Just a couple links to two articles posted at Rush The Court, the first a bit of an update to the Big Ten expansion piece I posted a few weeks back, this one detailing a possible alliance between the Big 12 and the Pac-10, the other taking a look at the changes to the early entry rules and the fallout from those changes.
 
This early in the offseason, there are still a ton of unanswered questions for Tubby Smith and his Golden Gophers. Last season, two of the Gophers biggest recruits, Royce White and Trevor Mbakwe, never played a single minute due to legal issues. White went so far as to quit school and basketball altogether (at least for a melodramatic moment or two), and Mbakwe is still mired in a felony battery case. Throw in point guard Al Nolen missing the second semester due to an academic suspension and a very talent Gopher team had a pretty miserable season. All three of those players remain question marks at this point for the 2010-11 season. Mbakwe will not play until his trial is complete, Nolen will have to get back on track academically and White? Well, White needs a lot of things, not the least of which is some growing up.

However, despite those question marks and the loss of leading scorer Lawrence Westbrook and team leader Damian Johnson to graduation,  and hustle-man extraordinaire Paul Carter to a tragic transfer (he is transferring to a school closer to his Chicago home to be closer to his sister Bria who is battling cancer), the cupboards are far from empty in The Barn. If Nolen returns, he’ll likely share the three-guard backcourt with junior point Devoe Joseph and senior shooter Blake Hoffarber, the team’s leading returning scorer. Sophomore Justin Cobbs will get the spare minutes at the point. Up front, the Gopher’s could go with a twin-tower frontcourt with juniors Ralph Sampson III and Colton Iverson, each having shown flashes of brilliance in their first two seasons. If both continue to improve, that could be an excellent post duo. If Smith chooses to start just one of the post players and bring the other off the bench, Mbakwe and White would both be potential starters assuming that they are even on the team. Sophomore Rodney Williams could also be a contender to start up front, but he is more of a natural swingman rather than a power player.

Minnesota’s recruiting class was put together late, and doesn’t feature any major impact players, but there could be some surprises there. There are three frontcourt options in the class: Mo Walker (a massive 6-10 center with a bit of skill) Elliott Eliason (a 6-9 center from a small town in Nebraska who has drawn some comparisons to Iverson, another Gopher recruit from a small town), and 6-9 power forward Oto Osenieks (a relatively unknown Latvian player who brings a face-up game that the most effusive Gopher fans compare to Robbie Hummel). Their sole backcourt recruit to this point is Austin Hollins, the son of Memphis Grizzlies’ head coach Lionel Hollins. As is common for coaches’ kids, Hollins is regarded as a smart backcourt player who can do a little of everything.

Even if all the question marks on this team get answered in the affirmative, this won’t be as talented of a Gopher team next year as it was last year, but there is still enough talent for an upper-division Big Ten finish and a NCAA bid. While Mbakwe and White may not ever play a minute in a Gopher uniform, if Smith can bring Nolen back for his senior season and get some useful minutes out of the freshmen bigs, everything should be okay in The Barn. And if Sampson and/or Iverson turn it up this season, things might just turn out better than “okay”.

 
In 2009-10, the Spartans started the season with high expectations, a top five ranking, co-favorites in the Big Ten and a ton of returning talent. While they struggled along for much of the season, come April, they were right there were Tom Izzo often gets his team: the Final Four. As the Spartans look ahead to 2010-11, there are a lot of the same high expectations but still enough question marks to make it interesting. Senior point guard Kalin Lucas will have to recover from the torn Achilles’ he suffered in the Tournament and junior power forward Delvon Roe will undergo another offseason knee surgery. But assuming they can both get over their health hurdles, they will again be surrounded by some talented players.

Junior guard Korie Lucious will likely fill Lucas’ shoes at the point if Lucas is not ready to go at the start of the season, and will spell Lucas when he does return to the lineup. Seniors Chris Allen and Durrell Summers will start at the two and the three, with junior Austin Thornton and incoming freshmen Russell Byrd and Keith Appling providing backcourt depth. Byrd is a shooter on the wing, while Appling is more of a penetrating scoring guard, who could run some point from time to time if needed.

Up front, if Roe ever does return to full health, he’ll be a monster on a nationals scale: a scarily athletic, smart and tenacious front court player with skills that he has only barely begun to show. Junior Draymond Green is another skilled front court player, who may slide into the starting lineup replacing the departed Raymar Morgan, or could continue to play the sixth-man role off the bench. Derrick Nix may again get the starting nod at the center position in his sophomore year, but will likely get more than the just eight minutes per game he saw as a freshman. Likewise, fellow sophomore Garrick Sherman should see an uptick in minutes, and knowing Izzo, senior center Tom Herzog will also get some minutes here and there. All three of those players will have to fight for minutes, however, as reinforcements arrive in the shape of 6-10 freshman center Adreian Payne, a raw physical specimen, and 6-9 freshman big man Alex Gauna, a versatile post-player.

Certainly Michigan State will be one of the Final Four favorites again next year, and depending on the NBA draft decisions of some of Purdue’s key players, will either be the sole favorite in the Big Ten or the co-favorite with the Boilermakers. But, as has been their custom, don’t expect Izzo and the Spartans to really round into form until March, when they should be as tough an out as ever.

 
After the Wolverines got to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 11 years following John Bielein’s second year in Ann Arbor, there was a lot of optimism around the 09-10 Michigan basketball season. But after struggling through their non-conference portion of the schedule, the Wolverines were never able to string more than a couple victories together and finished under .500 on the season and out of any postseason tournament plans. And now, with leading scorer and second-leading rebounder Manny Harris headed to the NBA draft a year early and second-leading scorer and leading rebounder DeShawn Sims graduating, Bielein’s team will have to start over from scratch.

The leading returning scorer on the roster is junior swing Zack Novak, a guy who is a pretty perfect fit in this offense: a scrapper, a shooter, an excellent passer and surprising finishing ability. The backcourt will likely be some combination of sophomore point Darius Morris and junior off-guards Laval Lucas-Perry and Stu Douglass, both little more than shooters. Morris is a good penetrating point guard that can get out of control at times; he is also a terrible outside shooter (just 18% on 39 attempts from behind the arc). It is possible all three of those guys will start in the backcourt, although that would leave the Wolverines tremendously undersized. Skinny sophomore shooter Matt Vogrich will also get some minutes in the backcourt, as will incoming shooting guard Tim Hardaway Jr., an excellent shooter who Bielein would love to see earn major minutes immediately. Sophomore guard Eso Akunne will only see time when the Wolverines dig deep into their bench.

Up front, alongside Novak, Bielein has several unproven big men. Jordan Morgan and Blake McLimans both will be coming off their redshirt years with four years of eligibility remaining, and they will compete for time with incoming freshman fours Evan Smotrycz and Jon Horford. Smotrycz is a versatile four who has been compared to guys like Kyle Singler and Gordon Hayward in the type of game he plays: handles, rebounds, strokes it from range. Horford, brother of former Florida star Al Horford remains a project, but is an athletically gifted big man. Ideally, two of those four will earn starting spots alongside Novak and two guards. Senior Anthony Wright will spell Novak from time to time at the three.

While the talent level in Ann Arbor has seemingly dipped, Harris and Sims were players that Bielein inherited from the previous coaching staff and were made to fit into his system. Most of the remaining players on the Michigan roster belong to this coaching staff, so we’ll get the first chance to see the vaunted Bielein system in action with his own recruits playing the primary role. However, given the youth of the squad, especially in the front court, it would seem that Wolverine basketball is going to take another little dip in the Big Ten standings before starting back up again.

 
 The first few days of the Fran McCaffrey era in Iowa City have been a little rough, to say the least. Second-leading returning scorer Aaron Fuller announced that he would be continuing his basketball career at another program, and two of the four committed recruits to the Hawkeyes (guard Ben Brust and forward Cody Larson) both asked for, and received, releases from their letters of intent. Due to Big Ten rules, neither will be eligible for scholarships from other Big Ten schools, so both are still at least keeping the option of recommitting to Iowa open thus far. Given that McCaffrey was already taking over a team that won just ten games last year and has finished 10th in the conference two years running, a tough job just got a little tougher.

What McCaffrey does have returning is some experience: three returnees who started all 32 Hawkeye games last year: junior off-guard and leading returning scorer Matt Gatens, sophomore point guard Cully Payne and junior power forward Jarryd Cole. Add to that mix sophomore swingman Eric May, who took over a starting position after swingman Anthony Tucker was suspended and eventually left school following a DUI arrest. And, sophomore center Brennan Cougill, who got seven starts throughout the season, and you have the likely starting five. Payne is a scrappy, undersized and underathletic point and his backcourt mate Gatens is a bomber, both of whom shoot similar percentages from the field (both shoot around 37% from the field and 31% from behind the arc) that will need to be improved for Iowa to improve. Up front, Cole is a grinder down low, Cougill is a pick-and-pop type of center, and May is a versatile small forward that can step out and shoot the three, rebound well and is the team’s best defender.

And, that’s the good news. Beyond that, there is almost no depth here. Center Andrew Brommer returns for his junior year, but he is little more than a warm body. It is not expected that John Lickliter, walk-on son of deposed head coach Todd Lickliter, will return to the team in the backup point role he filled last year. The two recruits who remained committed to the Hawkeyes, off-guard Roy Marble, Jr. (son of the Hawkeye legend and all-time leading scorer) and power forward Zach McCabe will likely be thrust into big roles as soon as they step on campus. Then, there’s redshirt junior forward Devon Archie, a JuCo transfer before last season who didn’t play a minute do to a shoulder injury and then pneumonia. He is a big interior defender and rebounder who could potentially get some serious minutes up front, or at the very least spelling Cole, a player to whom he is somewhat similar.

McCaffrey will get a pass in his first season in Iowa, regardless of what happens, so at this point if 10-11 goes to hell as it looks like it could, he had better at least have a plan for improvement for 11-12. And, given that this is an incredibly young roster he’s got returning (zero seniors, four juniors), there is plenty of room for these individuals to improve, but for the Hawkeyes to make any serious headway in the Big Ten, they’ll need tostart bringing in some new recruits. Convincing Larson and Brust to stick with the Hawkeyes would be a good first step.