Arkansas tops list of six preseason Top 25 teams that didn't reach 2024 NCAA Tournament

Sport

Arkansas tops list of six preseason Top 25 teams that didn't reach 2024 NCAA Tournament

2024-11-04 19:10 Last Updated At：19:20

Arkansas has only one scholarship player back from a team that finished a game below .500 last year, yet the Razorbacks open this season in the AP Top 25.

Consider that a testament to the way new coach John Calipari reshaped his roster by adding transfers and freshmen.

Arkansas added three top-30 recruits and also was among the most active teams in the transfer portal. The result has Arkansas entering the season as the No. 16 team in the nation, the highest preseason ranking for any team that missed last year’s NCAA Tournament.

“Right now we’re undefeated, and they’re a little up in here, and I’m like, ‘Dudes, calm down,’" Calipari said at the Southeastern Conference media days. “I try to tell them I don’t have a magic wand. I’m not a magician. It’s not what I do. It normally takes a couple years for me to get the culture right.”

Much of Arkansas’ roster departed after coach Eric Musselman left for Southern California, leaving forward Trevon Brazile as the team’s lone returning scholarship player from the team that went 16-17. Brazile averaged 8.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game last season.

But there are plenty of newcomers with proven track records.

D.J. Wagner, Adou Thiero, Zvonimir Ivisic and Kareem Watkins followed Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas. Calipari also landed Jonas Aidoo from Tennessee and Johnell Davis from Florida Atlantic.

Davis started on FAU’s 2023 Final Four team and averaged 18.2 points last season. Aidoo had 11.4 points and 7.3 rebounds per game as an Associated Press first-team all-SEC selection last season.

The freshman class is headed by Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond. All had planned on playing for Calipari at Kentucky.

Arkansas is one of many programs that dramatically changed their rosters this offseason. In an indication of how quickly programs can retool themselves now that players can transfer without sitting out a season, six teams in the preseason AP Top 25 didn’t make the NCAA Tournament last year. Some should be good enough to earn bids this season:

After going 19-14 and turning down an NIT bid last year, Indiana got active in the transfer portal and added Oumar Ballo (formerly at Arizona), Kanaan Carlyle (Stanford), Myles Rice (Washington State) and Luke Goode (Illinois), among others. Ballo, a 7-footer, was a first-team all-Pac-12 player the last two seasons. Rice was the Pac-12 freshman of the year. The Hoosiers also return three players who posted double-figure scoring averages in Malik Reneau (15.4), Mackenzie Mgbako (12.2) and Trey Galloway (10.6).

Cincinnati returns its top three scorers from a team that went 22-15 and lost to Indiana State in the NIT quarterfinals. The group includes guards Dan Skillings Jr. (12.9 points per game), Simas Lukosius (11.8) and Day Day Thomas (10.4). Aziz Bandaogo, a 7-footer, had a team-high 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks. The Bearcats also bring back guard C.J. Fredrick Jr., who made 10 starts last season. Transfer additions include Dillon Mitchell, who had 9.6 points and 7.5 rebounds per game for Texas last season.

After making the Final Four in 2021 and losing in the Sweet 16 in 2022 and 2023, UCLA slumped to 16-17 last season. UCLA returns four starters from that team, including leading scorer Dylan Andrews (12.9 ppg) and leading rebounder Lazar Stefanovic (6.1). Sebastian Mack returns after scoring 12.1 points per game last season. UCLA also added six transfers who scored over 9 points per game last season in Tyler Bilodeau (14.3 at Oregon State), Skyy Clark (13.2 at Louisville), Eric Dailey Jr. (9.3 at Oklahoma State), Dominick Harris (14.3 at Loyola Marymount), Kobe Johnson (10.9 at Southern California) and William Kyle (13.1 at South Dakota State).

Ole Miss went 20-12 in coach Chris Beard’s debut season after going 12-21 the year before his arrival. Now the Rebels want to take another step by earning their first NCAA bid since 2019. The Rebels return three of their top four scorers in Matthew Murrell (16.2), Jaylen Murray (13.8) and Jaemyn Brakefield (12.9). Sean Pedulla arrives from Virginia Tech after averaging 16.4 points, 4.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds. Other transfers include Mikeal Brown-Jones (18.9 ppg, 7.5 rpg at UNC-Greensboro), Malik Dia (16.9 ppg, 5.8 rpg at Belmont), Dre Davis (15.0 ppg, 5.9 rpg at Seton Hall) and Davon Barnes (13.5 ppg at Sam Houston State).

Rutgers has two of the nation’s most heralded freshmen in Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper, son of former NBA guard Ron Harper. A composite ranking of recruiting sites compiled by 247Sports had Bailey ranked second and Harper third in his class. The Scarlet Knights return two of the top three scorers from a team that went 15-17 last season in guard Jeremiah Williams (12.2) and center Clifford Omoruyi (10.4). Omoruyi ranked third among all Division I players with 2.9 blocks per game.

St. John’s isn't in the Top 25 but received the second-highest vote total of any unranked team. St. John's returns only one double-figure scorer (RJ Luis) from the team that went 20-13 and turned down an NIT bid in its first season under Rick Pitino, but the Red Storm still figure to be better. Kadary Richmond came over from Big East rival Seton Hall after averaging 15.7 points, 7 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.2 steals last season. Utah transfer Deivon Smith ranked sixth in Division I with 7.1 assists per game and had five triple-doubles last season. Zuby Ejiofor, who had just 4.3 points per game last season, scored 27 points in a preseason charity exhibition victory over Rutgers. St. John's is seeking its first NCAA bid since 2019.

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP collegebasketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

Harris and Trump's final push before Election Day brings them to the same patch of Pennsylvania

2024-11-05 11:29 Last Updated At：11:30

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump made their final pitches to voters Monday in the same parts of Pennsylvania at roughly the same time, focusing on the state that could make or break their chances during the last full day of the presidential campaign.

In Pittsburgh, Trump delivered what his campaign aides described as his closing argument after his previous attempt — a mass rally at Madison Square Garden in New York -- was derailed by crude and racist jokes. He has also veered off message with falsehoods about voter fraud and invocations of violence.

“Over the past four years, Americans have suffered one catastrophic failure, betrayal and humiliation after another,” said the Republican nominee, sounding raspy yet energetic after speaking for hours each day.

“We do not have to settle for weakness, incompetence, decline and decay,” he went on. “With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America, and indeed the whole world, to new heights of glory.”

The crowd exploded in cheers when the Republican nominee said the country should tell Harris, “You’re fired,” his catchphrase from “The Apprentice,” the reality television show that made him a nationally recognized star.

Trump started Monday in North Carolina and he's scheduled to hold his last rally of the election in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he concluded his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

Harris, the Democratic nominee, is spending all of Monday in Pennsylvania, and she was en route to Pittsburgh while Trump was speaking there. She's holding her final rally in Philadelphia later in the evening.

“This is it,” Harris said in Pittsburgh in front of the Carrie Furnaces, a historic steel facility that nodded to the city's industrial legacy. “Tomorrow is Election Day and the momentum is on our side.”

“We must finish strong,” she added. “Make no mistake, we will win.”

With 19 Electoral College votes, the state is the biggest prize of any battleground. A Trump victory there would puncture the Democrats' “blue wall” and make it harder for Harris to win the necessary 270 votes.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said during an event in Reading, in the state's southeast corner.

Both candidates visited the area, which is home to thousands of Latinos, including a sizable Puerto Rican population. Harris and her allies have repeatedly hit Trump for a comedian's dig at Puerto Rico during the former president's marquee Madison Square Garden event. The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

“It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican American who lives in Reading and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. “It bothered so many people — even many Republicans. It wasn’t right, and I feel that Trump should have apologized to Latinos.”

But Emilio Feliciano, 43, waited outside Reading’s Santander Arena for a chance to take a photo of Trump’s motorcade. He dismissed the comments about Puerto Rico despite his family being Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and that’s why he will vote for Trump.

“Is the border going to be safe? Are you going to keep crime down? That’s what I care about,” he said.

Harris told the crowd, “I stand here proud of my long-standing commitment to Puerto Rico and her people."

“And I will be a president for all Americans," she said, adding that “momentum is on our side. Can you feel it?”

Trump, meanwhile, stuck to talking about his proposed crackdown on immigration. He called to the stage Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was found dead a day after she went missing during a trip to go hiking. Officials say the suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the U.S. illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador.

About 77 million Americans have voted early. A victory by either side would be unprecedented.

Trump winning would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his hush-money trial in New York. He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win nonconsecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office — four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command.

Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump by name, calling him instead “the other guy.” She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus.

Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a call with reporters that not saying Trump’s name was deliberate because voters “want to see in their leader an optimistic, hopeful, patriotic vision for the future.”

Harris also offered some insights into her personal formation as a politician that she doesn't often divulge. In Scranton, she talked about once being a longshot while running for San Francisco district attorney in 2002 and how she “used to campaign with my ironing board.”

“I’d walk to the front of the grocery store, outside, and I would stand up my ironing board because, you see, an ironing board makes a really great standing desk,” the vice president said, recalling how she would tape her posters to the outside of the board, fill the top with flyers and “require people to talk to me as they walked in and out.”

In Allentown, Harris rallied with rapper Fat Joe. She then made her own visit to Reading after Trump's rally had concluded, visiting Old San Juan Cafe, a Puerto Rican restaurant, with Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, and Ocasio-Cortez are of Puerto Rican heritage.

Supporters chanted “Sí se puede” and “Kamala” as the vice president’s motorcade pulled up. Once inside, Harris chatted with some diners, even mixing in “Gracias” and a few Spanish words. The vice president later ordered cassava, yellow rice and pork, saying, “I'm very hungry" as she noted that she's been too busy campaigning to find time for many meals.

Harris did some of her own canvassing afterward, stopping at two homes in Reading while flanked by campaign volunteers.

“It’s the day before the election and I just wanted to come by and say I hope to earn your vote," she said at one house.

The woman replied, “You already got my vote" and said her husband would be casting his ballot the next day.

Standing in line for Harris’ Allentown rally, 54-year-old Ron Kessler, an Air Force veteran and Republican-turned-Democrat, said he planned to vote for just the second time in his life. Kessler said that, for a long time, he didn’t vote, thinking the country “would vote for the correct candidate.”

But “now that I’m older and much more wiser, I believe it’s important, it’s my civic duty. And it’s important that I vote for myself and I vote for the democracy and the country.”

Superville reported from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Barrow reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Zeke Miller, Will Weissert and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.