Editor’s Note: This month, ESPN Insider’s college basketball and recruiting experts are teaming up to examine how 15 of the nation’s best recruiting classes will fit in with their teams in the 2013-14 season.
1. The commitment to USA basketball at the junior national team level is at an unprecedented level. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who chairs the junior national team committee, said Wednesday that the consistency of coaches and players was never done in the program in the past like its counterparts in other countries.
Remember the San Diego point-shaving scandal? Sure you do. Brandon Johnson, the school's all-time points and assists leader, was implicated and later charged and sentenced as the result of an FBI investigation into a point-shaving scheme during the Toreros' 2009-10 season.
The NBA draft combine and its various subsequent workouts don't mean a whole lot to the average college basketball fan, at least not at first glance. After all, now that players are forced to enter the draft in April and can't decide to come back to college after testing the draft waters, the things we might learn from, say, vertical leap measurements have no potential application to next season.
Eamonn Brennan: Hello again, Myron, and greetings from a decidedly summer-y Chicago. We have been commissioned to discuss a conference with which we are both intimately familiar: The Big Ten. Specifically: What is the Big Ten's outlook for the coming season?
Here's how a completely self-inflicted backlash begins: Last weekend, the Los Angeles Times ran a feature story about new UCLA coach Steve Alford. The story, written by Chris Foster, was an entertaining and informative read largely centered around Alford's career and rise to one of the most coveted positions in college sports.
Editor’s Note: This month, ESPN Insider’s college basketball and recruiting experts are teaming up to examine how 15 of the nation’s best recruiting classes will fit in with their teams in the 2013-14 season.
1. The new Big East pulled off an officiating coup from its competitor the American Athletic Conference when it landed veteran official John Cahill as its coordinator. Art Hyland, who is retiring as the old Big East's coordinator, will stay on as a consultant.
Sheldon Jeter was promising last season. The Vanderbilt freshman averaged 17.5 minutes and 5.5 points per game for the Commodores in 2012-13, the kind of performance that positioned him as a fulcrum of Vanderbilt's arduous post-John Jenkins/Jeffrey Taylor/Festus Ezeli rebuilding effort.
New York Knicks forward and perennial NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony is one of Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim's former players, and like most good coaches, Boeheim is loyal to his guys. But Anthony is obviously much more than that.
MORE NCAAB COVERAGE
