The last time we saw Georgetown, they were getting embarrassed by the 14th-seeded Ohio Bobcats in the middle of an epic first round of the NCAA Tournament. While the Hoyas shot over 50% from the field and hit the glass, they were unable to control Ohio’s backcourt as the Hoyas fell by 14 in a stunning upset. With Greg Monroe headed to the NBA, the 2010-11 Hoya team will have quite a different feel than the previous incarnations of the program under John Thompson III. Without a go-to post-player, senior backcourt mates Austin Freeman and Chris Wright will not only be the team leaders, they will be the go-to guys offensively.
Freeman grew into that role last season, despite a brief interruption in the middle of the season when he was diagnosed with diabetes. But he showed his ability to take over games and carry his team when necessary. Against Connecticut in early January, just a couple days after the Hoyas second loss of the season, Freeman broke out for a 28-point second half to bring Georgetown back from a 15-point first-half deficit and an important win. Later in the season it was a 24-point second half to bring the visiting Hoyas back against Louisville and stop a two-game losing streak in its tracks. By now Hoya fans should expect Freeman to be there for them whenever times get tough, but as a senior he’ll have to do those things, even when the opposition is keying on him.
Wright has shown flashes of brilliance in his college career, but hasn’t been consistent, capable of following up a four-point performance in an early-season upset loss to Old Dominion with a 34-point outburst in the next game against Harvard. Wright will have to develop into a guy who can be relied upon every night for the Hoyas to live up to their potential. If Thompson’s coaching style from last season is to be repeated, Wright will again get plenty of playing time: he played under 34 minutes just eight times in 09-10, and even then just once in the last 16 games.
The only other senior expected to earn playing time for the Hoyas is 6-10 big man Julian Vaughn, a raw offensive player who contributes by clogging the lane defensively, blocking some shots and grabbing some boards. He was an improved player last season, and another small leap forward, possibly including a successful post move here and there, would be a very welcome addition.
Junior guard Jason Clark will likely join the three seniors in the starting lineup as a third guard. Clark is a good athletic defender with long arms and the ability to knock down an open jumper when needed.
The fifth member of the starting lineup is still to be determined, but sophomore forward Hollis Thompson may be the guy. The 6-6 Thompson is not particularly big, but is a good athlete that is more suited to the wing position than playing inside. If JTIII is more interested in a post-player to pair along with Vaughn, perhaps 6-10 junior center Henry Sims will get a look. However, Sims is awfully similar to Vaughn in that neither is a particularly grave offensive threat.The third possibility is incoming freshman Nate Lubick, who is a versatile and athletic forward. Lubick will fit in well in the Georgetown offense, and even if he doesn’t wind up starting immediately, should get plenty of time in his first year in D.C.
While Thompson didn’t go very deep on his bench last season, both Jerrelle Benimon and VeeSanford got spot duty as freshmen, and should compete for minutes in their second seasons. Benimon is a hard-working rebounder and defender in the front court, while Sanford is a quick little scorer in the backcourt. Pressing those two for minutes will also be a trio of freshmen in addition to Lubick: point guard Markel Starks (a quick point guard that can light it up – potentially the point guard of the future, but his minutes as a freshman may be limited), wing Aaron Bowen (an athletic, undersized wing who may need to grow into some minutes) and center Moses Abraham (another offensively raw post-player for Thompson to work with – he can contribute the same type of defensive intensity and rebounding that Vaughn and Sims can already provide).
After a wild couple of weeks, it looks like conference realignment is done, for now. I still expect that the Big Ten has some more tricks up its sleeve, but they may wait until next offseason to break them out. My wrap up of the winners and losers of conference realignment is up at RTC.
Previously there was also my post after Texas made it official and pulled back from the conference expansion ledge and remained in the Big 12 (or Little 12, or Big 10-But Not The One That Plays in the Rose Bowl, or Big 12-Lite, or Texas and the nine dwarfs).
Also coming up in the next couple of days at RTC, will be more of my draft profiles (upcoming Elliot Williams, Ed Davis, Solomon Alabi and Damion James), with a whole host of other draft profiles from all the great writers at Rush the Court. Check out all the draft profiles here.
And, with conference expansion no longer taking up the vast majority of my attention, I'm looking forward to picking back up where I left off with conference-by-conference team previews. In fact, look for a Georgetown preview in just a little bit.
There has been some more news over the weekend, such as a last-ditch effort by Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe to keep the Big 12 together, all while Texas A&M hitches up it's skirt to show a little more leg to the SEC, but we expect to know by Tuesday night at the latest whether the Pac-16 will be reality or whether it will be the Pac-12 with Utah joining up and the MWC basically just substituting Boise State for the Utes.
And, of course, we expect there to be a surprise or two along the way and more than a couple wild rumors.
As we head towards summer, we’re starting to get a good feel for some of the non-conference games we’ll see next season. Last week, we had a couple more tournament and special events announce their fields, or at least part of their fields.
The Las Vegas Invitational announced a field of Kansas, Arizona, Santa Clara and Ohio U. The headliner matchup is obviously the Kansas/Arizona matchup, which will be played on the evening of November 27 at the Orleans Arena.
And, speaking of Kansas, rough news for the Jayhawks the last couple of days. Aside from being an absolute afterthought in conference expansion/realignment talk, they reported last week that incoming freshman Josh Selby had broken an arm and would be out 4-6 weeks, then at the alumni basketball game, Marcus Morris bruised his back and had to be carried off the court, while minutes later Markieff Morris and Thomas Robinson collided with each other and came up bleeding, Robinson with a broken nose and Morris with a cut in his mouth that required three stitches.
Elsewhere, the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic announced the schools that will host the regional round of their “tournament”: Illinois, Maryland, Pittsburgh, and Texas. Each school will host two games against lesser schools before advancing to the semifinals (regardless of the outcomes of the regional round games) in Madison Square Garden on November 18 and 19. The matchups for the semifinals have not yet been announced, but it would seem that Pitt/Maryland and Illinois/Texas would make the most sense in the semis, as Pitt should be the highest ranked of those four teams and Maryland the lowest. A good set of games though, however.
The SEC-Big East Invitational announced its matchups as well, a couple of double-headers in December. The first set of doubleheaders will take place on December 8th in Louisville, with Arkansas and Seton Hall serving as the warm-up for Notre Dame and Kentucky. Pittsburgh will host the other doubleheader at its place, with Auburn and Rutgers squaring off in the preliminary bout and Tennessee taking on the Panthers for the nightcap on December 11th. Of the four games, the Pitt/Tennessee game looks to be by far the highlight.
The ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchups have already been announced. On Monday, November 29th, Virginia will travel to Minnesota for the opening game. On November 30th, North Carolina at Illinois will highlight a slate of five games, with Ohio State at Florida State, Michigan at Clemson, Georgia Tech at Northwestern and Iowa at Wake Forest filling out the night. The games for December 1st are highlighted by what figures to be the best non-conference game of the season, Michigan State (with or without Tom Izzo) traveling to Durham to face the reigning champion Duke Blue Devils. However, there are a couple of other really intriguing games that night, with Purdue traveling to Virginia Tech and Wisconsin hosting a young and hopeful N.C. State team. Indiana at Boston College and Maryland at Penn State round out the schedule. Miami will be the ACC team sitting out the challenge this year, but maybe they can schedule a matchup with Nebraska, just for fun.
The Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series matchups have also already been announced, and in the wake of the Pac-16 rumors, this series should have added significance this year. The UCLA/Kansas matchup on Thursday, December 2nd stands out as a matchup between two perennial powers, but UCLA will have to show some severe improvement to stand up to the Jayhawks this season. Other very interesting matchups include Arizona State at Baylor (on the 2nd as well) and Washington at Texas A&M on December 11th. The rest of the schedule includes USC/Nebraska (Nov. 27), Missouri/Oregon (Dec. 2), Kansas State/Washington State (Dec. 3), Oregon State/Colorado, Cal/Iowa State, Texas Tech/ Washington (all on Dec. 4), Texas/USC, Oklahoma/Arizona (both on Dec. 5) and Stanford/Oklahoma State on Dec. 21.
Other tournaments in the style of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic (run by the Gazelle Group, which has an apparent aversion to running fair win-and-advance tournaments, after the Kentucky/Gardner-Webb upset of a couple years back), in which four teams host regional round games at their places before advancing to a semifinal round (regardless of the outcomes of the early rounds) at a neutral site include the CBE Classic and the Legend’s Classic. While the format of the tournament is not ideal, they certainly get good fields (and why not, guaranteed gimme-games at home and guaranteed schedule-booster neutral site games). The CBE features Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas State and Marquette, while the Legend’s features Georgia Tech, Michigan, Syracuse and UTEP. Clearly the CBE is the better of those two fields, with a potential Duke/Kansas State final, although all four of those matchups figure to be intriguing. The Legend’s field lacks a really top-tier team (although, I’ve counted out Boeheim’s teams far too early in the past, and I wouldn’t doubt that I’m doing it again now), however the names on the unis will certainly look impressive.
The strongest field of the traditional tournaments looks to be the Maui Invitational. Headlined by Kentucky and Michigan State, the field also includes the host Chaminade as well as Connecticut, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington and Wichita State. While no bracket has been released a UConn/Kentucky, Michigan State/Washington set of semifinals looks pretty inviting.
Of the other ESPN-sponsored preseason tournaments, the best belongs to the second iteration of the Diamond Head Classic, to be held around Christmas. The event features two of last year’s Elite Eight in Butler and Baylor, with Florida State, Hawaii, Mississippi State, San Diego, Utah and Washington State rounding out the field.
The rest of the ESPN tourneys are good, not great. The Old Spice Classic features Boston College, California, Georgia, Manhattan, Notre Dame, Temple, Texas A&M and Wisconsin. We’ll get a first good look at Steve Donahue’s BC club, with likely two of Temple, Texas A&M or Wisconsin matching up in the final.
The 76 Classic field is Cal State Northridge, DePaul, Murray State, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Tulsa, UNLV and Virginia Tech make up the field, with Murray State having replaced Penn State, which withdrew due to scheduling concerns. UNLV, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma State look to be the strongest teams in the field, and it would make sense that those three and Murray State would be matched up to potentially play in the second round, with perhaps UNLV and Virginia Tech on opposite sides of the bracket for a potential final matchup.
The Puerto Rico Tip-Off has North Carolina as the highlight, but West Virginia, Vanderbilt and Minnesota will also bring some interest. Davidson, Hofstra, Nebraska and Western Kentucky round out that field.
The Charleston Classic is still in the process of building its field, but so far Charlotte, East Carolina, George Mason, Georgetown, N.C. State and Wofford make up the rest of the field with two teams still to be determined. The field is off to a good start however, with a Georgetown/NC State final being an intriguing possibility.
And finally for the ESPN-sponsored events, there will also be a new tournament this year, the Cancun Governor’s Cup,held between December 22-24 and featuring a field of Appalachian State, Colorado State, East Tennessee State, Ole Miss, Northeastern, Saint Louis, Southern Miss and Texas State.
In other tournaments, the NIT Season Tip-Off has not been officially announced, but it has been reported that Tennessee, UCLA and Villanova will be the headliners of the field. While the semifinals of this tournament will be played at Madison Square Garden, this is a traditional tournament in which the teams have to, you know, actually win their early round games to advance, so it remains to be seen if UCLA will even get to New York.
The Paradise Jam is made up of Alabama, Clemson, Iowa, Long Beach State, Old Dominion, Seton Hall, Saint Peters and Xavier, a decent field with the potential for a mid-major delight in the finals, with Xavier and Old Dominion perhaps the favorites there.
The Chicago Invitational will include Purdue, Richmond, Southern Illinois and Wright State, and could feature an interesting Purdue/Richmond final.
The Great Alaska Shooutout is a shadow of its former self, but at least was able to get eight teams for this season’s edition after a field of just six teams last year. Arizona State and St. John’s are the biggest names here, with host Alaska-Anchorage joining Ball State, Drake, Houston Baptist, Southern Utah and Weber State.
The Cancun Challenge has not completed their field yet, but have announced La Salle, Northern Iowa, North Florida, Providence and Wyoming so far with three more schools to come.
There will also be the South Padre Island Invitational, but all I can find on that so far is that Texas Tech will be in the field.
Me, I’ll be at the 76 Classic, but one of these year’s I’ve gotta do the Maui Invitational. Although, as much as I love college basketball, knowing I could be snorkeling in the Pacific after a quick trip through the gymnasium doors would be a distracting proposition. Maybe it would be best to save Maui for the offseason.
Obviously, things have been going crazy on the conference expansion front the last couple of days. I've got a couple of posts up in the last couple days at RTC on the issue, just never had a chance to post them over here. Consider that done now.
I'm hoping to have some time in the next couple of days to pick back up with my Big East previews (Georgetown is on deck), and some other stuff, including more draft profiles and some early looks at next season's pre-season schedules.
I've got another article up over at Rush the Court dealing with the rumors this week about the Pac-10 potentially inviting six Big 12 members to join up and create the first in a potential string of new NCAA superconferences.
And, while you're over there, maybe check out their series of draft profiles of last year's college stars. I've got a couple in there so far (Derrick Favors and Ekpe Udoh so far, Gani Lawal, Elliot Williams and others coming up soon), but all of the articles so far are really excellent.
Since I posted my early previews of the ACC, there has been quite a bit of news out of the conference, mainly along Tobacco Road. Starting with the Tar Heels, when I first looked at their roster, their frontcourt looked a little thin. It got worse before it got better when the Wear twins announced that they would be transferring out of the program (later announced that UCLA would be their destination). With little more than John Henson and Tyler Zeller up front, Roy Williams got to work trying to add some talent up front. First up, Alabama graduate Justin Knox announced that he would take advantage of an NCAA rule allowing graduates to transfer to another school without having to sit out a year, so long as they enroll in a graduate program that their original school does not offer. While Knox is not exactly a superstar (he started 17 games at Alabama last season and averaged about 6 points and 4 rebounds in under 20 minutes a game), he can at least give Williams some frontcourt minutes. Then came news yesterday that James McAdoo, the top-rated power forward in next year's high school class and already a Carolina commit, was considering finishing up his high school studies this summer in order to enroll early at Chapel Hill and be able to play next season for the Tar Heels. If that in fact comes true, Williams' worries up front are pretty much a thing of the past.
Elsewhere on Tobacco Road, North Carolina State head coach Sidney Lowe got some great news, and some great expectations to go along with it, when C.J. Leslie announced that he would be attending NC State next year, turning an already strong recruiting class into a great one, a top five national recruiting class. Lowe will need all the help he can get, as an NCAA Tournament bid will likely be the minimum needed for him to retain his position beyond this season. But, with all that talent in Raleigh, he should be able to get it done.
The Jerry Wainwright era is over in Chicago, and the Oliver Purnell experiment (wait, wasn’t the Oliver Purnell Experiment the name of a 1970’s British prog-rock band?) is underway. As well-liked as Wainwright was, his tenure at DePaul was an outright failure, a 59-80 overall record, one winning season, one NIT appearance, and a backwards slide to a total of 16 wins over the last two years combined. So the program needed some new blood and some excitement, and Purnell brings that with his up-temp pressure-based style, that he most recently had success with at Clemson. However, despite Purnell’s three straight NCAA Tournament bids, six straight post-season tournament bids, and six straight non-losing seasons, there is a little bit of a blemish on that record: three straight NCAA Tournament first-round losses and a reputation for his team to play its best basketball in December and January, rather than in March. All that considered, Blue Demon fans would take a first-round tournament loss over the past five years without hesitation.
But, while the coaching change brings some excitement to the program, the roster is more or less a disaster, with the Blue Demons two leading scorers headed for greener pastures: Will Walker graduating and Mac Koshwal becoming the second talented Demon in two years to make the somewhat questionable decision to declare early for the NBA draft. To make matters worse, 6-10 freshman recruit Walter Pitchford has asked for his release from his signed letter of intent, although as of today, that release has not been granted. What remains is a rag-tag group of returnees, two other Wainwright recruits and the first of Purnell’s recruits.
Incumbent point guard Jeremiah Kelly is the guy with the most tangible claim on a starting spot, and as a result, probably the guy with the most pressure on him, but he is a limited player. He takes care of the ball, but doesn’t create a whole lot either for himself or for his teammates. Best case scenario for the Blue Demons: incoming freshman Brandon Young overtakes Kelly for the starting spot; Young is a tenacious defender with a versatile offensive game. Senior Michael Bizoukas is also in the mix at the point, but despite his hard-work and scrappiness, he doesn’t really have Big East athleticism. He could get spot minutes at either guard spot, however, just on his shooting ability alone.
The Demons are most talented at the wings, with guys like Eric Wallace, Tony Freeland, Mike Stovall, Devin Hill, and incoming freshman Moses Morgan all in the mix there. It is anybody’s guess who will get the starting spots out of these guys at the two or the three (all four of the returnees got at least seven starts last season, but none started more than 20 games), but this is a decent group of athletic guys who could fit in well in Purnell’s system.
Up front, DePaul will certainly miss Koshwal, but a few players remain. 6-11 junior center Krys Faber will likely take over in the post and he is a fairly athletic shot-blocker, but he’ll need to improve his offensive game.Kene Obi, a 7-2 junior, may get some minutes in relief of Faber, but it is possible that Pitchford will take those minutes if he winds up at DePaul after all. Pitchford is a raw athlete with little game outside of the paint, but some definite upside. At the four spot, Purnell brought in his first recruit, Cleveland Melvin, who once committed to Connecticut but withdrew. Melvin is a very good athlete who is good in the open floor and good on the glass, but with very little approaching an offensive game elsewhere; he may, however, shine in Purnell’s system. If Melvin can’t claim the four spot, it is possible that DePaul goes small and one of the wings takes over the four, perhaps Hill, whose 6-9 frame can fill the slot pretty well.
While it will take Purnell some time to turn things around in Chicago, he can take comfort in the fact that there is at least some talent here, and the incoming recruiting class has plenty of promise. And, while there isn’t a lot of offensive polish up and down the roster, it is possible the Blue Demons can manufacture some offense through the artful application of Purnell’s press. Certainly DePaul is not ready for prime-time quite yet, but they could be there earlier than most rightfully expect.
If things weren't bad enough already for Connecticut, news came on Friday of a notice of allegations from the NCAA of eight major infractions in recruiting, specifically in regards to the recruitment of Nate Miles, who never played a minute for the Huskies since he was expelled from school for allegedly abusing a female student. While I said in my post below that the new contract extension given to Calhoun this offseason gives the program the appearance of stability, this announcement on Friday undermines any recruiting goodwill that extension may have engendered. While Calhoun stands only accused of "failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance", already, two UConn assistants have fallen on their swords and have been let go. Seth Davis sees this leading to recruiting restrictions placed on the UConn program, and for a school located in the hinterlands of Storrs and with a 68-year-old head coach with a history of health problems, additional recruiting limitations are the last thing they needed.
We'll find out more on October 15, when Connecticut representatives, including Calhoun, will appear before the NCAA.
On the heels of Jim Calhoun’s team missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in four years and Calhoun’s second health-related leave of absence in the past seven years, the University of Connecticut proposed and Calhoun accepted a $13 million extension of his contract, locking him up as the Husky head coach through 2014. While the UConn administration made sure the appearance of stability at the head of the program (and, to be clear, this is very much Calhoun’s program, built into a national power from the ground-up), there is no such luck with the roster, as three of the four players on the team that averaged more than 30 minutes per game have departed (Jerome Dyson, Stanley Robinson, Gavin Edwards); those same three were 3/4s of the players on the team that averaged over 10 points per game. The sole remaining returnee to fit into both of those categories is point guard Kemba Walker, returning for his junior season with the need to prove that he is capable of being the unquestioned team leader. Walker is a lightning-fast true point who made significant strides on improving his outside shot as a sophomore. Further improvement of that outside shot, combined with his already devastating penetration ability could make him a nightmare for opposing backcourts around the Big East.
Beyond Walker, the roster has more question marks than declarative answers. Senior Charles Okwandu, sophomore Alex Oriakhi and redshirt sophomore Ater Majok split the majority of the starts at the four and five spots last season, and they will likely do the same in 2010-11. Majok has the most upside of the trio, with his massive wingspan and improving post game, but he was a model of inconsistency in his first year in the Husky rotation. Oriakhi has been the most consistent of the three, a solid rebounder, inside defensive presence and interior finisher, but his offensive game is decidedly lacking. Okwandu is most notable for his ability to pick up fouls at a startling pace, and he’ll need to correct that in order to ever be a significant contributor on this squad. Along with that trio, center Jonathan Mandeldove will return for his senior season, having missed the entirety of 09-10 attempting to correct academic issues. Also, reinforcements arrive in the form of 6-9 freshman power forward Tyler Olander and 6-10 freshman center Michael Bradley. Bradley could get a redshirt next season in order to improve his strength, but Olander, a raw but strong back-to-the-basket player, could scoop up a few minutes in his freshman year.
Robinson’s wing spot will likely be inherited by sophomore Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, an athletic defender whose offensive game and shooting will need to improve. Pushing him will be incoming freshman Roscoe Smith, a versatile performer with a ready-made offensive game who could step right into a starting spot should Coombs-McDaniel leave the door open.
The final available starting spot is alongside Walker in the backcourt. Senior guard Donnell Beverly may be a contender that role, but he has a very limited offensive game, and with the relative lack of offensive punch from the big guys on this team, Calhoun may need to find more of a scoring threat at the two-guard. Incoming freshman Jeremy Lamb is a natural scorer at the two and he could slide into a starting spot. He could use some more strength, but handles well and has a big wingspan for an off-guard. Sophomore Darius Smith could also contend for some minutes after getting just spot duty in his freshman year. Another contender to take the second backcourt spot is 5-10 incoming freshman Shabazz Napier, a tiny scoring point guard with a ton of confidence. While a Walker/Napier backcourt would be among the quickest in the nation, both players are best with the ball in their hands, and their lack of size could be taken advantage of on the defensive end. Fact is, there is no clear-cut best option here for Calhoun, and it is possible that the fifth start could be a revolving door depending on matchups.
A year out of the Tournament for the Huskies, and looking at a roster with question marks in abundance. This is not your typical UConn team with hopes for a deep March run. Putting on the rose-colored glasses for a minute, however, Calhoun has a history of developing big men, and if he can get Majok or another of the big guys to take a big step forward offensively, there is some hope here. There is no dearth of talent here, but there is a dearth of experienced consistent production, a void that will need to be filled for the Huskies to go dancing.
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