1. Charlotte Observer: The biggest news around the conference was definitely North Carolina‘s loss to UNLV in Las Vegas. We each weighed in on the upset both immediately after the game and then a few hours later focusing on the formula for beating the Tar Heels and the flaws exposed in the loss. Andrew Carter at the Charlotte Observer provides a slightly different perspective focusing on potential lessons learned from the loss. After the game Roy Williams addressed his use of timeouts: “I’m not going to call timeouts. […] This is what it is. We’ve got to be tough enough to ask the players (to persevere).” One thing is clear: there were a lot of lessons to be learned from the loss. Now the hard part is applying them. Also, The Sporting News reported Barnes left the game with crutches, but Robbie Pickeral said that is no longer the case.
2. Tallahassee Democrat: Missed free throws are killer. Especially for Florida State against Connecticut. The Seminoles were poised to knock off the defending national champions, but Okaro White missed a free throw with 12 seconds left that would have made it a two possession game. To make matters worse, Luke Louks missed the two tying free throws in overtime. Leonard Hamilton’s squad may leave the Bahamas with two straight losses, but this team is still very talented.
3. Charlotte Observer: Three wins in three days taught Duke a lot about itself. The Blue Devils may not have won pretty, but they were tough. They learned that they could lock down a preseason All-American even if only for the last few minutes. They learned that they could win without Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler. Now comes the toughest test yet: Ohio State on the road.
4. CBSSports.com: Future ACC member Syracuse fired Bernie Fine after further evidence and more allegations surfaced this weekend. Now Gregg Doyel wants to hold Jim Boeheim to task for his earlier statements about the incident. Doyel has no problem with supporting a friend, but thought the long-time Syracuse coach went too far when he said, “The Penn State thing came out, and the kid behind this is trying to get money.” I agree that the statement was incredibly brash. I don’t know whether Boeheim should be fired as he did rescind his comment, but this story is not going anywhere soon.
5. Winston-Salem Journal: North Carolina has potential lessons to learn after its loss, but Wake Forest showed its learned something very important this off-season. The Demon Deacons learned how to rebound from a tough loss. Last year it felt like Wake Forest got pummeled night in and night out with each loss feeding the team’s collective attitude. This year CJ Harris and Travis McKie bounced back from a beatdown against Arizona State to beat Texas Tech for seventh place at the Old Spice Classic. Wake Forest is bound to sustain some pretty brutal losses this year so bouncing back will be critical.

EXTRA: One part of the Division I recruiting that has come under fire–and rightfully so–the last few years is the National Letter of Intent (NLI), which binds an athlete to his school for all four years (despite his scholarship being annually renewable). Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News looks at the NLI and its fairness for athletes.

North Carolina‘s loss Saturday exposed several flaws in the team and in people’s perception of the team. When Ken Pomeroy ranked the Tar Heels fourth in the country, many national analysts scoffed. But don’t forget: the Tar Heels were not dominant last year. They got beat handily by a Duke team (without Kyrie Irving) in the ACC Tournament Finals after squeaking by Miami by two points and Clemson in overtime. Yes, they added PJ Hairston and James Michael McAdoo. But the unsinkable aura many gave this team coming into the season was a little overboard.

It is also important to look at the game and the details surrounding it to understand the loss. First and foremost, UNLV was a little underrated even though the Rebels were getting votes in the AP and Coaches’ polls before knocking off North Carolina. Second, the game was at a “neutral” site: yes, it wasn’t at the Thomas & Mack Center, but most of the crowd wore scarlet (I’d estimate the crowd was around 65-70% for UNLV). Third, the game comes right before North Carolina’s two toughest non-conference games of the season against Wisconsin and at Kentucky. That’s not to say Roy Williams or his team consciously overlooked UNLV, but the game happened in a “tournament” (less than 24 hours after their game with South Carolina) and right before they face two very good opponents.

Where Was Tyler Zeller Against UNLV?

Before looking at what went wrong in the game, it is important to look at what North Carolina did well. Most notably, PJ Hairston played incredibly. In only 13 minutes Hairston scored a team-high (tied with Harrison Barnes) 15 points on six shots. He has had a very productive season so far and has really excelled in his role off the bench. People asked going into this season who the knockdown shooter would be for North Carolina, and Hairston has answered the call although I think he is a year away from being a true go-to guy like Wayne Ellington. In a similar vein Reggie Bullock was terrific, going 4-5 from the field despite a couple of turnovers. He also played great defense for stretches. If Williams can get this much productivity out of these two, he will have to think about starting one of them over Dexter Strickland at some point. It should also be mentioned that the Tar Heels went on a run in the first half with Kendall Marshall on the bench. Marshall played well on the offensive end, especially in the first half when he knocked down a big three to put North Carolina up five.

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There is a formula for an upset, and it is as old as the three-point line: make your shots from beyond the arc, slow the pace, and play physical, punishing defense. UNLV did two of the three, opting to keep the pace up, but their execution was perfect. Since last season, the flaws of this North Carolina team have been no secret: John Henson and Tyler Zeller get frustrated by strong physical defense, Kendall Marshall is a mediocre on-ball defender, and the UNC defensive system that relies heavily on rotations and recovery is susceptible to three-point shots from the weak-side, particularly after collapsing against a drive. If you are experiencing an odd sense of déjà vu, it is because this is almost exactly the blueprint that Kentucky exploited to beat the Tar Heels in the Elite Eight. It worked then, it worked last night, and there is a good chance that it will work in the future.

Marshall's On-Ball Defense Will Remain A Liability in North Carolina's Defensive Scheme

Specifically the near future. Against Wisconsin on Tuesday, North Carolina will be dealing with one of the nation’s stingiest interior defenses, coupled with elite three-point shooting, and a punishingly controlled tempo. Kentucky’s surplus of talent becomes more apparent each and every game and the Wildcats ability to play tough, muscular defense as well as athletic guard play seems designed to give the Tar Heels fits. North Carolina was going to go into both of these games regardless as the underdog, regardless of who won in Vegas or what the polls said. Both of these match-ups are tough, and weirdly, by losing on Saturday, North Carolina should be able to go into these two games with appropriately readjusted expectations.

This can be a very good thing. The 2005 team’s season-opening loss to Santa Clara had the eventual national champions on the defensive, playing catch-up all year against an Illinois team that nearly went undefeated in the regular season. The 2007 Elite Eight team lost to Gonzaga in November. Last year’s squad lost to Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Illinois, and Texas in a span of a month yet finished the season playing in the Elite Eight while all of these other teams were sitting at home. Roy Williams-coached squads, for a variety of reasons, often lose in the fall. Last night’s loss, or even a series of three straight losses by this time  last week might feel terrible for North Carolina, but it won’t be as meaningful as pundits might say (excepting a series of blowouts). Teams grow and change between November and March, and a loss or three won’t cripple the psyche of this young team. Losses don’t hurt forever especially in November games.

When college basketball fans wake up in the morning they will have a new #1. Ok, maybe that will not officially come until Monday when the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls are released, but for all intents and purposes Kentucky is your new #1 team in the country. Around 12:40 AM, while much of the East Coast was already asleep, UNLV took down top-ranked North Carolina, 90-80. While the loss will inevitably send Tar Heel message boards into a panic, it isn’t the end of the world, but it is instructive in some of the weaknesses that it revealed (or refreshed in our minds).

Moser And UNLV Exposed Some Of UNC's Weaknesses (Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

• Kendall Marshall: Like every other college basketball fan we love some parts of his game. His court vision is exceptional and he makes a lot of great passes without making the “And 1 Mix Tape” pass. Having said that, he is not very athletic nor is he a good shooter. We don’t expect our point guard to jump out of the gym, but there are times (and there will be times) where Marshall’s lack of lateral quickness will cost the Tar Heels. Marshall does enough things well and he has enough help inside when he gets beat that this will not be an issue, but against a team with a quick point guard and good interior players that UNC’s big men cannot help off of without giving up easy points, this could be an issue. As for his shooting, we cringe every time Marshall takes an outside shot. He can make them (37.7% from three-point range last year on just 53 attempts), but if we were a defender we would happily concede that to fall back on occasion to block some of his entry passes.
• Free throw shooting: The Tar Heels shot 60.6% (20-33) from the free throw line tonight. We would be willing to let this go, but they were shooting 60.7% coming into this game, which puts them at 299th in the nation. This wouldn’t be such a big issue except that UNC’s strength is on the inside, which means they should get to the free throw line a lot. Tonight they were in the bonus with almost 10 minutes to go, but their inability to hit free throws and then their reluctance to go into the post (perhaps a fear of missed throws?) cost them a relatively easy opportunity to get back into the game. What is even worse is that they do not have a single player on the team who can be counted on to consistently hit free throws. After tonight’s game they only have two players shooting over 70% from the free throw line (P.J. Hairston at 83% on 12 attempts all year and Marshall at 75% on eight attempts all year). We don’t want to go “sample size” on you, but those are really small sample sizes. Hairston is a freshman so we don’t have a reliable prior free throw percentage for him, but Marshall shot 69% last season. As for the players on the team that actually get to the line? None of them even hit two-thirds of their attempts. You are probably thinking that 60.7% isn’t that bad and there is some data to suggest that we tend to overrate the importance of free throw shooting. Still 60.7% is really, really bad. How bad is that? Do you remember the most famous bad free throw shooting team of all-time? The 2007-08 Memphis Tigers? The ones that shot so poorly from the line that their coach went on-air to defend them before their season collapsed when they missed key free throws down the stretch? They shot slightly better at 61.4% from the free throw line as a team.

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1. This basketball season just keeps getting better and better for the Pac-12. Thanksgiving brought three more losses in tournaments from the Bahamas to Anaheim, with Utah losing by 28 to Harvard in the Battle 4 Atlantis, Arizona State dropping an ugly one to Fairfield in the Old Spice Classic, and Washington State capping off a brutal night with a 15-point loss in the 76 Classic to an Oklahoma team that was 14-18 last year. Not only is an 0-3 record definitely not something to be thankful for, but there wasn’t even a close game or a particularly good effort mixed in there; the tightest final margin was ASU’s 11-point loss in a relatively down-tempo game (approximately 62 possessions per team). The conference is now a combined 33-23 on the year, with a 5-9 record against teams from other BCS conferences.
2. While Oregon fans are still holding out hope that somehow Jabari Brown winds up back in Eugene, rumors began circulating Thursday that Brown would end up at San Diego State next season. Steve Fisher has been rolling out the welcome mat for talented transfers who have struck out elsewhere, and while this would be a great get for an Aztec program that should be pretty strong next season, it looks like Duck fans can extinguish that last little flame of hope that Brown would return to Dana Altman’s program.
3. The big game around the conference tonight is Stanford’s battle with Syracuse for the NIT Season Tip-Off title, a game we’ll discuss more later this morning. But USC kicks off an intriguing couple of days at the Las Vegas Invitational, with UNLV tonight and either North Carolina or South Carolina tomorrow night. The Trojans are just 2-3 on the season, but have lost their three games by a combined total of 11 points (including one double-overtime loss). Given that USC has shot 57.1% from the line in those three games (and just 62.9% for the season), you can see why head coach Kevin O’Neill says that free throws are killing them.
4. Across town, UCLA is in much worse shape than the Trojans. While SC has at least been competitive every night out, and even managed to post a couple of wins, UCLA is still winless on the year against Division I competition. Worse yet, they haven’t been close – four losses by an average of almost 16 points a night. The closest they’ve come is an 11-point loss to Loyola Marymount. This UCLA roster is certainly not awash in hyper-talented individuals, but as Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times points out, the lack of commitment from several important members of the team is the bigger problem.
5. Well, there’s always football. Nevermind that there is still a scenario whereby the winner of the Pac-12 South division isn’t eligible for a bowl game – it’s still better off than the basketball side of things. And given my own struggles in simply picking winners in Pac-12 games (I was 2-4 last week), I feel like I should be made an honorary member of the conference. Anyway, games kick off tonight on the football side and if everything breaks my way this weekend (including a highly improbable UCLA win over USC – I swear I’m not yet drunk as I write this), I can still catch Connor.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Jarnell Stokes Still Ineligible For His Senior Season

Jarnell Stokes Is Ineligible For His Senior Basketball Season. (Wildcat Blue Nation)

Top-20 Recruit Left Searching For Other Options. The TSSAA Board of Control, the body of people responsible for deciding whether Class of 2012 power forward Jarnell Stokes can play basketball his senior season, announced Monday that they denied his appeal to the August ruling that said he cannot play in the 2011-12 season. Stokes was initially ruled ineligible by Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association executive director Bernard Childress after transferring from Central High School (TN) to Southwind High School (TN). Stokes has lived in the same address for the past nine years in the Southwind district but was able to attend Central on an academic exemption as a freshman. However, Stokes’ academic record over the last three years doesn’t meet any of the ten TSSAA guidelines that would have allowed him to transfer and become eligible at Southwind this season. Despite the setback, Stokes and his family still have several other options. One option, something that Stokes’ father says is a possibility, is that Stokes can graduate early and enroll in college in January (keep in mind though that he is still uncommitted). Another option he has is to return back to Central, but his father says that almost certainly won’t happen. Stokes is a good enough player though that, even if he doesn’t player basketball this year, the likes of Arkansas, Memphis and Kentucky will still recruit him and his recruitment should be unaffected.

What They’re Saying

• Senior standout Ricardo Ledo on who Providence is going after: “We’re trying to get [Class of 2012 power forward] Chris Obekpa, we’re trying to get [Class of 2013 center] Nerlens Noel, we’re going hard at him. We’re trying to get [Class of 2012 small forward] JaKarr Sampson.”

Ricardo Ledo Says Providence Is Going After Chris Obekpa, Nerlens Noel And JaKarr Sampson.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences and a Pac-12 microsite writer. 

Reader’s Take I

A Look Back

Coming into the season, New Mexico and UNLV were the clear favorites to be the class of the conference this season, with the other six teams in the conference were littered with question marks. After a little more than a week of the regular season, UNLV has more than lived up to expectations while New Mexico has already stumbled once (to in-state rival New Mexico State) and has generally looked shaky at best. Around the rest of the conference, San Diego State has been the most active, already completing six games and losing only a road game to Baylor, RTC’s #11 team in the country. TCU pulled off a big surprise with a win over Virginia in the Paradise Jam (nevermind the fact that it backed up that breakthrough with a loss to Norfolk State). Air Force is undefeated through three games, sweeping the All-Military Classic with wins over Army and Virginia Military. And then, there’s our team of the week, below.

Team of the Week

Boise State – All apologies to UNLV, who has looked excellent in its four games so far, but the nod here goes to the Broncos, who have impressed in their first three games as members of the Mountain West. They’ve played nobody of note, but at least they’ve handled those three teams (Colorado Christian, Utah and Cal State Northridge) with ease, winning the three games by an average of 38 points per outing. Despite replacing three starters with a roster chock-full of newcomers, BSU has had three different players lead the team in scoring in its three games, and it has had seven different players score in double figures at least once. They’ve got bigger tests ahead (starting tonight with a trip to Long Beach State), but they have sure started well.

Player of the Week

Chase Tapley, Junior, San Diego State – There are a lot of possibilities here, including Tapley’s sophomore teammate Jamaal Franklin who has been outstanding, but we will go with Tapley for his across-the-board production and efficiency. In six games, Tapley has averaged 16.5 points per game, while contributing nearly five rebounds a night, 2.5 assists per outing and more than three steals a night, all while shooting 47.8% from the field and 53.1% from three-point range. In the Aztecs lone loss, it was Tapley who kept them in shouting distance, posting a career-high 28 points while hitting eight of his ten three-point attempts in their loss to Baylor.

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SPONSORED: Rush the Court is pleased to bring you a one-day fantasy college basketball league courtesy of FanDuel.com to tip off the season. The league, which is completely free to enter, starts on Tuesday, Nov. 15, and features $200 in prizes. Even better, if you beat our trained monkey that we’ve assigned to make our picks (username: RTCmonkey), you’ll win even more. Test your college hoops knowledge to win! Click here to enter.

1. UNLV will be down to seven scholarship players for its season opener against Division II Grand Canyon after it suspended Anthony Marshall for the game for violating a NCAA rule that only allows a player to play in one summer league each summer. Marshall, who apparently did not know the rule, played one game in a second summer league, which the school reported as a secondary violation. Normally, we would go into our “a rule is a rule” spiel now, but when you consider that senior Chace Stanback has a similar one game suspension for a DUI we would shift our focus to the relative weight of the penalties. Like we said over the weekend, it isn’t the NCAA’s job to enforce criminal laws, but when the school is making the decision about who plays and who sits they should exercise more discretion in levying out punishments.
2. For years, the general consensus among basketball fans was that Michigan State started slow and tended to round into shape at just the right time, but there had been very little formal analysis of it. Like our link yesterday, the people at The Basketball Prospectus have tried to put some statistics behind the commonly held belief and this time they looked at Michigan State and its progression throughout the season using Ken Pomeroy’s famed four factor analysis. The analysis breaks the seasons into parts (non-conference play, conference play, and NCAA Tournament) and compares how the Spartans do on various metrics. Some of the results are what you would expect while others are surprising.
3. It didn’t take Bruce Pearl long to find another job in basketball after leaving Tennessee. Just a few months after taking a job as Vice President of Marketing at H.T. Hackney, a wholesale grocer, Pearl has signed a contract with Sirius XM to host a college basketball show with Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com. Pearl claims that he will continue to work at H.T. Hackney while doing the show, which is expected to start on November 14 and then run twice weekly for three hours each starting in January. It will be interesting to see how guests interact with Pearl, who is currently under a three-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA. Our guess is that Pearl will be treated like Michael Milken, a man who should be a pariah in the financial community, but is still discussed with a strange reverence by those in the field and called upon for advice.
4. If you are like us you probably already know quite a bit about Harrison Barnes, but it is mostly about his game and not about what makes him tick. For answers to the latter question we suggest you check out a fairly interesting feature from ESPN The Magazine on the North Carolina sophomore. It features some interesting pieces about his mother’s obsession with some former Tar Heel named Jordan as well as an amusing quote from John Calipari about how one-and-dones are “bad for basketball”.
5. Finally, today is the first day that high school basketball players can sign their National Letter of Intent so schools can officially begin to count up the number of sealed commitments for next year’s teams. The issue has been discussed ad nauseum over the past few years and we don’t feel that it is as much of a plantation issue as some others do, but we do feel that the entire signing process is a bad idea for recruits because it is a contractual commitment to the school, which the school and coach can get out of, but the player cannot even if the coach leaves or the school’s situation changes significantly (like a school in Happy Valley, PA). The intelligent thing for a top recruit to do would be to commit, but not sign a Letter of Intent and just enroll at the school without sacrificing the high ground. Unfortunately, current tradition dictates that most players will end up signing a Letter of Intent no matter how dumb it is.

We talked yesterday about Arizona landing a real big fish when center Kaleb Tarczewski announced his commitment to Sean Miller and the Wildcats. But there is still one other huge target out there with a number of Pac-12 schools among the favorites. Shabazz Muhammad, a 6’6” small forward from Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, is the consensus #1 recruit in the 2012 class. A left-handed scorer from the wing, capable both in the mid-range game and attacking the basket, Muhammad has attracted attention from coaches from all over the country, and has been playing the field so far, keeping his options wide open. Earlier in the year, he had listed nine schools among those still in contention for his services, with three Pac-12 schools ostensibly on the radar: Arizona, UCLA and USC.

Shabazz Muhammad Has The College Basketball World Buzzing

Among many recruiting analysts, UCLA has been seen as a slight favorite (with Kentucky and Duke hot in pursuit), but Muhammad himself has played it close to the vest, refusing to name a favorite. UCLA has been encouraged by the fact that 2012 commitment Jordan Adams is friends with Muhammad and has been giving head coach Ben Howland a helping hand in encouraging his buddy to join him in Westwood. And when Kyle Anderson, another top five 2012 recruit, committed to UCLA in September, speculated was rampant that Anderson’s friendship with Muhammad may also sway the top recruit into becoming a Bruin. However, Muhammad’s father, Ron Holmes, a former USC basketball player who has not been shy about giving his opinion on his son’s recruitment, claimed that neither of those events would necessarily influence his son’s decision.

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Over the next two weeks, we’ll be previewing each of the Pac-12 teams as we head into the season.

USC Trojans

Strengths.  Defense. In Kevin O’Neill’s first two years at USC, his teams have ranked 2^nd and 28^th in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency ratings. While the Trojans will not look like what O’Neill expected them to look like even a few months ago, you can expect them to be similarly stingy on the defensive end. With 7’0” sophomore center Dewayne Dedmon an intimidating shot-blocking presence inside, O’Neill could play 7’1” James Blasczyk alongside him and Iowa transfer Aaron Fuller, an athletic combo forward who is capable of guarding multiple positions, at the three. And freshman wing Byron Wesley could be the Trojans’ defensive specialist for years to come. And while 5’7” point Maurice Jones is capable of being taken advantage of in the halfcourt, he’ll cause his share of problems for opposing ballhandlers in the open floor.

Weaknesses. If defense is the strength, is it too broad to say that offense will be this team’s weakness? Well, it will be. With senior point guard Jio Fontan out for the season with a torn ACL, the Trojans are left with no one who is an obvious choice as a go-to scorer. Jones is lightning quick and a streaky shooter, but no one expects him to carry this offense. Freshman guard Alexis Moore will play alongside Jones, and while he is a natural scorer, he could stand to work on his jumper and his shot selection. And Fuller, although a versatile forward, gets by more on grit and toughness than a refined offensive game. It seems like every offensive possession could be a struggle for the Trojans.

Maurice Jones May Be Small In Stature, But He'll Need To Be Big For The Trojans

Nonconference Tests.  USC plays in the Las Vegas Invitational over Thanksgiving weekend for the first big tests of their season, when they face UNLV in the opening round before playing either South Carolina or preseason #1 North Carolina in the second round. It doesn’t get a whole lot easier from there as they travel to Minnesota early in December before hosting New Mexico, Georgia and Kansas at the Galen Center throughout the month.

Toughest Conference Stretch.  It’s a brutal end to the season for USC. They host California and Stanford early in February, then play three straight road games against UCLA (although that “road” game is literally just down the road from USC’s campus) and the Arizona schools, before wrapping up the season with the Washington schools visiting Los Angeles. Read the rest of this entry »