Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Managing expectations is more difficult for some players than others. While some rise to the occasion and meet their preseason billing, others flop under the pressure. For the latter group, often times the hype was never justified in the first place. Fans and media have a way of drumming up baseless buzz and hype. Strong performances in small sample sizes, particularly in NCAA Tournament settings, are pointed to as signs of future stardom, affixed with a level of permanence that ignores the player’s mostly average career before his moment in the spotlight. Each and every year, players are expected to meet and sustain prescribed performance levels, and each and every year, they just don’t get there. It is one of the sadder aspects of college sports, because these kids often don’t deserve the immense pressure they’re dealt. However expectations surface around a certain player, there’s no questioning their existence, and my job is to predict one player from each power league who is susceptible to falling short of his predicted performance marks this season. As usual, freshmen will be excluded from this list, which is probably for the best anyway – if we gauged every top-end recruit by their scouting report descriptions, only a select few would actually arrive as advertised. With that qualifier out of the way, let’s give this a shot.

James Michael McAdoo – North Carolina

The frontcourt losses presents a huge challenge for McAdoo(photo credit: Getty Images).

At North Carolina, even lottery-bound talents like McAdoo aren’t guaranteed playing time early in their careers. Thanks largely to a frontcourt featuring three first-round picks (Tyler Zeller, John Henson, and Harrison Barnes), playing time was especially difficult to come by in the Tar Heels’ big man rotation last season. And McAdoo, the No. 2-ranked power forward and No. 6-ranked player overall in the class of 2011, according to ESPN Recruiting Nation, was shelved to a marginal reserve role. Now that the frontcourt logjam has moved on to the professional ranks, it’s up to McAdoo to control the low block. But he’s not just replacing three NBA talents; no, McAdoo’s job is tougher than that. He will need to shoulder the Tar Heels’ scoring load, and do so without master creationist Kendall Marshall running the show at point guard. Unlike the Tar Heels’ talented low-block trio of last season, who had the benefit of siphoning away defensive attention from one another, McAdoo will command opponents’ full range of resistance. And without Marshall, the McDonald’s All American will have to earn every clean look he gets. Such a massive jump in responsibility will require a huge transformation. From a talent perspective, McAdoo is ready to make that leap. But the pieces around him (or lack thereof) make his job an inherently difficult one.

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Brian Otskey is a contributor for Rush the Court. Let him know what you think at @botskey on Twitter.

Can you believe it? Real, live college basketball begins this coming Friday and continues through early April. From San Diego to Miami to Ann Arbor and all places in between, here is your guide to the top 68 games of the 2012-13 college basketball season. NCAA Tournament and conference title implications ride on each and every one of these games so settle in and mark your calendars. Games later in the season, when teams are gelling and making a postseason push, are valued more than match-ups earlier in the season when teams are still trying to find their identities. We begin our countdown with games #68 to #52, listed below in order. The countdown will continue as we move through the week prior to opening night on November 9. Check back all week for the rest of the list. (h/t to Zach Hayes for his assistance in building this list).

68. November 30: Syracuse at Arkansas (8:30 PM, ESPN) – The marquee non-conference home game for Arkansas (as part of the Big East/SEC Challenge) is also a quality early season road test for Syracuse, a team that rarely leaves New York before conference play begins. The Razorbacks haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2008, having gone 22-42 in SEC play over the last four seasons. With Michigan being the only other top shelf team on their non-conference schedule, this game is a huge opportunity for this potential bubble team to notch a win that will make the committee take notice.

The Hoosiers and Bulldogs Will Bring Its Local Rivalry to the Crossroads Classic

67. December 15: Indiana vs. Butler (2:00 PM, CBS) – It will be interesting to see how Butler performs against their conference schedule in the Atlantic 10 versus the Horizon League but before they get a chance to do that, they’ll take on intrastate rival Indiana in Indianapolis. The Crossroads Classic, as it’s called, is a mid-December boon for a state with basketball entrenched in its culture. Now eligible, sharpshooter Rotnei Clarke (transfer from Arkansas) could keep the Bulldogs competitive against Indiana’s porous perimeter defense but Cody Zeller and company may be too much for Brad Stevens’ team to handle.

66. March 5: Arkansas at Missouri (7:00 PM, ESPN) – Razorbacks head coach and former Missouri headman Mike Anderson makes his return to Columbia for a late season tilt that should have postseason implications. Anderson’s teams love to play in the style of Nolan Richardson’s “40 minutes of hell” but you can bet Missouri will be well equipped to handle it with some holdovers from the Anderson regime still on the roster. With the combination of the return of Anderson and senior night, you can bet the crowd at Mizzou Arena will be fired up and ready to go for this one.

They also meet: February 16 in Fayetteville.

65. February 25: Syracuse at Marquette (7:00 PM, ESPN) – Despite being criminally underrated seemingly every season, Buzz Williams and Marquette will likely be in the Big East mix ahead of this late February matchup. The Golden Eagles will have a different look without Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom but an infusion of newcomers, headlined by Arizona State transfer Trent Lockett and a talented core of returning players ready to take the next step. Syracuse will start a new lineup this season after losing many key players but make no mistake, the Orange are among the favorites to take home the Big East crown in their final season in the conference.

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1. Perhaps the most tantalizing events of the preseason practice schedules are the “secret scrimmages” that take place between teams, apparently under the cover of darkness. Fans and media aren’t allowed to attend, but sometimes you get some great matchups between significant teams with the caveat that no one is supposed to talk about these games. Jeff Goodman at CBS posted a list of some of the secret scrimmages that different teams have played, but perhaps the biggest bout came yesterday. Just prior to the time that UCLA was blowing the doors off of Arizona at the Rose Bowl in front of a near-capacity crowd, the Bruin basketball team was across town hosting UNLV in front of, well, really just the players, coaches and training staff. You’ll never see a box score for this game, but the story is that the Bruins pulled away from the Rebels in the second half of that scrimmage for an 18-point win. My prayer to the basketball gods at this point is for these teams to meet up for a rematch, right around the Sweet Sixteen somewhere. And, hey, it might be interesting if super-recruit Shabazz Muhammad is allowed to play in that one.
2. Kyle Anderson was able to play in that exhibition game and he’s now ready to go for the rest of the year, where he is expected to team with Larry Drew II to man the point guard spot for UCLA. While Drew is the more traditional point, Anderson is very much the playmaker with all the offensive skills that any coach is looking for in a point. Still, at 6’9” and with some defensive limitations, Anderson will likely spend much of his time this season guarding either the opposing small forward, or whichever opposing wing is the least fleet of foot. Expect Anderson and Drew to spend a lot of time on the floor together, but when Drew goes to the pine, the Bruins could be just fine playing two other wings alongside Anderson – either Muhammad, Norman Powell, Jordan Adams or the presently injured Tyler Lamb.
3. The exhibition game is basically a secret scrimmage than ain’t so secret and also ain’t so appealing, normally coming against teams from lower divisons. Utah knocked out its exhibition game on Friday night with a rout of Simon Fraser. Sure, the competition wasn’t much, but considering that the Utes lost to Adams State last year in an exhibition, this is definitely progress. Sophomore center Dallin Bachynski, who in the wake of the career-ending injury to David Foster will be counted on in a big way this season, led all scoring for UU, dropping in 16 and grabbing six boards on the way to a 71-36 final. Utah’s season opener is Friday night, and, frankly, the competition isn’t all that much greater then when they host Willamette University. The difference then will be that a win on Friday night will actually count on the record.
4. There has been plenty said about Arizona’s gifted incoming freshmen, but what makes the Wildcats the preseason favorite in the conference is their combination of young talent and veteran leadership. The most obvious leader for Sean Miller’s club is senior forward Solomon Hill, who has been warning the youngsters against getting too caught up in the numerous social opportunities available to them in their new environment. Last year, highly touted point guard Josiah Turner saw his career in Tucson wash out in a haze of misaligned priorities and Hill wants to make sure his new group of teammates doesn’t run into a similar situation. The vet’s presence on the team should ease Miller’s mind, knowing that not only does he have a coach on the floor in Hill, but he’s also got a coach off the floor to help keep his players out of trouble.
5. With expected starter Ricky Kreklow out for the start of the season with a foot injury, it looks like California coach Mike Montgomery will look to freshman guard Tyrone Wallace to play a big role early. While Wallace won’t step into Kreklow’s starting spot, he will be the first guard off the bench and the head man has plenty of confidence in him, saying that so far Wallace has been as good as advertised. While his best chance at a bright future may come manning the point, right now Wallace is earning time at all three perimeter positions and should be a fixture in Haas Pavilion for years to come.

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED….Tom Crean getting his due. After stepping into a situation that fits right into a Halloween house of horrors, Crean should rightfully take a full, oh, 20 minutes and bask in the satisfaction of planting Hoosierville right back on top of the college basketball world. Seriously, this is pretty remarkable. It’s not like Indiana had just been down for a few years before he stepped onto the scene – other than the freak run to the NCAA finals in 2002, this program hadn’t made the Sweet Sixteen since 1994. And to deal with sanctions and penalties on top of everything else…. soak it up Tommy, because they’re coming for you now.

Tom Crean Has the Nation’s #1 Team in the Preseason Polls (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images).

I LOVED…. finding about this awesome tradition at John Brown University, as the fans pelt the court with toilet paper following the team’s first home basket of the year. For all hype that fan bases at the big schools get, this might top them all in the originality column.

I LOVED…. how John Calipari continues to make us learn at least five new names every year. His latest freshmen class looked fine in its debut, and I’m excited for another season to see how sustainable his one-and-done championship model really is. Maybe he’s figured it out and will see more vindication this season. Or maybe we’ll be left wondering again how realistic it is to build chemistry and tourney success in six months. Chalk me up as one guy hoping for the latter.

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Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week (note: this week’s edition is abridged because, well, nothing has happened yet). The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive anywhere to watch a basketball game. 

Excitement is different in November. Kind of like March, everyone thinks they still have a shot at the title, but it’s more pure and innocent because nobody’s expectations have been tempered yet. More than 300 schools’ fans are thinking “This is going to be our year,” and most of them even believe it. We’re a week away from real basketball, and it’s time to debut our Winners and Losers of the Week, which will appear every Friday (life willing).

WINNER: All of Us, Each of Us

College Hoops is Back, and It’s Spectacular…

It’s college basketball season again, you guys! We get to celebrate our teams, our conferences, our sport — and if you’re reading this, we get to get in on the ground floor of the season. Come this time next week, we’ll all be engrossed in the first non-conference games of 2012-13. At least for a night, it won’t matter that there’s only one Top 25 matchup going on. We have our sport back.

(Related losers: NBA fans, because they’re missing out.)

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1. Yesterday was Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Media Day in San Francisco, and the big news out of the event was the release of the preseason media poll, which has Arizona slotted in the top spot, edging out UCLA by one point even though the Bruins received one more first place vote. California and Washington were the other two schools receiving first place votes, with the Golden Bears garnering three and the Huskies two. It’s hard to argue with the choices for the two top spots and bottom three (Washington State, Arizona State and Utah) in the conference, but places three through nine can certainly be debated. It appears as though Colorado and USC are being underestimated by the media; especially Tad Boyle’s team. The Buffaloes were grossly underestimated last year, picked to finish tied for 10th with Washington State in the preseason. Of course, that prediction was wrong. Sure, the Buffs lost Carlon Brown and a couple of other seniors, but Tad Boyle has dealt with bigger losses before and been just fine. As far as USC is concerned, perhaps some media members got too transfixed on the Trojans’ 6-26 record without taking into account all the injuries last year’s team had combined with all the impact transfers that will be suiting up for Kevin O’Neill this year. On paper, USC at least looks better than both of the Oregon schools.
2. Nothing too revealing usually comes out of these conference media days, but there were a couple of interesting nuggets. As predicted, Craig Robinson’s relationship with Barack Obama and the upcoming election was a hot-button topic, and the Oregon State head coach had some fun with the media by saying it’s classified information where he will be on Election Night before revealing that he will be in Chicago… but not before a his team practices earlier in the day. He also gave praise to 6’7’’ freshman Jarmal Reid, who he says is a great defender and could play early and often this year. Another interesting playing tidbit came from USC head coach Kevin O’Neill, who said that walk-on Chass Bryan will get minutes as the backup point guard to Jio Fontan. Bryan stands at 5’9’’ and is on a Presidential Scholarship to USC, unrelated to his status on the basketball team. It looks as though the line of diminutive playmakers at USC will continue in some fashion beyond Fontan’s senior year. Bryan’s role has taken on a greater importance over the last couple of months after it was announced that Maurice Jones would transfer from the school. O’Neill still had nothing but kind words for Jones at Pac-12 Media Day, going a little out of his way to compliment him on what he did for the Trojans the past two years and saying he loved him as a person. This writer is still very curious as to what led to his suspension and subsequent departure, though.
3. George Dohrmann recently caught up with former Arizona State Sun Devil Demetrius Walker for a Q&A for his blog. Now a part of the New Mexico Lobos, it looks as though Walker has found a niche in Albuquerque and is starting to live up to some of the highly unrealistic expectations placed upon him in middle school and high school. As Eamonn Brennan points out, it’s interesting to hear Walker talk more in terms of “we” than “me” as he attempts to turn the page on an AAU culture that built him up to larger-than-life proportions and nearly destroyed him. The knock on Walker at Arizona State was that he was just an athlete and had very limited basketball skills — namely a poor jump shot. Here’s to wishing the star of Dohrmann’s Play Their Hearts Out greater success in 2012-13, as his Lobos try to take down San Diego State and UNLV for a Mountain West Conference championship.
4. More exhibition news to pass along as two Pac-12 teams kick off their exhibition slates this weekend. Tonight, Utah takes the floor against Simon Fraser University, the first non-US institution to be a full-fledged member of the NCAA. Not surprisingly, coach Larry Krystkowiak’s team was picked to finish last in the conference, but there are plenty of new faces on this team to give the Runnin’ Utes an intrigue factor heading into the start of the season. However, it doesn’t help that one of those transfers — Aaron Dotson –– is scheduled to be out until late November or early December with a stress fracture in his foot. At the very least, the Utes should do considerably better than the 3-9 record they posted in the 2011-12 non-conference slate. The Utes play two non-Division-I teams and do not face a team from another power conference at all this season. Their RPI will certainly take a hit, but I don’t think Krystkowiak is really concerned about that this year. The other Pac-12 exhibition game takes place on Sunday, when Stanford hosts UNC Pembroke. Certainly the Cardinal will have faced much stiffer competition on Thursday night when they played Saint Mary’s in a secret scrimmage, but this game will give Cardinal fans a first look at their team taking on outside competition. Both games are being streamed live on the Pac-12 website, so feel free (and the streams are free) to have a look for yourself online.
5. Connor here, hijacking this final bit as Drew and I continue our season-long football prognostication contest. It was another gloomy Saturday for me last weekend, as Drew extended his lead to three games. The Jeykll and Hyde Golden Bears neglected to come through for the second straight week, and Oregon State’s upset at the hands of Washington made it a perfect day for Drew. I’ve still got five weeks to come back, however, so I’m taking it conservatively and only differing on one pick here in week 10. Things get going tonight in Berkeley, where California needs a win to keep its flickering bowl hopes alive. Even if they get past the Huskies, the Bears finish the year with a pair of top 15 opponents, making it unlikely their season will continue past November 17. Saturday gets off to a bit of a slow start with Stanford visiting Boulder and Washington State heading into the hornets nest that is Rice Eccles Stadium, but things really get going in the late afternoon. That’s when our game of the week kicks off in Los Angeles, as Oregon tries to keep its perfect season alive with its toughest task yet. We get treated to a tasty pair of nightcaps following that one, as the Wildcats visit UCLA and Sun Devils take on Oregon State. Enjoy your weekend; it’ll be the last before your tasked with balancing hoops and pigskin until December.
   

   Game	Connor’s Pick	Drew’s Pick
   Washington at California	California	California
   Stanford at Colorado	Stanford	Stanford
   Washington State at Utah	Washington State	Washington State
   Oregon at USC	Oregon 42-38	Oregon 52-25
   Arizona at UCLA	Arizona	UCLA
   Arizona State at Oregon State	Oregon State	Oregon

1. We don’t typically spend much time talking about exhibition games in this space, but it was somewhat coincidental that each of the nation’s top three teams were in action last night. Indiana, Louisville, and Kentucky each got some work in against Indiana Wesleyan, Pikeville, and Northwood, respectively, with an average margin of victory of 33.0 points between the three games. The top storylines from each game: #1 Indiana was sluggish at the start but oft-injured Maurice Creek returned with a vengeance (12 points in 15 minutes of action); #2 Louisville hung its 2012 Final Four banner and may have found some instant offense in the form of freshman Montrezl Harrell (19 points, 13 rebounds); #3 Kentucky probably isn’t as “awful” as its head coach lets on, as the Wildcats experimented with 12 different lineups including one with a monster frontcourt of Nerlens Noel, Willie Cauley-Stein, and Kyle Wiltjer. And, of course, as you’re reading this, we’re only one week and change from the first official games.
2. The Pac-12 held its Media Day in San Francisco yesterday, and as always, the only important part of these events (excepting verbal spats between egomaniacal coaches, of course) is when the media releases its preseason predictions. This year’s race is basically a dead heat between Arizona and UCLA, with the Wildcats receiving one more overall vote than the Bruins and the Bruins receiving one more first-place vote than the Wildcats. Let’s hope so, because this league is at its best only when these two traditional powerhouses are perched atop the league. The Bay Areas schools — California and Stanford — came in third and fourth, while last year’s regular season champion, Washington, and Pac-12 Tournament champion, Colorado, rounded out the top six. We’d expect the league to bounce back with at least four NCAA Tournament invitations this season.
3. Oklahoma State received some excellent news Wednesday in what has been an injury-addled preseason when the NCAA used common sense to rule that talented swingman JP Olukemi will receive a waiver this year to play the entire season for his team. The issue that Olukemi was inadvertently facing was that he had started his NCAA five-years-to-play-four eligibility clock when his prep school’s basketball team shut down in the middle of the year and he continued taking courses at a local community college afterward. Doing the math, Olukemi’s final semester of eligibility would have been this one — meaning that his collegiate career would have ended at the midseason point (December 31, to be precise). The NCAA takes a lot of heat for how it handles its high profile cases, but there are a number of these mid-level cases where the organization generally gets it right. Kudos to them for realizing that the spirit of the rule wasn’t violated here. Plus, Travis Ford really needs him.
4. Since it’s Friday we’re going to end the week on a positive couple of notes. First, TSN‘s Ryan Fagan profiles the new and often misunderstood South Carolina head coach, Frank Martin. The piece discusses how everyone’s first impression of the coach derives from his fiery demeanor on the court — not to mention the trademarked glare — but once his new players and colleagues quickly realize that Martin is a go-hard perfectionist who demands their best but also has their back, they don’t walk, they run, into his camp. Martin is a very good coach but he’s not a miracle worker, and South Carolina’s goal this season should simply be to become competitive. This program has been in a seemingly endless down cycle since the Eddie Fogler era of the late 1990s, but there is enough fan support and talent base in the area to field a successful program there — it just takes the right kind of hard-headed man to do it. Perhaps someone like Frank Martin.
5. Next, CBSSports.com‘s Gary Parrish writes about a 20-year old North Carolina Central freshman basketball player by the name of Rashawn King who had leukemia so off the charts that the first time he was tested the medical staff believed that their machines were broken. After endless tests and treatments eventually got his disease under control and into remission, he became involved in the Make-a-Wish Foundation where he initially asked for an opportunity to meet his hero, LeBron James. Something so self-oriented didn’t feel right to him, though, so he changed his wish to throw a lunch party for his over 2,000 friends and classmates at Raleigh’s Middle Creek HS who had painstakingly supported and encouraged him throughout his fight. Last Tuesday, the Foundation made sure that he got to meet LeBron anyway, arranging for his NCCU head coach to drive him to a Miami-Charlotte exhibition game where he met King James, Pat Riley, Coach K, and a number of other hoops honchos. It’s a great story all-around, and one that’ll bring a bit of a tear to your eye — we need more Rashawn Kings in college basketball and sports in general, that’s for sure.

Another week closer to tip-off, and with an eye towards next week when we’ll be dropping our picks for what’s going to happen this year, we ask our correspondents to continue doing some prognosticating.

 “Arizona and UCLA are widely considered, in one order or the other, to be the two favorites in the Pac-12 this year. If you were to pick one other team to surprise and steal the conference title, who would it be?”

Adam Butler: I’m into the Stanford Cardinal first and foremost because of the best point guard in the league, Chasson Randle. Maybe he’s not a true one, whatever, but he’s arguably the guard in the league whom I want to have the ball in his hands more than anyone else. He’s so quick he’s already by you. And Aaron Bright? He just stepped out of the quintessential Stanford guard mold; Arthur Lee, Chris Hernandez, Brevin Knight, Mitch Johnson, these guys solid-game-played you to death and Aaron Bright is capable of the same (and the opposite). So with guard play covered, let’s go to the bigs. Hey, got ’em. OK, they’re not proven, but I really like what Stefan Nastic, Josh Huestis and Anthony Brown offer – some size, athleticism, and effort – as a complement to that front court. These guys, along with the emerging likes of John Gage and the intriguingly talented freshman, Rosco Allen, makes this a sound Stanford team. Dwight Powell is the difference-maker. The big, long, athletic, dynamic, still-learning-the-game Canuck is poised to have a monster year for Johnny Dawkins. Last year he was projected to have a far greater impact than he did but it seems he never quite caught a groove while struggling with foot injuries. But now he’s healthy. Now he’s got the NIT under his belt and it’s his frontcourt. He’s not sharing it with Josh Owens. What makes Powell such a game-changer is not only his size capable of controlling the paint on the defensive end – his primary responsibility – but he has a fluid game that can help to spread the floor for the Cardinal slashers and crashers. This team has the pieces to be very good, they’re the returning NIT champs and, honestly, that says something. I don’t care what the championship is, if you’re the last team standing, that says something about you. So, if I’m right in thinking Chasson Randle is a very serious POY candidate, and our own Kevin Danna is right in thinking Dwight Powell will be the conference’s breakout player of the year, then I could be right (yes, twice, no big deal) in picking Stanford as the Bruin and Wildcat jumper.

Chasson Randle Could Be The Man To Help Stanford Mount A Charge For The Pac-12 Title (Stanford Athletics)

Andrew Murawa: I’m going to go out on a limb and pick the defending conference champions, Washington, a team that might even actually make the NCAA Tournament this year. There’s little doubt that this vintage of the Huskies doesn’t have as much talent as last year’s squad, but they have the potential to be a great example of the old sports adage of addition by subtraction. It was a poorly kept secret that last year’s group just didn’t mesh. Abdul Gaddy was the veteran point guard, but Tony Wroten more or less kept him from owning that role, much like the roles of Wroten and Terrence Ross also overlapped. This year, the roles will be more firmly defined. Gaddy’s the floor general. Scott Suggs and C.J. Wilcox are going to be the scorers. Andrew Andrews will offer some punch off the bench. Aziz N’Diaye will pound the boards and dissuade the opposition from exploring the paint. And there is no shortage of frontcourt players – Desmond Simmons, Shawn Kemp Jr., Jernard Jarreau and Martin Breunig – willing to help out with the dirty work. Yeah, head coach Lorenzo Romar would love to see one of those guys take a big leap forward a la Matthew Bryan-Amaning circa 2009-10, but regardless, there is enough offensive firepower on the perimeter here to carry most of the scoring. And, let’s not forget that Romar has a history of going out and winning the conference when least expected. His 2008-09 squad featured tough senior Jon Brockman, but also a bunch of guys like fellow senior Justin Dentmon and junior Quincy Pondexter who had underachieved to that point. They blew up, Romar found his next batch of stars in freshman Isaiah Thomas and sophomore Venoy Overton, and the Huskies won the conference title. Not to say that team is a perfect parallel to this one, but that team was by no means Romar’s best collection of talent. And somehow that was the team that won Romar’s lone Pac-10/12 regular season title in Seattle. Well, at least the lone regular season title that I care to remember.

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1. Finally, some good news for one of UCLA’s freshmen: Kyle Anderson has been cleared by the NCAA to play this season. The main questions surrounding Anderson’s eligibility had to do with his father’s relationship with agent Thad Foucher, in addition to concerns about who paid for Anderson’s unofficial visits to UCLA (along with how many he took). Though Anderson’s father was confident all along that his son would be cleared to play, assuredly there were more than a few UCLA supporters who heaved a deep sigh of relief Wednesday. It has been a long four months for the Anderson family and UCLA, but there is now one less cloud hanging over the Bruins’ 2012-13 season. All of a sudden, the Bruins’ perimeter lineup looks a lot stronger and bigger, as the 6’9’’ Anderson is known for his great court vision and passing abilities. Now all that’s left is for the NCAA to clear Shabazz Muhammad, the No. 2 overall recruit in the class of 2012 according to Scout and No. 1 recruit according to Rivals. At the very least, the Bruins are in a much better position to live up to the preseason hype as a top 15 team in the country and potentially make a push deep into the NCAA Tournament next spring.
2. Another Pac-12 exhibition contest is in the books as Arizona defeated Humboldt State 108-67 in its exhibition opener last night. If this game is any indication (and it probably isn’t), our Kevin Danna might have nailed it on the head in last week’s burning question when he said Kaleb Tarczewski will be the best newcomer to the Pac-12 this year. The seven-footer had the game’s lone double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. He seemed to always be in the right spot down by the bucket to collect rebounds and also showed off a very nice drop-step, albeit against a non-Division-I post player. Mark Lyons also looked comfortable handling Sean Miller’s offense and, as usual, he wasn’t afraid to look for his own shot either, finishing with 15 points. Nick Johnson filled up the stat sheet in just about every way imaginable with 14 points, five rebounds, five steals and four assists, as well as throwing down a couple of nice dunks as icing on the cake. If any other school in the conference wants to claim they have the best fans in the conference, then show an attendance figure surpassing 12,431 for an exhibition game. From the best I could tell on the stream (which, by the way, was much less laggy than Oregon’s stream on Monday night), the Wildcat crowd was very into it aside from just showing up in large numbers to a meaningless game on Halloween night. Supporters in Tucson surely sense that Sean Miller has a potentially great team on his hands.
3. And then there are the “secret scrimmages” that never seem to be too much of a secret. Later tonight, Stanford will travel to Moraga to take on the Saint Mary’s Gaels in a game that fans and reporters are prohibited from attending. While many Cardinal followers would prefer this to be an actual game on the non-conference slate, perhaps it could be the first step towards setting up a home-and-home with the Gaels in the near future. In the immediate future, this game will give the Cardinal some sort of idea how they stack up with a team that is more or less thought to be on the same level. Big things are expected out of the junior class that features Aaron Bright, Dwight Powell, Anthony Brown, and Josh Huestis, and this game provides the class with a chance to get some positive momentum rolling into the beginning of the season. A “win” against St. Mary’s in the scrimmage could provide a nice confidence boost, even if it’s not a real game setting and both coaches might tweak the lineups more than usual.
4. The newest CBS Sports list deals with the best defenders in the nation and, unlike previous ones, this one is not ordered. Rather, 30 guys are separated into different categories of defenders, and two of the 30 defenders reign from the Pac-12: Colorado’s André Roberson and Washington’s Aziz N’Diaye. Roberson gets a nod under the “best glass cleaning defenders” category, for pretty much the same reason why Eamonn Brennan tabbed the Colorado forward the best rebounder in the nation. N’Diaye is filed under the “best rim protecting defenders” department. We talked about Roberson yesterday, so N’Diaye is a guy who has done a solid job as a lane-clogger for Lorenzo Romar during his first two years in Seattle, but you would expect a guy his size to finish better than 12th in the conference in blocks as he did last season. No love for Pac-12 perimeter defenders, but right now, there isn’t any guard in the conference that could feel too slighted by not receiving CBS Sports’ recognition.
5. Finally, it’s Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Media Day today, taking place this morning and afternoon in the Pac-12 Enterprises offices in San Francisco. All 12 coaches will be there, along with one player from each team: Solomon Hill, Carrick Felix, Allen Crabbe, André Roberson, E.J. Singler, Angus Brandt, Aaron Bright, David Wear (you didn’t think UCLA would take Shabazz, did you?), Jio Fontan, Jason Washburn, Abdul Gaddy and Brock Motum. Nothing earth-shattering usually takes place at these events, but it will be a good chance to get some more nuggets on Washington’s high-post offense, Craig Robinson’s role in the Obama re-election campaign, and an official “no comment” comment on the Shabazz situation now that Anderson is cleared to play. Most importantly, the preseason Pac-12 media poll will be released. Which team will the media pick to take home the Pac-12 regular season crown: UCLA or Arizona?

UCLA got a bit of good news that it had been waiting for yesterday when it was announced that the NCAA has cleared freshman guard Kyle Anderson to play after determining that there was no evidence to indicate that any violations regarding improper benefits had been committed. The Bruins certainly aren’t out of the woods yet, as fellow freshman Shabazz Muhammad is still under investigation for receiving improper benefits and has yet to be cleared. But, given that Anderson is a top 10 national recruit and a playmaker of the highest order, the sons of Westwood stand on a little bit safer ground. But still, a couple questions remain, such as, “what now?” And, “what the hell was that whole Anderson investigation about?”

With Kyle Anderson Cleared To Play, Expect The Bruins To Be Very Good; With Shabazz Muhammad They Could Be Great (Damian Dovarganes, AP)

Starting with the first one, let’s take an absolute worst-case scenario for the Bruins regarding the Muhammad case and say that, for one reason or another, he never plays a second in a UCLA uniform. Where are the Bruins at with their current roster and just how good can they be? Part of the answer could be determined by the details of the continued Muhammad investigation. If the NCAA turns around tomorrow and says he’s ineligible for the season, at least UCLA can take a look at the hand they’ve been dealt and move forward. The far worse scenario is if the investigation drags on and UCLA players are looking over their shoulder wondering if and when their teammate can join them on the court. A good coach like Ben Howland and a veteran team with strong leadership could make the best of that situation, but there is much more potential for distraction, excuses and underachievement.

But, let’s put all that psychology aside for a second and just look at the team. Sans Muhammad, there’s still a ton of talent there. You’ve got the four big guys (the Wear twins, Joshua Smith and Tony Parker) in some order and combination at the four and five. We know Larry Drew II is plugged in at the point for the time being. Anderson will certainly start at one of the wing spots, then you’ve got some combination of Norman Powell, Jordan Adams and Tyler Lamb (once back from his knee injury) at the other wing spot and coming off the pine. And, of course Anderson will spend plenty of time not only as a secondary ball-handler to Drew, but his backup at the point. I’ll let you in on a secret: That’s a darn good team. Sure, there are still plenty of question marks there, questions we’ve all discussed at one point or another. Smith’s waistline? The Wear twins’ toughness? Drew’s maturity and leadership? Can this team guard anybody? But I’ll tell you, right now I’m looking around the national landscape and there ain’t a team out there without significant questions. Everybody still has to prove it on the court, but this UCLA team, even without Muhammad – one of the 2012 recruiting class’ top prospects and arguably the best wing in college basketball if and when he suits up – is one of the most talented squads in the country. Without Muhammad, UCLA is still maybe a half-notch below Arizona as the favorite in the Pac-12 and a team capable of making a run to the second weekend in the NCAA Tournament. With Muhammad, even if it is only for a half a season (which is likely the more realistic worst-case scenario), the Bruins are Final Four talented with their eye on national championship number 12.

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