ESPN Men's Basketball

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy.

Jerry Tarkanian’s coaching tenure was filled with both bliss and controversy. But the drama doesn’t outweigh the facts about his decorated coaching career, including a prestigious reign at UNLV. He led the Runnin’ Rebels to four Final Fours and the 1990 national title. He also took three different schools to the NCAA tournament.

For all of that success, however, Tarkanian doesn’t boast the same coaching tree that some of his Hall of Fame peers produced.

Here is the best of Tarkanian’s coaching tree:

Dave Rice: The current leader of UNLV’s program played for Tarkanian and coached under him, too. Rice was a member of UNLV’s 1990 national championship squad. He also played on the UNLV squad that nearly repeated a year later. Once Rice's career ended, Tark convinced him to join his staff as a graduate assistant for the 1991-92 season. It was the legendary coach’s final year on the sideline. Rice also recorded another 10-year stint as an assistant at UNLV (1994-2004) before he ultimately returned as head coach in 2011. He has taken his alma mater to consecutive NCAA tournaments, and he has recruited blue chip prospects such as No. 1 NBA draft pick Anthony Bennett. But his third season might be more challenging than his first two. Bennett, veteran Mike Moser (transferred to Oregon) and Savon Goodman (suspended for the season) will be unavailable. A pair of top-100 recruits (Christian Wood and Kendall Smith) should help, though.

Reggie Theus: He was an All-American for Tarkanian’s UNLV squads in the 1970s prior to a productive NBA career that included two NBA All-Star Game appearances and more than 19,000 points. Theus turned New Mexico State into a player in the WAC after he accepted the school’s head coaching gig in 2005. In his first season, the Aggies won 16 games, a 10-win improvement over the previous year. After leading NMSU to the NCAA tourney in Year 2, he became the head coach of the Sacramento Kings but was eventually fired in 2009. After that run, Theus bounced around the league as an assistant and even led the Los Angeles Defenders NBDL squad for a year. But he’ll be back in the collegiate ranks this year as the new head coach for Cal State Northridge.

Tim Grgurich: Many know Grgurich as a longtime assistant for various NBA teams (Dallas, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle). But he was crucial in UNLV’s run to the national title in 1990. For more than a decade, Grgurich helped mold former Runnin’ Rebels as an assistant under Tarkanian. Stacey Augmon, Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony and other former standouts were tutored by Grgurich, who was the head coach at Pitt prior to joining Tarkanian’s staff. With UNLV, Tarkanian implemented the same “amoeba” defense Grgurich utilized at Pitt.

John Welch: He played one season under Tarkanian at UNLV and eventually joined his staff at both UNLV and Fresno State. He was Tarkanian’s graduate assistant, and he was also an assistant for seven seasons during his stint with the Bulldogs. That stretch included two NCAA tournament appearances and six consecutive 20-win seasons. He moved on to the NBA and became an assistant with the Memphis Grizzlies and the Denver Nuggets. He was a key a member of George Karl’s staff for nearly a decade. This summer, Welch joined Jason Kidd’s staff with the Brooklyn Nets.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy.

The good, the bad, the ugly ... here's a look at 10 defining moments in the career of Jerry Tarkanian:

1. Beyond the moments and the championships, beyond even the NCAA fight, one thing will stand alone as synonymous with Jerry Tarkanian -- the towel. He started chomping on one during his high school coaching days in Fresno, Calif., and, ever superstitious, never stopped throughout his coaching career. When UNLV commissioned a statue of the legendary coach in May, the artist posed Tarkanian on a chair, in his shirtsleeves and the ever-present towel near his mouth.

2. Tarkanian’s signature moment came in 1990, when UNLV won the national championship. Tark had assembled an embarrassment of talent -- Stacey Augmon, Larry Johnson, Anderson Hunt, Greg Anthony -- and the result was hardly surprising: a flat-out demolishing of Duke, 103-73. It remains the only time a team topped the century mark in a title game and the most lopsided championship margin. Brash and full of swagger, the Runnin’ Rebels were not exactly popular champions with the NCAA home offices. During the course of that championship season, the NCAA visited campus 11 times, and 10 players were suspended at different times.

3. Oddly, it is the team that didn’t win the national championship that many consider one of the best of all time. In 1991 UNLV ran its record to 34-0, barely challenged in the process, winning by an average 27.3 points per game. The Runnin’ Rebels seemed destined not only to repeat as champions but also to become the first team since Indiana to go undefeated. And then came the rematch against Duke in the national semifinals, a game that was completely unlike the title matchup in 1990. Older and tougher, the Blue Devils went toe-to-toe with UNLV and when Anderson Hunt’s 22-footer misfired at the buzzer, Duke avenged the loss and ended the Rebels’ run.

4. Before Tarkanian arrived in Las Vegas in 1973, people derogatorily referred to the school as Tumbleweed Tech. A university in the middle of Vegas? Why bother? In Tarkanian’s first season, UNLV was 20-6, and by the time he left, the school was so popular with movie stars it had its own Gucci Row, featuring such 1970s luminaries as Suzanne Somers, Don Rickles and even Frank Sinatra.

5. “The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky it will probably slap another two years probation on Cleveland State.’’ Tarkanian uttered the famous quip after Kentucky and coach Eddie Sutton found themselves in the NCAA crosshairs. But the line has stood the test of time, emblematic of not only Tark’s battles with the organization but also of the long-held belief that the NCAA practices selective enforcement.

6. Long before UNLV, Tarkanian was anti-establishment. He cut his coaching teeth at Riverside City College, long before adding junior college players to four-year rosters was an acceptable practice. Wildly successful, he parlayed that into a job at Long Beach State. When he led the 49ers to the 1970 NCAA tournament, he bragged that his roster was made up almost entirely of junior college transfers, immediately labeling him a renegade.

7. The nadir for Tarkanian came with a single picture, a photograph that changed his career arc long before smartphones with built-in cameras got everyone in their crosshairs. On May 26, 1991, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published a picture of three UNLV players in a hot tub with Richard "Richie the Fixer" Perry. It was Tarkanian’s undoing at the Las Vegas school, the proof that his team was operating outside the boundaries of an amateur program. Two weeks later, Tarkanian was forced to announce that 1991-92 would be his final season.

8. Vindication came for Tarkanian in 1998, when the NCAA elected to settle a lawsuit with the coach and his wife, awarding Tarkanian $2.5 million. In the suit, Tarkanian claimed the organization intentionally tried to derail his career, and rather than go to trial, the NCAA settled. Tarkanian’s reputation still carries the stigma -- a big part of why it took so long for his Hall induction -- which he acknowledged at the time of the settlement, saying, “They can never come close to paying me for the hurt they caused.’’

9. Forced out by UNLV amid the NCAA scandal (and after a very brief stint with the San Antonio Spurs), Tarkanian resurfaced at his alma mater, Fresno State, in 1995. He led the Bulldogs to two NCAA tournaments, but trouble seemed to follow him. Three players were charged with NCAA infractions, and the school was subject to a federal point-shaving investigation. In 2002, he retired from the school and the game.

10. At the 2013 Final Four in Atlanta, the Naismith Hall of Fame made an announcement many believed was long overdue, naming Tarkanian to its next class. The controversy that surrounded his entire career no doubt delayed his induction, but there is little arguing his impact. Credited with helping to introduce the fast break and the "amoeba" defense, and with opening up a world for junior college transfers, Tarkanian amassed a staggering 784-202 record in his 31 years as a head coach.

How do you know when an injury is bad? Not just above-average, please-don't-roll-that-replay-back bad, but so horrifying you can hardly bear to think about it, even though it's so thoroughly branded into your memory you can't help it?

Your own physical reaction is probably enough, I guess. But if you had never seen Kevin Ware's injury in Louisville's Elite Eight win over Duke in March -- or if you're lucky enough to have still never seen it, which, just ... don't -- you could probably piece together just how bad Ware's leg injury looked just from the reaction itself. The high-profile setting had something to do with that, sure, and the Cardinals' ultimate triumph kept the whole thing front and center for much longer than normal. But that's not really the point. The point is, you don't have to have seen Ware's injury to figure out that it was horrifying. You can judge the size of this rock by its ripples.

I don't know if there's a larger lesson in that. Maybe there's something about information age postmodernism nestled in there somewhere. I don't know. It's Tuesday morning after Labor Day, so let's save that dive for another time. But I do know this: That's a bad injury. That's how you know.

In the end, the way the injury looked career-ending, drastic, like Ware would never walk quite the same again was separate from the actual injury itself, which was eventually deemed less serious than even a routine (if that's not oxymoronic) ACL tear. In a few months' time, Ware was posting photos of himself on the court shooting around, looking like he could be ready to play in the Cardinals' opener in early November.

That might not be quite the timeline, according to Louisville coach Rick Pitino, who answered questions about Ware's status this week:

"We're going to take our time," Pitino told reporters Monday during a news conference to discuss his Hall of Fame induction, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. "I'm not saying we're going to redshirt him, but we'll take our time because it's a very serious injury."

Pitino said he expected Ware will begin his on-court rehabilitation by mid-October. The defending national champion Cardinals play their regular-season opener on Nov. 9 against Charleston.

"He's going to have to get his confidence back," Pitino said. "He asked me the other day if he should look at it on tape for the first time. I said there's no reason to; I never did."

Yeah, Kevin, listen to Coach P on this one. Don't watch the tape. No good can come of it. Trust me.

Pitino also clarified the other side of Ware's status whether he had been suspended or not this offseason, or would be suspended this season, or insert your own suspension-related rumor here. None of them were true, according to Pitino. From the Courier-Journal:

“Kevin Ware was never suspended from our basketball team — he was last year for the first few games and so was Chane Behanan,” Pitino said. “… I haven’t suspended anybody. I’ve been having too much fun this summer to suspend anybody.”

While I suspect Pitino is never having so much fun he loses his zest for team discipline, the national title, plus the induction into the basketball Hall of Fame, plus his son's arrival at a Big Ten program (Minnesota) ... well, you can see what he means, at least.

But anyway, Kevin, if you're out there, seriously: Do not watch that tape.

John Saunders shares his thoughts on the NCAA denying a hardship waiver to Kerwin Okoro, who in the span of two months lost his brother to cancer and his father to a stroke.

On Wednesday of this soul-crushingly slow and college football-dominated week, your humble author officially decided to give up on untangling the NCAA's rules -- let alone its various hardship waiver guidelines and decisions -- regarding transfers. The impetus for this (jokingly exaggerated) came from a pair of recent transfer appeals cases:

1. The NCAA failed to grant Rutgers transfer Kerwin Okoro a legislative relief waiver allowing him to play right away at his new school, Rutgers, despite appearing to fit the textbook application of such a waiver. Okoro's father and brother passed away last winter, spurring his move from Iowa State to Rutgers.

2. More recently, the NCAA decided that Rakeem Buckles, a three-year Louisville forward who transferred to Florida International last season, could forget about playing right away at Minnesota. In fact, he could forget about playing at all. Instead, Buckles would not be allowed to transfer to Minnesota, period, and instead would have to stay at a school that a) his own coach (Richard Pitino, new Minnesota head man) also just left, b) does not have a scholarship for him to return to, and c) is not eligible for the NCAA tournament in 2013-14, thanks to NCAA Academic Progress Rate penalties.

The NCAA is no fan of players-as-nomads, and as such becomes much more circumspect when a player is seeking to transfer for a third or fourth time in his career. The Eligibility Center is surely even less enthusiastic about players who leave their second destination so quickly; Buckles spent his customary transfer season on the sidelines and never played for FIU. Even if those factors aren't in play, there are myriad academic hurdles the player must leap. The Buckles decision was confusing, given how little fuss has attended players who have sought to leave schools ineligible for the NCAA tournament, but with a second move in the offing, it was fair to wonder whether the NCAA had some extenuating academic reason for denying Buckles a scholarship and a shot to play in the tournament.

As he told ESPN's Jeff Goodman, Buckles' old coach (and the father of his new one) Rick Pitino was just as confused as the rest of us:

"I'm just blown away by it. It makes no sense. It's amazing the NCAA can do this," Pitino told ESPN.com. "He's a model student-athlete who had a 3.2 GPA when he left Louisville. He just wants a chance to play in another NCAA tournament."

"[Buckles] had no idea that the program wouldn't be able to play in the NCAA tournament when he transferred to FIU," Rick Pitino said. "This is a good kid who has dealt with plenty of adversity over his career. It's completely unfair."

That's all well and good, and I'm likely to agree. Within the NCAA's current transfer regulations -- which basically just make your eyes crust over when you try to read them; I don't recommend it -- there doesn't seem to be an obvious impetus for completely denying Buckles' right to change schools, let alone play right away. All recent precedent appears to be in his favor.

But the most important part of Pitino's quote, and one he surely included intentionally, is Buckles' GPA status when he left Louisville. That goes a decent way toward answering whether there is an academic reason for the NCAA's restrictive decision. Barring a nightmare year of classes at FIU, it doesn't seem that way.

What's going on here? What besides academics could make the NCAA respond to a transfer request with a flat-out "no?"

It won't say, of course, nor should it. But let's play pretend for a second. You are the NCAA. You are an organization that is openly concerned about the transfer trend in college basketball. You think transfers are harmful to the well-being and long-term futures of student-athletes in the first place, and you may be right! And now they're happening more than ever. (Ignore for a moment that this is also true of coaches, who get paid lots of money, because the NCAA membership ignores it, too.) Are you going to be particularly excited by the idea of a player who followed his old assistant coach from Louisville to Florida International, and now wants to follow him to Minnesota -- and play right away? No, you are not. You are instead going to be worried about the appearance of mercenarism, about a player moving twice in two years to follow a first-year coach twice over, about what. You are worried about how it looks, about the message it sends coaches scouring every possible shortcut through your legendary thicket of rules.

At least, were I disposed to think about these things this way, that's how I would think. It's one possible explanation, anyway. I'd love to hear another.

1. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim learned quite a bit about his team's character on the four-game tour to Canada last week. The Orange trailed Carleton by 15 points with 15 to play and came back and won by four in overtime. The Orange went on a 14-0 run during the second half and had to do it without a fully healthy C.J. Fair, who sat out the previous game. "We made a pretty good comeback for a bunch of untested guys,'' said Boehiem. "Everybody contributed and did something good.'' Freshman guard Tyler Ennis, who will lead the team at a critical position for the Orange after losing Michael Carter-Williams and Brandon Triche, scored 15 points and was 7-of-7 from the line in that game. "It was a good trip, a quick trip, but a good trip,'' said Boeheim. The bigs were solid and have been throughout the summer. That means there doesn't appear to be much concern for Fair, Dajuan Coleman, Baye Moussa Keita and Rakeem Christmas. Jerami Grant was the most consistent player and will be a reliable and productive player this season. Duke transfer Michael Gbinijie also had his moments. "We learned a lot about our team,'' said Boeheim. "We scheduled well early. We want to be ready for the ACC.'' The Orange should challenge Duke. Trevor Cooney will have to make shots. But if Ennis is a stable presence then the perimeter will be just fine. The Orange are in the Maui Invitational where they could meet up with Gonzaga. The Orange host Indiana in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, go to St. John's and host Villanova in headline nonconference games. Boeheim agreed with my stance that the ACC needs to have more than just Duke-North Carolina for premier games in the final weekend. Syracuse ends at Florida State. I suggested the ACC put rivalry games in the last weekend like Syracuse-Louisville when the Cardinals join the league in 2014-15. "Exactly, there should be better games at the end of the year, no question,'' said Boeheim. "There are too many potential good games. Obviously there should be Duke-North Carolina. But there are a lot of good teams. This certainly has the potential to be better than any league.''

2. The ageless Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton, who turned 65 earlier this month and has looked the same for the past 20 years, got exactly what he wanted in the trip to Greece. He scheduled practices and games against the Greek national team. He didn't want any soft competition. He wanted his players to experience professionals at the highest level overseas. "It was more like midseason practices,'' said Hamilton. "It was very good for our guys. We played at a high level and had to be focused offensively and defensively to compete.'' Hamilton said he never thought his team was in sync last season after finishing 18-16 overall and 9-9 in the ACC, a year after winning the conference tournament title for the first time. "We had seven first-year players and five freshmen and JC kids and international players,'' said Hamilton. "I thought we were always thinking and responding and reacting last season. But I saw a better grasp of execution [on this trip]. We showed signs we can get back to what we did during our four-year run of going to the NCAA tournament and winning the ACC title.'' Hamilton said different players were productive on the trip but the two leaders were as expected Ian Miller and Kiel Turpin. "They played very well together and as a team,'' said Hamilton. "We actually practiced zone defensive possessions. We had game-like practices. We didn't keep score in those or keep track but we had a lot of game-like scrimmages where we were rotating guys in and out. It was really, really good for us to correct our mistakes.'' Hamilton said this was also a positive trip for Michael Ojo, Boris Bojanovsky and Robert Gilchrist, the bigs who will be behind Turpin or at times next to him. Hamilton said he absolutely loves what he's doing, "loves the young people, traveling with them, being with them every day. Each year I have more energy. I'm excited about the new ACC. It gives you another shot of adrenaline. I'm excited to be a part of it and it does motivate you.''

3. Few teams needed something positive more than Auburn basketball on a foreign trip. Auburn coach Tony Barbee was buzzing about the excursion to the Bahamas. "I learned two things: we can really shoot the ball as a group,'' said Barbee. "We made 13 3s in a game from international distance. And juco transfer Chris Griffin made six. We should be able to score the ball better. We could have four or five double-figure scorers. A year ago, we only had one.'' K.T. Harrell will be a reliable scorer but if there are multiple scorers then the Tigers will at least have a chance to move up in a muddled SEC. The Tigers enter the season with six freshmen on the roster.

Do you have an opinion about Johnny Manziel? I'm guessing you do. I don't. I mean, I've read the canonical Wright Thompson work on Johnny Football and "Uncle" Nate Fitch. The former seems like an immature and overwhelmed college sophomore, the latter like a hilarious early 20s mogul poseur not dissimilar from the kind of scene kids who say they can get you into all the cool clubs. Everyone knows these guys; the only difference is one of them won the Heisman Trophy last winter.

Sure, it does seem like Manziel signed a lot of autographs in the past 12 months at roughly the same time his camp (even his dad) has been grousing about the essential financial exploitation of college athletics. And yes, the fact the NCAA tried to thread some weird needle by suspending Manziel for exactly one half of football (he received no money, but allowed his likeness to be commercialized, or something -- I give up) is Hall of Fame-level hilarity. But short of my not-even-half-baked dream theory that Manziel intentionally trolled the NCAA on some next-level stunt ... I can't force myself to care about the saga of Johnny Football. I'm sorry. I just can't. Your mileage, etc.

Former Miami basketball star Dequan Jones does not share my dispassion.

Quite the contrary: Jones, who was suspended by the NCAA for the first 10 games of his senior season while the NCAA conducted its horrifically botched Nevin Shapiro inquiry, took to Twitter to express his view on Manziel's seemingly special treatment. The result:

Hey @ncaa , y'all are a joke. I'm Dequan Jones and I approved this message.

— Dequan Jones (@Dequan20Jones) August 28, 2013

My ruling wasn't expedited.

— Dequan Jones (@Dequan20Jones) August 28, 2013

It's laughable. It really is though. @ncaa

— Dequan Jones (@Dequan20Jones) August 28, 2013

Wrong sport and the wrong conference I guess.

— Dequan Jones (@Dequan20Jones) August 28, 2013

Compromise the integrity of amateurism in collegiate athletics for the sake of revenue. Sounds like the @ncaa I know.

— Dequan Jones (@Dequan20Jones) August 28, 2013

Jones' situation is not perfectly analogous with Manziel's, and those differences go beyond the ones Jones cited. (I'd also add "fame" to that equation.) Manziel was essentially accused of accepting money from outside parties to sign a bunch of autographs at one time, profiting off his image away from the game. Jones was the center of an accusation that a coach (Miami's Frank Haith) knew about a $10,000 payment to Jones' family allegedly made to ensure Jones' signing with the Hurricanes. The NCAA is cool with neither, to be sure, but they aren't the same thing in the rulebook or in the larger optical discussion of the NCAA's crumbling future. An amateur making money from third parties in exchange for the use of his image, or the "Olympic model," is the trendy, acceptable third way forward for college sports. Boosters dropping envelopes of cash on players' families "Blue Chips"-style is not an outcome even the most ardent anti-amateurism supporters seem interested in.

Even so, you can understand Jones' frustration. He missed a whopping 10 games in his last year of college basketball in 2011-12, never totally got his season on track and missed the NCAA tournament as a result. (The team that followed in 2012-13 won the outright ACC regular-season title, earned a No. 2 seed, allowed Julian Gamble to photobomb his way into our hearts and gave us one of the greatest gifs in world history. Ultimately, the NCAA found no evidence against Jones much the same way it found no evidence against Manziel. But Jones didn't get to miss a half of basketball against Rice, or whomever. He'll never get those 10 games back.

Ten years ago, the story here would have been that a former college athlete openly ripped the NCAA at all; that didn't use to happen quite so much, and at such volume. In 2013, in the Ed O'Bannon v. NCAA era, it seems like the norm. The real takeaway here is that even among people who intimately understand the NCAA's philosophy and enforcement principles, the rules and their applications often feel drastically arbitrary -- or worse.

What was Jerry Tarkanian's old saying? The NCAA was so mad at Johnny Manziel it will probably slap a couple more years probation on Dequan Jones? It went something like that.

Two-sport athletes are often forced to choose at some point in their collegiate careers.

In college basketball, football is usually the other sport that’s the object of players’ dilemmas.

Minnesota’s Wally Ellenson might face that predicament in the future, as the sophomore is a standout in track and field.

The NCAA All-American high jumper cleared the 7-1 mark to win the gold medal at the Pan American Junior Championships in Medellin, Colombia earlier this week.

From GopherSports.com:

In his first international track and field competition, Minnesota sophomore Wally Ellenson captured gold on Sunday in the high jump at the 2013 Pan American Junior Championships in Medellin, Colombia.

The Rice Lake, Wis., All-American cleared 2.16 meters (7-1 ft.) on his first attempt of the day and never looked back as torrential downpours rained down on Alfonso Galvis Duque Stadium.

"It's surreal," Ellenson said. "(Winning a gold medal) was the goal throughout the whole competition, and I'm just thankful I was able to do it."

Ellenson contributed one of 16 gold medals for the U.S. team, which led all competing nations with a total of 39 medals at the 17th Pan American Junior Championships.

Ellenson, who averaged 2.0 PPG with the Gophers last season, wants to compete in the 2016 Olympics. And this achievement in Colombia certainly legitimizes the 6-4 guard’s goal.

In May, however, Ellenson told the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.), that his competitors were more technically sound than he was following the 2012-13 season. Plus, he’s more comfortable off the court.

"They are two completely different sports, but I'm more confident in this one," said Ellenson, a freshman from Rice Lake, Wis.

The balance between basketball and track didn’t stop Ellenson from reaching the NCAA track and field championships (finished in a tie for eighth). But Richard Pitino’s young wing might focus his energies on one sport in the future, especially if the move is necessary to boost his chances of reaching the 2016 Olympics.

ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas weighs in on whether student-athletes should be paid, the NCAA's model of amateurism and more on Thursday morning's "Mike & Mike." Listen here.

 

Following up on more August trips, here is what three teams learned.

1. Arizona State: The Sun Devils went to China and according to the staff had a tremendous cultural bonding experience. The post-trip buzz was about how well the three freshmen played, according to associate head coach Eric Musselman. That means ASU expects to get production out of wing Egor Koulechov, Chance Murray and Calaen Robinson, who is listed as a sophomore but didn't play last season. The Sun Devils were in search of a backup point guard on the trip and likely found two in Murray and Robinson. ASU desperately needs more options and depth to be an NCAA tournament team. The Sun Devils figured out they've got to incorporate more touches for JC transfer Shaquielle McKissic and Penn State transfer Jermaine Marshall. They will be led by point guard Jahii Carson (with an assist from forward Jordan Bachynski), but Carson can’t do it alone. Musselman said the staff was impressed by the young core, but "Carson has stepped up his game both on and off the court skill-wise and with leadership.''

2. Wisconsin: Coach Bo Ryan said he realized "Canadian basketball is much better than people realized, better than it's been.'' He said the Badgers learned how to play with more tempo and movement. The freshmen picked up the drills and the style in which the Badgers will play. He said the management of Josh Gasser's minutes was critical, since the point guard who sat out last season with a torn ACL must be ready to go for the start of the season. Gasser will share the position with Traevon Jackson. "Josh is still tentative and that's to be understood. He's not quite there yet,'' said Ryan. "But he shot it pretty well. This trip gave him a chance to do a lot of shooting.'' Ryan said the Badgers showed they have more depth on the perimeter. He said working with a 24-second shot clock was beneficial to handle late-game situations. The Badgers definitely played to the fast-paced game, giving up 95 points in a loss to Carleton to start the trip and 92 in a win over Ottawa. Expect those defensive scoring numbers to be much lower once the Badgers get into the season with a traditional 35-second shot clock. Wisconsin has to get the defensive numbers down with a brutal nonconference schedule with games against St. John's in South Dakota, Florida, at Green Bay, Saint Louis (and then ODU or West Virginia) in Cancun, at Virginia and Marquette. The Badgers did get a Big Ten "break" with three of the first five conference games at home.

3. Clemson: Coach Brad Brownell said the Tigers will shoot much better this season than last after the 10-day trip to Italy. Clemson averaged 95 points on the four-game trip. "We still don't know how our young post players will react under real pressure,'' said Brownell. The only two posts who played on the trip were Landry Nnoko (11 blocks and 11.5 rebounds) and Josh Smith (13 boards a game). Jaron Blossomgame still wasn't healthy enough to play after offseason surgery and JC transfer Ibrahim Djambo and freshman big man Sidy Djitte of Senegal didn't go on the trip. "Everyone on the perimeter is a year older and just better than last year,'' said Brownell. That helps. This team will still rely heavily on K.J. McDaniels, who was scoring at a clip of 15 points, grabbing nine boards and blocking a total of 12 shots. McDaniels had to play more because of the thinning forward crew. Spokesperson Philip Sikes had a complete report on the trip and noted the improved play of Damarcus Harrison, who was in shape, Jordan Roper for his consistency and Devin Coleman for getting through the games and travel after returning from a torn Achilles.

Transfers seem straightforward. A player leaves one school and attends another, and has to sit out one year before he can play for his new team. Simple, right? Wrong: Even that seemingly structured rule is beset by a score of academic timeline requirements and bureaucratic processes.

A player must receive a written permission-to-contact letter from his current coach. He must have spent a full year in "academic residence" -- i.e., attending classes as a full-time, 12-credit-hours-or-insert-your-school's-equivalency student -- before he is eligible to get back on the court at his new school. There are "4-4" transfers and "2-4" transfers and different rules therein; there are issues involving full, partial, or non-qualifying academic status; and there are waivers and appeals you can make based on specific circumstances that can change the preexisting requirements, just like that.

How dizzying is this stuff? Here's the NCAA's brochure [PDF] for student-athletes interested in learning more about the transfer process. Ostensibly, this document was created to make the rules easy to understand and apply. It is filled with handy little case studies; it even has a glossary of important terms. And if you can read past the third page without help from prescription ADHD medication, well, I'd love to shake your hand. This stuff is brutal.

Which brings us to today's latest transfer news, reported by ESPN.com's Jeff Goodman:

Former Louisville forward Rakeem Buckles, who sat out last season at Florida International, will not be allowed to follow Richard Pitino to Minnesota, multiple sources told ESPN.

Buckles spent three seasons at Louisville and suffered two major knee injuries. He left the Cardinals and sat out last season at FIU, but decided to transfer to Minnesota and apply for a waiver to play immediately because Florida International was hit with a postseason ban by the NCAA for academic issues dating to the Isiah Thomas regime.

As Jeff writes, the surprise here stems from the fact that a player wouldn't be allowed to transfer away from a school that is currently not barred from the NCAA tournament for Academic Progress Rate violations. We've seen a handful of recent players in similar situations move to new schools and be eligible right away (see: Huskies, UConn). One of them is already working out in Minneapolis: Current Gophers guard Malik Smith, also formerly of FIU, transferred to Minnesota and was granted a waiver by the NCAA this summer. He'll play this season, but Buckles won't. Huh?

That's hardly the only confusing recent transfer news. Last week, Kerwin Okoro, a player transferring from Iowa State to Rutgers, was denied a hardship waiver by the NCAA. Okoro appealed to play immediately, as many players in recent seasons have, under the medical or family hardship "legislative relief" exemption (see what I mean?) after losing his New York City-based father and brother in the matter of two months last winter. But Okoro's appeal was denied, which raised red flags out in Rutgers, where the Star-Ledger has tried to divine why so many former Scarlet Knights were granted post-Mike Rice appeals this spring while Okoro, who is entering the program recovering from family tragedy, was not. The key quote from an NCAA spokesman:

"It’s not a formula. It’s not a math problem," NCAA spokesman Christopher Radford said. "The guidelines evolve and we see different circumstances and scenarios, and the guidelines evolve with that to make the process better and more efficient."

This comes amid the Star-Ledger's attempt to explain the transfer hardship/relief/whatever appeals process, and the various NCAA subcommittees each case passes through on each various appeal attempt. It all ends at the desk of the Legislative Council Subcommittee, which "may not even be burdened by the guidelines it has set for the NCAA staff."

"The subcommittee essentially can make whatever decision they think is the appropriate decision as a representative of the membership," Brooks said.

It would seem that Okoro is a textbook case, a player who left New York to play in the Midwest but felt compelled to return when his family suffered not one but two deaths in a brutally short period of time. We've seen plenty of relief appeals granted for far less in recent seasons, and while that may still happen in Okoro's case, it begs the question: What is the difference here? Where are the guidelines? How big is the box? Is it even a box in the first place?

The same goes for Buckles. This is not his first transfer, which changes things, because the NCAA has been concern-trolling about the purportedly destructive nature of player nomadism for years now. By attempting to transfer a second time after just one year at his previous school, Buckles faces a higher burden of academic proof. But even so, the circumstances of the case seem like a no-brainer: A player is leaving a school that is banned from the NCAA tournament and that now no longer even has a scholarship available for him to return to play one last year for his former coach at that coach's new school. And not only was his hope to play right away at Minnesota dashed, he was told he couldn't transfer at all. Maybe that aligns with the NCAA's rules on academic status for transfers. It's hard to know, because the player's privacy is worth protecting. But even if we're talking rules and not "guidelines" … why? Because that would be bad for Buckles? Even though he clearly disagrees? I know, I know, the NCAA is our last societal bastion of early-20th century class patriarchy. But really?

Simplify the transfer rules. Simplify the appeals guidelines. Simplify the rules. This was among NCAA president Mark Emmert's primary goals when he took on the job of representing the NCAA membership, and he has managed to streamline other areas of the rulebook. There are now more straightforward (and strict) punishments for violations, less confusion about texting recruits, no penalties for eating cream cheese, etc. etc. But the transfer rules remain.

There is some movement on this front: Last November, the Division I Legislative Council’s Subcommittee for Legislative Relief (no joke, that's what it's actually called)* changed the guidelines for hardship waiver requests in an effort to make application thereof more consistent. Clearly, that hasn't worked out too well, but it's something -- and indicative of a larger effort to make transfers less of a thorny mess.

In a perfect world, players would have as much personal agency as the men paid handsomely for marshaling their talents. In a perfect world, the NCAA wouldn't need to create 20-page pamphlets to educate students on transfer rules, because those rules would be so simple as to be intuitive. In a perfect world, the NCAA wouldn't feel the need to tell 22-year-old men and women it knows what's better for their academic futures than they do.

We do not live in a perfect world, unfortunately, and some of the above will never happen, at least not as long as the NCAA is still kicking. But the current system is at best poorly misunderstood and at worst irreconcilably broken. Either way, it's time to start over.

*Oh, and while we're at it, can you guys stop naming things the Division I Legislative Council’s Subcommittee for Legislative Relief? Call it the Appeals Group. Rebrand. Football Group. Basketball Group. Rules Group. Investigations Group. Enforcement Group. Whatever.

Rebrand, guys. Communicate simply, clearly, declaratively. It really doesn't have to be this hard.

ESPN’s 2013-14 Big Ten regular-season schedule will feature 37 conference games across the company’s family of networks.

The lineup includes top Big Ten games as part of ESPN’s weekly Super Tuesday doubleheader with the SEC. ESPN will also continue to showcase the Big Ten on Thursdays and Saturdays throughout the season.

ESPN.com's Jeff Goodman breaks down former Louisville PG Peyton Siva praising this year's team.

1. UNLV coach Dave Rice didn't hesitate to suspend sophomore Savon Goodman from the team for this season. But he hasn't given up on him. Rice had no choice but to boot Goodman after it was reported in Las Vegas that a warrant had been issued for his arrest on felony charges dealing with burglary and grand larceny. There was also a gross misdemeanor charge of conspiracy based on a burglary attempt on May 18. These are grounds for expulsion from the school and dismissal from the program. But Rice isn't going there yet. "I have confidence that Savon can overcome this adversity," Rice said Tuesday. "We will encourage him through the process." Rice said Goodman would have competed for the starting power forward position. Losing a player of his talent and experience "always hurts," Rice said. All true. But it will be interesting to see how Rice handles Goodman going forward. There is a legal process first, and then UNLV, not just Rice, has to determine if the program/university wants someone who has been charged with such crimes on campus. The Runnin' Rebels lost Anthony Bennett to the draft and Mike Moser to Oregon. Guard Kaitin Reinhardt transferred to USC. Goodman is the latest hit. The offseason couldn't have gone worse for UNLV. Khem Birch and newcomer Christian Wood will be counted on heavily inside now, with the roster thinning. New Mexico is the class of the MWC. Boise State is next, with San Diego State probably following the Broncos. UNLV can't be considered in the top three anymore after the attrition to hit the program this summer.

2. BYU and UMass are two teams that have a legitimate shot to surge toward the top of their respective conferences this season. So why not play each other? The WCC-A-10 matchup announced Tuesday for Dec. 7 in Springfield (neutral court but not site for UMass) could be one of those games that gets discussed in March. Gonzaga is the favorite in the WCC. VCU and then either La Salle or Saint Louis in the A-10. But no one should sleep on either BYU or UMass. "Both teams know this is good for their resume," said UMass coach Derek Kellogg, whose Minutemen likely will return the game Dec. 23, 2014, in Utah. "We're trying to schedule as tough an RPI games as we can for our fan base." UMass, which has a top-tier point guard in Chaz Williams, has another March-like game when it plays host to LSU on Nov. 12 for the tip-off Marathon. BYU, meanwhile, has a meaty schedule with plenty of power-rating games: at Stanford (Nov. 11), Iowa State in Provo (Nov. 20), a potential CBE final game against Wichita State in Kansas City on Nov. 26 (assuming both get past first-round games in Texas and DePaul, respectively), the rivalry game against Utah in Salt Lake (Dec. 14) and at Oregon (Dec. 21). "Our schedule goes from West to Midwest to East Coast early, so we will see what we've got," said BYU coach Dave Rose. Rose said the big three for this season's team: Tyler Haws, Kyle Collinsworth (home from a Mormon mission in Russia) and Matt Carlino all have excelled this summer. "I need them all to be good," said Rose.

3. The Big East confirmed that its conference schedule will be released next week. The old Big East was always one of the last conferences to release its schedule because of so may pro arenas in the conference. That hasn't changed with Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Marquette, DePaul, Villanova and Georgetown all dealing with other tenants. The three new schools -- Butler, Creighton and Xavier -- have the most control over dates in their arenas. The conference is hoping to build rivalries and will protect one rivalry for the final weekend of the regular season. But the conference wouldn't say which one until the schedule is finalized. The teams haven't been notified yet of which rivalry was protected for the final weekend of the regular season.

The first NCAA tournament was held on Northwestern's campus in 1939. It is the closest the Wildcats have ever been to it.

Bill Carmody managed a few close calls during his 12-year tenure, but he was fired after the 2012-13 season. In comes Chris Collins, a Chicagoland native with a Duke pedigree.

He would seem to be an excellent fit. Collins played for Mike Krzyzewski and coached alongside him. He understands academic rigors. He has seen how to win at the highest level. He has maintained recruiting ties in fertile areas of Illinois.

But this is Northwestern. If Collins is looking for a challenge, he has found it. Read what ESPN.com's Eamonn Brennan has to say about the new coach and his chances here.