Josh Davis (USA Today Sports Images)

San Diego State has found a player who may be capable of filling the huge void left by the departure of Jamaal Franklin to the NBA.

The Aztecs out-dueled Gonzaga and numerous other top programs to land coveted Tulane transfer Josh Davis, the 6-foot-8 forward's former high school coach confirmed Wednesday.

Davis, who averaged 17.6 points and 10.7 boards at Tulane last season, is a versatile player capable of rebounding, defending multiple positions and scoring with his back to the basket or by attacking the rim. He has graduated from Tulane and will be eligible to play his final year of eligibility next season for San Diego State.

"I think San Diego State is a really good fit for him," Athens Drive High School coach Robert Clemons said. "Gonzaga was really high on his list too. It came down to either or and I think he just liked San Diego State a little bit better."

Originally a North Carolina State signee under Sidney Lowe, Davis transferred to Tulane after a freshman season in which he played only 10.4 minutes per game for the Wolfpack. The Raleigh native became an impact player for the Green Wave, playing either forward position the past two years and even some center and helping lead the team to a 20-15 record last season.

Davis considered staying at Tulane and turning pro, but ultimately he decided his best option would be playing his final year of college basketball on a bigger stage than the Green Wave could provide. Numerous high-major schools expressed interest since he was coming off an impressive season and would be eligible immediately, but San Diego State was ultimately Davis' top choice.

Evan Gordon (Getty Images)In dire need of perimeter scoring, veteran leadership and another ball handler, Indiana added a player who can help in all those areas.

Arizona State transfer Evan Gordon announced Wednesday morning that he has chosen the Hoosiers over Butler. The younger brother of former Indiana star Eric Gordon has graduated from Arizona State and will be eligible to play his lone season with the Hoosiers immediately.

Gordon became a priority for Indiana coach Tom Crean as a result of the departure of backcourt standouts Victor Oladipo and Jordan Hulls as well as reserves Remy Abell and Maurice Creek. Yogi Ferrell returns at point guard and Will Sheehey will move into the starting lineup at small forward, but the addition of Gordon enables Crean to go with a veteran at shooting guard instead of throwing an incoming freshman into the lineup before he's ready.

Expectations for Gordon's lone season at Indiana need to be realistic, however, because he's not going to conjure memories of Oladipo. The 6-foot-1 combo guard averaged 10.1 points per game playing alongside Jahii Carson at Arizona State last season, but he shot 39.1 percent from the field and 34.3 percent from behind the arc.

What Gordon can do is play solid defense, aid Ferrell and Sheehey in providing leadership for a young team and assume ball handling responsibilities whenever Ferrell needs a rest. That's probably not going to elevate this Indiana team into Big Ten title contention alongside Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State, but it will help the Hoosiers contend for an upper half of the league finish and an NCAA bid.

Julien Lewis (Getty Images)

For Texas fans to stop bemoaning their recent run of football mediocrity long enough to pay attention to basketball, the Longhorns either have to be contending for Final Fours or enduring uncharacteristic struggles.

Unfortunately for coach Rick Barnes, right now it's the latter.

On the heels of a disappointing season in which Texas missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in Barnes' 15-year tenure, the line of players leaving the program in search of a fresh start continues to grow more crowded. Starting guard Julien Lewis, the program's leading 3-point shooter last season, became the fourth underclassman to leave since March when Texas revealed Tuesday that he will transfer.

The departure of Lewis means a Texas team that already shot 29.7 percent from behind the arc a year ago and 41.3 percent overall now will have to replace its three leading scorers. Sophomore point guard Myck Kabongo entered the NBA draft despite missing the first 23 games of last season due to NCAA eligibility issues and promising sophomore wing Sheldon McClellan announced in late March he intends to transfer.

The responsibility of providing perimeter scoring punch likely would have fallen to Lewis with Kabongo and McClellan gone, but an increased role apparently wasn't enough to keep the rising junior in Austin. Already there are reports Lewis will likely join former Texas assistant Rodney Terry at Fresno State.

Texas appears to be floating the idea that some of the transfers were mutual and could be addition by subtraction, but it's difficult to get behind that concept considering the lack of proven players on next season's roster. 

Isaiah Austin (Getty Images)

In the three years since the short-lived Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series ended with a whimper in 2010, it doesn't appear as though one of the leagues involved has learned from all its mistakes.

The Big 12 has entered into a similar 10-game challenge with the SEC that will begin next season, but the 2013 format leaves a lot to be desired.

Much like the games in the Big 12/Pac-10 series were annually spread over the course of a month, next season's Big 12-SEC challenge games span a six-week window from Nov. 14 to Dec. 21. Spacing the games so far apart hampers the event's chances of creating early-season buzz because only the most hardcore fans will even realize all 10 of the games are part of a challenge between the two leagues.

The only way a series between two leagues can truly capture the attention of fans is if the format is similar to the highly successful ACC-Big Ten Challenge, a battle for bragging rights that spans only two days. The Big 12's release announcing the event mentions that scheduling conflicts were the reason the event is so spread out next season and pledges to work with ESPN to schedule the games across consecutive days in the future.

Hopefully schools in both leagues commit to juggling their future schedules and making this event a two-day blockbuster because it does have potential if it's organized properly. The other problem with the inaugural version, however, is the matchups don't seem to have been chosen with much imagination.

Besides a potential top 10 showdown between Kansas and Florida and an already existing neutral-court game between Kentucky and Baylor, the rest of the slate is far from inspiring. Some of that is a result of the weakness of the bottom half of both leagues, but some of it is also a product of poor matchup choices.

Andrew Wiggins' desire to make the announcement of his college destination an intimate affair did have one unintended consequence.

Grant Traylor (via Twitter)It turned the lone reporter allowed in Huntington Prep's gym on Tuesday afternoon into an instant must-follow for diehard college hoops fans.

Grant Traylor, who covers Marshall Athletics and high school sports for the Huntington Herald Dispatch, had a modest 1,962 Twitter followers Sunday when he went to cover the NCAA tournament selection show party for the Thundering Herd softball team. Once Huntington Prep coach Rob Fulford revealed Sunday night that Traylor would be the only reporter in the building for Wiggins' announcement, however, that number began to mushroom.

It reached 8,100 by Monday morning. It reached 10,400 by Monday night. And minutes before Wiggins revealed Tuesday at 12:09 p.m. EST that he was headed to Kansas, Traylor had more than 17,800 followers, roughly nine times the number he had less than 48 hours earlier.

Traylor's tweet that revealed Wiggins' decision to everyone outside the gym received 1,800 retweets. His mentions poured in so quickly his phone wasn't equipped to deal with all of them.

Andrew Wiggins (Getty Images)

The most anticipated announcement in many years in college basketball recruiting took place Tuesday afternoon in a manner befitting the quiet, intensely private prospect who was making it.

There were no ESPN cameras present to document Andrew Wiggins' college decision, nor was there a live feed of a press conference broadcast over the internet. In fact, besides Wiggins' classmates, family and coaches, the only other person allowed in the gym at Huntington Prep was a lone reporter from the local newspaper, the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.

That small group of onlookers witnessed Wiggins reveal a decision that has been the subject of endless speculation for months among everyone from college coaches to reporters to fans on social media. The top-ranked recruit in the Class of 2013 announced he will attend Kansas for what will probably be his lone year of college, choosing the the Jayhawks over Kentucky, North Carolina and Florida State.

Kansas had as much at stake of any of Wiggins' suitors because landing the ultra-talented 6-foot-7 forward may elevate the Jayhawks from a borderline preseason top 20 team to one capable of reaching another Final Four.

Even though Kansas is losing all five starters from a team that won the Big 12 and reached the Sweet 16 last season, the addition of Wiggins to an already deep recruiting class ensures the Jayhawks can reload instead of rebuild. An explosive athlete and gifted scorer with ideal size and length for the small forward position, Wiggins is the type of player who could ease the burden on the rest of his young teammates by carrying Kansas offensively for long stretches.

Nick Colletta soars to catch an alley-oop pass (via the Colletta family)

Having determined his team's most glaring weakness next season was likely to be outside shooting, newly hired Marist coach Jeff Bower began asking around last month to see if any of his friends knew of a perimeter marksman still on the market.

One name he got in response left him especially intrigued.

A prep school coach told Bower about a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Southern California once viewed as a high-major prospect before a back injury sidelined him for most of his junior and senior seasons. Bower watched film of Nick Colletta from his sophomore year at Glendora High School and scouted him in person at a Las Vegas AAU tournament a couple weeks ago, both of which left him surprised no other Division I schools were showing any interest.

"You never get overzealous too quickly and you're always trying to be as reserved as you can, but Nick really did fit every criteria I laid out as far as if I wanted to use a scholarship this spring," Bower said. "Obviously this time of year, you understand the challenges of finding someone in the mold of what you're looking for. With Nick, we really liked how he shot the ball, how he played the game, his competitive instinct and his ability to make plays."

A little-known Metro Atlantic Conference program on the other side of the country once may not have interested Colletta, but his outlook had changed dramatically over the previous two years.

Phone calls and letters from Division I coaches gradually became less and less frequent during his injury-plagued junior season until by the start of his senior year no schools were recruiting him at all. Before Bower and his staff began showing interest in late April, Colletta's plan for this spring was to showcase himself on the AAU circuit to prep schools and enroll at whichever one offered the best platform to drum up interest from college coaches the following year.

Brandon Reed (Getty Images)In 2010, fresh off a season in which he averaged 15.1 points per game and earned Sun Belt Conference freshman of the year honors, guard Brandon Reed bolted from Arkansas State in favor of higher-profile Georgia Tech.

Three years later, however, Reed is pulling the unusual move of retracing his steps.

Reed will transfer back to Arkansas State this fall for his final year of eligibility after losing his starting job at Georgia Tech midway through last season. He is on pace to complete a sociology degree at Georgia Tech this summer and would be eligible immediately at Arkansas State next season.

"We are excited about Brandon rejoining our program and enrolling in our master’s degree program,” said Arkansas State coach John Brady said in a statement released by the school. "He brings leadership, experience, and an ability to score the basketball. His family and I have visited in depth about this move and we all believe it will benefit all involved."

Though a player transferring twice in his college career has become more common since the NCAA began granting graduates immediate eligibility, it's still unusual for someone to return for a second stint where he originally began.

Ole Miss big man Murphy Holloway spent the 2010-11 season at South Carolina before returning to the Rebels. Sunday Adebayo returned to Arkansas for the 1997-98 season after initially being declared ineligible to play for the Razorbacks and spending a year at Memphis instead. And Spencer Gloger transferred from Princeton to UCLA and back to Princeton in the early 2000s, though he realized he wanted to return to the Ivy League school before ever suiting up for a game with the Bruins.