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.

[Also: Twitter explodes in response to Andrew Wiggins' decision]

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.

Newly hired New Mexico coach Craig Neal shares a hug with Kendall Williams last season (USA Today Sports Images)

When newly hired New Mexico coach Craig "Noodles" Neal pulled into his driveway following his introductory press conference last month, he found his son waiting inside the house to chat with him.

Cullen Neal (Rivals.com)Cullen Neal told his dad he wanted to back out of the letter of intent he signed with Saint Mary's and play at New Mexico, which forced the elder Neal to do something few coaches ever do: Try to talk a top recruit out of committing on the spot.

"I had to take off my coaching hat for a second and play the role of dad," Craig Neal said. "I wanted to give him my expectations of him, have him look at the pluses and minuses of it and allow him to get feedback from other people on what it's like to play for your dad. It's a weird thing because he's a really good player who can help the program the next four years, but I wanted to make sure he didn't make the decision on emotion."

Before Craig would allow Cullen to make a choice, he took his son to the Final Four in Atlanta to speak with other father-son duos about the experience of playing for dad or coaching their kid. Cullen chatted with Valparaiso's Bryce Drew, Creighton's Greg McDermott and Oklahoma's Lon Kruger and exchanged texts with Doug McDermott, each of whom described the father-son dynamic as challenging at times but also rewarding.

That Cullen reaffirmed his desire to come to New Mexico after returning from Atlanta is a coup for a Lobos program suddenly in need of depth on the perimeter. With junior Tony Snell turning pro, junior Demetrius Walker transferring and incoming freshman Bryce Alford opting to follow his dad to UCLA, immediate playing time should be available to Cullen next season behind guards Kendall Williams and Hugh Greenwood.

"I'm really excited about my decision," Cullen said. "I wanted to do a lot of research and my dad knew a lot of guys who had been through it. They gave me a bunch of great advice. They told me playing for your dad is going to have its ups and downs that you have to work through but that it's going to be the best experience of my life. They said they wouldn't want to do anything else."

Eddie Jordan (Getty Images)

Still reeling from last month's player abuse scandal that cost coach Mike Rice and athletic director Tim Pernetti their jobs and resulted in a handful of transfers, the beleaguered Rutgers basketball program is again in the news for the wrong reasons.

Newly hired coach Eddie Jordan did not graduate from Rutgers as the school claims in his new bio, a Deadspin report revealed Friday. An official in the Rutgers registrar's office confirmed to Deadspin that Jordan attended the school from 1973 to 77 and took more classes in 1978, 1981 and 1985, but he didn't earn enough credits to receive the degree in health and physical education claimed in his bio.

In a statement released late Friday night, Rutgers defended Jordan, insisting that he hadn't claimed to have a degree on the resume he submitted and that school officials had made the error of referring to him as a graduate. The statement also said coaches at Rutgers are not required to be college graduates, though curiously, a posting for an

Julian Royal (Getty Images)Ex-Georgia Tech forward Julian Royal found a creative way to announce his transfer destination on Friday morning.

He posted a George Mason logo on Instagram.

Royal chose George Mason over Vanderbilt, opting to reunite with coach Paul Hewitt, who initially recruited him to Georgia Tech two years ago. The 6-foot-8 rising junior will sit out next season and have two years of eligibility remaining once he's allowed to play again in 2014.

The addition of Royal could be a coup for a George Mason program looking to upgrade its roster so it can contend once it joins the Atlantic 10 this fall. Royal put up modest stats in two seasons at Georgia Tech, but the question is whether the former consensus top 100 recruit suffered from being overhyped or underutilized.

Expected to consider asking out of his letter of intent when Georgia Tech fired Hewitt and replaced him with Brian Gregory two years ago, Royal instead chose to honor his commitment to the Yellowjackets. He averaged 16 minutes per game in 3o games as a freshman, but the arrival of promising Robert Carter last year and the return of Daniel Miller and Kammeon Holsey shuffled Royal to fourth in a three-man frontcourt rotation.

Terrance Shannon (Getty Images)

In an interview with reporters after a Dec. 29 victory over Tulsa, Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton described high-energy forward Terrance Shannon's performance by saying he has the ability to "create havoc."

Perhaps Hamilton had a premonition of what was to come a few months later.

Shannon will have the chance to create more havoc because he's transferring to VCU for his last year of college eligibility, CBSSports.com first reported Thursday night. The 6-foot-8 rising senior graduated this spring and will be eligible to help the Rams attempt to win a revamped Atlantic 10 and return to the NCAA tournament next season.

At first blush, Shannon's departure appears to be a bigger coup for VCU than it is a blow to Florida State. Shannon was likely to come off the bench for the Seminoles behind fellow seniors Kiel Turpin and Okaro White and his exit frees up a scholarship for Andrew Wiggins should the nation's top-ranked recruit choose Florida State later this month.

[Also: New Rutgers coach Eddie Jordan didn't actually graduate from Rutgers]

More playing time should be available at VCU, where Shannon will likely play alongside top big man Juvonte Reddic and enable the Rams to play a more traditional lineup instead of the four-guard look they went with a year ago. Shannon averaged a modest 8.7 points and 5.6 rebounds last season, but relentless effort, explosive athleticism and high character makes him a good fit for VCU's frenetic, trapping style of play.

Of course, the addition of Shannon isn't without some red flags.

(Getty Images)

The NCAA men’s basketball rules committee announced a handful of recommended rules changes on Thursday afternoon that must be approved by the rules oversight panel on June 18 before becoming effective for the 2013-14 season. Here's a look at the four most significant proposed changes and their potential impact:

BLOCK-CHARGE CALLS

Proposed rule change: A defender will now receive a blocking foul if he moves into the path of an offensive player starting his upward motion with the ball in order to shoot or pass. The current rule calls for a defender to be in legal guarding position before the offensive player lifts off the floor.

Potential impact: This rule change won't reduce the number of questionable block-charge calls next season, but it should move the blurry line in favor of the offense. Couple that with the committee's recommendation that officials call more fouls when defenders hand check or use arm bars to impede movement, and it's clear there was a clear effort to boost scoring in college basketball. The average points scored by one team in Divison I last season was 67.5, lowest since the 1981-82 season.

ELBOW RULE

Proposed rule change: No longer will an elbow above the shoulders be an automatic flagrant foul as has been the case the past couple years. Officials will now have the ability to use their judgment to determine if the elbow is worthy of a flagrant 2, a flagrant 1, a common foul or no foul out all. When the officials use the monitor to review a situation not called on the floor, the only options are flagrant 2, flagrant 1 or no foul.