross between Barack Obama and somebody’s uncle out there; that is, until he started draining 28-footers with ease.  The other big news of the night was the announcement that the school will be building a new $20M practice facility, showing that the Wildcats have no designs on losing their hoops momentum of recent years.

This clip is from the introduction at Madness in Manhattan, and it features the cast of ABC comedy Modern Family all wearing Kansas State gear around the set and studio lot — Eric Stonestreet (“Cameron”) is a K-State alum.  Apologies for the smallness of the video, but if you try, you can just make out Ty Burrell’s (“Phil”) cap which says “Screw KU” on it.  Not to mention that there’s a Sofia Vergara (“Gloria”) in a t-shirt sighting at the 2:07 mark, which means we’re going to have to put John Stevens back on his calming pills.

Michigan State

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Shamelessly cribbing from the clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present you with the 2010-11 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we ramp up to the start of the season a little over a month from now.  We’ll be bringing you players to watch for this season and moments to remember from last season, courtesy of the series of dump trucks, wires and effluvia known as YouTube.  If you want to have some fun while killing time, we encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons.  Enjoy.

#21- Where Great Decisions Happen

1. Mike DeCourcy spoke with Kentucky freshman Enes Kanter’s father recently, finding that Dr. Mehmet Kanter believes that Turkish basketball officials stating that his son took a salary in cash and benefits while playing for club team Fenerbahce is a smear campaign meant to chill future generations of young Turkish players from bolting overseas to play American college basketball instead of remaining at home.  He speaks extensively about the importance of his son obtaining an American collegiate education and points to the family turning down multi-million dollar offers in Turkey as evidence of their sincerity, but what was notably absent from Dr. Kanter’s comments was whether his son is looking to play at Kentucky for one year or long enough to get that all-important degree.  After all, if we are to believe his assertions about education from the interview, we should expect Enes to stay in Lexington for longer than the next six months, right?
2. We appreciate teams that will schedule tough non-conference schedules, especially if they’re willing to go on the road to do so.  Luke Winn gives us his top ten such schedules, and according to his analysis, John Thompson, III, John Calipari, Rick Barnes, Bruce Pearl and Tom Izzo should be proud of themselves.  We’re looking forward to quite a few games on those schedules.
3. Louisville associate coach director of basketball operations and former WKU/Pitt/Holy Cross head coach Ralph Willard has a pretty sweet new gig if you can get it.  He’ll be paid $375,000 this season in the first year of a three-year deal where he’ll be required to “coach the coaches.”  One of the coaches he’ll be coaching is new Louisville assistant Mark Lieberman, a defensive specialist from Miami who will make about one-seventh the salary as Willard with approximately seventy times as much stress.
4. As of this week, new NCAA head honcho Mark Emmert is on the job in Indianapolis, and several of his initial areas of interest relate to academics and how to ensure student-athletes are getting an education as part of their collegiate experience.  We have no problem with that in principle, nor do we have any problem with his supposed interest in coming down hard on the rule-breakers in the sport; but we have written in this space before that trying to work a deal with David Stern to turn the NBA Draft into something akin to the MLB model (where a prep player has the option to go to the NBA out of high school, but then has to stay for three years if he goes to college) is an absolute mistake.  Get off this, man — there is nothing good that will come from this.
5. Here’s another first for Frank Martin’s Kansas State program — the Big 12 coaches yesterday overwhelmingly put the pressure squarely on his team to win the conference title, earning ten of the twelve first-place votes (coaches cannot vote for their own team).  Kansas followed up in second with two first-place votes and Texas came in third.  It’s interesting to see Colorado come in at ninth — even though head coach Jeff Bzdelik took off for points east, the Buffs still return two of the best players in the conference in Alec Burks and Cory Higgins.  The full list is below, and my how Jeff Capel’s program has fallen…

Big 12 Preseason Coaches Poll

1. Kansas State (10) 119
2. Kansas (2) 109
3. Texas 99
4. Baylor 96
5. Missouri 82
6. Texas A&M 69
7. Texas Tech 52
8. Oklahoma State 51
9. Colorado 46
10. Nebraska 31
11. Oklahoma 27
12. Iowa State 11

1. It has indeed been a very tough summer for Tom Izzo, what with his players finding various forms of trouble, even more injuries, and his own highly-publicized courtship with the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Fanhouse’s Matt Snyder writes that if there’s anyone in college basketball coaching circles who can handle adversity and still come out the other end with a Final Four-caliber team, it’s Izzo.  You’ll hear no disagreement from us on that count, but much of that will also depend on which two players were allegedly involved in an August sexual assault and whether the university itself will explore its own punishment options (see #2).
2. A situation involving two unnamed St. Louis players that is eerily similar to the one going on in East Lansing caught our eye near the end of last week.  In that incident that dates from the spring, two SLU players were accused by a woman of sexual assault but the local prosecutor failed to find enough evidence to substantiate her claim and bring charges against them.  Subsequently the university, operating under looser rules of evidence, charged the players based on violations of the student code of conduct, and both could be facing major suspensions or expulsions if their appeals are not rendered favorable.  The conclusion of this situation is definitely worth watching especially in light of the allegations surrounding the above MSU players.
3. Pete Thamel’s piece on Nurideen Lindsey’s long road from the rough and tumble streets of Philadelphia is a great read — we hope that Lindsey manages to avoid the trouble that he escaped in Philly (two of his brothers were killed) next year when he returns back to the northeast (from Redlands Community College in El Reno, Oklahoma) to play for Steve Lavin at St. John’s (as he probably will).
4. Dan Hanner of YABB does a great job elucidating the numbers to echo some of the concerns we spoke of last week with respect to Harrison Barnes’ addition to North Carolina.  He’s a phenomenal player and blue-chip recruit, but how does his addition to the team address their primary issues, i.e., spotty guard play (especially at the point) and the losses of Ed Davis, Deon Thompson and the Wear twins?  Short answer — it doesn’t.
5. Memphis freshman Will Barton on Friday night: “We’re going to win the national championship this year, I’m guaranteeing it!”  Ahh yes, the hubris and folly of youth.  His response to everyone ridiculing him for that comment on Twitter Sunday night: “Everybody making a big fuss abt me guaranteeing we win the national championship but I don’t see what the big deal is. What was I suppose 2 say? We gonna go 2 NCAA tournament. Think big & do it bigger.”  We think we’re going to enjoy covering this guy.

We’ve blathered on and on about this before, but year after year it never fails to amaze.  Anecdotally at least, it seems that the months of August and September every single year are marked with college basketball players filling up the police blotters.  Why can’t guys stick to getting ready for the upcoming hoops season rather than involving themselves in all sorts of other nonsense?  Our theory is that players get back to school and have nothing going on for the first time in quite a while.  Summer camp and international team obligations are over. Individual workouts won’t start for another month, and the formal start of practice a month after that.   The demands of classwork haven’t really kicked in yet.  The weather is still hot, and guys are looking to cut loose.

A Different Kind of Madness Every Fall

In other words, all of the pieces of the common aphorism that “idle hands are the devil’s playthings” are in place, and just as consistently as sundresses on the quad in August, players around the nation cannot seem to avoid the early fall tendency to put themselves in situations where trouble finds them.   We’re not being accusatory here — we fully allow and understand that players are often victims of false accusations and overzealous police and prosecutors as a result of their local celebrity — but that’s why they need to be careful to stay out of risky situations.  And yet, year after year, they don’t. 

The latest and greatest case comes from Michigan State.  You know, Tom Izzo’s superb program that has been to the last two Final Fours and is an odds-on favorite to reach a third next April.  According to a report released today by the Michigan Messenger, two high-profile (unnamed) MSU players were accused of a serious sexual assault in a dorm on the night of August 29-30.  The details of both the police report, much of which was corroborated by the alleged victim and one of the two players, paint a horrific picture. 

Once in the room, the three started playing basketball using a mini-hoop. When the victim missed a basket, one of the men told her she had to remove an article of clothing. The victim agreed and removed her t-shirt because she had a tank top on underneath.  At this point, the victim says, the players began to deliberately miss baskets until they were stripped “completely naked.” One of the men allegedly blocked the doorway to the room, while the other “cornered” the victim in the room.  “[The victim] explained to [detectives] that the body language of [the players] suggested she was not free to leave,” the report says. “[Redacted] was blocking any escape path to the exit of the dorm room. [The victim] stated that after [redacted] approached the door he turned the lights in the room off and the room went completely dark. At this point, the sexual assault began.  The victim told police the players penetrated her in various positions. The victim told detectives the players allegedly asked her “how does that feel?” and “how do you want it?” The victim says she told the players she didn’t want it and gave “other indicators she was not a willing participant.”  The victim told police that the players pinned her down, but at one point she freed her arms momentarily and struck one of the players in the face. The player was on top of her and in response to her hitting him, he allegedly said, “Don’t. Just relax. C’mon,” as he continued to assault her, the report says.

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Earlier today, ESPN-U let the world in on their plans for the evening of Friday, October 15th, otherwise known as Midnight Madness (see clock, above right). Like last year, ESPN-U will crank out four hours of coverage starting at 9 PM ET, with Lowell Galindo anchoring alongside Andy Katz and Adrian Branch, and of course they’ll have all the live peeks at several schools’ festivities.  This year’s featured schools:

• Duke
• Connecticut (women’s team will be featured)
• Kentucky
• Gonzaga
• Kansas State
• Memphis

Last year we BGtD’d during the broadcast, and we were surprised at how high the talk-to-hoops ratio was, but to be fair it looked like a lot of that was because the analysts and commentators were vamping as they waited for things like volleyball matches, relay races and raffle drawings to finish at the various sites — in other words, as they waited for something interesting to happen that was covering. Still, even though we have no problems with listening to Lowell, Andy, and Adrian talk hoops, even after things like the dunk contests and scrimmages started, there were several instances last year where viewers would be treated to a shot of two or three people talking at a media table or in a locker room while crowds were cheering at what was actually happening on the unseen basketball court. We bet that ratio will change this year.

This debuted during Midnight Madness last year. Wonder what Harrison Barnes and Brandon Knight have in store.

Given the program’s achievements last season, we were hoping to see Butler on the list of coverage sites. Seems to us like some Madness footage from Hinkle Fieldhouse would be a lot of fun, but then we realized — Butler does not do Midnght Madness.

Last year’s Madness coverage brought us the birth of the John Wall Dance and Tom Izzo riding into Michigan State’s party in an Indy car (since the Final Four was to be in Indianapolis). That turned out to be prophetic, so this time around we’ve got our money on Izzo referencing the 2011 Final Four in Houston by descending from the ceiling in some sort of space capsule. Only 27 days, 22 hours, 35 minutes (again, see clock) and change before we find out.