Things are looking good for VCU and the Duke Blue Devils, as both teams continue to have great success on the recruiting trail. Who else is filling the gaps, and has anyone's betting odds value increased?
Despite this
being considered the quiet time of the year in men’s college basketball, there
are always a few interesting behind-the-scenes developments that could actually
end-up having a major impact on a particular team’s chances to win next
season’s conference championship or even spill over into their current NCAA Basketball odds to
make a run at a national title as well.
The
following is a look at this week’s most interesting news and notes from the
world of college basketball.
VCU is moving up the ranks
Few
basketball fans will soon forget Virginia Commonwealth’s dramatic run in the
2011 NCAA Tournament that parlayed a generous at-large bid out of the mid-major
Colonial Athletic Association all the way to a trip to the Final Four. The VCU
Rams have now decided to up the ante on trying to make the trip to the Big
Dance an annual event by opting out of the CAA to play in the more prestigious
Atlantic 10 Conference starting next season. The A-10 has been known over the
years as being one of the top mid-major basketball conferences in the country
and it regularly sends a couple of teams to the NCAA Tournament each year.
This move
follows on the heels of the Butler Bulldogs’ (the team that beat the Rams in
the semifinals in 2011) decision to leave the Horizon League and join the A-10
for all the same reasons. Butler and VCU were brought in to replace one of the
conference’s highest profile basketball programs, the Temple Owls, who accepted
an invitation to join the Big East as well as the Charlotte 49ers, who are
joining Conference-USA.
Duke lands another Top 25 recruit
\If there was
any doubt that Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski was well on his way to putting
together another championship-caliber team for the 2012/2013 season, they should
be completely dispelled with the addition of power forward Amile Jefferson, who
played his high school basketball for Friends Central in Philadelphia, to the
Blue Devils’ 2012 recruiting class.
His
commitment to attend Duke over schools such as NC State and Kentucky, gives
Coach K the 11th-best recruiting class in the nation. Jefferson will
join fellow McDonald’s All-American Rasheed Sulaimon, who could be one of the
best pure shooters in the country. Jefferson was named the top-25th
player in this year’s senior class according to ESPN’s Recruiting Nation Top
100. Bovada has opened Duke at 15/1 to win next season’s national title with
only Kentucky, Louisville, and Indiana having better odds.
A couple of quality transfers settle
in Arizona
The
2011/2012 season was one to forget for Arizona basketball after missing the
NCAA Tournament all together and bowing-out of the NIT in the first round with
a loss to Bucknell. In an effort to get the program back on track for next
season, the school announced the addition two transfers that are set to have an
immediate impact on the Wildcats’ fortunes and one that will be available for
the 2013/2014 season.
The biggest addition was former Xavier guard
Mark Lyons, who averaged 15.1 points last season and was instrumental in
helping the Musketeers reach the Sweet 16. Lyons had a falling out with Xavier coach
Chris Mack and decided to use his final year of eligibility to play for Sean
Miller at Arizona. The other transfer that is available to play right away is
Matt Korcheck, a 6-foot-9 sophomore who
played for Cochise College last season and averaged 14.7 points and 6.5
rebounds. The third transfer was T. J. McConnell, who last played for Duquesne.
He will have two years of eligibility left after sitting out this upcoming
season.