1. Texas showed off some of its potential last week winning the 2K Classic in convincing fashion, but it appears they will have to prove they can maintain the same level for at least a few weeks without the services of point guard Isaiah Taylor, who injured his wrist late in Thursday night’s win over Iowa and missed Friday night’s game against California. While the Longhorns have quite a bit of depth on the inside they are not quite as deep on the perimeter particularly after the departure of Martez Walker, who left the program after being suspended indefinitely following a domestic incident. Texas will have to figure out how to play without Taylor, who is expected to be out for four to six weeks which would mean that he would not be available for their December 10 showdown in Rupp in what could have been one of Kentucky’s toughest tests this season.
2. Texas A&M received some good news on Friday as the NCAA cleared both Danuel House and Tonny Trocha-Morelos to play this season. House, a former five-star prospect who averaged 13.6 points and 5.3 rebounds per game at Houston, should be an immediate impact player for the Aggies. As Mike DeCourcy notes, the decision by the NCAA to allow House to play immediately is unusual given the information that has been released. Trocha-Morelos is a little bit more of an unknown quantity as the 6’10” center from Colombia had a breakthrough performance at some international tournaments in 2012, but has been in NCAA Clearinghouse limbo for the past two years.
3. Ball State announced that it has suspended Zavier Turner indefinitely for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Turner, who averaged 12.1 points and 3.7 assists per game last season on his way to MAC freshman of the year honors, had already played two games for the team before the suspension so we are assuming this is related to something that happened in the past week. This is the second notable suspension from the MAC in the past week as Akron had suspended All-MAC senior forward Demetrius Treadwell indefinitely after he was accused of assaulting a player on the women’s basketball team.
4. A US District Judge ruled in favor the NCAA and the four major professional sports leagues in issuing a permanent injunction against the state of New Jersey, which had attempted to legalize sports betting at casinos and racetracks. The state is attempting to overcome the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 that only allowed legal sports betting in very specific areas. The leagues have attempted to argue that allowing sports betting beyond those previously designated areas will reduce the fans’ perception of the integrity of their sports. New Jersey has fought this claim with a 2013 ruling that said the state was free to repeal those sports betting laws. It appears the leagues will continue to fight this despite one commissioner (Adam Silver) saying that expanded legalized betting is inevitable and various teams partnering with fantasy sports operators. Frankly, the argument that expanded legalized sports gambling will impact the perception of the integrity of the game seems rather myopic as everybody knows about all of the easily available non-legal sports gambling platforms. What New Jersey is doing is trying to bring this out into the open and create another stream of revenue from the government rather than keeping a black market alive, which is what the leagues seem to be in favor of doing.
5. We are still working on this year’s in-season tournaments and they are already releasing the names of teams that will be participating in next year’s tournaments. North Carolina, Northwestern, Kansas State, and Missouri have been named as the headliners for the 2015 CBE Classic. The CBE Classic is held in Kansas City in conjunction with ceremonies for the College Basketball Hall of Fame. While we would normally point to UNC as the headliner in this field the location will probably make Missouri and Kansas State the crowd favorites. In any event the Tar Heels should be the heavy favorites in this field although the overall depth of the field is better than this year’s event.

1. We figured that we were done talking about the North Carolina academic scandal for a while, but then Larry Brown decided to talk about it. The 1963 UNC graduate and Hall of Fame coached said that he has been following the story and is most concerned with how it could stain Dean Smith‘s legacy. While we respect a lot of the work that Smith did both on and off the court, we find the fact that Brown, a man who left his last two college programs with major NCAA penalties (a fact many people conveniently forget), is worried about someone’s legacy is amusing. Given the amount of time that has passed since Smith actually coached, we are assuming that this will end up being something like the Sam Gilbert situation at UCLA, something that rival fans like to bring up at random times to try to bring down John Wooden, but not something that is a prominent part of his biography.
2. The news that the NCAA was considering releasing early information on potential high seeds like college football is doing for its College Football Playoff has been met with quite a bit of criticism. Many individuals have written pieces claiming everything from the idea that this will diminish Selection Sunday to that it will ruin the sport. While we do not find the idea of releasing a list of the top four or sixteen teams in the field particularly meaningful (it’s more of a money grab than anything with the potential ad revenue out there), we are not sure how this is that different than the almost real-time Bracketology that we see on almost every college basketball site. If you follow the sport and can’t think of the likely #1 or even top 4 seeds in each region without the NCAA telling you who they would probably pick we aren’t sure what to tell you. And if you don’t want to pay attention to them just ignore them.
3. Jerry Tarkanian remains in an ICU at a Las Vegas hospital after he was admitted with pneumonia. While Tarkanian has reportedly made significant improvements during the hospitalization this is his third hospitalization in the past eighteen months, which is concerning in itself. As anybody who has had a family member in the hospital knows, things can change quickly particularly for someone of Tarkanian’s age (84) and with his other medical problems (coronary artery disease and already with a pacemaker) so we are cautiously optimistic based on the news that we have heard so far.
4. On Wednesday, Steve Fisher signed a three-year extension at San Diego State. The news that the school would offer Fisher, whose contract was set to end after this season, an extension is not particularly surprising except that there was some speculation that Fisher, who is 70 years old, would retire after this season. Based on his resume alone, there is no question that Fisher deserves the extension and probably a lot more. For his part, Fisher says the extension was more of an administrative issue and he will make a decision about whether he will continue coaching after each season.
5. While most programs are working on building their 2015 recruiting class, the truly elite programs are looking even further down the road. Arizona certainly falls into that category as they already have one of the best 2015 classes and picked up a commitment on Wednesday from T.J. Leaf, a five-star power forward in the class of 2016. Leaf chose Arizona over Duke, Florida, Michigan, and UCLA. Arizona might not quite be in Kentucky’s class for recruiting (nobody really is), but they are not far behind and with the way they are stocking up on talent–particularly the type that might stay more than one year–they are positioned to be a dominant team for years to come.

1. The 2004 USC football team might have some company soon after Dan Kane’s latest piece on the North Carolina academic scandal showed just how pervasive the academic fraud was on the 2005 North Carolina basketball team that won the national title. According to Kane, five members of that team–four of whom are labeled as “key players”–enrolled in 35 bogus classes with nine of them in the fall semester and 26 in the spring semester when they were on their way to winning the national title. The names of those five individuals have not been released, but we think it is safe to assume that Rashad McCants was one of them since he has come clean with his involvement in it. As for the other three “key players” they would have to include at least one other pretty big name as that UNC team only have seven players other than McCants even score 100 points the entire season. Regardless of which players were actually involved we cannot imagine the NCAA handling this any other way than to vacate that national title.
2. Three teams–Virginia, Mississippi, and San Diego State–will be without significant pieces to start the season. At Virginia, junior forward Evan Nolte (2.8 points per game last season) and sophomore guard London Perrantes (5.5 points and team-leading 3.8 assists per game last season) were suspended for two preseason scrimmages and the team’s season-opener at James Madison for violation of team rules over the summer. At Mississippi, senior forward Aaron Jones (team leader with 6.6 rebounds and 2.1 blocker per game last season) was suspended for three games–an exhibition game and the first two regular season games–following a violation of team rules. The issue at San Diego State is not a suspension instead it is an injury as sophomore forward Matt Shrigley (5.2 points per game last season) will be out for a month after suffering a “small fracture” in his left elbow after being on the receiving end of a flagrant foul during an exhibition game.
3. In this space we talk a lot about players getting suspended. What we don’t talk about very often is coaches having the sit out suspension. So that makes the decision by Kennesaw State to suspend Jimmy Lallathin for one game for a self-reported violation by the program interesting. What makes it even more interesting (or amusing depending on your point of view) is that Lallathin’s has not even coached a game as the official head coach yet. He did go 3-13 over the final two months of last season acting as an interim coach following the departure of Lewis Preston on January 3. And just to make the suspension a little more bizarre, the Kennesaw State administration decided to suspend Lallathin for the second game of the season–against California–so he will be available for their season-opener–against Syracuse.
4. It always seems like the NCAA comes down to the wire with its decision regarding the eligibility of certain players. The case of Louisville freshman Shaqquan Aaron appears to be no different as he is still waiting to receive a response from the NCAA with the Cardinals opener coming up on Wednesday. Aaron, a top-30 recruit, reportedly submitted the final documents for the NCAA to review on Friday (truthfully, in most cases the timing of these decisions is probably more the fault of the player and his family than the NCAA) and is hopeful that he will get a (positive) response in time for Wednesday’s game against Minnesota. Even if he doesn’t start for the Cardinals, his presence should add some depth to the Cardinals in an area they need some more help.
5. With all this talk of who won’t be available to start the season and who shouldn’t have been able to play nearly a decade ago, we do have one bit of positive news on Monday as BYU forward Kyle Collinsworth was cleared to play again after tearing his right ACL at the end of last season. Collinsworth, who averaged 14 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game last season while being named All-WCC, is a huge addition for the Cougars even if he is not back to full strength when the season starts. He probably won’t be enough to make the Cougars competitive with Gonzaga this season, but should make them a threat for second place in the conference and a possible NCAA Tournament bid.

Welcome to conference preview season. In this, our second of eight conference preview RTC Podblasts that we’ll be rolling out before the dawn of the season, ACC microsite columnist Matt Patton (@rise_and_fire) joins us to discuss the key storylines, teams and players to watch among the 15 teams of the ACC. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts the podblast, and the full rundown of topics is below. Make sure to tweet at us (@rushthecourt) if you have any opinion on which team should be the gang’s new favorite heading into the 2014-15 season.

Make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after we record. And don’t forget to check out our 2014-15 Preseason Storylines Podcast, and feel free to contact us through Twitter or email — we’re listening.

• 0:00 – 7:57 – Figuring the Top of the ACC
• 7:58 – 15:20 – National Prospects of Duke, UNC, Louisville, Virginia and Syracuse
• 15:21 – 21:22 – Middle of the Pack Teams
• 21:23 – 26:35  – Picking Randy’s New Favorite Team
• 26:36 – 32:45  – How Good is Jahlil Okafor?
• 32:46 – 35:58  – Preseason ACC POY/Surprise Players
• 35:59 – 39:35 – Bold Prediction/Wrap

1. It was less than a five days ago that everything seemed calm at Indiana. Then early on Saturday morning, sophomore Devin Davis was run over by freshman Emmitt Holt, who was charged with driving under the influence. Davis, who was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and now appears to be on his way to recovering, was cited in the police report as being primarily responsible for the accident. Not much after news broke of Davis’ recovery, Tom Crean announced that sophomores Troy Williams and Stanford Robinson had been suspended for four games each in what has been reported as being the result of multiple failed drug tests. These incidents combined with a couple of earlier arrests for alcohol use led some individuals including former Hoosier guard and coach Dan Dakich to question Crean’s job security. We agree that Crean’s job shouldn’t be that secure after all these off-the-court issues, but doubt that this would be the primary reason for his dismissal as schools have shown on many occasions that they care more about the bottom line than the optics of their school.
2. With yesterday being election day across the country, there were plenty of political pundits voicing their opinion to anybody who would listen (and many who wouldn’t). What we did not expect was for Mike Krzyzewski to voice an opinion–that President Obama was mismanaging the ISIS crisis–that would make national headlines. To be fair to Krzyzewski, the comments were made last month in front of an audience of military officers, defense contractors, and others in reference to the President’s pledge to not use ground troops in the fight. This is not the first time that Krzyzewski has been critical of President Obama as he has chided Obama for spending time on a NCAA Tournament bracket (that doesn’t pick Duke to win) instead of focusing on fixing the economy. While those comments were more in jest we would be interested to see the interaction Krzyzewski and Obama have if the Blue Devils win the NCAA title this year and are invited to the White House.
3. It turns out that North Carolina might have more than just the NCAA to worry about in the wake of its recent academic scandal. While some UNC fans have been worried about the NCAA handing down its version of the death penalty, they (at least the ones who care about the institution more than just the sports programs) should probably care more about an upcoming review by Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges. The group that does not deal specifically with sports had already issued a report about the academic scandal in 2012 suggesting that the school offer courses to make up for the fraudulent one many students took. Now with the findings of the Wainstein report public they are taking another look given the findings of the unprecedented scope. The sanctions can range from a warning (essentially a slap on the wrist) to removal of accreditation (a real death penalty that means a school can no longer receive accreditation). We are not sure how often the group has decided to remove accreditation, but it would typically lead to a school having to shut down. Now we doubt that the group would do something that would make such an institution as significant as UNC essentially die, but as the group noted the scope of the scandal is unprecedented.
4. With the season about to get started we will start hearing more from people like Ken Pomeroy since they will have new data to analyze, On Monday, we mentioned how useless preseason polls were. It turns out that we were only partially right. Looking back at the AP preseason poll since 1990, Pomeroy found out that the order of teams ranked above 15 matters to a degree, but below that the order is essentially meaningless in terms of its predictive value. The analysis compares a team’s preseason ranking to its NCAA Tournament seed, which is probably more reflective of the quality of their season overall than just how far they advance in the NCAA Tournament. So while we still question the degree of interest in preseason polls it turns out that they do have some value.
5. The hits just keep coming for Hawaii. Fortunately for the school’s athletic director and everybody associated with it they are still located in Hawaii. Less than a week after the school fired head coach Gib Arnold and assistant coach Brandyn Akana, star forward Isaac Fotu announced that he was leaving the school to play professionally after the school had ruled that he was ineligible to play pending the results of a NCAA investigation. Given how slowly the NCAA typically works on these matters we do not necessarily fault Fotu, a first team All-Big West player who averaged 14.9 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, for leaving rather than wait for the NCAA to hand down its judgement and look forward to playing for an interim coach if he was even cleared to play. We are not privy to the details of what Fotu is being investigated for (reportedly impermissible benefits), but Fotu has stated that he has hired an attorney to clear his name, which at this point is somewhat inconsequential since he will be off somewhere getting paid to play basketball.

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2014-15 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on November 14. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. For all of this year’s released posts, click here. 

#11 – Where A Mayor’s Two-Step Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 preseasons.

The Associated Press announced their preseason All-America list today, and three of the five honorees come from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Freshman Jahlil Okafor (Duke) is the lone freshman on the list, joined by 2013-14 standouts Marcus Paige (North Carolina) and Montrezl Harrell (Louisville). Rounding out the group are Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky and Wichita State point guard Fred VanVleet. This result for the ACC is in stark contrast to last year’s preseason All-America list, where zero ACC players made the list (Russ Smith was there from Louisville, but the Cardinals were an AAC team at that time). In fact, the last ACC player to make the preseason list? North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes in 2011.

Jahlil Okafor Headlines Three ACC Players Selected to the Preseason AP All-America Team

The most eye-popping choice of this list is Duke’s Okafor. Okafor is the third freshman to receive this honor in the past five years, dating back to Barnes’ first selection in 2010, and Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins last year. Okafor is just one of the many highly touted freshmen that Mike Krzyzewski brings to Durham for the upcoming season, joined by Grayson Allen, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones. These three look to replace and reinvigorate a Duke lineup that will miss NBA draftees Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood. While Okafor has yet to make his Duke debut, it is clear that for the second straight season, Duke will present a freshman phenom surrounded by massive hype.

Okafor isn’t the only Tobacco Road superstar to earn the honor this preseason. North Carolina’s Paige in fact received the highest total of votes in the voting, following his sophomore year of second half heroics for the Tar Heels. The Tar Heels sputtered on offense without Paige in the lineup, and while the junior is unquestionably the team’s leader, he may be needed to carry the load quite as much this year. Paige’s Tar Heels have much more depth surrounding him this season, and freshman Justin Jackson is expected to relieve Paige of some of the offensive burden.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2014-15 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on November 14. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. For all of this year’s released posts, click here. 

#14 – Where One Man Show Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 preseasons.

1. Once North Carolina released the findings of the independent investigation into the widespread academic fraud at its institution the next obvious step was to hear from Roy Williams, who spoke about the issue at a press conference on Friday. Williams stated he “thought we were doing the right thing” at the time and noted his reported initial concerns about the high number of players from his 2005 title team that were so many African and Afro-American Studies majors. We aren’t sure whether we believe that Roy (or any other coach involved in this type of scandal) actually cared to know about what was going on or just preferred not to worry about the details of how the sausage was made in his program. The next step in this process is what the NCAA will do with the school. Dennis Dodd has already come out in favor of  the death penalty, but acknowledges that it won’t happen.  Given the widespread nature of the scandal we understand the sentiment, but find it unlikely that the NCAA would touch one of its sacred (cash) cows. Not to be outdone by their new ACC rivals, Syracuse already has its day(s) in (NCAA) court set for October 30 and 31. These allegations go back 10 years and involve both the men’s basketball and football programs with the biggest charges revolving around extra benefits and academic issues with the basketball team. We can’t wait for the weekly ACC conference calls.
2. We knew that we would have to deal with teams losing players to the professional ranks at some point this season we just figured that it would be after the season actually started. Charlotte junior shooting guard Shawn Lester is leaving the program to pursue a professional basketball career. Carter, who was second on the team in scoring last year at 11.9 points per game, is reportedly looking for an agent with a plan on signing overseas. Even with the loss, the 49ers will still have four returning starters and ad Florida transfer Braxton Ogbueze as well as freshmen Keyshawn Woods and Torin Dorn Jr. Although Lester’s reasons for leaving are unclear (reportedly under the pretense of supporting his family financially), he is the fifth player to leave the program early since the end of the 2012-13 season.
3. We are just a few weeks away from the start of college basketball season so we can only imagine the panic in Madison when it was reported that Sam Dekker sprained his left ankle at a Friday practice. Dekker, who averaged 12.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game last season and is a potential All-American, sprained his ankle during a 4-on-4 drill and is only expected to miss one to two weeks as he recovers. Fortunately Wisconsin has a relatively easy start to the season before they play Green Bay on November 19 at which point we would expect Dekker would be back at full strength based on the information that Wisconsin is providing.
4. It won’t make up for the loss of Emmanuel Mudiay or (possibly) Markus Kennedy, but Southern Methodist got a boost when the NCAA ruled that Virginia Tech transfer Ben Emelogu had been granted a transfer waiver and would be eligible to play this season. Emelogu, who is from Dallas, averaged 10.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists as a freshman last season. Emelogu could also provide some stability to the team, which has been in flux the past few month as he actually was a team captain last season despite being only a freshman. If they can get Kennedy back, the Mustangs have the potential to be a dangerous team even if the person who was going to save them is on the other side of the planet.
5. With all the crying about the rivalries lost with conference realignment a number of schools have figured out ways to keep those rivalries intact at least temporarily. The latest two school to do so are Connecticut and Georgetown, which will renew their rivalry for at least two years beginning with the 2015-16 season. The first game will be played on January 23, 2016 at the XL Center with the return date at the Verizon Center on January 21, 2017. While the rivalry might lack the history of others (remember Connecticut was nothing before Jim Calhoun got there), the Hoyas only lead the series 35-29 with the two schools each having a record seven Big East Tournament titles (something the Hoyas should be able to reclaim now that Connecticut is in the AAC). We are sure that we will be seeing plenty of clips of Allen Iverson and Ray Allen going at it in the lead up to these games.

Three weeks until games start for real and it’s time to dig into the upcoming college basketball season. The RTC Podcast is back in earnest, with Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosting, and the guys spend nearly an hour discussing the key storylines on teams, players and the game as a whole for the upcoming year. There’s also a brief introductory interlude on the shenanigans that went on in Chapel Hill for the better part of a generation, but the majority of this podcast puts that aside and looks forward. The complete rundown is below, so feel free to bounce around as needed to get the spots you’re most interested in, and make sure to listen toward the end to win a free RTC t-shirt if you can get the right answer to the question we posed. Over the coming weeks we’ll be releasing conference preview podblasts for each of the seven major leagues as well as the Other 26, so keep an ear out for those as well.

Also, if you’re new to the RTC Podcast or simply need to refresh your subscription on iTunes, don’t hesitate: every episode can be found here!

• 0:00-9:40 – UNC Scandal: What It Means
• 9:40-15:20 – The Biggest 2014-15 Storyline
• 15:20-29:45 – Championship Level Tier
• 29:45-37:35 – Teams Whose Postseason Performance is Affecting Their Preseason Projection
• 37:35-39:32 – Best Conference Discussion
• 39:32-44:15 – Players We’re Excited For
• 44:15-53:27 – Preseason Picks We Want To Own/Wrap-up