Lindy's 2006-2007 College Basketball Preview Magazine is out!

Update September 2007

The 2006-2007 season is long gone, but the 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games are available on DVD!.

And you can get started on the 2007-2008 season by checking our Gigantic 2007-2008 preview of links.

Catch up the latest recruiting rankings

If you are looking this year's edition, the 2007-2008 Lindy's Magazine preview review is ready!.


The original 2006-2007 review
The Lindy's Sports 2006-2007 College Basketball preview magazine is out! I spotted it at Borders Bookstores today, with a list price of $6.99 + tax, on August 31, 2006! Yet another sign the new season is just around the corner!

And now I will put on my Magazine Reviewer hat, and as a self-appointed authority on the topic, I am writing a review blog-style:

Comprehensive Review
* The review will be divided in two parts.
* The first part covers the first half of the magazine: the special features, player rankings, etc, along with the recruiting pages in the back
* The second part covers the meat of the magazine: conference-by-conference and team-by-team analysis.


Part One: Grade: A+
A great selection of features by Lindy's Sports! Starts on page 8:

Top 40 teams, with the Top 25 teams getting a three-paragraph overview. Nice! Mid-majors in full force!

A look at the Vegas sneaker camp situation. Good choice of a topic!

Short stories on Maggie Dixon and Mike Sutton

Many Top 10s: JuCos of 2006, Freshman of 2006, Class of 2007, Under-appreciated college players, Shooters, Tranfers

All Coaching changes listed

Ranking of the 31 conferences

Six dates to remember (tourneys and single-games to mark in your calendar!)

Field of 65 projections

Five great defenders

A long story on the state of the Big 12 (half the teams have new coaches), including a full page on Bob Huggins (nicely done by the way!), and a story on Bob Knight

Feature story on Florida as the national champions

Frank Burlison takes a look at the touted freshmen of the 2006 class

Story on UCLA and Ben Howland

Top 25 players per position (five pages total!) Nice!

Top backcourts and top frontcourts (four pages total) Nice!

Four pages on Women's Hoops

Recruiting wise: Top 25 classes of 2006, Top 50 incoming freshmen in 2006, Top 100 prospects of 2007, and half a page overview of the summer camps


Part Two Overall Grade: B-

Conference pages: Grade: B+ The conferences are in two groups: major and non-majors. Conferences are listed alphabetically in each of the two groups. The major conferences (11 total) get two pages of coverage each, followed by individual team pages. Those two pages include a general preview, a big table with three columns offering Lindy's quick hitters on each team, an analysis of recruits/newcomers per team, top returning player statistics (scorers, rebounders, etc), Lindy's all-conference teams (total of 15 players), and Lindy's top players in various categories. The smaller conferences get a third of a page (one column out of three) with obviously a lot less content, followed by individual team pages with obviously less information (except for the Top 40 teams).

Team pages: Grade: C+ The Top 40 teams get a full page to themselves and they are listed in ranking order. The unranked teams are listed alphabetically. Teams outside the Top 40 from the top eleven conferences get half a page. Teams from low/mid-major conferences are six per page (three columns of two each). But kudos to Lindy's for printing returning starters, key reserves and newcomers for each mid-major team! They managed to squeeze all that while having six teams per page. Nice touch! (Note: The low grade is because of the first two shortcomings below).


Shortcomings

Rosters of teams are not complete. They do not even claim they are rosters. They call them "Key Players". Some players are mentioned in the text preview, but they are not listed in the roster (errr Key Players list). Bad! Bad! Bad!

Players numbers (jersey numbers) are not printed. Bad! Bad! Bad!

Because the magazine is published so early it is not possible to print the schedules. Lindy's will make them available online and you can be request a printed copy after Oct 15.


Recommendation

I recommend this magazine unless you must have complete rosters or rosters with the jersey numbers printed: this magazine does not have them. But they do have a nice selection of features, and those alone make it worth the price. The magazine should also receive credit for giving the mid-majors some more respect!


Comments or Corrections?
Please feel free to post them as comments or send an email :-)

Supporting the blog/review
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Mid-week recap (today's theme: jaded)

Gary Parrish chimes in on the Mike Montgomery firing. My two cents: I wonder if any college will now fire its current coach so they can get Mike Montgomery. Of course this type of behavior would cause uproar at the college level since it is more about education (at least in theory), while the NBA is all business and all about winning rings.

The 144 previews continue at CHN with Rice, Miami-Ohio, and Fresneck State

Vance Wahlberg and the Pepperdine Waves continue to generate buzz with their style of play. No doubt the Mike D'Antoni offense and George Karl's decision to switch to a similar offense will help generate even more buzz for Pepperdine. It looks like Gonzaga may have found a nemesis at the PR-level :-)

DeCourcy dishes on text messaging My two cents: The NCAA, comprised of people who are probably afraid to touch modern electronics, has been painfully slow in dealing with the text messaging bombardment of recruits. But when the NCAA gets its paws on text messaging, they are surely going to come up with convoluted, possibly impractical, legislation. Unless of course the neo-NCAA attitude of Myles Brand rubs off some common sense on the frozen-in-evolution committee members who historically come up with all the Orwellian "crapola" rules.

Tyrone Nelson gets reinstated to New Mexico State. If you can score and rebound, you get reinstated. If you can't, then you transfer to a Division 2 school the next day and a week later they use your scholarship to sign a JuCo or a 20 year old prep-school freshman. (jaded is today's theme)

Day 7 of Pitino practice-blogging. On top of that, there's more coverage at the Cardinals CSTV-branded web-page with audio clips (Real Audio player format) from Pitino, Palacios and T-Will (Terrence Williams). But back to the blog: In today's episode Rick Bloggino talks about his offense, the freshmen's defense (or lack thereof), Brad Gianiny's turnovers, recruiting goals (2-3 players, starting Sept 9), and a whole lot more.

Speaking of the media, USC's Tim Floyd was featured in a recent episode of Comcast Sports Net (CSN)'s Out of Bounds. He had a whole segment to himself (7 minutes) where he talked about NCAA tourney expansion. He also said that he will kick NBA first rounders out of college and into the NBA Draft if they are guaranteed first rounders because of the financial security of such a move. Is he talking to OJ Mayo and Billy Walker via the media? :-)

Speaking of whom, OJ Mayo returns to his native Huntington West Virginia for the 2006-2007 high school basketball season. I'll take a wild guess here and predict that Billy Walker will follow. I wouldn't be surprised if some of their HS or AAU teammates follow along :-) And assuming this goes through, will this put the Mountaineers back in the hunt (no pun intended) for Mayo and Walker?

Looking for a new coach? Mike Montgomery is now available!

As speculated, the Monty and Warriors marriage was not to last. Now Mike Montgomery is available, although he may not want to get back into coaching right away, since he is presumably financially secure.

And the Warriors do a flashback, back comes Nellie! Oh Nellie! Here comes Nellie! After all, the chaotic run and gun offense is back in fashion. So this may have been a case of hiring Nellie because he was available and willing, and not because they had enough of Monty just yet.

Yahoo Sports story

Mike DeCourcy analyzes the situation, in his basketball blog

Daily News - Tuesday

The Blue Ribbon Basketball Yearbook is accepting pre-orders for the 2006 edition of the book expected to ship in October. Yes basketball fans, the new season is just around the corner! You can also order previous editions at half price.

The good people at Blue Ribbon have just started a new basketball blog as well with an update on the status of the upcoming 26th edition of the Yearbook.

Day 6 of practice at the Rick Pitino blog. Pitino is looking at a big starting lineup for the Canadian trip with McGee, T-Will, Palacios, Huffman and Farley (Jenkins and Padgett are injured and won't play). Pitino is also touching up on the once-controversial issue (in Louisville at least) of T. Farley which Pitino was accused of pushing out. Pitino says "many of my former assistant coaches... wanted to write off T. Farley ... let them transfer out for their benefit ...". Hmmm, wasn't Pitino who kicked Farley off the team for a minor violation last year? :-) In retrospect he thinks he should have redshirted Farley and Huffman last year. Pitino continues to be bullish on this season, partly because of the additional benefit of this pre-season labor day trip to Canadia. Many potential recruits are watching these practice sessions as Pitino is looking for a couple more players for the 2007 class.

Another OJ Mayo story, not on this college commitment, but on his high school commitment for 2006-07. This time it may be Huntington, West Virginia (the state, not the team). Billy Walker, also a Huntington native, is likely to follow him there if eligible there.

The Big (Y)east sprawls all over ESPN. ESPN will produce almost all Big East basketball games, 139 of 144, with the remaining five going to CBS. 60+ of them will be on ESPN/ESPN2, with the rest on the other ESPN properties (ABC, ESPNU, Classic, ESPN Plus/Regional, Full Court). The deal has been extended to 2013 so if any one TV network had Big East hopes, well forget about it!

Great news for UAB, reports CBS Sportsline. Jeremy Mayfiled is eligible to play!

Seth Davis revisits Hoop Dreams

Gary Parrish thinks: practice starts October 13, Derrick Rose narrows his list (allegedly to DePaul, UCLA, Kansas, Indiana and Memphis) - as if Bill Self needs another point guard! (Where is Illinois in the list?). Wisconsin returns from Italy, Reggie Theus deals with the Ty Nelson situation, the new half-a-billion arena at Louisville, the reasons behind Donovan's decision not to take the $300,000 contract extension now, and the recruiting of Anthony Randolph. Gary also digs into his mailbag and finds emails talking about diploma mills, racism, gluttony, religion, negative recruiting, and a lot more.

Monday Night Hoops

Technically it is Tuesday, but who cares :-)

144 previews at CHN continue with Fresno State and Western Kentucky

Day 5 at the Pitino blog, and the PHD attitude is back, Pitino is gushing about the effort level and the improvement of individual players. Pitino also mini-interviews David Padgett and Brandon Jenkins (!) and both talk in detail about their injuries. Pitino is now looking at a possible big line-up, with Palacios at the 3 and T-Will at the 2. The point guard position looks like a battle between McGee and Edgar Sosa. Derrick Caracter's weight today: 296. For details on each of the above topics and a whole lot more visit the Pitino blog!

Hoopville talks a new $2.5 million practice facility for the Tennessee basketball teams.

Andy Katz will be back on Friday Sept 1st with his semi-free blog.

CSTV Daily News has a handful of new news: Lamar Robertson is transfering from Houston to UNLV, often-injured A. Thierro of Memphis takes advantage of the new "graduate free agent" rule and will play this new season (06-07) for the new hyper-active coach at Dusquene. This opens up one scholarship for Calipari for this season (Jeremy Hunt?) Northwestern got some good news as Ivan Tolic has recovered and will play this new season.

This edition of DeCourcy's Inside Dish talks about Greg Oden's injury (a popular topic it will become in the upcoming weeks), Padgett's injury (this one seems to be more in check), and musings about TeamCanada and lame-duck-status of Ricardo Patton at Colorada.

Rick Pitino coaching in an ancient arena? Not for long. Louisville will move into a new 22,000 modern arena by 2010-11. Goodbye historic Freedom Hall!

The NCAA Field may have not grown to 128 this year, but the Bracket Buster Field will grow to 102 in 2007. The matchups will be announced January 29 in case you want to mark you calendars :)

The mailbag is a popular online feature and Andrew Skwara of Rivals opens his and finds it full of Big East questions.

One more transfers out of SMU leaving headcase coach with seven available scholarships.

Tarkanian's UNLV team In Focus on FSN

FSN's In Focus will feature the Running Rebels team of the 90-91 season. The show repeats multiple times, so check local listings for airtimes.

Weekend rewind

Past and present college basketball players are competing in the World Basketball championship. Among the current players, E. Ibekwe of Maryland (Senegal), Engin Atsur of NC State (Turkey), and Aaron Bruce of Baylor (Australia)

Fran Fraschilla, while being the color analyst of TeamUSA games jokingly took a shot at Boeheim's contributions to TeamUSA, commenting on the fact that TeamUSA rarely plays zone defense. He appeared to be joking but who knows if he has some history with Boeheim (Fraschilla was a coach at Manhattan and StJohns once upon a time)

If you needed any additional evidence of Matt Doherty's attitude problems, just read his blog. Among other brilliant things he said, "SMU is like Duke". Argggg!!! Memo to SMU: Fire him now before sends your program into Division 3!

Clearly in a more professional manner, Rick Pitino's blog has accumulated four days of practice updates, including the Andre McGhee brief visit to the hospital. This is quite an interesting read actually, with more on Derrick Caracter, a diet of bluerries and brussel sprouts (!), high praise for his four-man recruiting class and walk-on shooter Stuart Miller, thinking of emulating the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats style of play, an experimental big-man line-up with Caracter at the 4 and Juan Diego Palacios at the 3 and T-Will at the 2!, bring back the PHD, an hourglass prop, his debut at the Michael Jordan fantasy camp, double practice sessions without AC, going inside out for now, and some turnover psychotherapy!

CHN's 144 previews continue with a mid-major extravaganza of Northern Iowa, Winthrop, St Mary's, Cal and George MASON. George, MASON! George, MASON!

CSTV's daily news are jam-packed with news all over the country, including former Gopher Lawson finding a spot on the coaching staff, Bill Self's walk-on tryouts, a 290-pounder at McNeese State, Arizona's Jawann McClellan's redshirt situation for last year's injuries...

YocoHoops reports of a story on the situation at New Mexico State with Nelson and the implications on Reggie Theus.

Thanks to sfbabasketball for the link!

Thanks to sfbabasketball.blogspot.com for linking to this blog!

Sports Magazines!

A great way to catch-up with sports while away from the TV and the Internet, while at the same time supporting this blog:

Sports Magazines

Hoops Magazines

Catching up with the latest news

Rick Pitino goes blogging. No, not a myspace website with dozens of multimedia files flashing in a chaotically crowded webpage. Rick Pitino will be blogging daily for the 10 days of practice his team is allowed before their foreign trip to Canada on September 1st. Day 1 has been posted already with some incidents: Andre McGhee to the hospital...

YocoHoops.com is back!. Things to read about: The ACC schedule, including a George Mason visit, a turnover by Andy Katz, and a surprise at Memphis: Jeremy Hunt is back!

Andrew Skwara of Rivals.com is quickly becoming a household name among college hoops fans. His latest long post, which is referenced by YocoHoops above as well, covers a lot of things. The main story is Herb Sendek's move out west. Other stories: ACC scheduling, Derrick Caracter weight watch (it's gonna be a popular topic during the season), former Georgia players on the move, Y. Idrissi is tranferring either to Iona (or is it Baylor?); and Kendrick Johnson to a JC.

CHN's 144 previews continue with St Marys, California without Powe(r), George MASON, Marist and Penn.

InsideHoops is a good place to find links to newspaper stories from all over the country

This week's semi-free Andy Katz blog talks about Randolph Morris at KY, Dickerson happy at Tulane (although Gary Williams could use his help right about now), and Tony Barbee goes crazy flying all over the country trying to hold on to UTEP recruits.

As always CSTV's daily news is packed with new news such as basketball schedules announced left and right, new unis at VaTech (Seth Greenberg is always up to something), Chaminade news, former players becomming assistant coaches, foreign tour results for UMass and others, and Billy Donovan delays signing a contract extension.

Hoopville.net reports of ESPN's selection of the 2006-2007 bracketbuster teams. The actual matchups won't be selected until early 2007. A whooping 51 games will be played with 13 of them on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/etc. Jumping on the hot midmajor bandwagon all MVC and CAA teams will participate. (Don't want to miss the next George Mason or Bradley or Wichita State!)

Stare like a zombie, into the TV

FIBA World Championship Basketball on:
* ESPN2/2HD: Live Team USA games mostly
* NBATV: Tape-delayed games (2 additional per day) + reruns of Team USA and earlier games
* FSN and Fox College Sports: rebroadcasts of some of the NBATV broadcasts.

90-minute highlight show of the 2006 Reebok Big Time AAU tourney on CSTV (multiple repeats)

90-minute highlight show of the 2006 Reebok ABCD Camp tourney on CSTV (multiple repeats)

30-minute summer edition of Seth Davis Generation Next at the ABCD Camp on CSTV (multiple repeats)

Also Fox College Sports is showing reruns of the various state championship games. Check local listings.

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A big thank you goes to the visitors who have helped this blog with their purchases!

Monday night Hoops

Always an informative read, the latest edition of Mike DeCourcy's Inside Dish offers a non-update on Greg Oden's injury (he will play when he is 100%, which could be the 2007-08 NBA season ;-)), an update on Padgett's injury, three NCAA basketball players are part of the Canadian national team, and the reason behind Richardo Patton's 2007 non-recruiting.

CHN's 144 previews continues with George[pause]MASON, George[pause]MASON, Marist and Penn.

InsideHoops has a series of updates, including stories on Nebraska and Doc Sandler trying to bring everyone back, Wisconsin's Tour de Roma, OJ Mayo causing a stir in Smalltown-Ohio, revisiting the Jeff Adrien commitment to UConn (no news in the summer), the Brandon Jenkins injury, more money for Jim O'Brien but Ohio State fans are more worried about Greg Oden's injury and the legal/academic issues of some of the Thad Five, Shaheen returns to Seton Hall, and Kentucky gets a big check. InsideHoops is always an informative read :-)

Meanwhile Andy Katz in his semi-free blog reports that Pitt will play Oklahoma State, the appetizer of the Duke-Gonzaga game on December 21st in New York. Pitt even declined the temptation to replace South Carolina with a cupcake on its schedule. The times they are a-changing?

Gary Parrish has some thoughts on Calipari's quest for three new assistants in the next few weeks.

Seth Davis talks about Nolan Richardson, UTEP and Arkansas

Meanwhile the good people at Hoopville.net have resumed their "very latest indeed" news. You will find stories on Nebraska/Doc Sandler, Kansas State, UTEP, Kansas and the NCAA infractions, Wichita State's tough schedule...

Lots of stuff keep the front page of Rivals Hoops busy.

Summer Reading: Legends in Coaching

30 minute interview with Rick Pitino! (CSTV online)

Audio link in the story for a 30-minute interview with Rick Pitino from CSTV/CollegeSports/FansOnly. The interview is in a .ram file. A rather candid interview with Rick Pitino talking about a lot of things including:

the transfers of Chad Millard (Creighton) and Brian Johnson (Mississippi State)

his theory on human psychology and unhappiness (and how it causes freshmen to transfer)

was not impressed by the work ethic of the 05-06 freshmen (on a totally unrelated note most of them are gone). He sort of hinted that other than Millard and Brian Johnson the other transfers were encouraged by the coaching staff. (Pitino forgot to mention that Reggie Theus who recruited them is no longer there :-)

he will focus on shooters when recruiting 2007 and beyond. His current roster has a lot of scorers but he thinks his best shooter is walk-on transfer Will Scott (sat out 2005-06 after transfering from Cornell).

has a total of 18 players

very deep team, will press/run more this year

a long monologue on Derrick Caracter (Character?). His ceiling is the best recruit ever by Rick Pitino. Also talked about his weight and contrasted his situation to Nazr Mohamed.

and a lot more...

This was a very interesting and quite candid interview with Rick Pitino. Highly recommended!

Daily Grind - Friday

The 144 previews at CHN continue with Penn and UAB (Hi Mike Davis!). Thanks to CHN for this great idea of the 144 days of previews :-)

CBS SportsLine has a story on the Wisconsin team as they get read for what they hope is gonna be a special season given all the talent and experience. This was written in anticipation of the Badgers international trip to Italy for a roman holiday :)

In his semi-free blog, Andy Katz sings the praises of Winthrop's Craig Bradshaw who scored 20+ for New Zealand in their last preparation game before the FIBA world championships which you can catch on ESPN2, NBATV, FSN and FoxCollegeSports.

In recent updates to his quasi-free blog, Andy Katz makes a case for UMass being the new A-10 favorite, talks about possible changes to recruiting, Tony Barbee and the assistants. You have to be an ESPN Insider to get the whole story, otherwise you just get the teaser :)

Keep up with the latest business news that affect the world of sports (including college sports) at TheSportsBizBlog.

But if you really want more than just the high-level headlines, then you must visit CSTV's Daily News. There you will find how the foreign trips (tours) are coming along for Pepperdine, Umass, the Big Ten touring teams, and Loyola Illinois. Also stories on possible violations at Notre Dame, more announcements of basketball schedules, and Coach Wooden gets his own post office (!).

Meanwhile the braintrust at ESPN has unveiled their complete Summer Sizzling Top 50. Don't like their choices? You can vote on it! I will have a write-up later this week dissecting the ESPN Sizzling Top 50.

You can follow the Louisville Cardinals Canadian Tour live via the Louisville are radio stations. Complete with pre-game and post-game shows. Also included in the story is an audio soundbyte with Rick Pitino.

CSTV previews five great rematches for the 2006-2007 season. Good read, written by Bryan Armen Graham. The five rematches in 2006-07: Kentucky at North Carolina, Memphis at Tennesse, Washington at Gonzaga, Georgetown at Duke (Beat Duke please!), and UConn at LSU (but without the Tyrus Thomas show). He also mentions about some games being earmarked for CSTV's Retrovision. Not sure if this was just a phrase or CSTV will rebroadcast them as we get closer to the new season. Remember that now as an integral part of CBS Sports they have full access to everything from CBS.

Daily Grind - Friday

Bad news for Louisville fans, Brandon Jenkins may miss the entire season. Ouch :-(

Gary Parrish goes through his hate mail. Apparently this feature was popular enough with Greg Doyell that they carried it over ;-)

Top 100 JuCo players of 2006

Top 100 JuCo players from JucoJunction.com

As you can see most of them have already signed with colleges and will play in the 2006-2007 season. But some of them are available, such as former Alabama guard Albert Webber.

Daily Grind - Thursday

It's almost Friday even, but who cares :-)

Calipari Watch: On the last day (day 3, wednesday) of his stint as BDSSP (Best Damn Sports Show Period) co-host, John Calipari survived the teasing of the other hosts once again. In this episode he talked about the near-fight with John Chaney (12 years ago), and described it as a "heat of the moment" type of thing, and that they have became good friends right after the incident (Chaney participated in his roast a month later). He also mentioned he is getting ready to hit the recruiting trail as he needs "a couple more players" (presumably of the 2007 class)

Not directly related to college basketball, but some college basketball players may be playing at the World Basketball Championships that start tomorrow (depending on your timezone) in Japan. Team USA games will be broadcast on ESPN2, while NBATV and FSN and Fox College Sports will be showing games featuring the other countries. As always, check local listings for details. Some of the games will be live, some of them will be tape-delayed...

144 reviews at CHN continues with Toledo, Penn State and Fordham.

Great story by Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline on how the NCAA crackdown on faux prep schools is going to help junior colleges (aka "JCs" or more commonly known as "community colleges"). The faux prep schools were partially responsible for producing 20+yo freshmen (or NBA lottery picks (eg JR Smith)).

Updated just 11 minutes ago was Greg Parrish's thoughts blog with his comments on the effects of the Thad Five on Ohio State's TV schedule. At least 14 national TV games including 6 on CBS, versus 9/4 last year.

Mike DeCourcy dishes once again, this time on the NCAA and practice bylaws. The new changes were made to level the playing field since some universities operate on the quarter system vs the semester system. Read the story at Yahoo Sports! for all the gory details.

What's in the Big10 mailbag?. You have to open it to find out what Andrew Skwara of Rivals.com has in store for you :)

The Arizona Wildcats are getting ready for action! I kid you not. They have an international trip lined up for September 1-4 (Vancouver, Canada) and that under NCAA rules gets them extra early practices (10 2.5 hour sessions)

On TV: The NCAA and paying athletes debate

ESPN Classic is premiering this week a new "Top 5 reasons you can't blame.." that deals with the NCAA and its refusal to pay student/athletes. As with most things on ESPN Classic it will repeat a few times the next few days. Check local listings :)

For something so short (around 24 minutes without commercials) ESPN did a reasonable job, given that this topic deserves at least 10 hours of debate to do it justice :)

One rising star at ESPN is Reece Davis - he was featured prominently in the documentary making the case for paying student-athlete. The host was Brian Kenny (of ESPN-News).

I will save my opinion for a future post :-)

Daily Grind - Wednesday

John Calipari watch: As promised, here is a short report on John Calipari as a guest-host on the Tuesday edition of Best Damn Sports Show Period (BDSSP): Calipari was sitting in for John Salley. It didn't stop the other hosts from teasing Calipari (I wonder how Coach K would react if he was teased like that!). Calipari gave a "shout out" to DJ Wagner who is attempting to make a comeback to the NBA, and another shout out to Tony Barbee taking over at UTEP. They also showed a short videoclip of Tony Barbee's acceptance speech singing the praises of Calipari. Calipari ended by addressing UTEP fans and promising "we will still beat you when we visit". Not sure if Calipari will stay the whole week or he was doing just two days. Check local listings. BDSSP usually repeats at least once, maybe more depending on what else your local FSN has scheduled for the day/night/week.

The 144 previews at CHN continue with Penn State (a candidate for most surprising team in the Big11 next year), the rebuilding Fordham Rams and Digger Phelp's Notre Dame.

When you are Kentucky, releasing your 2006-07 basketball schedule is national news. Kentucky gets 5 CBS games, 7 ESPN*, 8 regionally syndicated, and 5 on FSN-South (and perhaps FCS). December 9 is the big game with Indiana.

CBS Sportsline reports of a possible extension for Alford (!).

Meanwhile Doc Sandler was hard at work already in Nebraska: Big Aussie Alecs Maric and guard Jamel White agreed to return! This leaves Doc Sandler with two scholarships open for 2006-07.

Flashback moment: NIVEA presents the Freshmen of the Week of the 2005-06 season. Of those only two are now in the NBA (Tyrus Thomas, Shawne Williams). The rest are coming back for the 2006-07 season. This is going to be highly unlikey this year :)

The new Greg Doyell at CBS Sportsline, Gary Parrish, updates his thoughts with tidbits on Kelvin Sampson/Indiana, the NCAA and faux prep schools, the Artesia HS coach and Herb Sendek...

TV reminder: Calipari on Best Damn Sports Show

Calipari was scheduled to appear on the Monday and Tuesday editions of the Best Damn Sports Show Period - aka BDSSP - on FSN. These usually repeat at least a couple of times on FSN, and sometimes they also repeat on FCS (Fox College Sports). So even if you missed it, check local listings. I will report on the Tuesday's edition tomorrow :-)

Daily Grind - Tuesday

CHN 144 previews continues with Notre Dame and Loyola of Chicago.

InsideHoops digs into the Jamarcus Ellis commitment to Kelvin "Indiana" Sampson, Nate McMillan's son's commitment to even-keeled Sendek, Tony Barbee (and Milt Wagner's) move to UTEP, and Calipari's slow-motion search for new assistants (he also lost his director of basketball operations to Pepperdine). Speaking of Pepperdine, Vance Wahlberg is the head coach there, so there is a two-way pipeline it seems as Calipari assimilated the Vance Walhberg offense last year :-)

Speaking of Kelvin Sampson, he got a slap on the wrist by the coaches association. Once their fearless leader standing from a high moral ground and almost rivaling Coach K's smug cloud... He was put on a three-year probation and he lost his Final Four ticket priviledges (!) - as if he can't afford them :-)

TSN's DeCourcy dishes some more this week, predicting a breakout season for DePaul's Wilson Chandler (and I agree with him), an update on the new arena at Virginia, Northern Iowa updates, Providence coaching news, and 06-07 scoring at Miami.

Monday Night ...Hoops

More troubles at Kansas State, but Huggins is innocent. Really! It turns out one of the players currently on the roster and recruited by the previous coach is a registered sex offender. This may make reinstating Cartier Martin even more difficult, but when players score in double-figures, they get more chances :-)

Quite possibly a surprise, former UMass star, and trusted "mentee" of Calipari Tony Barbee is the new coach at UTEP. Yes he will go head to head with Cal 2-3x a year, but it's all fun and games.

Nebraska and Doc Sandler want to make sure the affected assistants at Nebraska and UTEP (read: now unemployed) will be "taken care of" financially.

InsideHoopscovers the UTEP head coach search, OJ Mayo non-commitment news, the new Dusquene coach "firing" half of his team, the Tyler Hughes situation at Kansas State and a lot more.

Even more previews at CHN-144!. Recent additions: Georgia, Albany, Holy Cross, Baylor. Currently at #98, which means we are 98 days from the start of the new season :-)

Weekend Rewind

A rather quiet weekend so far...

More details emerge on Bryson Krueger's dismissal from ASU. Something about arrest, guns and drugs.

InsideHoops has stories on a power struggle at Michigan State, raining money at Tennessee...

Humor attempt: Speaking of ASU, ASU transfer Eric Boateng spent most of last season on Duke's bench. He had so much idle time on the bench he was able to not only start his own clothing company, but also film his own reality show airing now on Sundance, "House of Boetang". Humor attempt ends...

Duke vs North Carolina in August?

Duke vs North Carolina in August? Yes, on FSN. FSN's weekly show "In Focus" focuses on the Duke-Carolina basketball rivarly. The episode repeats multiple times on your local FSN(s) as well as FoxCollegeSports. For viewing times, check local listings as they vary from region to region. Enjoy!

Recap: The Coaching Carousel so far

CBS Sportsline coaching changes

Nice list by CBS Sportsline, with handy links to all the colleges affected by the coaching changes.

Biggest opening right now: UTEP

Forget Princeton here comes the Pepperdine offense!

Well it is really the Vance Walberg offense, but it sounds more cool when you call it the "Pepperdine offense" and it juxtaposes nicely with the "Princeton offense". It also brings out the east-coast/west-coast difference of styles. And the pans on (Pepperdine) Waves and Waves of offense. No doubt this will also bring up discussions about the high-scoring LMU teams of the past.

As you may recall Walberg was a JC coach at the time John Calipari consulted with him and implemented his offense last season. I am being mean here but I am tempted to say "despite Darius Washington and dad trying to mess things up" :-)

Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline has a story on this. Parrish's story has extensive details on how Calipari was won over... This is a great story. A must read for all serious basketball fans!!!!!

ESPN will have a few Big West games, but if you have access to the regional FSNs or Fox College Sports (FCS) you will get to see quite a few Pepperdine games on TV next year.

Discover new sites and blogs!

This is a good time to discover some new college basketball websites, blogs and message boards, while patiently waiting for the start of the 2006-07 season.

Here are some interesting spots:

Last updated in late July, MarchMadnessAllSeason has lots of interesting rants and ramblings on OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, post-NBADraft ramblings, and his early post-Draft Top 25 for 2006-2007

The world according to KU fans in the www.phogblog.com. Recent topics: Kyle Singler visiting KU during Late Night with Roy Williams (oooops! with Bill Self), the upcoming Florida-Kansas game (#1 vs #2?), and a lot more.

Loved or hated Gregg Doyel at CBS Sportsline? Here comes a new blogger, Gary Parish. His blog and his thoughts are here

Discussions, debates, news and rumors at the www.basketballboards.net message board

Comprehensive TV/Radio/Audio schedule of college basketball games at CHN (CollegeHoopsNet).

And last but not least, rediscover Dick Vitale! Shockingly his latest update has no mention of Duke! Posted just two days ago, he talks about the top five things to look for in 06-07, which includes Bob Knight becoming the winningest coach, Florida trying to repeat, Carolina and the super-diaper-dandies, the new wave of coaches in the Big12, and next George Mason. Dick Vitale home page. Also of note is Dick Vitale's preseason Top 40.

Daily Grind - Friday

Rivals writer Andrew Skwara has an interesting story on attendance records andthe MVC. Creighton (#20 nationwide) leads the way with an average of 13,900 humanoids per game. Wichita State (#34 nationwide) brought in 10,435. On average the MVC was just a couple of hundred fans behind the Pac10. And they may as well surpass the Pac10 next season given the success of the MVC. Skwara also writes about the BigEast 2-million-club, and he also has a mini-interview with new Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, UConn planning a three-guard lineup (but no, Ben Gordon and Ray Allen are not eligible).

The good people at Insidehoops bring us more stories today, including the dismissal of Bryson Krueger from ASU (ironic since they recently lost Kevin Kruger to UNVL), two Wisconsin players regaining eligibility, Jim Calhoun's all-star game, and tidbits on Marquette, Indiana/Sampson, SoCal recruits, and whole lot more!

The 144-days previewers, aka CollegeHoopsNet have a story from the Oregonian on a work-in-progress for a Pac10-Big12 challenge. If you recall a few months ago Andy Katz was talking about the possibility of an SEC-Big12 challenge but he said that they were running into serious scheduling issues.

UTEP the new Tulsa (coaching factory)

Once upon a time Tulsa was considered a coach factory (Tubby Smith, Bill Self, Buzz Peterson, etc). But that came to an end when their previous coach (Philips?) imploded and got fired.

Now UTEP is starting to look like the next coach factory. First it was Gillespie (to Texas A&M), now it is Doc Sandler (to Nebraska). One other similarity: they both come from the job-hopping coaching tree of Bill Self :-)

Daily Grind - Thursday

As announced on ESPN-News, the ESPN will be used on all ABC Sports broadcasts. Apparently (and obviously) the ESPN name is more recognizable than ABC-Sports. Do they pay those marketing people seven-figures to make master-of-the-obvious derivations? I can do that for free :-)

Who will be the next UTEP coach? Will he be one of Doc Sandler's assistants? A "BCS"-assistant? An unemployed coach with a recognizable name? A mid-major high-riser?

Recent additions to the 144 previews at CHN: Baylor and Rutgers

Daily Grind - Wednesday

The Huskers get a new coach. From the tree of job-hoppers. The tree that includes Bill Self, Billy Gillespie and now former UTEP coach Doc Sandler. If I was the Nebraska AD I would start another search because Doc won't be there when something slightly better opens up.

The Coaching Carousel Spins and it stops at: UTEP.

Not expected to cause a spin, McNeeseState filled its opening with an assistant from NW-State.

CollegeHoopsNet continues their previews, recently adding Iowa, Drake (what a coincidence, they are back to back!), Utah, Dayton, Cincinatti (what a coincidence, they are back to back!). Enjoy their previews :)

InsideHoops has a few interesting stories, Cheney and the Hall of Fame, the new Nebraska coach, recruiting updates, Penn State, and more

CBS Sportsline has the battle of Los Angeles as their cover story, with USC battling UCLA.

Also at CBS Sportsline, Sonny Weems, a touted high-scoring JC transfer (we heard that one before) passes his algebra exam and gets closer to putting on a Razorback uniform.

Rivals amps their coverage

Rivals.com has upgraded their coverage. From a revamped basketball front page, to detailed weekly reports. Recent stories spotlight Mike Anderson at Missouri, the drama between Idrissi and Georgia, intl trips and of course transfers. They also have a story on Yahoo Sports highlighting Nevada, Romar's success with the U18 team, and more fallout from the Kelvin Sampson extravaganza, and Vegas Casinos "previewing" the 2006-07 season. Not only Keith Clark hasn't met academic requirements yet, but Capel's recruit Bobby Maze has eligibility questions.

Blogging the Big East

A nicely done, comprehensive blog featuring the Big East is http://bigeastbasketball.blogspot.com/. Their latest story is a look into the line-ups for the 2007-08 season, helping fans understand the recruiting needs of their teams for the 2007 class and beyond.

(Yes, the 06-07 season hasn't even started yet, but recruiting is always one year ahead since almost all of the 2006 class recruits have been signed and are in school already).

USAToday Summer Report on major conferences

USA Today has rather nice mid-summer reports from all the teams of the 12 biggest conferences. Most of the stories were updated in August/July, so they are fresh. A great resource for catching up with the various conferences and teams. Enjoy a summer preseason preview of the 2006-2007 season :-)

For even more details, click on a team's name and you will see a even more details :-)

USA Today list of all conferences
Pac-10
ACC
etc...

New book from Lute Olson of Arizona

Arizona's hall of fame basketball coach has a brand new book coming out October 3, 2006, called "Lute: Seasons of my life".

Other book specifics:
* foreword by John Wooden
* 304-pages
* hardcover book
* pre-order price is $16.47 at Amazon and qualifies for free shipping (with orders over $25)

Daily grind - the weekend

New Inside Dish from TSN's Mike DeCourcy. In this installment, Mike talks about Shakur/Arizona, Barry Collier/Nebraska, the new point guards at Boston College and Kansas, Pierre Niles, a Josh Shipp update, and the new transfer PG at Bradley.

CHN has added more previews: Cincinatti, Nebraska(ouch!), NAU, and Mississippi State (where was the NBA age limit when they were signing lottery picks)

InsideHoops talks about more troubles for the highly touted 2006 Ohio State recruiting class, more troubles for Matt Doherty at SMU (I TOLD YOU SO, SMU!), Dayton roughing it up schedule-wise, the salary of NCState's Sidney Lowe, Josh McRoberts surgery and an invitation to participate in their free basketball forums

Meanwhile YocoHoops promises to return to full form on August 21. Their latest post is on Mark Fox and Nebraska.

Calipari on Jim Rome

Media-savvy and ESPN-friendly John Calipari is making the rounds again. This time he was an in-studio guest on "Jim Rome is Burning" on Thursday on ESPN.

There were no shocking revelations during the interview, but Cal did talk about last season and the horrible game against UCLA, as well as the temptations of the NC-State job opening (going head to head with Coach K and Ole Roy every night).

Thanks to CollegeHoopsFromEurope

Thanks to CollegeHoopsFromEurope for adding links to this blog. CollegeHoopsFromEurope is a brand new college basketball blog from across the pond. It has some interesting posts already...

Katz profiles Thad Matta and the Buckeyes

Thad Matta's major claim to fame is signing Greg Oden and an impressive class in 2006. He is also working on a great 2007 class. But he should also be given credit for his 04-05 and 05-06 seasons. He clearly exceeded expectations, especially with the 04-05 team dealing with the Jim O'Brien drama as well as personnel issues.

On the topic of Greg Oden's return, Matta said "there is no timetable".

Katz also reveals that the ESPN Sizzling Summer Top 50 is coming out later in August and that Ohio State will be ranked slightly below #6. After all, we don't even know when/if Greg Oden will play...

The Coaching Carousel - the ESPN story

ESPN has a series of stories dealing with this year's biggest coaching carousel spin, the Kelvin Sampson to IU move. After jamming the phone lines in Oklahoma with three billion phone calls to potential recruits, Kelvin Sampson decided to escape his NCAA mess in the basketball-crazed state of Indiana. But you knew that already :)

Andy Katz looks at the assistants coaches who get left behind when the carousel spins. He also looks at the domino effect of filling up assistant-coach openings. And he profiles Jeff Capel as he takes over OU at 31 and tries to clean up Sampson's mess.

The Andy Katz semi-free blog

The Andy Katz blog now has once again become part of ESPN Insider, but they do post a couple of teaser paragraphs every day to lure the readers in. The Andy Katz blog.

In today's edition he compares and contrasts Nebraska and Creighton.

Speaking of ESPN, this week's ESPNU Summer Session covers the Patriot League and spotlights Bucknell.

The UConn Thuggies are at it again

From assistants getting in trouble with the law, to players stealing laptops, to Calhoun bullying everyone around, UConn can easily be a successful reality drama on TV. LaFleur goes HBO because they wouldn't register his child in a recreation program

The Daily Grind - Thursday

The 2006 Maui brackets have been announced! One more step closer to the new season basketball friends :) UCLA gets the overall #1 seed as they face Chaminade, and then the winner of Kentucky-DePaul. DePaul may be a big surprise this season :) The other side features Memphis-Oklahoma (Memphis lost two early to the NBA, while the Sooners lost three super-recruits because of Kelvin Sampson). The winner of that faces Purdue-GeorgiaTech. This will be an exciting Georgia Tech team with Dwight Howard's HS point-guard Javaris Critterton and Thaddeus Young joining the current group of athletic players. I am guessing a UCLA-Kentucky semifinal is what ESPN wanted :) And for those planning ahead, the 2007 Maui Invitational field includes Duke, Arizona State, Illinois, LSU, Marquette, Oklahoma State, Princeton and Chaminade. I am sure the organizers will place Herb Sendek in the same bracket as Duke for obvious reasons :)

The Iowa State troubles continue. Euro-center Jiri Hubulek will sit out the first 6 games because he received improper benefits. He received food (Majerus was not involved), a pair of pants (was it Walmart-generic or Armani?) and the use of a car (Yugo or Escalade?)

The Jim O'Brien vs Ohio State drama continues as a judge awards him with over $2 million. Ohio State plans to appeal. It even made the rotation of news on ESPN News (TV channel) yesterday. But Ohio State fans are probably more worried about the injury of Greg Oden.

If you must read only one college basketball website daily in the summer, InsiderHoops is my favorite. They have good coverage of the daily happenings. In today's edition, you will learn about Gonzo getting his 7th commit since taking over at Seton Hall (Gonzo has been wanting that big NY/NJ gig for years, so he better make the most of it), Spencer Hawes and the all-of-a-sudden big frontline at Washington, the Croatian invasion continues at Northwestern, lots of pub on the new coach at Nebraska, and a new diet craze sweeping the Kansas State basketball program.

Today's 2006-07 preview at CHN is Kent State, which becomes even more relevant as their coach (Jim Christian) is frequently mentioned as a candidate for the Nebraska opening.

Daily News at InsideHoops.com

InsideHoops.com has daily news coverage of college basketball in their traditional style. http://www.insidehoops.com/ncaa/. Today's stories include Damien Harris transfering out of Bruce Pearl's Purple Madness, Pitt hopes for recruiting breakthroughs with new hire which could escalate into a war between Dixon and Huggins over Michael Beasly and Herb Pope, while Vandy will visit Puerto Rico, and Eddie Sutton's name has resurfaced as potential HC candidate! More details at http://www.insidehoops.com/ncaa/

The Daily Grind: Tuesday

Jeff Goodman of FoxSports reports two new developments in the Louisville program: Brian Johnson is transferring out and considering GW or FSU, while Chad Milard has chosen Creighton. Millard also considered Vandy (something about Princeton offense and big men who like to shoot from the perimeter (aka small-forward-wannabes :)) and Northeastern. The MVC teams are receiving dividends from their 05-06 NCAA campaign :)

Meanwhile the coaching carousel may take an August spin, with troubled Nebraska coach Barry Collier ejecting to take over the AD job at Butler. Perhaps he will use the Isiah Thomas method there to become their new basketball head coach next year: Get the basketball coach fired and then take over :-) Who will replace Collier? Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com mentions the names of Mark Fox, Christian (of Kent State), McClain (Wyoming), Majerus (!) - an interesting pairing, Dana Altman and a number of assistant coaches. Randy Ayers was also mentioned in another report.

McNeese State fired its coach as well but I doubt that is going to cause a major spin of the coaching carousel :)

Meanwhile the post-season NIT is going back to 32 teams (currently at 40 teams). 32 teams creates a nicely balanced schedule. 40 teams required an opening around which made the brackets rather ugly ;-) Despite the reduction, the regular season conference champions receive an automatic NIT bid if they don't get an NCAA bid. Seven of those were handed out in 2006 post-season NIT.

Fast-forward to the beginning of this season and the Guardians Classic will be no more. It will be renamed. The new name chose is FUNNY and SILLY! The College Basketball Experience. Will Jimmy Hendrix and the Experience perform? :-) The format remains the same, four regional sites Nov 12-15 with the final four Nov 20-21 in Kansas City with coverage on the ESPN family of networks.

And a fresh game on TV! The Texas high school coaches basketball all-star game was played on Monday night and it is being rebroadcast on various regional FSN and Fox CollegeSports stations. It features players who will play in the 2006-07 NCAA basketball season, highlighted by the battle of the big big big men, Josh Lomers of Baylor vs Dexter Pitman of Texas. 600+lbs!

144 days 144 previews at CHN is ON!

The good people at CHN (collegehoopsnet.com) have been working hard already at their famous "144 days" season previews. Believe it or not they are already at number 102. They posted 40+ previews already. The 2006-07 basketball season is getting closer :-)

http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/preview/index.htm

144 days, 144 previews!

Also don't miss their 2006-07 Preseason Top 40 posted right after the NBA Draft. I'll let you guess who they predict as their preseason #1 :-)

2006-07 and beyond Transfers List

Mr Goodman of FoxSports has a big table tracking down all the transfers eligible for the 2006-07 season and beyond. http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/5491136

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