If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• U of L basketball earns top academic honor: “The University of Louisville men’s basketball team has earned the 2010-11 BIG EAST Conference Team Academic Excellence Award, which recognizes the highest collective grade-point averages in each of the conference’s 26 sports.” (Card Chronicle)
• Basketball Prospectus ranks Draymond Green the 14th best returning player in the country: The senior is expected to step up this year as the lone Spartan in the top 100. (The Only Colors)
• Miller To Try Out For World University Games Team: “Kentucky forward Darius Miller is going to give international competition another try as the former U19 gold medalist will begin camp with Team USA Friday in hopes of making the World University Games roster. Miller is one of 22 players who accepted the invitations to the camp, which will be held in Colorado Springs and trimmed to the final playing roster August 8. The team will compete in China August 12-23 and will be coached by Purdue’s Matt Painter.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)

1. It’s roughly 16 months away, but when is discussing the tropical paradise of Maui a bad thing?  The Maui Invitational released its roster of invited teams for its November 2012 island tournament, and one of its attendees, Butler, is still basking in the glow of a report stating its last two NCAA Tournament championship game runs were worth over a billion dollars in media publicity.  Well, the publicity train continues to roll, as Brad Stevens’ Bulldogs will join North Carolina, Illinois, Marquette, Mississippi State, Southern California, Texas, and host Chaminade in what promises to be another strong field.  It’s difficult to project any team two seasons out these days, but you can more than likely expect that, at a minimum, UNC, Butler, Texas and Marquette will all have strong squads in 2012.
2. Get ready to see a whole lot more Pac-12 hoops on your television no matter where you live.  Starting about a year from now, the Pac-12 Networks will launch seven new channels for its fans, starting with a national network (presumably similar in scope to the Big Ten Network) but also with six regional networks featuring the six geographic areas where two schools are located (Washington, Oregon, NorCal, SoCal, Arizona, Mountain).  The national network will be available on the digital sports tiers outside of the local markets, which means that if you get the Fox Regionals, you’ll probably get the Pac-12 Network.  The networks will show roughly 35 football games and 100 basketball games each season in addition to the games already picked up by ESPN as part of its new $3B, 12-year deal.  Commissioner Larry Scott has crafted some innovative, forward-thinking deals to get his conference more notoriety; now he just needs to ensure that the product is something that people will want to see.
3. Last season the NCAA Tournament debuted its “First Four” games, and Brad Brownell’s Clemson Tigers was one of the participants.  After defeating UAB in Dayton in the late game on Tuesday night, his team had to fly to St. Petersburg, Florida, to get to its Second Round game against West Virginia on Friday afternoon where they lost a close one down the stretch.  His primary beef is in having to play in an early afternoon slot on Friday after traveling all night after the Tigers’ first game, and it makes sense.  A few extra hours to recuperate that afternoon could have gone a long way in terms of tired and travel-weary legs, and after all, what’s the harm?  We know that CBS/Turner has heavy involvement in the selection of game tip times, but it shouldn’t be all that unreasonable to slot four teams into the sixteen late games on Thursday and Friday nights — the ratings will be fine regardless.
4. We’re quite certain that if UCLA head coach Ben Howland could get a do-over on his 2008 recruiting class that was rated #1 in the nation, he’d take it in a heartbeat.  Jrue Holiday had one lackluster season before he was 1-and-done; Drew Gordon fell out with Howland and eventually transferred to New Mexico; J’mison Morgan never produced and landed at Baylor; Malcolm Lee played three semi-effective seasons before bailing to the NBA Draft without a guarantee.  That left Jerime Anderson as the lone survivor going into his senior season in Westwood.  A role player in the backcourt who similarly never lived up to his prep on-court hype, he was recently arrested on campus for stealing another student’s Macbook Pro.  A tracking device within the computer led police to Anderson, who was immediately suspended from the team and will miss at least the Bruins’ opener against Loyola Marymount on November 11.  If this allegation turns out to be true, we wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the final nail in the coffin of the illustrious UCLA Class of 2008.  Wow.
5. This is one of those things that is so disheartening that you sometimes stop to wonder why you bother even to get up in the morning.  Earlier this week former Kentucky guard Desmond Allison was murdered in Columbus, Ohio, in an incident so completely senseless and illogical that it strains credulity.  According to the Columbus Dispatch, friends of Allison reported that the dispute that may have led to his murder involved a baseball cap that he was wearing while talking on the phone.   You read that correctly.  A baseball cap.  Reportedly, an ex-girlfriend of Allison’s removed the cap from Allison’s head which led to an argument between that woman and Allison’s current girlfriend.  Allison got involved in the dispute involving the cap, but soon walked away.  A bit later, three men (still unidentified) approached Allison when one of them (possibly a relative of one of the two women) began arguing with him and soon thereafter, shooting.  Allison died at a local hospital later that evening.  It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it?

1. Most college players spend their summers trying to improve their games in one way or another.  Some kids shoot 500 jumpers a day, while others work on improving their lateral quickness or positioning and footwork.  Butler’s rising senior point guard Ronald Nored, the Bulldogs’ defensive dynamo who has lived in the shorts of the opposing team’s best perimeter players for the better of three seasons, spent some of his offseason prepping for what he figures will be his ultimate destiny: Coaching.  His AAU team, called The Truth, attempts to bring The Butler Way to amateur prep basketball, and to hear one of his players tell it, the difference Nored  provides as the head man is music to our ears: Greg Gardner says, “He’s not like most AAU coaches.  We run offense, we play tough defense. Most AAU coaches let the kids run up and down. We don’t do that – we actually play real basketball.”  Can we clone a thousand of these Noreds to start teaching basketball at the amateur level all around the country — please?
2. An update to Salinas-gate…  SI’s Pablo Torre reported on Tuesday that a number of additional names have been added to the list of investors who have lost millions of dollars as a result of David Salinas‘ financial shenanigans prior to committing suicide last week.  The most notable newbies to us are former K-State player Cartier Martin ($375,000), former Baylor star Ekpe Udoh ($350,000) and former New Mexico athletic director and NCAA Selection Committee member Rudy Davalos ($83,000).  Perhaps the most interesting part of Torre’s article, though, was this line: “SI has also learned Salinas has numerous other sports-related clients — college basketball coaches included — whose names are not yet public, and whose money is not believed to be at risk in this particular case.”  We’re not sure exactly what that might mean, but our guess is that coaches around the country are keeping their accountants on speed dial.
3. We made mention of the trials and tribulations of Mississippi State center Renardo Sidney and his ongoing weight problems earlier this week, but according to Gary Parrish at CBSSports.com, he’s not the only talented big man having troubles keeping the pounds off this summer.  UCLA head coach Ben Howland told Parrish that his rising sophomore center, Josh Smith, is “about 10 pounds over where he was last season,” a somewhat alarming statement given that the player checked in at a puffy 305 pounds last season.  There were times last year when Smith appeared to have All-American written all over him, but his conditioning issues and excessive weight resulted in him only playing about half the time (21.7 MPG) and finding himself in foul trouble way too often (15 times with four fouls or more).  Not good news for UCLA fans hoping to recapture the mojo of their school’s Final Four runs of 2006-08.
4. Dana O’Neil caught up with Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun on Orlando on Tuesday and asked him point-blank if UConn president Susan Herbst’s review of the athletic department has anything to do with his icy relationship with athletic director Jeff Hathaway.  Perhaps predictably, Calhoun ducked any inference of himself as puppet-master: “I 100 percent do think that’s unfair.  I have nothing against anybody. Jeff and I, our relationship hasn’t always been all that it should have been. When he came back [in 2003], he seemed to have changed somewhat and they say when you move over six inches to the head coach’s chair, things change. But I don’t want to see anybody lose a job.”  Maybe we should re-visit this comment next month, because UConn sports under Hathaway is coming off one of its best years in history — what other reason could there be to get rid of the guy?
5. Yesterday we made mention in the M5 of Basketball Prospectus’ thoughtful list of the top 100 returning players in college basketball for the 2011-12 season.  We didn’t have time to do our own vetting of the list, but The Big Lead did, and as he says in the title to his post, he has some “issues” with it.  He makes some good points (especially the complete omission of Mr. Photo-BBQ, Aaron Craft), but such lists are highly subjective and speculative as a matter of course.  Let us know if you, like TBL, had any issues with BP’s list in the comments below.

With the the NBA Draft concluded and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. The latest update comes courtesy of our Pac-12 correspondent, Andrew Murawa.

Reader’s Take #1

Summer Storylines

• The More, The Merrier: The Pac-10 is dead. Long live the Pac-12. The conference welcomes in Colorado and Utah for their first season in the conference, the first expansion in the West Coast’s premier conference since Arizona and Arizona State were added 33 years ago. Along with the new teams comes a new schedule – gone is the full home-and-away round robin. While there won’t be divisions in basketball like there are in football, each team will play an 18-game schedule with home and away games against its traditional rival, with six other rotating home-and-away series and four additional single games against the remaining teams. For instance, Colorado and Utah will only play the Southern California schools and the Washington schools once each, while they will play the remainder of the conference twice. While neither of the new schools are expected to make a big splash immediately in the conference, their arrival, coupled with other changes around the conference, such as the huge new $3 billion TV deal with ESPN and Fox that begins in the fall of 2012, makes it an exciting time to be a Pac-12 fan.
• Is There A Draft In Here?: Last summer, a big story around the conference was the dearth of Pac-10 players picked in the NBA Draft, as just two players from the conference were selected by NBA teams in 2010. After the 21 players that were picked in the conference between the 2008 and 2009 drafts, that was a precipitous fall. And, back before the season started, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of future high draft picks on the horizon. However, the conference had six players picked in the NBA draft, including three first-rounders and two lottery picks. Derrick Williams, the 2010-11 conference player of the year, led the way, getting snapped up by Minnesota with the #2 overall pick. Unfortunately for teams around the conference, 12 seasons of eligibility were left on the table between those six picks and the two early entries who went undrafted: Stanford’s Jeremy Green and Washington State’s DeAngelo Casto. And as a result, what had looked like a potential big-time bounce-back season for the conference now sees somewhat diminished expectations. Perhaps no team was hit harder by early defections than UCLA, who had Tyler Honeycutt and Malcolm Lee leave a total of three years of eligibility behind to go get second-round NBA draft picks (and the absence of guaranteed contracts that goes with them) at a time when the NBA labor situation is highly in doubt, but Washington State’s loss of Casto and lottery pick Klay Thompson also leaves the Cougars’ situation fuzzy at best.
• Replacing Production: Between the early entries to the NBA Draft and departed seniors, the Pac-12 loses its top seven scorers from last season, and 11 of its top 20. Likewise, ten of the top 20 rebounders are gone. However, as always, a new batch of youngsters is ready to show up on campuses this fall and begin contributing immediately. While the Pac-10 inked only nine of the ESPNU top 100 recruits, seven of those players are exciting young guards, all ranked in the top 60 on that list. Arizona leads the way, signing point guard Josiah Turner (#14 overall, according to ESPNU) and Nick Johnson (#21), to go with a couple solid frontcourt signees (Angelo Chol and Sidiki Johnson, #60 and #91, respectively). But Washington (Tony Wroten, Jr., #16), Oregon (Jabari Brown, #25), Arizona State (Jahii Carson, #49), UCLA (Norman Powell, #51) and Stanford (Chasson Randle, #59) all have their own big backcourt recruits ready to provide a burst of energy.

Derrick Williams' performances were one of the highlights of the 2010-11 season.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Moe Harkless cleared to play for St. John’s: “It looks like the first big eligibility hurdle for the Red Storm has been cleared. Zach Braziller reports on Twitter that sources tell the New York Post that Maurice Harkless is cleared to play for the Red Storm.” (Rumble in the Garden)
  
• More details emerge in Bruce Pearl NCAA Scandal: An update on Pearl and the allegations against him. (Kentucky Sports Radio)
• News on Garrett Green to Indiana: Some updates on the potential transfer. (Inside the Hall: His potential impact and Q & A)
• Former UK Legends to Play Game vs. Dominican Republic in Rupp: “Calipari is organizing an exhibition game between former UK players and the Dominican Republic National Team on August 15th in Rupp Arena. Rosters have yet to be finalized.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)

Throughout the summer RTC contributors Zach Hayes and Brian Otskey will discuss the hot topics — or whatever comes to mind — around each major conference in college basketball.  This week, they tackle the expanded Pac-12.  For the entire summer series focusing on each of the six power conferences, click here. 

Zach: Let’s face it: it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the Pac-10 (now Pac-12) conference since the 2008-09 season when players like Darren Collison, James Harden, Jon Brockman, Chase Budinger and Taj Gibson starred, or even dating back to the year prior when a Kevin Love-led UCLA team edged the Lopez twins, upstart Washington State and O.J. Mayo’s USC Trojans for the title and a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Every conference, even powerhouse leagues like the Big East and ACC, will occasionally suffer through dry spells in talent in today’s early entry era, and this league just happened to hit a lull when notable blue-bloods UCLA and Arizona struggled simultaneously. This even led to discussions regarding whether the Pac-12 could realistically be a one or two bid representative. Sure, there was actually some quality basketball played out West, but fans of this conference secretly hoped for a renaissance sooner than later.

Most had their eye on the 2011-12 season for just that moment. The plan was for UCLA to be rebuilt and reloaded, Arizona competing nationally under Sean Miller, Washington’s Isaiah Thomas entering his senior season and proud programs like Stanford and Oregon back on track. Unfortunately, this road to success has hit some potholes. Malcolm Lee and Tyler Honeycutt both decided to remain second round picks rather than continue their UCLA careers. Derrick Williams blossomed from unheralded to underrated to #2 overall pick and understandably bolted from the desert. Klay Thompson saw his stock rise and departed Pullman. In a more controversial move, Stanford’s Jeremy Green did the same. The biggest hit was Isaiah Thomas leaving Washington and ultimately being selected #60 overall. The Pac-12 had a chance to make a significant move up the conference ladder in 2011-12. While improvement is still in the cards, I’m left wondering this summer what could have been.

Miller spurned Maryland to remain in Tucson

The debate this offseason will be whether Arizona or UCLA should begin the year as the favorite to take home the conference crown. Arizona lost Williams and their enigmatic but ultra-talented point guard MoMo Jones to a transfer closer to home, but enter the crown jewel of Sean Miller’s top recruiting class since taking the gig in Josiah Turner. Turner is most comfortable in attack mode, penetrating the defense and utilizing his tremendous court vision to find open teammates. Miller is blessed with plenty of ammo both in the backcourt with Kyle Fogg, Kevin Parrom, Jordin Mayes, Brendon Lavender and four star freshman Nick Johnson joining Turner, as well as in the frontcourt with Solomon Hill and Jesse Perry back in the fold joining two more talented newcomers. The issue for Miller won’t be depth, but rather finding that one impact player that can score 17-18 PPG per night and take/make the big shots when the chips are down. Whether it’s Fogg, Parrom, Hill, Perry or another candidate, one of these former secondary cogs must make a significant leap forward or Arizona will be a collection of enviable talent, but one without the singular on-court leadership of Williams. If Arizona can’t do so, UCLA could very well bring the title back to Westwood because I firmly and confidently believe Josh Smith develops into one of the best big men in the college game next season.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Austin Hatch Makes Progress, Continues to Fight: An update on the health of the Michigan commit following the recent airplane crash. (UM Hoops)
  
• Calipari’s Buyout Helps Retain Him At UK: “John Calipari’s new contract extension already serves as a sign of a long-term marriage between himself and the school, but there’s a little provision that might have been overlooked earlier that might strengthen that. Calipari’s buyout is set at $1 million for each of the next three years, higher than what was included in the original deal. Under the previous agreement, Calipari had a $1 million buyout after this season, $500,000 after 2013 and no buyout in 2014.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)
  
• New assistant hoops coach has family ties to Arizona: A look at the background of newly-hired basketball assistant Joe Pasternack. (Arizona Desert Swarm)
• FIBA Americas Cup 2011 — USA Beats Argentina Twice in 72 Hours, Takes Gold: Led by a group of talented high schoolers the US dominated the competition en route to the gold. (Villanova by the Numbers)

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Rotnei Clarke Gets His Release: The Arkansas star has been granted a release after a rather complicated discussion with Razorback staff. (Kentucky Sports Radio)
• Kevin Broadus Rejoins the Georgetown Staff; Hired as Special Assistant to John Thompson III: The controversial former Binghamton coach will join the Hoyas next season. (Casual Hoya)
• Ed O’Bannon and Baron Davis Return to Westwood to Finish Classes: The former Bruin greats are back on campus taking classes. (Bruins Nation)
• Tim Hardaway Jr. Makes USA U19 World Championship Team: “USA Basketball announced today that Tim Hardaway Jr. made the cut for 2011 USA U19 World Championship team. That means that Hardaway will spend the next three weeks training in Colorado and traveling to Europe to participate in the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championships.” (UM Hoops)
  
• FIBA Americas Cup 2011 — U16 Americas Cup Field is Set: An overview of Team USA’s competition. (Villanova by the Numbers)
• Georgia Tech Transfer Brian Oliver Thinking Big East, Maybe Syracuse: “According to Adam Zagoria, Georgia Tech transfer Brian Oliver is thinking about moving to a Big East school in the Northeast and that puts Syracuse on the list.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
  
• Keith Urgo Lured to Penn State: “Patrick Chambers has plucked a Villanova coach for his staff at Penn State. Keith Urgowho was an Assistant Coach last year for Villanova will be heading to State College for the same role.” (VU Hoops)

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Mark Turgeon: Maryland’s Personnel “Not Where It Needs to Be”, May Go Four Guards: “No one doubts that Mark Turgeon is inheriting a not-great situation at Maryland, at least in the first season, but I have to say I didn’t expect him to say as much.” (Testudo Times)
  
• Dwayne Polee transfers to San Diego State: “As you know, Dwayne Polee II, the skinny jumping jack who was Steve Lavin’s first recruit to the St. John’s program, decided to transfer from the Red Storm program to be closer to his sick mother… though the playing time crunch at the wing was also a factor.” (Rumble in the Garden)
• Fab Melo Court Case Pushed Back To June 23: The rising sophomore will be in court in a little over a week. (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Harrison + God’sGift getting ready on campus: “Good news to hear: D’Angelo Harrison has come by the St. John’s campus to work out, and God’sGift Achiuwa is on campus in summer classes.” (Rumble in the Garden)
• Scoop Jardine Blogs About Chris Paul Camp, Missed Flights, Bowling: Selected highlights from Scoop’s latest blogs. (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)

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1. Everybody applauded Shaka Smart a few months ago when he turned down the allure of programs with bigger names to stay at VCU with the hopes of building an elite program there. He may do that, but it looks like he will need to do it with a new coaching staff as Radford snapped up VCU assistant Mike Jones and Boston University is apparently strongly considering another VCU assistant, Mike Rhoades. As for Jones, he may have a difficult time cleaning up the mess left by former coach Brad Greenberg, who resigned after numerous irregularities were discovered within the program.
2. For much of the past year college fans have been inundated by rumors about conference realignment. One move that definitely stayed under our radar was Seattle moving to the WAC. The move that will become official in the 2012-13 academic year will allow the men’s basketball program, coached by former UCLA point guard Cameron Dollar, to compete at the Division 1 level in the first year that they are eligible for the NCAA Tournament. While most fans are not that familiar with the Seattle program, they do have an impressive pedigree if you are willing to go back nearly 50 years. In 1958, led by Elgin Baylor, they made it to the NCAA Championship game before losing to Kentucky, 82-74, and in 1966 they handed Texas Western (yes, the Glory Road team) its only loss of the season in their last game before the NCAA Tournament. The current Seattle team is significantly less talented, but should be aided by the depleted WAC, which will see Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada leave the conference in the next two seasons.
3. When Missouri hired Frank Haith after the season ended they were widely ridiculed (ok, we were in that group), but it looks like he is making some significant moves with the addition of Auburn transfer Earnest Ross (13.1 PPG and 6.6 RPG as part of an anemic offense last season) and he is reportedly in the hunt for UConn transfer Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Pepperdine transfer Keion Bell (yes, the guy who dunked over seven people). If Haith can land that trio, the media ridicule about the hire may soften although questions about his in-game coaching will remain.
4. When Dwayne Polee announced that he was transferring from St. John’s several weeks ago we speculated that it might have had something to do with the influx of talent that Steve Lavin was bringing to the Red Storm. Yesterday, Polee announced that he was transferring to San Diego State and was applying for a hardship waiver (his mother has a medical condition requiring surgery) that would allow him to play for the Aztecs next year. Although Polee had a disappointing freshman campaign this is a big signing for Steve Fisher and could help the team transition from Kawhi Leonard era to the future if Polee can find his game again now that he is back in California.
5. Last night we went on a Twitter rant questioning the public’s anger at LeBron James for not fulfilling his potential (or at least what we perceive it to be), but we won’t question the existence of the widespread hatred of James and his current Heat team. Even before the season began, Sports Illustrated released a list of the top 25 most hated teams of all-time and had the Heat, who had yet to play a game together as the 25th most hated team of all-time. We are sure they would move up the list if it was done again today, but we were surprised to see that three college basketball teams–1983-84 Georgetown at #23, 1991-92 Duke at #12, and 1989-90 UNLV at #9–were rated ahead of the Heat. We aren’t exactly sure where the Heat would rank if the list were done again today, but we are guessing that they would rank higher than all three of those teams.