Gary Parrish

The best thing about getting the VCU job as your first job is that it's the VCU job.

It's proved to be a springboard to bigger and better things.

A culture of winning exists around the program.

You're set up to be successful.

But all those things could also be interpreted as bad things for Shaka Smart, because -- as I detailed in a column back in June -- there's nothing simple about being a first-time head coach inheriting a team losing the best player in school history. With Eric Maynor in the NBA, that was the situation Smart walked into, and he knew it. But he also knew the VCU fanbase -- having just watched Jeff Capel and Anthony Grant win consistently -- wouldn't be interested in hearing any excuses for a possible, if not probable, slow start.

"The fans don't care about that," Smart told me this summer, about a month after he was hired away from Billy Donovan's staff at Florida, just like Grant before him. "Their deal is: 'Hey, this guy before you was winning, and we brought you in here to do the same or more.'"

Smart did "the same or more" Saturday night.

His third game as a head coach resulted in an 82-69 win over the 17th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners coached by Capel, whose contract at VCU required him to return to the Siegel Center as a visitor if he ever left for another job. Capel did indeed leave for another job after the 2005-06 season; he replaced Kelvin Sampson at OU. The byproduct (because of the contract) was the Sooners having to serve as the first ranked opponent to ever enter the Siegel Center.

They exited double-digit losers.

Willie Warren missed 11 of 14 shots, including all eight 3-point attempts. The CBSSports.com Preseason First Team All-American battled cramps in the second half, finished with eight points and six turnovers, then sat on the bench with a towel draped over his head and watched the VCU students storm the court and celebrate. Off to the side, Smart mostly remained calm and cool. It was a big win, sure. But as he told me when he took the job, this is what he was brought to VCU to do -- to be successful on a relevant level, to maintain a national profile for the Rams,  to win big games just like his predecessors, and maybe even beat one of them, if possible.

Who's the man most bothered by what happened at Madison Square Garden late Friday?

It has to be North Carolina coach Roy Williams, right?

I mean, Syracuse just ran his team off the court.

But second to Williams, I'm guessing, is Iowa State coach Greg McDermott, whose former player, Wesley Johnson, led the Orange to an 87-71 win over the Tar Heels while establishing himself as the star of a team that has rebounded from the exhibition loss to Le Moyne with wins over the Pac-10 favorite (California) and ACC favorite (North Carolina). Johnson finished with 25 points and eight rebounds against the Tar Heels; he was the best player on the court. When the Orange move into the top 10 of the Top 25 (and one) late Sunday, he'll be the main reason, making it difficult not to wonder if he could've done the same for Iowa State.

Think about it.

How good would a Wesley Johnson/Craig Brackins combo be this season?

Both are possible lottery picks in the 2010 NBA Draft.

Both are All-American candidates.

If McDermott had them to go with Lucca Staiger and Marquis Gilstrap, the Cyclones might've been the smart pick to finish third in the Big 12 behind only Kansas and Texas. As it is, Iowa State was picked eighth. And it's things like these that can change a coach's entire career.

What if Johnson never transferred? Could he have led Iowa State to the NCAA tournament last season? If so, would the "winning culture" created by an appearance have been enough to convince Ames High star Harrison Barnes to reject an offer from North Carolina and play at the school for which his mother works?

Obviously, we'll never know the answers to those questions.

But they are interesting questions, aren't they?

"We're so thankful to have him here from Iowa State," Syracuse guard Andy Rautins told ESPN's cameras right after the win over UNC. "He's helping this team in more ways than we could've imagined."

Indeed, Johnson is doing exactly that.

Now imagine what he could've done for Iowa State.

Alabama wasn't good enough to beat Cornell of the Ivy League but was good enough to snap the Big East's 41-game winning streak to start this season. They topped Providence 84-75 late Friday. Thus, the Big East is now 41-1.

Not bad for a league that was supposed to be rebuilding.

Worth noting is that as many as four Big East schools -- Villanova, Connecticut, West Virginia and Syracuse -- could be in the top 10 of the Top 25 (and one) when it updates Sunday night. Louisville and Georgetown will also be ranked, assuming neither loses this weekend.

St. John's beat Brown.

Seton Hall beat Cornell.

And Syracuse, of course, destroyed North Carolina.

That means the Big East is now 40-0 as a league with three games left tonight. We're waiting on Providence-Alabama, Rutgers-Drexel and South Florida-South Carolina. As I type, Alabama is beating Providence, but Rutgers is up on Drexel. USF-South Carolina hasn't tipped.

Villanova's win over Dayton pushed the Big East to 37-0 as a league.

But now it's about to get tough.

I'm assuming the conference will take its first loss Friday night.

But in what game?

Will it be Syracuse-North Carolina (7 p.m. ET)?

Or Seton Hall-Cornell (7 p.m. ET)?

Or South Carolina-USF (9:30 p.m. ET)?

Or some other matchup?

Six Big East teams still have games Friday, meaning the best-case scenario has the league entering Saturday at 43-0. My guess is 41-2 or 40-3 is more likely. But either way, it's been a nice start.

I mentioned in the Friday Look Ahead that the Big East was 35-0, but I thought for sure the league would suffer its first loss Friday. It still might, I guess. But it won't be where I thought it would be, which is to say in the Northern Iowa-DePaul game.

Final score: DePaul 60, Northern Iowa 52.

So the team picked last in the Big East just beat the team picked first in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Very nice, Jerry Wainwright.

You moved the Big East to 36-0.

Now let's see if Villanova can make it 37-0.

Here's Friday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: North Carolina will beat Syracuse by at least 15 points tonight?

-- Hunter

If it'll make Syracuse fans calm down , then I'm for it.

But seriously, it should be fun, regardless of the outcome.

Evan Turner's second career triple-double was way different than his first -- this one coming in the form of 23 points, 11 rebounds and 10 turnovers during Ohio State's 77-73 loss to North Carolina. Seriously, Turner turned it over 10 times, which is both remarkable and unacceptable. And though I'd still take him on any team I coached -- hey, I'm not stupid; the dude is super talented -- it became obvious once and for all Thursday night that Turner isn't playing point guard because he's a great point guard as much as he's playing point guard because he has to play point guard.

Ohio State has nobody else.

And while I suppose, deep down, I've always known that, it was easy to trick myself into thinking otherwise after watching Turner destroy Alcorn State and James Madison in the Buckeyes' first two games. Against those opponents, he looked great. But what many failed to realize (myself included) is that Turner would've looked great against Alcorn State and James Madison regardless of whether he played point guard or center or somewhere in between; he's just on a different level in terms of talent, capable of dominating at any position against that sort of opposition. But when Turner played point guard against similarly gifted guys for the first time Thursday night, the result was a performance most memorable for how he battled foul trouble and continuously gave the ball away.

It was rough.

It was not what I expected.

From Superman to Evan Turnover in a span of 40 minutes.

Tobias Harris, as expected, committed to Tennessee on Thursday.

"I really have a great relationship with Coach [Bruce] Pearl and his assistant coach [Tony] Jones," Harris said. "It's just a family atmosphere down there. I got along with the players real well, and it's just a great opportunity and fit for me."

MaxPreps.com ranks Harris No. 21 in the Class of 2010. The 6-foot-8 forward joins Trae Golden (No. 59) and Jordan McRae (No. 87) to comprise a three-player class that should be among the Top 15 classes nationally when team recruiting rankings are finalized.

Harris is from New York.

He also had offers from Syracuse, Kentucky, Maryland, Georgia Tech, Louisville and West Virginia.

Tobias Harris will announce his college decision Thursday at 6 p.m. ET.

The 6-foot-8 forward is No. 21 in MaxPreps.com's Class of 2010 rankings. He's officially still considering a host of schools, among them Louisville, Syracuse and Maryand. But an unannounced visit to Tennessee on Tuesday has most believing Harris will be a Vol considering he had previously visited the UT campus. In other words, there was no reason for Harris to stop by UT again on his way back from Georgia Tech if he didn't plan to commit to Bruce Pearl's program. But either way, the official announcement comes Thursday night.

Here's Thursday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: Dude, No. 13 California needs to beat Syracuse before they can meet North Carolina or Ohio State on Friday, and that ain't happening! Get your sh-t together if you want to be a college basketball columnist.

-- Stephen Leahy

Oh, Stephen, my sh-t is together. You see, the Coaches vs. Cancer has a championship game and a consolation game. So regardless of whether California beats Syracuse or loses to Syracuse on Thursday night, California will play North Carolina or Ohio State on Friday night. Just like I said. And California is a slight favorite in the game. So you're stupid on multiple levels, genius.

I was headed out of my hotel in downtown St. Louis Wednesday afternoon when I bumped into Nebraska coach Doc Sadler, whose Huskers were in town to play Rick Majerus' Saint Louis Billikens. Next thing you know, I'm in a 45-minute conversation about anything and everything. But when we settled on the subject of the actual game it was clear Sadler knew what he was up against Wednesday night.

"It's gonna be like playing one of Rick's teams," Sadler said. "They're gonna make us guard them for 30 seconds."

Can your guys do that?

"I think we're disciplined enough to guard them for about 20," Sadler answered. Fast-forward to late Wednesday -- after a 69-55 loss to SLU -- and I wasn't surprised to see the following Tweet from Sadler. "We [have] a lot of work to get done with toughness. Shot selection horrible. No patience on D."

Turns out, Saint Louis -- surprise, surprise -- swung the ball from side to side, drained the shot clock on many possessions and waited for Nebraska to make a mistake. More times than not, the mistake came. It allowed Saint Louis to shoot 47.8 percent from the field in the second half, all of which proved that even when coaches know exactly what's coming it can still be difficult to prevent, particularly in mid-November.

The USF basketball program has committed numerous NCAA rules violations over the past months, a report by Brett McMurphy at FanHouse.com alleged Wednesday night.

Most of the alleged violations involve USF video and conditioning assistant Terrelle Woody. He was hired last August in a non-coaching position as part of a package deal to ensure the enrollment of Maryland transfer Gus Gilchrist. The alleged violations include Woody providing transportation to student-athletes, watching "open gyms," coaching players and illegally working out USF players.

USF coach Stan Heath either denied all allegations or said he had no knowledge of them.

McMurphy is a former USF beat writer for the Tampa Tribune .

Heath is in his third season at USF.

It's a light schedule Wednesday night in college basketball.

Only two Top 25 (and one) teams are playing.

No. 4 Texas hosts Western Carolina and and No. 11 Butler plays at Northwestern. But one other thing worth noting is that Rhode Island will finally tipoff the post-Jimmy-Baron era, becoming the 347th of 347 Division I schools to play a game this season. The opponent is Brown. And assuming the game doesn't get postponed, we will be completely out of 0-0 teams by 10 p.m. ET.

Hooray for that.

Here's Wednesday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: On Friday you wrote that if Harrison Barnes chose UNC you would elaborate on your "reasons" why you changed your prediction to UNC at the last minute. I'm curious as to what these "reasons" were.

-- Luke

First. let me apologize for my empty promise, because I did write last Friday that -- against the advice of most recruiting experts -- I was picking Barnes to sign with North Carolina , and that if I was correct I'd share why I changed my mind from Duke. Naturally, I was correct. But I never shared why I changed my mind, and a bunch of you have asked me to do it, and, well, here you go.

I was at Kansas for "Late Night in the Phog."

So were Harrison Barnes and his mother and his sister.

I had the joy of spending about an hour with the family on that Saturday morning, right after Kansas finished practicing. Harrison wanted to get a workout in, so he worked out while I sat with his mother, Shirley Barnes, and we chatted for a good long while. The conversation reminded me why Harrison is such a well-adjusted young man, because his mother is simply tremendous. Smart, funny, engaging, informed. If every high-level recruit had a mother like Shirley Barnes, recruiting wouldn't be nearly the circus it has become.

Anyway, we talked.

And though I never asked her to share secrets (mostly because I knew she wouldn't), the one thing that stuck out from the totally casual conversation was how she seemed genuinely blown away by Roy Williams' decision to offer her son, wait on her son and promise not to recruit anybody else at his position, no matter what. As some of you may know, this is not how North Carolina normally operates, because it doesn't have to operate that way. UNC offers a kid, he accepts or the Tar Heels move on to the next best kid. They don't wait because they don't have to wait. Eventually, and usually sooner rather than later, an elite prospect accepts, and that's why North Carolina is North Carolina, the reigning national champions.

But for Harrison Barnes, Roy Williams was willing to wait.

This seemed to matter to Shirley Barnes.

And when I told her that Duke has taken a similar approach with certain prospects in recent years, Shirley reminded me that Duke was actively recruiting Roscoe Smith, i.e., another elite small forward from the Class of 2010. I just remember being struck by that comment, how she seemed impressed by UNC's decision to focus solely on her son while Duke recruited both her son and Smith. She brought it up, not me. And when I walked out of the gym I just felt, for the first time, that North Carolina was the team to beat for Barnes.
 
It's possible I read too much into those comments.

It's possible I read them perfectly.

Either way, that's why I thought what I thought.

And now, I think, we can all move on.