Weekend update

Life without Adam Morrison at Gonzaga. A story by CBS Sportsline. Interestingly they go through the story and they only mention one current Gonzaga player (Derek Raivioli). A lazy writer? :-)

Lots of Recruiting news including a UCLA -vs- Clark Francis controversy on the (non)recruitment of SoCal phenom Brandon Jennings, as well as a few more verbals for 2007 and beyond, including two 7-footers making their mind up - at least for now, since verbals are not binding

CHN updates their 144 previews with Southern Illinois, New Mexico State (an all-transfer team), Wichita State, Texas Tech (are they serious?), Arkansas, BYU (nope), FSU, Michigan and GW.

Luke Winn of CNNSI is becoming the new online Andy Katz as his blog is 100% free. Some of the recent topics covered in his blog: Mascot activism and recruiting (Illinois), and old and new feature on Tennessee, UConn and Washington (comparing this vs last year's teams, including some number crunching!).

Andy did you hear about this one? In his blog he talks about teams still trying to complete their schedules, Adidas pulling out of the summer sneaker camps, Jawann McClellan recovery nicely, while Pac-10 foe Stanford has Collins-twins flashbacks once again as Brook Lopez is sidelined after a back surgery.

CSTV Daily News is as always jam-packed with news from various universities such as UW, Nova, Marshall, Brown, Marquette, Purdue, Auburn, Indiana, George Mason (featured on ESPNU's Midnight Madness on October 13), Iowa, USF, Cal, Dusquene, Kansas and a lot more. Some topics covered: Ryan Amoroso (former Marquette player famous for a high-scoring game at the Alaska Shootout in November 2005) lands at San Diego State (07-08 eligible) and recently renewed Steve Fisher. More schedules are announced. USC honors the memory of Ryan Francis with a scholarship. A Duke-vs-Carolina U-Wire duo of stories: Wes Miller as a senior leader and Puke's much-ado-about-nothing story on the choice of captains for this season. Bucknell celebrates 100% graduation rates.

CSTV's Bryan Graham has a jam-packed write-up covering scheduling in the A-10, BYU at UCLA, a trivia question, Morrow's injury, two for the Chowd BBall hall of fame, and Phil Martelli's recruiting.

Graduation rates should be taken with Tylenol. An increase of just 1%. But NCAA Czar Myles Brand spins the numbers just like any CEO would. Men's basketball again had the worst graduation rate of any sport, 59 percent, but the NCAA number was much higher than the federal figure (45 percent)

Morgan Wooten (not to be confused with John Wooden), is honored by the Basketball Hall of Fame

You can't keep Gene Keady away! He is back! as a member of the NIT selection committee that is :-)

The Hofstra Pride gets some love at CBS Sportsline.

Gary Parrish (not Paris, no relation to Paris Hilton), blogs about two Alaska Fairbanks players stealing laptops. Yes laptops, following the example of the UConn duo of last year. This will probably turn Alaska Fairbanks into a complete cupcake during the Alaska Shootout preseason tourney on ESPN (week of thanksgiving - feast week). And a look at his mailbag with more drama and bickering as usual

As if that wasn't bad enough for the NCAA hoops image, and for Iowa given the much publicized Pierce case, two potential starters of the 2006-2007 Iowa team, Mike Henderson and prep-brewed Tyler Smith were charged with theft at Dillard's. I'm sure Steve Alford emphrasized stealing during the game, but probably not this time of stealing... Double standards are usually the case in these situations where the coach has some disgression. Usually the more talented a player and the more PT/contributions, the more lenient a coach gets :-)

And now some good news, Harvey Perry has recovered from his injury and expects to have a nice season at UW (Washington Huskies).

Mike DeCourcy looks into the Big East Monster's eyes. While the numeric comparison is valid (8 tourney teams), the percentage is nowhere near what the ACC used to get (7 out of 9). I guarantee there is no way the Big East can get near that percentage (12 out of 16). So it's not a bed of roses by any means.

Seth Davis covers the story of Wisconsin's Greg Stiemsma and his battle with depression, an overall positive story, showing that the sports world is improving on social issues, and treating depression like a medical condition instead of a social stigma...

Steve Fisher is building a new empire in LoCal? Maybe so! He just got a new five year deal. He is currently 105-106. Had Marcus Slaughter stayed for another year...

InsideHoops has lot of news from a local perspective, including an update on the Dusquene injured players and lots of recruiting news

Surprised Bobby Cremins got out of retirement (TV analyst) and ogt the job at the College of Charleston? Well not as big of a surprise when you consider that he was a TV analyst for some of the SoCon games, so he was quite familiar with the teams and the conference.