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)