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.