Monday Hoops

Majerus Watch

Rick, if you are reading this, please pull a "USC" and return to the TV analyst job! Much more comfortable and lots of food! Come on!

A BenMaller.com link posts a rumor that Saint Louis may be looking into a change of conference. And who can blame them? How close is Saint Louis (the gateway to the West!) to the Atlantic Ocean? Which makes one wonder, who were the brilliant people who decide to move to the A-10 in the first place and why haven't they been fired already? The city of Saint Louis features "Arch Madness", the Valley of Darkness (Missouri Valley) conference tourney every year. Saint Louis is in the middle of the MVC conference. And guess what? Majerus's style of play would be a good match for the defensive-minded grind and grind style of the MVC. It looks like a good match to me! And speaking of changes in the Atlantic-10 (14 teams) I think 2-4 teams really do not belong to the A-10 level. Look at their records and RPI/SOS in the last few years, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Time for some good old fashioned "soccer relegation", where the bottom 2-4 teams get sent to the NEC or the MEAC :-) You can thank me later Atlantic-14!

Jeff Goodman thinks that the Majerus hire is not a good idea for Saint Louis.

The Majerus contract is believed to be in the $1 million ballpark per year, for six year with rollovers (no, not 401k rollovers).

Majerus will have seven scholarships to hand out in the next two years, although judging from his previous record at Utah expect a constant outflow of players because of "clash of personalities".

ESPN story on the Majerus hire

Did you know? Majerus was offered an assistant coach job in the NBA by George Karl of the Denver Nuggets last year.


Latest News Recap

One more national writer creates his own blog. This time Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports. Some of the stories there posted today: Billy Donovan trying to sign Jai Lucas, Lute Olson to officially rehire Kevin O'Neill to toughen up the team and especially their defense (the rumors were not unfounded), and the two front-runners for the assistant opening at Pitt are one of Hurley's sons (Danny of St Benedicts) and former A-10 and Charleston head coach Tom Herrion. Also Perry Clark (formerly of Miami) is involved in the Texas A&M Corpus Cristi. Once upon a time just a spring break destination, now perhaps becoming a basketball destination for in-state players .

And speaking of the Arizona move, remember the last time a team made such a move? They won two national championships shortly thereafter! I am talking about Florida hiring defensive-minded former Clemson head-coach Larry Shyatt. Without him, Billy the Kid would have still be struggling with 2nd round exits to Manhattan and Weber State and Vermont and (insert your favorite single-bid conference mid-major).


NBA Draft

The NBA Draft early entry deadline was on Sunday, so in the next few hours the last few early entrant names will trickle in. Two more juniors have declared but won't sign with an agent. Doing the "testing the waters" thing: Bo McCalebb of New Orleans, and Oklahoma State's James Off Curry

An assessment of the draft chances of the NBA draft early entries by Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports.


Waiting for the 2007-2008 season?

Catch up for the latest recruiting news and issues at Recruiting Wars

Can't wait for the next season to start? Neither can the fans at this Louisville board! A Sea of Blue has a link to a message board discussion at Rivals. The original poster thinks that the 2007-2008 Louisville Cardinals will be the best team 1 through 12 in the country, and it reminds him of the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats of Rick Pitino.

Jeff Goodman at FoxSports updates his Top 25+5 for the 2007-2008 season. For comparison purposes, here is his previous Top 25

Andy Katz of ESPN looks at the his Top 25 teams, surpring everyone with his #1 choice, the Memphis Tigers of John Calipari. The story has a long segment on the Memphis Tigers, and a short paragraph for each of the other top 25 teams. He called them "draft dodgers" because none of their players declare for the NBA draft (not that any of them were a surefire first rounder). Katz may have been smoking something, as the Zags are #11, Pitt #17, and Davidson #25. But then again, this is so early, just about anything goes, and everyone will forget it long before the new season starts.

If you missed the debut of the 2007 NCAA Final Four highlights on CSTV, you may not be alone. The softball game before it went into multiple overtimes (they call it "extra innings"), so the final four highlights started one hour later. But don't worry, it will repeat again, on Wednesday at 3pm PT/6pm ET on CSTV. But beware, there is a live softball game right before it!

Majerus please pull a USC and return to TV!

Sad news as Rick Majerus will no longer share his basketball knowledge with the millions of TV viewers, but will instead take over the Saint Louis basketball program. CHN story. He will be introduced officially at 10am (Saint Louis time) on Monday. Probably ESPN News will cover the press conference. Listen to me Majerus, remember why you ejected from the USC job? The same reasons apply here! Eject! Eject! Return to TV please!!!!!! Kidding aside, this is a huge huge huge get for Saint Louis as they get the best basketball coach pound for pound :-) Okay, weight puns aside, they have a chance to become a power team with Majerus, a big city, and a new shiny arena on the horizon. If Majerus was able to do what he did at Utah, where he was limited in recruiting (Sorry Utah fans, but Utah is not a particularly attractive destination for most recruits), imagine what he can do in a bigger market in the middle of the country!

TV update!. Don't miss the national debut of the 2007 Official NCAA Final Four highlights on CSTV featuring Florida, Ohio State, UCLA and Georgetown. This is a promo of the upcoming DVD that will be released soon. CSTV listings can be a bit flaky, so double-check to be sure. The program's name is "NCAA Final Four Highlights". Air times scheduled so far:
* Sunday April 29, 4pm PT/7pm ET, 2am PT/5am ET (early Monday morning)
* Wednesday May 2, 3pm PT/6pm ET.

A fellow blogger, Kevin Hayward at All on the Field has written about the NCAA, recruiting, and text messaging.

Dick Vitale thinks all the players at Kentucky are named Jamal (by TheSportsGuys).

All you can eat Fridays!

Bruce Weber gets lucky and gets Michael Jordan's son! An update on the TV stations planning to carry the King James Shooting Stars classic (live and tape-delayed). And more news on commitments and such. All that and more at Recruiting Wars

Goodbye Text Messaging, Hello Carrier Pigeons! The NCAA passed a ban of text messaging starting in August. The issue will be revisited in 2008. This was a great move as it is a pro-student-athlete move. Obviously the coaches are going to whine and bitch, but they are (obviously) biased in this issue.

The Majerus Watch: STLtoday.com reports that the latest on St Louis flirting with Rick Majerus... The salary ballpark is $1 million. St Louis is determined to become a regular Top 50 program.. Fran Frachilla's name was also mentioned in one article. I guess St Louis is going the ESPN route. How about Steve Lavin? Digger Phelps?

Incidentally, rumors that a special all-you-can-eat card for every restaurant in the greater Saint Louis area is included as a bonus in the Majerus contract are completely made-up (by me).

FireBilly.com discusses a report out of Minnessota that Tubby Smith is not going to add any new players to the 2007-2008 TimberGophers roster. I'm not a TimberGophers fan, but I say "Ouch!". But that's good news for Penn State and Northwestern as both of them may finish in the Top 10 of the Big 11.

A contract is not really a contract. Beilein agrees to a $1.5 million buyout of his $2.5 million buyout. I wish my "bill senders" agreed to such buyout terms of my payments due :-) I'll be more than happy to take a 40% discount! Wouldn't you? Story at FoxSports

Here comes the Triangle! SoCal will have one more team playing the triangle offense, assuming former Kansas State head coach Jim Woolridge decides to implement it at his new job, UC-Riverside. Jeff Goodman story at FoxSports. According to the story the other two finalists for the job were two ex's: Brad Holland (Sun Diego) and Jan Van Scandal-Kolff (Bonnies)


NBA Draft 2007.

A big shocker to no one was Sean Williams (formerly of Boston Collage) declaring for the NBA draft and possibly a first rounder. According to the FoxSports story he failed "multiple drug tests". Apparently we have solved all the problems in the world, so we have to punish people because of what "herbs" they use (assuming the failed tests were "herbs", not anything more severe)... He has (obviously) hired an agent... As you may recall Sean Williams was a late bloomer during his recruiting process, and a number of high profile schools scrambled to get him (including Arizona) but BC got first dibs.

Gabe Pruitt is also entering the NBA draft, but not hiring an agent.

ESPN.com reports that Dominic James will enter the NBA draft, but not sign with an agent.

Ooops! I almost forgot, Brandon Rush has declared for the NBA draft, but won't get an agent just yet. ESPN.com story

More draft links and rumors at HoopsHype.com


Reading is Fundamental Segment. The official 2007 NCAA Men's Final Four Records Book (Ncaa Final Four Tournament Records) (Paperback) is shipping from Amazon for $10.85. 249 pages of stats for you stat-fans (and you know who you are!)... And if that's not enough, there is a companion book, Official 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Records Book (Ncaa Mens Basketball Records) (Paperback) for $11.96 and 409 pages.

Throwdown Thursday

Latest ESPN.com headlines and FoxSports headlines

Dominic James likely to enter but no formal decision yet

Javaris Crittenton to enter the NBA draft, but no agent for now.

One more report that Collison won't enter the draft. And given how his injuries affected his performance why was it even a consideration for Luc Richar(d) to enter the draft?

Brandon Rush meets with himself? Oh, with Bill Self! Self said that "Shady" (D. Arthur) told him himself that he is coming back.

The 2007 NBA Draft early entry deadline is Sunday. Expect that by late Monday the situation will clear as to which players have actually, officially and formally declared. Check the post below for all-you-can-eat NBA draft coverage as it pertains to the college basketball game.

As reported before, Rodney Stuckey of Eastern Washington is entering the draft but won't sign with an agent. He has two years of NCAA eligibility remaining.

On the coaching carousel, a Pitt assistant won't have to travel far to take over the Robert Morris job, while Rick Majerus is planning how to pull a USC on Saint Louis. Personally and selfishly I don't want Majerus to take the job, so he can stay on ESPN and analyze games (quite possibly the only one among the ESPN all-star analysts who actually analyzes games)... St Louis is building a new $80 million arena that may attract other top candidates (Lon Kruger?)

NBA Draft 2007 Early Entries

Every 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament game on DVD!

NBA Draft Calendar

Players have until April 29 to declare

Draft lottery on May 22

The NBA Draft Camp will take place May 29 thru June 4, in Orlando, Florida.

Players have until June 18 to withdraw

The draft takes place on June 28


In the NBA already!

Randolph Morris (Junior, Kentucky). He was an NBA free agent (went undrafted). He can sign with any team he wants. He did not wait for a new Kentucky coach before making a decision. He jumped to the NBA right away, and signed with the ... New York Knicks


Official announcements

Glen "Big Baby" Davis (Junior, LSU). Will sign with agent. (Another Randolph Morris undrafted big man?)

Josh Mecha-Cry-Baby McRoberts (Sophomoric, Duke), and Mom: Will sign with agent

Jason Smith (Colorado State). Will not sign with agent (4/4/07).

Marcus Williams (Sophomore, Arizona). Agent Likely

Joakim Noah (Junior, Florida). Will sign with Agent

Al Horford (Junior, Florida). Will sign with Agent

Corey Brewer (Junior, Florida). Will sign with Agent

Taurean Green (Junior, Florida). Will sign with Agent

Spencer Hawes, (Freshman, Washington). No agent (not yet anyway)

DeVon Hardin (Cal). No agent.

Kevin Durant (Fresh, Texas). Will sign with agent. Will finish classes.

Julian Wright (Soph, Kansas), Will sign with agent

Arron Afflalo (Jr, UCLA). Cannot return to college (declared last year). Withdrawing from school.

Marcel Jones (Junior, Oregon State). No agent.

Wilson Chandler (Soph, DePaul). Will sing with agent.

Roy Bright, (Jr, Delaware State). No agent.

Dominic McGuire, (Cal-transfer, Fresno State). No agent.

Chris Daniels (RS-Jr, Texas A&M CC). No agent. Hopes to have the same luck as Bradley's 7-footer did after the NCAA tourney last year.

Jeff Green (Jr, Georgetown). No agent. He said (4/18) he is 70-30 on returning to college.

Roy Hibbert (Jr, Georgetown). No agent (yet). He said (4/18) he is 50-50 on returning to college.

Nick Young (Junior, USC), Will sign with agent.

Shaun Pruitt (Jr, Illinois), No agent. Doing the "Interview/Testing the Waters" thing.

Rodney Stuckey (Soph, Eastern Washington). Will not sign with agent. And I can't blame him. He is too good to stay and play in the Big Sky. Sorry Eagles fans :)

Dwight Brewington (Jr, formerly at Providence). May sign with agent. Would be the first ever deaf player drafted.

Rice (George Washington). Will not hire agent.

Greg Oden (Fr, Ohio State). Will sign with agent (Conley's dad)

Mike Conley, Daquean Cook (Fr, Ohio State). Won't sign with agent, but Conley's dad is an agent. *cough* *cough* *cough*

Sean Singletary (Jr, Virginia). Will not hire agent.

Joseph Jones (Jr, Texas A&M). Will not hire agent.

Reggie Williams (Jr, VMI). Will not hire agent.

Brandan Wright (Fr, UNC). No agent right away, but who are we kidding? He's a top 5 pick!

Thaddeus Young (Fr, Georgia Tech). No agent (at least for now)

James Mays (Jr, Clemson). No agent.

Jaycee Carroll (Jr, Utah State). No agent. (better shooter than JJ Whiner Redick)

Marcelus Kemp and Ramon Sessions (Jrs, Nevada). No agent.

Gabe Pruitt (Junior, USC). No agent.

Brandon Rush (So, Kansas). Will not sign with agent right away

Javaris Crittenton (Fr, Georgia Tech). Will not sign with agent.

Dominic James (Jr, Marquette). Will not sign with agent.

Sean Williams (formerly of Boston College). Will sign with agent.

Bo McCaleb (Jr, New Orleans), no agent

James OFF Curry (Jr, Oklahoma State), no agent

Tommy Price (Jr, Tenn State), no agent

Charles Rhodes (Jr, Miss State), no agent

Aaron Bruce (Jr, Baylor), no agent

Jamont Gordon (So, Miss State), was in, but was going to pull out before the April 29 deadline.

You may be surprised by some of the names, some are ill-advised, but also please keep in mind that college juniors typically benefit from testing the waters without signing with an agent. Then they go back to school and work on their game, having collected feedback from a number of NBA people. Think of it as preparing for job interviews at the university's career center. Except the career center in this case is the NBA draft.


Undecided/Deciding...

Game Over! The early entry deadline has passed! (4/30/2007).



New Agents with draft impact

Mike Conley's dad. Multi-talented as he was the AAU basketball coach of Conley, Oden et al, and a star field and track athlete back in the day.


They said they are returning for 2007-2008 - but nothing is final until the NBA early-entry deadline passes (April 29).

Brook Lopez, Stanford, 3/19/2007

Derrick Caracter, Louisville, HA!

Chase Budinger, Arizona

The Carolinians (Tywon Lawson, Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington)

Malik Hairston (Oregon)

Darren Collison (UCLA) (4/18), reaffirmed (4/24).

Joey Dorsey (Jr, Memphis). Presumably he was thinking of the NBDL draft, because he's clearly not ready for the NBA (mentally and offensively).

DJ White (Indiana).

Chris Lofton (TN)

Hasheem Thabeet (Fr, UConn), according to Calhoun

Luc Richard (UCLA). As if!


Draft Resources

Official draft coverage at NBA.com

NBA Draft rumors at HoopsHype.com

Draft rumors at InsideHoops.com, among general NBA rumors

Early Entry list at Scout.com

Draft rumors at DraftExpress.com



2007 Mock NBA drafts

DraftExpress.com

NBADraft.net

College Hoops Update (CHU)

CollegeHoops.Net (CHN)

InsideHoops.com

HoopsHype.com


2008 Mock NBA drafts

DraftExpress.com

NBADraft.net

CollegeHoops.Net (CHN) prospect rating

Every 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament game on DVD!

Mid-week Report

Latest headlines from ESPN.com

Hello NBA Draft: Sean Singletary of Virginia, big Joseph Jones of Gillispie A&M, and scoring machine Reggie Williams of high-scoring VMI. All three are juniors and they will not sign with an agent. More NBA draft details here

The wacky WAC slaps Mark Fox on the wrist for zebra-related incidents.

And from the "Does Anyone Really Care" department, Todd Bozeman reaches a settlement in the restaurant dispute case. Keep that in mind the next time you order a sandwich at Subway, it can get ugly if you ask for mayo and they put mustard instead!

Tuesday rewind

Pat Forde instant update: One of the Delk twins (Reginald) will transfer to Louisville. As you may recall his cousin Tony Delk played for Rick Pitino a few centuries ago... Meanwhile no one seems to believe Darren Collison when he keeps saying he is coming back to college. The LA Times are reporting that he is coming back. And I can't blame them for not believing it: Why would the fastest player in the country want to continue playing on a wrestling team? (Sorry UCLA fans, but the truth hurts).

From ESPN News: Georgia Tech's Thaddeus Young will declare for the NBA Draft but not sign with an agent. (Another Chris Bosh?)... And a quick NBA note: Sam Mitchell of the Toronto Raptors has been named Dinosaur of the Year (oooops Coach of the Year!).


Latest from ESPN.com

Calhoun expects Hasheem shot-blocking Thabeet to return next year

Talented PG Bobby Maze parts ways with Dookie Jeff Capel and Oklahoma

A Colorado State player shoots at a teammate, sadly not a basketball shot, but a shot with a revolver.

Two more will enter the NBA draft but won't hire an agent: Utah State's scoring Jaycee Carroll and 17-0 Clemson's James Mays.


SciFi Segment

New Babylon 5? Yes, new Babylon 5! A new direct-to-DVD movie called "Babylon 5: Lost Tales" will be released on July 31st. Cover-art at TVshowOnDVD.com. More details here

It will be anthology-style,interleaving two separate stories. In just 24 hours the pre-orders have managed to jump to #64 in Amazon's Best Selling DVDs list. Pre-order price is $17, but Amazon guarantees the lower price between now and the release date, as well as 30-days after release.

Monday Hoops (Goodbye Brandan Wright)

Breaking News Alert! Jeff Goodman at FoxSports writes that Carolina's Brandan Wright is declaring for the NBA draft. The announcement will come at a 1pm PT/4pm ET press conference. He is expected to sign with an agent as he is expected to be a Top 5 NBA draft pick.


Latest headlines from ESPN.com

As if OJ Mayo wasn't enough, now Master P's kid and music star Lil Romeo wants to play hoops at USC. Imagine if Tim Floyd was actually a flashy personality! Paris Hilton would want to become an assistant coach ;-)

In what could be a surprise in the coaching carousel, Rick Majerus is going to talk to Saint Louis about its job opening.

On the Draft Repor(t), Chris Lofton says he is not declaring, while Carolana's Wright is still trying to decide (which may be good news for Ole Roy, since he is not gone yet).

On the Trouble Repor(t), Arkansas forward Thomas gets arrested for domestic battery. Not to be outdone, Ok State's Terrell Harris gets arrested too.

Jordan Classic today on ESPN2!

Dont' forget the Jordan Classic, today at 6pm PT / 9pm ET, live from MSG in NYC, on ESPN2! More details on the game including rosters here

A frequent question on the Jordan Classic and the Roundball Classic is: Why isn't OJ Mayo or Kevin Love or Patrick Patterson playing in both games? That's because the Big Brother (NCAA) has decided that a player loses his eligibility if he plays in more than two all-star games. Since everyone goes to the McDonalds game, the players have to chose between the Roundball classic (of "Godfather" Sonny Vaccaro) or the Jordan Classic of #23 Michael Jordan.

But wait, I saw those players play in the Nike Hoop Summit. How about that??? Well, the Nike Hoop Summitt is under the umbrella of USA Basketball, so it doesn't count as an all-star game for NCAA purposes (even though it really is one).

Quiet Friday

Don't forget the Jordan Classic tomorrow (Saturday) at 6pmPT/9pmET on ESPN2 live from MSG in NYC! Details here

Grading the Coaches: Yet Another Basketball Blog has come up with a formula to grade the college basketball coaches, along with predictions on who will be on the hot seat in 2008... He also breaks down the coaching carousel by following the chains (dominos).


NBA Draft 2007

Two more enter the NBA draft but won't sign with agents, this time Nevada players Marcellus Kemp and Ramon Sessions according to FoxSports.com. Now, before you say WTF?, remember that juniors get a "free pass" if they don't sign with an agent and they can get valuable feedback from numerous NBA people that can help their basketball career further down the road.

Today HoopsHype.com has wall to wall coverage on the Ohio State trio entering the NBA draft (Greg Oden, Mike Conley, Daquean Cook). The story broke out yesterday at FoxSports.com with Jeff Goodman (see yesterday's post below).


Headlines from ESPN:

Rob Evans, former Ole Miss and Arizona State head coach joins the Arkansas staff. He has SEC experience, Mark Turgeon does not.

Louisiana-Lafayette gets put on a two-year probation. Who is the NCAA angry at this time? Duke? Carolina? UCLA? Kansas? Kentucky? Arizona? Texas? Syracuse?

Princeton goes to the well, they want one of JT3's assistants, Sydney Johnson who played on the Princeton team under Pete Carill that upset Jim Harrick's UCLA team in the 1996 NCAAs.

Head coach and Chief Spammer

Breaking News! Jeff Goodman at FoxSports writes that according to sources the Ohio State Trio (Oden, Conley, Cook) will declare for the NBA draft on Friday. Oden will sign with an agent (Conley's dad), while Conley and Cook will hold off until they know more. A lot more details in the FoxSports story link above.


Top Stories

JL Blue at A Sea of Blue has a long article recapping and revisiting the The Tubby Smith Era at Kentucky. An original article and an interesting ensuing discussion following it.

Catch up with the latest recruiting news at Recruiting Wars, a sister publication of this blog. You may notice the "Head Coach and Chief Spammer" cross-post as it pertains to both blogs :-) And invest in carrier pigeons!

Theo Davis gets community service for his participation in the "Heytvelt incident".

An NBA coaching carousel story that could have had significant implications on the colllege coaching carousel: Pat Riley expects to return to the Miami Heat next year and coach through the end of his contract (three more years after this season).


Tourney Talk! I know, I know, the season is over, but that doesn't stop Andy Glockner at ESPN from digging into the RPI and the SOS and its impact on scheduling and ultimately the NCAA selection process. An interesting read, unless of course you have already disected the RPI/SOS formula like KenPom did

On the same topic, Andy Katz look at the impact of this year's NCAA selections on next year's scheduling. Mentioned are some of the most talked about snubs such as Drexel, Syracuse, and Clemson. (I personally think Syracuse and Clemson deserved to be left out, Drexel should have been in)


Head coach and Chief Spammer. They send recruits letters, often daily, sometimes using FedEx and UPS, they call players as often as they are allowed to (or if you are Kelvin Sampson, 500 times more than allowed), they text message all the time, they send emails, they use MySpace, FaceBook, Friendster, instant messaging, carrier pigeons, you name it. If it's not explicitly banned by the NCAA, it's fair game! (Remember when AAU coaches of potential recruits assembled impromptu "all-star teams" and got paid guarantee money for the exhibition games by the colleges recruiting their star players?)

So after so many years, how does the NCAA react? By digesting this topic in various committees. The latest AP story at ESPN.com says that they are considering banning all electronic communications except for email and fax which will be regulated. I told you before, INVEST IN CARRIER PIGEON FARMS!, coaches will buy them by the hundreds!

But something good came out of this, some common sense perhaps, which started to creep into the NCAA after Myles Brand took over: "It also passed a proposal that would allow college athletes to try out for professional teams while still taking classes. The current rules prohibit student-athletes from trying out while still enrolled in school. The new measure would allow athletes to receive money from pro teams to make a 48-hour trip. Or they could also pay the bill themselves and not be bound by the time limit."


NBA Draft 2007

Visit HoopsHype.com for all the details!

As expected, Rodney Stuckey (of Eastern Washington) is expected to declare. Unlike players in "BCS" conferences, going back to school won't get him significantly more "PR" or face time on TV, with the exception perhaps of their annual game with the Zags.

ESPN News reported that Jeff Green is 70-30 on returning.

Shaun Pruitt of Illinois will declare but not sign an agent. I am assuming he is doing it as a "job interview", not because he thinks he is a first rounder

Don't expect Chase Budinger to declare for the NBA draft. If you saw his late season interviews you will see that he was genuinely taken aback by the physical requirements of the game at the college level. He is not going to the NBA regardless of his projected draft position.

Darren Collison is returning to college. Story at FoxSports by Jeff Goodman

The Shot Doctor is In and ZebraGate 2007!

Lots of links on the Recruiting Saga of Patrick Patterson at Recruiting Wars.

ZebraGate2007: The Joey Crawford, Tim Duncan, David Stern saga continues, this time featured on today's edition of Outside the Lines at 12pmPT/3pmET on ESPN. OTL page

Also featured on OTL is the Shot Doctor, Gary Bolen, the Mavericks free throw shooting coach. Sounds silly? Well, the Mavs are 80% from the free throw line that last 8 years, and have led the league in 4 out the last 6 years. Scoreboard!

La Rev has its take on the blogging wars between ESPN and Colin Cowherd. Yes, blogging wars!

Speaking of the Zags, two transfer out. One was a surprise to me: P-Mac (Pierre Marie Altidor Cespedes (did I win the spelling bee?). Burgess was no surprise even though he only played half a semester. Why? On a roster that lost Heytvelt, Burgess was barely able to get off the bench and play any semi-meaningful minutes.

Gary Parrish reviews the Coaching Carousel of this spring at Sportsline.com

more coming later...


NBA Draft

Jeff Green is 70-30 on returning to Georgetown

Roy Hibbert is 50-50

More draft rumors at HoopsHype.com

Nick Young is gone, he will sign with agent.

Thinking of testing the waters: Shaun Pruitt of Illinois. Surely he must be thinking of the NBDL draft? :-)

The Big Zero (Joey Dorsey) named after his performance against Greg Oden in the NCAA, will return to Memphis. Was he too thinking of the NBDL draft?

Former Providence guard Dwight Brewington is entering the NBA draft.

For more, be sure to visit HoopsHype.com

Tuesday Recap

A preview of the Jordan Classic with an in-studio interview of Patrick Patterson on the Hot List on ESPN News. Details at Recruiting Wars

Three transfer out of Mississippi State, the Delk twins and a forward

Right now (noon PT/3pm ET) David Stern is sitting in the studio of ESPN News on the Hot List. He already talked about the indefinite suspension of referee Joey Crawford for ejecting Tim Duncan. He is now addressing the "teams losing to get top draft picks" by not really answering the answer... Now he is commenting on Bob Knight's comments, and he is reflecting that back to the NCAA rules of eligibility... On the 19-year-old NBA draft rule: "Good for the NBA", "improves the quality of our game". "Win win for college and NBA", "If players association goes to 20yo limit, I'm all for that". Right now, on ESPN News with Josh Elliot on the Hot List.

The following stories are on ESPN.com

Brad Soderberg is fired by St Louis after failing to pull the program out of obscurity both when it was in C-USA and in the A-10. With the success in the surrounding Valley of Darkness (MVC), the pressure is on for the next St Louis coach. Actually I think this was the right decision by St Louis despite ESPN whining about 20 wins.

The coaching carousel stops at Air Force as they promote within, assistant Reynolds will take over for departing Bzdelik.

I want a raise too! Rick Barnes get a $200K raise making him the most highly paid coach in the Big12, and Sean Sutton gets an extension at Oral Roberts

South Alabama will get a hot coach, the one who turned Texas A&M Corpus-Cristi from a spring break team into a low-major powerhouse (as strange as that may sound). So both Texas A&M D1 schools lost their coaches after groundbreaking runs.

Today's OTL will have a first report on the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. OTL airs at noonPT/3pmET on ESPN.


NBA Draft

Two stories at ESPN.com say that tiny Rice of GW and Nick Young are going to enter the NBA Draft. Rice will not sign with an agent. It is uncertain what will Nick Young do.

DJ White is coming back (Where did he think he was going? Did he actually watch the slugfests his team played last year? A 50-49 game is acceptable in the Big 10, but not in the NBA!)


Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans only! Amazon's Daily Deal today offers the 40-disc Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collection DVD set for $99.

Big Monday (not so much)

The blog today was switched to Blogger2, with some new features, the first one I am trying being labels (aka tags).

For the latest in recruiting news, including USC getting three (yes 3!) 2008 guards, at Recruiting Wars

Sad news for Virginia Tech. Following all the tragedies surrounding the basketball team last year, a deadly shooting rampage took place (espn story) at the university leaving 33+ dead. Sad story :-( Yahoo News coverage. Live coverage on ESPN News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, Headline News, also some local NBC and Fox affiliates (at 5pm ET/2pm PT)... Also coverage by the student paper at Virginia Tech.

The biggest recruit Mark Turgeon will likely ever get at Texas A&M just re-affirmed his commitment to Texas A&M (espn story). DeAndre Jordan is staying put!

Louisiana Tech has found itself a brand new head coach, with head-coaching experience, the man who was the interim coach when Rick Majerus stepped down from Utah. Kupp was also an assistant under Mike Davis at Indiana and UAB. FireBilly.com story, and ESPN story

Big Brother has expunged some of the O'Brien violations at Ohio State. Only because of technicalities however, as the NCAA bureaucrats missed a filing deadline by two days.


NBA Draft Rumors

Draft coverage as it affects College Basketball here.

Checks HoopsHype.com for the latest NBA rumors as they pertain to college hoops... According to HoopsHype, Thad Matta is expected to meet with the three freshmen today (Oden, Conley, Cook). Meanwhile this can get a big soap-opera-ish as Oden's dad adamantly is on record wanting Oden to go, while his potential agent (and former coach, and best friend's dad) Mike Conley Sr says Greg has not made up his mind yet... Interesting reading for sure! Two of USC's top players (Nick Young, Gabe Pruitt) will announce their intentions on Tuesday. Make sure you bookmark HoopsHype.com for all the draft news and rumors!

Weekend Repor(t)

Sunday

The coaching carousel stops at Winthrop as they hire assistant Peele (espn story) following the departure of Greg Marshall to Wichita State and the Valley of Darkness.

Bobby Lutz and his ugly moustache stay put (espn story). He has been at Charlotte for nine years, with 5 NCAAs and 2 NITs.


Saturday

The Big Brother will attempt to address hot button issues, such as text message spamming where coaches bombard and bother recruits all day and night. ... On a totally unrelated note, Kelvin Sampson just purchased a farm of carrier pigeons.

Dont' miss the Sunday edition of Outside the Lines (Sunday 930am eastern on ESPN) as they look at race in sports, including an interview with Jackie's widow, Rachel Robinson. Also participating are Jamelle Hill of ESPN Page 2, Dave Zirin of Slam Magazine and Warrick Dunn (NFL player).

Wichita State to hire Greg Marshall of Winthrop (reports ESPN), at $750K per year. Assuming he doesn't eject again... Winthrop jumped his salary from $250K to $400K a few months ago, but clearly they couldn't match the salary and the facilities and the higher profile of the Valley of Darkness (my name for the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) because it is so tough for the teams and the coaches (half of them were gone from this year!))

Hawaii will hire long time assistant Nash. His son is also a member of the team and a high profile recruit that Riley Wallace got to stay in the Islands. According to ESPN he was chosen among 71 candidates (I probably was one of them! ha!)

The Wizard of Westwood is released from the hospital (espn story).

On the NBA Draft 2007 side of things, Roy Hibbert and dancing Jeff Green will enter the draft. They will not sign with an agent (unless they decide to remain in the draft after the April 29 withdrawl deadline)... Meanwhile, Greg Oden's dad says he will enter the draft. Conley's dad would represent them. The other two also expected to go in (Mike Conley, Daequan Cook). Both ESPN stories.

The Big Brother

More later on...

No big new news Friday!

Catch up with the latest 2007 NBA Draft early entries and mock drafts

Today's Outside the Lines (at 12pmPT/3pmET) on ESPN, deals takes a historical look at bigoted comments in the media, looking back from the Imus/Rutgers situation... OTL also looks at the practice of having football recruits enroll early, before even their high school senior year is over. For example at Florida, 8 out of 16 of Urban Meyer's incoming freshman recruits are already enrolled in school (yes it's April 13!)

Well okay, there are some new news trickling in. Oregon State's Marcel Jones will declare for the NBA draft but won't hire an agent. Also declaring is DePaul's Wilson Chandler. It's unclear whether he'll sign with an agent.

On the coaching carousel site, Wichita State is focusing on Winthrop's Greg Marshall. If I was Wichita State I would be looking for a backup coach at the same time because we know what Marshall did the last time he decided to change jobs (He went back to Winthrop!)... Meanwhile UMKC will hire a John Beilein 10-year assistant.

On the transferology front, promising freshman forward Joe Trapani is set to transfer out of Vermont. He says the transfer is not for basketball reasons. I'm sure there will be a long line of coaches offering him scholarships. Want to know who might be interested? Check which schools are having other transfers out, you may find his next destination that way :-)

Thursday Health Repor(t)

Outside the Lines has a centerpiece special on staph infections including MRSA, and how they are affecting professional athletes. Some of the people affected by this include former West Virginia favorite Mike Gansey of the John Beilein era. OTL page


Coaching Carousel

Did you miss the Billy Gillispie interview on Mike and Mike? You can listen to it at FireBilly.com. It's about 10 minutes long.

In a rather strange twist of the coaching carousel, Bobby Lutz (yes, the one with the Ad*lf H. moustache), is the favorite for the South Alabama job (espn story). Apparently he isn't comfortable with the move to the A-10 and he wants to go south. The other candidate is former ASU coach Rob Evans... So if he is gone, who takes over Charlotte? How about VCU's Anthony Grant? He is nearby :-)

Despite all the rumors of a fallout between Ernie Kent and the Nike Ducks, he has signed an extension through 2011-12 (espn story), with a $200K raise, at $1m per year ($1.3m with incentives). Interestingly there is no buyout if he wants to bolt, but Oregon will have to pay him $1m if they fire him.


NBA Draft

Hasheem Shot-Blocking Thabeet is trying to decide what to do. Jim Calhoun says that financial hardship reasons are the determining factor (espn story), but Thabeet really wants to return to college.

Winningest Active Coaches in NCAA men's basketball

Winningest Active Coaches in NCAA men's basketball

Bob Knight, 890

Lute Olson, 780

Dirty Rat (aka Coach K), 775

Jim Calhoun, and Jim Boeheim, 750. Calhoun had pulled away, but after this Boeheim caught up to him this season.

Huggie-Bear (Bob Huggins), 590.

Since there are no more games until November, it's pretty certain the records will remain the same :-)

The Dirty Rat will probably catchup and pass Lute Olson, as he has been chipping away at the gap for a while now... The battle between the Jims will be interesting to watch as UConn will be one year older and Syracuse will be reloading... In all likelihood, Knight will reach/pass 900, Lute Olson and the Dirty Rat will probably reach/pass 800, and Huggins will reach/pass 600.

Is it November yet? :-)

NBA Wednesday

Both Tyler Hansbrough and Tywon Lawson have said that they are returning back to UNC next year. Brandan Wright is still trying to make up his mind, and it make take a few more days before we know either way.

However the news for the UCLA offense were not as good, as their primary scorer Arron Afflalo is going to the NBA. Because he already withdrew last year, he will be gone no matter what this year. Goodbye Afflalo. He will be withdrawing from his classes (Hello APR headaches) but will make plans to take his remaining 10 classes in the future and graduate

As we get closer to the April 29 deadline, expect more and more of this type of announcements...

Andy Katz looks at the saga of John Beilein, the $2.5m buyout, West Virginia and Michigan at espn.com. This is a must read story!. It is ironic that it was John Beilein who actually initiated the inclusion of the contract buyout for his own protection. His then agent had similar provisions for a couple of his other fired clients who got paid big time, Pete Gillen ($2 million from Virginia) and Tom Herrion ($800K from Charleston)... This makes it even funnier when Gillan says "I got fired, I'm here selling bagels with you". Hey, I want to get fired and get a $2 million severance deal. Fire me please!!! :-)

Meanwhile in his "Daily Word Insider column" Katz wonders whether Ohio State will lose both Mike Conley and Greg Oden to the NBA... As you may recall a few days ago there were reports that Conley's dad was becoming an NBA agent. Coincidence? But regardless, usually the knock on players going early to the NBA is that they don't play in enough pressure situations, and they don't play in winning programs over time so as to develop the leadership and game-changing performance skills of a seasoned four year college player. However, in their case, Conley/Oden have been playing together and winning just about every game in both high school, AAU and their one year at Ohio State... But don't cry for Thad Matta and the Buckeyes (I wish I had a WAV/mp3 of Gus Johnson saying "The Buckeyes" to insert here), they have one of the best classes of 2007 coming in this year!

Good news as the Wizard of Westwood is released from the hospital.

Google Search Rumors: A couple of Google searches in the last few hours of "Steve Alford having an affair with a cheerleader" found their way to this blog. Well, I know nothing of a Steve Alford affair with a cheerleader... Another search was looking for information on John Calipari and dirty recruiting. Some (but not me) may say it's every time he picks up the phone (ouch!)... Another was looking for Billy Gillispie recruiting violations while he was at Tulsao... Another one was looking for news on Paul Westphal becoming a head coach once again (at the K12 level?)... Another search wanted Alex Legion to go to UCLA. Well, with Afflalo gone to the NBA, why not? Although offensively Chace Stanback can fit in really nice in some of the plays UCLA ran for Afflalo. And Stanback is taller so he can shoot over people... There is a saying "when there is smoke there is a fire", but on the net, you can never really know...

Reading is fundamental Segment If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings books or dvds, there is a brand new book by JRR Tolkien, pieced together from many drafts by his son. The new book is titled "The Children of Hurin" and will be released on April 17, 2007 (Amazon pre-orders at $15.60 and eligible for free ship with orders over $25). For more, visit the Tolkien Store at Amazon

Super Tuesday (except with no games)

Kevin Durant swept the post-season player of the year awards, and now he is ready to sweep the NBA draft. He will hire an agent. His news conference starts at 2pmPT/5pmET in Austin, Texas. During the press conference he says "I mean" in every single sentence. Gets annoying after the first 20 times :) Both Durant and Rick Barnes said that Durant will finish his schoolwork before leaving, so Texas won't be penalized under the new APR system. He will also come up with a plan to work towards his degree in the future. ESPN story. ESPN News reports that he will sign a shoe deal in the magnitude of $20 million. Who needs the NBA salary? :-)

ESPN News reports that the Charlotte News and Observer reports that Wayne Ellington reports that he will return next year (where was he supposed to go? NBDL?).

After successfully failing to return Michigan to the NCAA tourney, Tommy Amaker will try to become the Coach K of the Ivy League as he is expected to take over Harvard.

Relive the Madness Monday!

Mark your calendars (2007-2008) season: The inaugural Big East/SEC challenge will debut on December 5 and 6, 2007 on the ESPN family of networks. The format is four games on two sites. Only eight teams will participate every year (unlike the ACC/Big10 challenge where almost everyone participates). This may be the national TV debut of Bob Huggins as the West Virginia head coach. West Virginia will play Auburn on December 5, on ESPN2. The marquee matchup is LSU vs Villonova (@Wachovia). CSTV story

Hello NBA Draft 2007: Cal's injured bigman DeVon Hardin declares but won't sign with an agent (CSTV story)... Julian Wright of Kansas plans to hire an agent at the end of May... By the way, the NBA pre-draft camp will take place May 29 thru June 24, 2007 in Orlando Florida.

Time to borrow money from Mark Turgeon! His new Texas A&M contract (ESPN story) starts at $1.2m per year (just 50K less than what Gillispie was making before the contract re-negotiaton). The deal is five years long with three one-year rollovers (5+3=8).

Some revelations about the new Kansas State head coach Frank Martin: he was a bar-room bouncer in Miami. So if/when fights break out on the court, he'll know what to do :-) One interesting quote from the ESPN story above is Billy Walker saying essentially that he would stay only if Martin/Hill were hired.

The Bonnies have found a new coach, and he is Mark Schmidt, the head coach of Robert Morris. He was 82-90 in six years at RMU, so he will be well prepared for multiple losing seasons before turning it around.

The buzzzzz out of Kansas is that Julian Wright may declare for the NBA draft and even hire an agent. Scratch that! He will declare for the NBA draft according to Yahoo Sports. Can he develop a jumpshot before June? Some message boards mentioned Sherron Collins rumors (leaving, fatherhood, NBA, DePaul).

Coaching Carousel, Spring Edition has been updated with the latest happenings... Unless something dramatic happens, or the NBA "steals" a college coach, it looks like things have settled down for now. The biggest openings right now are: Wichita State, Hawaii, Air Force, Princeton (?), Louisiana Tech, St Bonaventure.

Seven of the best NCAA games will be repeating all day today on CSTV. Each game will repeat twice, in a marathon that ends on Tuesday morning. Hosted by CSTV's Greg Amsinger and analyst and former Nova/UMass coach Steve Lapas (Lappas?). Check yesterday's listing for the list of games.

An interesting segment with Stephen A Smith and Andy Katz discussing coaches defections and its impact on the players aired on Sunday morning's SportsCenter, but you can also watch it at ESPN.com (right side of the page, picture of Katz and Smith)

One of the stories in today's First Report on "Outside the Lines" will be the coaching/player situation at Kansas State after Huggins out-Huggins'ed himself by bolting for West Virginia. OTL page. Airs at 12pmPT/3pmET today.

Assistant Coach Carousel: An Idaho and a UCSB assistant have resigned and will move on to become assistants under Tim Miles (former North Dakota State coach) at Colorado State.

10 NCAA games on CSTV but No New News!

*** A couple of stories have broken at ESPN.com

Texas A&M to meet with Debbie Downer-Whiner (Mark Turgeon was like that this season). Turgeon is currently at around $750K at Wichita State. In the Big 12, but no, not at Kansas State; he is a KU grad after all. So that puts him in pole position for the Kansas job if/when Bill Self leaves or gets fired.

Meanwhile Arkansas is getting a coach that may be a good match but perhaps not the big name some fans may have expected. John Pelphrey (why can't they have simple names?) has lots of SEC experience as a player/assistant coach, and hsi style of play would be fun to watch.

If you missed some of the NCAA games, or want to rewatch them, CSTV will have a 10-game marathon starting tonight (Sunday) at 4pmPT/7pmET. Three games will be shown tonight starting with my favorite game, VCU beating the dirty rotten smugfest of the Dirty Rat (Duke. Those three games repeat overnight, and then another block of seven games will be shown twice starting early tomorrow morning and going all the way through Tuesday morning. The TV listings are a bit inconstistent (CSTV vs TV listings) so double-check if you want to catch a particular game!!! All games (except one) air in a two-hour time slot.

Complete List of games to be shown:

VCU vs Duke

Xavier vs Ohio State (the Greg Oden intentional pushout and the Ron Lewis buzzer beater three poiter)

Vandy vs Washington State

Louisville vs Texas A&M (freshman Edgar Sosa scoring a 30+ but freezing at the free throw line at the end of the game)

Georgetown vs Vanderbilt (Jeff Green walks, dances, cha-cha-chas but scores when the game was on the line)

Memphis vs Texas A&M (Calipari's only NCAA win the last two years over a BCS team)

Ohio State vs Tennessee (another Ohio State comeback)

Georgetown vs North Carolina (another meltdown for the ages (remember UCLA vs Gonzaga, Arizona vs Illinois?), underrated Jonathan Wallace hits a clutch three to send the game to overtime)

Georgetown vs Ohio State (90 minute time slot)

Florida vs Ohio State (the final)

In between the games you can see a special version of One to One called the "Voices of March" featuring Dick Enberg, Jim Nantz and Billy Fudge-Packer (ha!)

Extended coverage at ESPN.com on Billy Gillispie at Kentucky, and Billy Donovan and the four juniors at Florida. Also a recap of the recent coaching carousel action that was spinning like crazy last week...

All-Star Games Saturday!

Not one, but two high-school all-star games will debut today on TV. One is live, the Nike Hoop Summit from the FedEx Forum in Memphis, on regional FSNs and Fox College Sports. The other is a tape-delayed two-hour edit of the Godfather's (Sonny Vaccaro) Roundball Classic from Chicago. Airtimes, TV stations, rosters, details, media guides and everything you wanted to know about these games at Recruiting Wars

Meanwhile Florida pulls another "fake trophy disaster" during the Gator Championship Celebration aired on FSN SunSports and Fox College Sports. This time the fake trophy rolled off the pedestal and fell on the ground... Coaches are creatures of habbit and superstition, so if breaking a fake trophy at Midnight Madness in 2006 resulted in another championship in April 2007, you bet they will keep breaking fake trophies until they stop winning championships :-)

The five John R. Wooden Award finalists for player of the year are.... Acie Law, Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Alando "Fernando" Tucker, and Tyler Hansbrough. And the winner, presented by the first Wooden Award winner UCLA great Marques Johnson is... revealed here!... Props to Marques Johnson for calling the show's host, Gus Johnson, the most exciting play by play guy... The Women's John R Wooden award went to Candance Parker, who thanked everyone including her opponents. The finalists were: Sylvia Fowles, Lidnsey Harding, Ivory Iverson-Latta, and space-eater Courtney Paris... The Legends of Coaching award was given to Gene Keady of Purdue.


Coaching Carousel Continues Quitely Today

He is back! Dan Monson returns to the west coach but won't be bumping heads with Mark Few, Grier and the Zags. He has taken over the Long Pyramid State (ooops Long Beach State) team.

If Louisville fans were excited to have one Pitino on the bench, they will be thrilled to find out they are getting a second one, as he hired his 24 year old son to as an assistant after Kevin Willard got the Iona head coaching job. Current assistant Steve Masiello will become his top deputy, not his son.

It's officially official. Frank Martin will take over Kansas State in a desperate attempt by the Kansas State to recover from the "knock out punch" (their words) delivered by the ejection of Bob Huggins... Dalonte Hill was promoted to associate coach, which bodes well for the retention of Michael Beasley... Perhaps Bob Huggins felt uncomfortable with the impressive turnaround success story at Kansas State and had to go elsewhere?

Kentucky Friday!

Dick Vitale discovers podcasts. Enjoy!!! He also discovers blogging, and beverages with Howie Schwabb and the Hooters girls.


Big Story!

FireBilly.com? Yes, that site is up and running. But, no, it's not what you think! In a pre-emptive move, Kentucky fans picked up the domain name to prevent it from falling into disgruntled fan hands. But there are more combinations to be had: fireclyde, firegillispie, firebillygillispie, and then variations on a theme...

Billy Gillispie's contract terms at Kentucky: Seven years, $2.3 million per. His previous A&M contract was at $1.25m per year, and the one he was thinking of signing was somewhere between $1.75m to $2m.

Live right now (950amPT/1250pmPT) on ESPN-News, the Billy Gillespie Press Conference at Kentucky! Billy Gillispie has a permanent smile glued to his face... "I hope all 24,000 fans (that come to the game) are coaches"...

Today's Outside the Line's First Report has a report on the coaching carousel. It will air at 1230pmPT/330pmET on ESPN. OTL page

Kentucky selects its next college basketball coach, and it's none other than Texas A&M Billy Gillispie who gets a seven year contract! Bonus points went to BG for beating Rick Pitino at Rupp Arena a couple of weeks ago... Joe B. Hall was interviewed on being a Kentucky basketball coach on Cold Pizza...

This leaves A&M without a coach, and with a multi-billion dollar practice facility about to open. Don't be surprised if they pick Doc Sandler, going down the Self/Gillispie/Sandler tree!

Kentucky fans can get a glimpse of Billy Gillispie on Fox College Sports as they are airing his last coaches show (after the NCAA tourney) at Texas A&M in the next few days. Note the modern look of the graphics, including some upbeat hip-hop to open the show... Also two of his NCAA games (Louisville, and Memphis) are going to be shown on CSTV in a March Madness this Sunday/Monday. CSTV's TV listings can be a bit iffy as well... He also has a *gasp* MySpace page.


Kentucky Reaction!

Will Eric Wynalda get drunk and swear at Billy Gillispie because he equated "soccer" with "tic-tac-toe" during his press conference at Kentucky???

Rob Parker of Detroit News: "Is Dizzy Gillespie not available?", "Kentucky is not a place where you should be breaking new people", "big program deserves big name","they failed", "not a feel good situation", "Remember Matt Doherty going to UNC"

Skip Bayless: "NBA people say he is one of the best in-game coaches", "he will outrecruit Tubby".

Cincinatti.com reaction

Kentucky site coverage at Sea of Blue, Aaron UK, John Clay, WildCats Thunder, KEntucky Sports Radio,Spams UK, FireTubby.com, Kentucky.com (Herald), Rivals, Louisville Carrier Journal

Dick Vitale picks up his cyber pen and writes about it!


Huggins Reaction!

Huggins signed a similar contract (ESPN) at West Virginia, a 5-year/$5 million deal, starting at $800K, just like Kansas State (I guess a symbolic gesture to show that he didn't do it for the money). This salary will be largely subsidized by John Beilein via Michigan as he has to pay them half a million per year as part of his contract buyout.

Frank Martin may takeover Kansas State as damage control according to (ESPN) sources

Pat Forde on Huggins: "reprehensible".

OJ Mayo may (MAY) want to stay home? But I doubt USC will let him out.

Cincinatti.com reaction

Skip Bayless: "when you dance with the devil you get burned!"

Rob Parker of Detroit News: "I can't blame him for wanting to go back to his school"

Jamelle Hill of ESPN on Page 2


Other Coaching Carousel

Huggins's assistant Frank Martin will be promoted as head coach at Kansas State according to (ESPN) sources, and existing players and incoming recruits, including Michael Beasley would presumably stay in place, assuming Dalonte Hill (close ties with Beasley) is also retained... Even lumbering 7-footer Jason Bennett went to K-State for Huggins... Which makes one wonder, what the heck was Huggins thinking by bolting to West Virginia and leaving behind his best ever recruiting class? Is there more to the story? Is Huggins leaving behind a time-bomb (eg violations to be uncovered later on) at Kansas State?

Marshall has a new head coach and he is of the Donovan tree, assistant Donnie Jones. Donovan was there just yesterday delivering a speech (and perhaps lobbying for his assistant)... Interestingly former Marshall head coach Ron Jirsa will be one of Tubby's assistants at the TimberGophers in Minnessooooooootta.

Pat Forde on Arkansas: "Doc Sandler may be the first candidate, Lon Kruger next". It seems like Lon Kruger is mentioned for every single job, but no one really wants him!

Larry Eustachy raises a glass (of milk) to toast his 2-year extension at Southern Miss.


Question of the Day

Has college basketball become all about the coaches and big salaries and not enough about the players and the game? It's sad that coaches are getting paid millions per year, while players have to jump through hoops to just get the correct amount of financial assistance to pay their day-to-day bills?


2007-2008 Season

Rick Pitino looks ahead to the next season (Kentucky.com story), with an upgraded schedule that may include a visit at UNLV (facing Reggie Theus???), the Wooden Tradition and a Vegas tourney that may include games with North Carolina, or Gonzaga and a couple of other "names"... Pitino hinted (well, more than just hinted) that Jonathan Huffman may transfer out due to lack of playing time, and he would be willing to accept a transfer if that happened. Translation: A transfer is in the works and Huffman is encouraged to transfer to make room.


Bonehead of the Day: Nick Fazekas
Fazekas withdraws from school just weeks before graduation. Good luck in the NBDL, I hope they have a team near Reno, Nevada so you can finish your degree while playing in the NBDL.


NCAA Rules Changes Suggestion

Use a block/charge circle similar to the day! The game is becoming uglier partially because coaches have discovered that it's easier for an average basketball player to take a charge than to become a great offensive player. So you have all the stiffs and mediocre players hunting charges and ruining the offensive flow of the game! Remember, "they put scoreboards to score" as Pete Gillan said!


Dick Vitale's Who's Praising Me Now?
Hey I'm awesome baby! They built a statue of me! I'm awesome and unbelievable baby!

Throwdown Thursday: Huggins to West Virginia!!!

The 2007 Florida basketball championship DVD is now available for pre-order at Amazon for $14 (eligible for free shipping with orders over $25). It will be in 1.33:1 format, from Harp Sharp Video, with a release date of May 13... Or you can get it for free if you have 285 Coke Rewards points at mycokerewards.com... Check at the bottom of today's post for more Florida gear.


NBA Draft 2007 Early Entries

As we get closer to the draft declaration deadline (late April), we will be seeing more and more players declare or announce their non-declaration.

Spencer Hawes declares for the NBA draft, but won't sign with an agent. His injuries this season certainly slowed him down, and will probably hurt his stock, but his stock may be high enough for him to go anyways... Or perhaps he is using this as a "practice interview" for next year where he will be gone for sure.

It was no big surprise (although as basketball fans would romantically like to see a chance at a threepeat), that the four Floridians are declaring for the NBA as a team. Jeff Goodman at FoxSports. The announcement is expected at 1pmPT/4pmET, so if you are near a TV, check the ESPN News channel! All four will sign with agents (Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Taurean Green and Al Horford)... The press conference was rather emotional with Al Horford breaking down in tears... But they are gone to the NBA, no turning back. And who can blame them? Two back to back championships and 16-0 in the post-season!

M-Will (Arizona's Marcus Williams) is expected to announce today as well. FoxSports story by Goodman. If the Kevin O'Neill rumors are correct, M-Will probably has to leave since he is probably the softest and moodiest of the returning players (I guess I should pre-apologize to Arizona fans for this comment). He will sign with an agent, so it's say goodnight for college hoops.



Coaching Carousel

The number of incoming 2007-2008 recruits affected by the coaching carousel so far is growing longer and longer. A list of the most high profile ones at Recruiting Wars, including Michael Beasley, Alex Legion, Dom Sutton, etc.

Throwdown Thursday, as Bob Huggins shocks everyone by going to West Virgina!!!. This was according to sources, just posted at FoxSports by Jeff Goodman. The recruiting implications of this at Recruiting Wars... This will also add a new twist to the a recruiting of Patrick Patterson

Very unhappy are the people at Kansas State (espn story). That story includes a heated discussion among basketball fans with 180+ comments... Kansas State says they won't give players releases until the next coach is hired, so at least he has a chance to re-recruit them. Good luck keeping them since they went there for Huggins... Lon Kruger's name has come up once again, but if indeed he goes back to Kansas State, then Reggie Theus can use the "Roy Williams/Bob Huggins going back home" exception and bolt for UNLV.

More places are now reporting this, including local newspaper The Intellligencer (I did not make up that name!), and AOL's NCAA Fan House. Huggie's buyout was set at just $100,000... This will make the Cincinatti vs West Virginia Big East matchups very interesting. Look for them on ESPN, and look for them to schedule two of them next year :)

Thanks to blog reader WMH for the link! Santa Clara hires experienced and deserving UCLA assistant Kerry Keading as their next head basketball coach... With so many jobs open in California (WCC/BigWest), Keading was able to pick and chose... It's clear that SCU was looking for the next "Mark Few", so they went after a young, talented and experienced assistant, with success at a winning program. As you may recall they "encouraged" Dick Davey to "retire" after 30 years (15+15) at Santa Clara.

Bob Huggins bolts Kansas State after one year but he has a good reason: He is going home to West Virginia.

Billy the Kid meets with AD Jeremy Foley and says he is staying put.

The Godfather gets another assistant a head coaching job (sources say at espn.com). Godfather being Rick Pitino, the assistant being Kevin Willard (son of Ralph Willard)

Butler keeps it in the family. The dominos stop here! Assistant Stevens will take over for Iowa-bound Todd LickLiter

Andy Katz reports in this Daily Blog on Bob Huggins and West Virginia. The first two paragraphs are free, the rest of the story requires an Insider account.

Travis Ford a candidate at West Virginia? UMass student paper story. Also FoxSports story.

A recap of the Coaching Carousel including top available candidates, coaching vacancies, etc.


Kentucky Coaching Search Repor(t)

Andy Katz on Sportscenter: Rick Barnes is the leading candidate (he may say no)... Tom Crean would go to Kentucky if offered...

ESPN.com story on Kentucky's Plan B. Mitch Barnhart [allegedly] received permission to talk to Billy the Kid late last night, but earlier today Billy the Kid decides to drink the Florida Orange Juice instead (which he advertises on his coaches show)... Both Patrick Patterson and snotty brat Jai Lucas have said they will wait for the next Kentucky coach before making a decision.

Coverage of the search at various Kentucky basketball sites below:

A Sea of Blue looks back at the hiring of Rick Pitino and reminds fans that he was choice #3, after Lute Olson, and Larry PJ Sprewell-Carlissimo.

Wild Cats Thunder talks about the Power of Blue.

Six new stories from today at Aaron's UK

More stories at John Clay


Misleading Headlines!!!

ESPN headline: "New Mexico St. coach Theus visits Pope in hospital". What? The Pope was hospitalized? What? Did he watch last night's South Park episode and got sick? Well, it turns out that they are talking about basketball recruit Herb Pope who is recovering from gunshot wounds in Pittsburgh.

Transferology

Omar Wilkes, a wing at California (and former Cal transfer) will not return to the team next year. It's unclear whether he will try to go to another university for his last remaining year of eligibility or remain at Cal but just not play hoops. He is on target to graduate this year. In a statement Braun said he is going to "pursue post-graduate studies". CBS Sportsline has the story

As you may recall the NCAA is going to restrict the 2005-54 rule (aka the Kevin Kruger rule) that allowed student athletes to transfer to a graduate program of another institution and play immediately assuming they had remaining eligibility and earned their undergraduate degree. Under the new proposed legislation the NCAA is going to review each case individually, in order to prevent other coaches from poaching graduates from other universities.



Random Notes

I wanna be one of Pat Summitt's assistants... On a totally unrelated note, Pat Summit is buying Mercedes Benz convertibles for all her assistants.

The date has been set for the next Jim Rome Smack-Off. Mark your calendars Clones, it's May 4, 2007. Past winners including sports talk radio personality JT The Brick... It was funny to hear Van Smack advertise Van Heusen and JC Penney...

Joe Lunardi takes a critical look at his 12+ years of Bracketology misses. (ESPN Insider account required)

You can dream big, especially on April Fools Day. This Pacific fan posted this April Fools Day story: the most highly sought after recruit, Patrick Patterson has committed to the University of the Pacific (Pacific is in the Big West). He managed to tie in the story with the Billy Donovan to Kentucky rumors. This is my favorite April Fools story of this year! Well done!


The Trouble Repor(t)

Sidney Lowe had a great first season on the court, but off-court the troubles are piling up. First his son got in serious trouble with the law, now assistant Larry Harris resists arrest after a speeding violation. He has been at NC State for 11 years, and was allegedly involved with the Princeton-offense that Herb Sendek was running. So why the need for speed? :-)

Two Arkansas players test positive for a certain herb that some people have declared war on. It's just a herb people, grow up :-) First they lose the coach they just hired, now two of their players 420. What a headache for an AD who is about to retire! Privacy laws were cited in keeping the names private.

Billy Packer uses dictionary.com to explain "fagged out" but does not apologize or shows any sign of "maybe I shouldn't have said that"... On the other hand CBS thinks he should not have used that word... A number of Packer haters (check the web, there is a long list) are taking this opportunity to point out that there is a need for a new top NCAA analyst at CBS.

Sad news for Rice and the college hoops world in general, as Jonathan Bailey was stabbed to death after a bar-related fight at College Station. His twin brother (a recent A&M student) is in fair condition.


Florida Gators Gear!

Select Florida Gators items on Amazon that might be of interest to sports fans! Pictures are links to Amazon product pages. The 2007 Florida basketball championship DVD is now available for pre-order at Amazon for $14 (eligible for free shipping with orders over $25).

Hoops Withdrawl Wednesday!

Send it in Jerome! If you have Fox College Sports, you can watch/record the classic game with the world-famous Jerome Lane dunk that launched a thousand Bill Raftery careers :) Fox College Sports will be airing it as part of the aptly-named series "Pitt Classics" that showcases classic Pittsburgh games. This is a two-hour edit of the game. Airtimes:

Thursday April 5, 630amPT/930amET

Friday April 6, 1130amPT/230pmET

Monday-going-to-Tuesday April 16-to-17, 30 minutes after midnight

The game was played in 1988, and it was against Providence

Send it in Jerome! Send it in!


Billy Packer gets in trouble for saying "fag out" during an interview with PBS's Charlie Rose. This is really much-ado-about-nothing since there was no homophobic intend in that context, but it doesn't help with the stereotype of athletes/coaches/analysts/sports-fans/etc being homophobic, sexually objectifying women, uneducated, uncivilized, beer-guzzling simpletons, etc, etc, etc. Charlie Rose himself was laughing after he said it. But things like that sometimes tend to take a life of their own, especially if the person who said it looks like an interesting story or target...

It's ironic that Billy Packer, who indirectly criticizes people like Dick Vitale for turning college hoops into a circus, actually used such a term on PBS. Granted PBS ratings are much lower than CBS, but people still watch it!

The AOL Sports Blog thinks that this may give the Packer-haters a reason to start a campaign to get him fired. Not just Packer-haters, but "Desperate Basketball Analysts" as well, the people who think they have a shot to replace him. There are calls to suspend/fire him already from Jay Mariotti, while a Deadspin.com writer likened this to getting a mafia guy behind bars for tax evasion.

Here is an innovative penalty suggestion (in the spirit of the Aaron Brooks suspension when he punched Ryan Appleby in the Pac-10 tourney last year): How about Billy Packer changes his name to Billy Fudge-Packer for the next calendar year including the NCAA Tourney and Jim Nantz has to call him that every time he says "Billy" during a broadcast? :-)

But wait there's more! Jim Rome's mocking of soccer and soccer fans is well-known. And who can blame him? Ninety minutes and a 0-0 score! So ESPN soccer analyst Eric Wynalda posted on his blog "Jim Rome can suck ** d***", and threatened to get (more) drunk and club Jim Rome. Did someone say that athletes/sports-fans have to worry about being stereotyped as uncivilized, uneducated, beer-guzzling simpletons?... Oh, and getting drunk during an interview is probably not a good idea.

A transcript of the chat is here.

Make sure you listen to the Jungle (Jim Rome's radio show) tomorrow as there will be plenty of entertaining reaction from the "clones" (regular die-hard fans of the Jim Rome show). Jim Rome radio show affiliates. It airs daily from 9am to noon pacific time (noon to 3pm eastern time).

And of course any mention of Jim Rome and a fight brings up the "Chris Everett incident" at sportscolumn.com (YouTube link at the end of that story).

Okay, enough with the commentators/analysts, back to basketball...



2007 WNBA Draft: Duke's Lindsey Harding was picked as the #1 pick, while Ohio State's Jessica Davenport was picked #2... In an interesting twist, both of them ended up getting traded on draft day...

John Calipari on Jim Rome Is Burning
Calipari is always an entertaining interview. Here's a quick recap of the in-studio Jim Rome interview:

"a little bit disappointed on the (Memphis) season"

On Donovan/Kentucky/NBA: "Jeremy Foley may be the best AD", "money won't be an issue in Donovan's case", "none of the other coaching candidates have been at Kentucky, unlike Billy Donovan", "you are not getting 50-wins out of a 30-win team in the NBA", "must be very thick skinned", "tough on the family"

On Arkansas: "we ended up talking about candidates", "I can't believe people are turning down that job!" [a back-handed compliment?]

On internet/message boards/chat rooms: "They can take your picture on cellphone and post it within seconds". But he acknowledged that is part of the job (and partially explains the high salaries).

Kentucky Coaching Idol.

Pat Forde on Plan B candidates (@ Cold Pizza): Rick Barnes, Billy Gillespie, Thad Matta (longshot at leaving), and Tom Crean

Dozens of stories and links from today (!) at the following KY basketball sites:

WLKY story that the Memphis Vancouver Grizzlies of the NBA have offered Billy Donovan around $5.5 million per year for their head coaching job. But they are the worse team in the NBA right now record-wise. College coaches have not been particularly successful on the court when taking over really bad NBA teams. But it has helped their bank accounts and helped them improve as returning college coaches (at least in some instances).

14 story links at John Clay

Opinions and story-links at A Sea of Blue

10 story links at Aaron's UK!

Stories, links and a pop-culture twist on the whole situation at Kentucky Sports Radio



One Shining Moment, the song, along with tourney highlights are available at iTunes.com! Also you can (re)watch NCAA games for free at ncaasports.com/mmod

Google Alerts! If you want, you can now create Google Alerts for this blog (or any website), so you will be notified by email when a topic of interest is posted. This is an example of a Google alert that will notify you when NBA draft topics are posted. Simply change the "Search Terms" for a topic of your interest.


Recruiting

Details on the 2007 Nike Hoop Summit all-star game. It will be played on Saturday April 7, and air live on some regional FSNs and Fox College Sports, with multiple repeats. Check the link for details.

A shoe camp that stresses fundamentals? Really? Details at Recruiting Wars


2007 NBA Draft

Colorado State's seven footer Jason Smith declares but will not sign with an agent. Draft coverage here


Coaching Carousel

Crazy Skip Bayless suggests that Arkansas should go after Pat Summitt. He says Frank Boyles was bold enough to hire Richardson in 1985, so why not Pat Summitt? Well, except of course, why would Pat Summitt want to leave her current job where she is the John Wooden of women's hoops?

Following the Skip Bayless logic then, Pokey Chapman may be the best available coach and her troubles at LSU makes her a "safe" hire since she would be coaching a men's team. So perhaps Arkansas should hire her? ;-)

Yes Bob Huggins has ties to West Virginia. Yes, West Virginia is looking for a coach (unless Beilein makes a b-line back to Morgantown in the next 48 hours). Yes, this would make a lot of sense last year when Huggins was looking for a job. But sorry to disappoint West Virginia fans but Huggins is not going anywhere. Kansas State put their faith and their program in his hands when everyone was bashing Huggins. And on a practical level, he has Billy Walker and Michael Beasley is coming for 2007-2008, along with a few other solid recruits. Huggins is not going anywhere...

Former Syracuse great and Seton Hall head coach Louis Orr is rumored to be taking over Bowling Green vacated by the firing of Dan Dakich (who had his own job-change change of mind a few years ago).

Keith Richard was fired but the Rolling Stones are not looking for a new guitarist. Why? Because we are talking about Louisiana Tech's basketball coach Keith Richard who was fired (Yahoo Sports).

Jeff Bizdelik borrowed a page from the Mike Montgomery playbook: Change jobs, but stay close to home. He has agreeded to a five-year $750K per year contract with Colorado (Yahoo Sports). It will be interesting to see whether Jeff Bzdelik brings the Princeton-inspired Air Force style offense with him, or goes back to his NBA style, or tries something in between... Colorado paid just over a quarter million to buyout his contract.

Which one of the recently hired coaches is going to change his mind next? Probably no one else, it seems that we only get about one pear year, but if I had to guess/predict, I have a candidate: How about John Beilein?... He is getting a six-year, $1.3 million per contract (Yahoo Sports). He [allegedly] took the job without visiting Ann Arbor first just like he did with WVU/Morgantown... The buyout issue is an interesting one here, as it seems Michigan is not going to pay it (maybe Borders Bookstores can send WVU gift cards in that amount?), so Beilein will either have to work it out with WVU or probably pay it out of his own pocket... Well, don't feel sad for him, $1.3 million - $0.5 million per year, still leaves him with $800,000 per year for the next five years of the buyout. So, no, please don't send him coupons, food stamps and gift cards :-) He is fine... It will be interesting to see however how he adjusts his two-guard offense in the Big 11, where scoring is strictly prohibited. The most promising game (as far as style of play) will probably be against Ohio State who is not afraid to run and gun.. Although, to be fair, the Big East has its share of slugfests.

A snapshot/recap of the spring edition of the Coaching Carousel is right here.



The 2007-2008 season!

Andy Katz takes a stab at the 2007-2008 season as well, also making assumption about who goes to the NBA and who stays. Gonzaga fans will be thrilled that their team is picked #15 (everyone else: surprised). ESPN would lose its official Duke homer status so they had to squeeze the dookies in, at #23, even without Josh "Cry in a towel" Mechanical McRoberts. Florida is not in the Top 25 because the assumption is that they bolt for the NBA.

Bryan Graham of CSTV looks ahead to the 2007-2008 college basketball season. He looks so far ahead that he actually has the list of 65 teams that make the NCAA tourney and crowns the next NCAA champion even. He predicts two SoCals in the Final Four... Keep in mind his predictions are based on assumptions he makes about who goes to the NBA and who stays.


Transferology

The new trend in the state of Indiana is to transfer? Xavier Keeling will transfer, while Arizonan Joey Shaw is also thinking about it according to ESPN.com. On a totally unrelated note that scholarship is going to be given to JuCo big man DeAndre Thomas. How many hundred calls did it take Kelvin Sampson to pull this one off? :-)

Two transfer out of Purdue (Yahoo Sports). Chris Lutz leaving is a bit of surprise since he was doing rather well, including a 16-pointer in the NCAA tourney. Lutz cited being homesick (New Hampshire). He has two years remaining after he sits out 2007-08, so expect the New England schools to go after him... On a totally unrelated note Purdue has one of the top 5 recruiting classes in 2007 and playing time will have to be earned in practice by all returning players...

Usually players transfer for playing time, and coaches "encourage" transfers because they found (or hope to find) better recruit(s) and want to free up scholarship(s). But they won't admit to it!


Tax Day is coming! Postponing your taxes because of the NCAA Tourney? Now it's the time to get the tax software and get it done! Purchasing from the links below supports this blog :)

Morning After Talk

Congratulations to the Lady Vols and Pat "Wooden" Summitt for their seventh NCAA championship. And just as the women's game continues to grow, the draft/professional issue will also come up. While Candance Parker is not eligible for the WNBA draft, she could go pro in Europe. Russia is the hottest market at the moment and C. Parker could get anywhere from $600K to $1 million for one year. This may not be as unlikely as it sounds, because her brother (Anthony Parker) played for quite a few years in the Euroleague and it certainly didn't hurt his game (he is now playing in the NBA)... However, in her postgame interview with Mike Jones she said "why wouldn't I want to return for another year?". This in contrast to Greg Oden's answer to a similar question which was "next question please".

Coaching Carousel Instant Update! Dana Altman pulls a Gregg Marshall and decides that he doesn't want to leave Creighton after all! So he is back to Creighton and Arkansas and their retiring AD has to call Frodo and start all over again!

Thanks to A Sea of Blue for the link! A Sea of Blue covers all things Kentucky and it's a great resource to bookmark for college hoops fans.

TV listings for the Roundball Classic (CSTV), the Nike Hoop Summit (FSN, Fox College Sports), state championships (Fox College Sports), and repeats of the McDonalds All-American game (ESPN) can be found at Recruiting Wars

Don't miss John Calipari tomorrow (Wednesday) on Jim Rome is Burning on ESPN at 130pmPT/430pmET. Calipari has never met a camera he didn't like.

Congratulations to Coach Gail Goestenkors for accepting the Texas job, and escaping the foul-smelling smug-cloud of Coach K that hovers around Cameron Opendoor Stadium.

Colorado State's seven-footer Jason Smith has declared for the NBA draft but won't sign with an agent.

Bracketology 2007-2008

Joe Lunardi's first bracketology segment on the 2007-2008 season (with the assumption that most likely lottery picks would declare for the NBA draft) has some supriring projections: The #1 seeds: Kansas (overall #1), North Carolina, Memphis, and ...Louisville (drinking Pitino cool aid?). UCLA is projected a #2, Ohio State and Georgetown #4, and Florida a #9 seed. He projects even fewer mid-major bids, 7 Big East and ACC bids, 6 for the Pac-10. His sleepers are Indiana (#3 seed), NC State (#7 seed) and Davidson (#10 seed and winning at least one game).


Kentucky Coaching Idol 2007

Billy Donovan appeared on Cold Pizza and continued to push aside any Kentucky talk. He also has a busy schedule in the next few days, including a week-long vacation after Friday

Pat Forde thinks Rick Barnes could be Plan B

A very basic GoDaddy website has been created to Keep Billy Donovan at Florida...

Did Billy Donovan's pre-game speech that aired nationally on CBS have a secret message in it?. He talked about the season as a horserace, and we all know which state is famous for horses and horse-racing. What it simply a figure of speech and a pure coincidence? Was it a subconcious reaction to him thinking about Kentucky all the time? Or was he sending a secret message? :-)


Quick Hitters

Katz thinks all four Florida juniors will probably go... Skip Bayless has a gut feeling Greg Oden will return next year... Skip Bayless also got some PR when Corey Brewer said they were motivated by him saying they are not one of the Top 5 teams... At least 425 MLB players are making over $1 million per year. M stands for Millionaire said the Cold Pizza crew... Don't forget tonight on ESPN, and ESPN2, in an ESPN full circle event, the women's NCAA final between defensive experts Rutgers and the Tennessee Pat Summit Express. Interesting how a certain insurance agency has pulled their Coach Loser K ads and replaced them with the Pat Summit ads! Prediction: Candance Parker is the difference maker and the Lady Vols paint the trophy orange!... Some rumors had Lon Kruger going to Michigan and Steve Lavin or Ernie Kent going to Iowa. Obviously not very right... Another rumor has/had Dookie Tommy Amaker upgrading [academically] to Harvard. Perhaps he wants to turn Ha'v'a'd into the the Duke of the Ivy League?... Chris Lowery's upgraded contract at SIU is 7 years and $750k/year. The Valley of Darkness is going to the bank!... Quoteable Pete Gillan: On Noah: "he's so emotional he cries when supermarkets open".


NBA Draft & College Players by Mark Kreidler on Cold Pizza

Oden: likely #1

Joakim Noah: stock fallen, still lottery but #10 or below

Al Horford: most NBA-ready among Florida players. Top 6 lottery pick

Mike Conley: best available PG in the draft

Corey Brewer: rising stock, top 10 lottery

Arizona message board coaching rumor: Kevin O'Neill to join the staff and Lute's long-time deputy to move to an admin position. The reason being defense and toughness. I guess after the success of Larry Shyatt at Florida, more teams will try that approach. another message board discussing this as well. Kevin O'Neill's profile at NBA.com. Story also mentioned in the Arizona Daily Star... Update: This doesn't surprise me as much as I should. When I was watching Lute's Coaches Show on CSTV where he was talking with "Roz" (long-time deputy/assistant) that conversation seemed a bit strange and off. So this talk about Kevin O'Neil coming in doesn't seem as shocking.

The biggest questions right now: 1) next Kentucky coach 2) What will the Floridians do (players/coach)?

Let's not forget, before we crown Billy Donovan as the king of coaches, that just a few years ago he was struggling and he was "convinced" to hire Larry Shyatt as his top assistant because the defense was lacking. So while Billy Donovan deserves a lot of the credit, Shyatt deserves a large chunk as well because he installed defense/toughness.

Bruce Pearl wants Donovan to go to Kentucky for selfish reasons: He wouldn't have to worry about Florida without Donovan, just Kentucky. It was a compliment for Kentucky and Donovan, but not for the Florida AD who would hire the next coach :-)

Vitale has volunteered to take the Florida job for $1 a year if Billy Donovan goes to Kentucky!

The NBA Draft Early Entry Deadline is April 29. It's a bit surpring that only two players have formally announced so far (well three since free agent Randolph Morris just left for the Isiah Knicks). Perhaps they are all waiting to see what Durant, Oden, the Floridians and the Carolinians do?

Today's Outside the Lines at 1230pmPT/330pmET will look at African-American Female head coaches in Women's basketball in the centerpiece titled "Minority Report".

Reader Appreciation Day!

Thanks to all the readers and supporters of this blog, and thanks to everyone for their comments, suggestions and feedback as well.

If you have any suggestions on stories and features you would like to see in-between the seasons, please let me know via email or by leaving a comment.

Some of the things that I will be covering in the next few weeks:

NBA Draft coverage, especially as it pertains to underclassmen and the effects on the 2007-2008 season, recruiting, and beyond.

comprehensive links to basketball sites, such as mass-media writers, conference and team blogs, coaches blogs, recruiting, general blogs, etc.

increased recruiting coverage here and simulcast (I guess simul-blogged) at Recruiting Wars

if you have any ideas or suggestions pls let me know!

Daily Tourney Talk (Final Monday!)

Coaching Carousel Instant Update Trying to sneak these under the rug while everyone was watching the NCAA tourney?

John Beilein to Michigan!. The brilliant basketball mind of John Beilein will pack his bags and go to Michigan! However this is sad for all the freshmen/underclassmen at West Virginia who expected to be coached by Beilein, the NIT champion, something that Michigan strived for the last few years ;-)

The BIGGEST SHOCKER however was (WOW) Butler coach Todd Lickliter going from Butler to Iowa!. I guess Iowa was running interference while they were busy finalizing the details with the Butler coach? Todd Lickleiter was just named NABC coach of the year (NABC = national association of basketball coaches). Terms of the agreement not announced/leaked just yet.

Coaching Carousel 2007 updated with these two hirings!

Blogging live on the Final Four in Atlanta from ...right in front of the TV :-)

Live on ESPN News right now, the Ohio State press conference...

Billy Packer just went over to Westwood One and talked on the air on radio with Big John, Raft and Kevin Harlan. Anthony Grant (now at VCU) also on the floor joining the celebration.

Now that the championship is over, we have two big questions: 1) Will everyone return for a threepeat? 2) Will Billy Donovan take the Kentucky or an NBA job?

Will the reporters ask Donovan about the Kentucky job? Will he give them an Ole Roy type of answer "I don't give a sh*t about ****** right now"? Probably not, since Donovan will be a winner, not frustrated because he lost...

"We are the champions" sing the Florida fans... And no, not the parody version of that song that Mike (Golik) and Mike (Greenberg) play for the winner of the NIT every year... Florida dominates both football and basketball...

Richard fouls out, Noah goes in. 81 seconds from the repeat!

Pat Riley's advice to Donovan on repeating: "Go with your gut".

Florida fans are starting to smell a repeat, just 2 minutes and 30-some seconds away!

Last media timeout (under-4): Ohio State 62, Florida 73... 4th foul on Chris Richard... Oden has 22 pts 11 rebounds... Billy Donovan trying a 2-3 zone... Florida 35-27 on rebounds...

Jim Gray interviewing Bill Walton on Westwood One: "repeating is the hardest thing", "Oden one of the most underutilized players in the history of college basketball", "spectacular tournament - only wish there was more than just fouls, timeouts and substitutions", "the game is not over".

Fourth media timeout (under-8): Ohio State 56, Florida 64... Noah has four fouls, three on Richards, Speights and Horford and Greg Oden... Can they contain the Oden Express?

Third media timeout (under-12): Ohio State 44, Florida 53... Oden vs (now four) Florida bigs... The game intensity increases... Will Oden be worn down at the end of the game?

Second half, First and second media timeout (Donovan timeout and under-16): Ohio State 40, Florida 49...

Halftime Show: Mini-feature on Kevin Durant receiving the Naismith award (the first freshman ever to do that)... Meanwhile Westwood One has a mini-preview on the women's Rutgers vs Tennessee game... And Dick Enberg is celebrating his 50 years in broadcasting by narrating an essay on ...hands... Ohio State is 2/12 on 3pt FGs this half...

Halftime! Ohio State 29, Florida 40... Marresse Speights got some action in order to wear down Oden and save some fouls on Noah/Horford/Richards... Oden is only one.

Fifth media timeout (under 4): Ohio State 24, Florida 35... Second foul on Joakim Noah as he was trying to defend Oden... Oden has an impact in the paint but he is only one - Florida has three big men (Noah, Horford, Richard).

Fourth media timeout (Matta timeout): Ohio State 22, Florida 33... Ohio State broke Florida's momentum but three three-poitners by three Florida players created some separation again... More nickle-timer calls frustrate Big John...

Third media timeout: Ohio State 15, Florida 21... Conley had to return to the game as Matta must have felt that Florida was starting to pull away... Florida is taller this year, but Ohio State will have more bigs next year: freshmen Kosta Koufos and Dallas Lauderdale and transfer K. Mardsen.

Second media timeout: Ohio State 13, Florida 17... Danger time for the Buckeyes?... The zebras are starting to nickle-dime again and Big John is not happy, two fouls for Mike Conley, Othella Hunter, etc. Bad zebras!... CBS showed the fake-trophy pre-planned failed hand-off between Donovan and an associate during Midnight Madness that gave the Florida fans a scare. It would be ironic if the last play of this game was a turnover... Nantz and Packer also make a case for not letting fouls take players out of the game. Hopefully this tourney will get the ball rolling on this issue...

First media time-out: Ohio State 9, Florida 7. Promises to be an exciting game so far. And that's good! The last thing we need is another choppy quick-whistle game!

Ohio State opens with man-to-man defense. Mike Conley scores the first basket for Ohio State, and Corey Brewer the first bucket (three pointer) for Florida. Current score: Ohio State 5, Florida 3.

Just before tip-off: The starting line-ups are as expected. One observation from Big John: Ohio State is a lot shorter.

15 minutes before tip-off: Long Greg Oden interview on Westwood One where Greg Oden talks about the bond he developed with Tony Dungy as they both lost people very close to them the last few months.

30 minutes before tip-off: Find your local Westwood One radio station here. Select "NCAA Tournament".

45 minutes before tip-off: Kevin Durant is named Naismith player of the year (the first freshman to get that award).

60 minutes before tip-off: Dick "Hoops" Weiss blogs that Lon Kruger and Mike "Stanford" Montgomery have not been appoached by Iowa. He also says that Arkansas offered Calipari more than $2 million per year... Quotable Pete Gillen: on Roy Williams getting in the Hall of Fame: "he beat me like a rented mule"... Don't miss today's deal of the day at Amazon! Check it out at the end of this post!

75 minutes before tip-off: Pregames airing now both on ESPN and CSTV... If you find Nantz/Packer annoying, just turn off the volume and turn on the radio coverage on Westwood One (check local listings for radio stations) featuring Kevin Harlan, Bill Raftery and Big John... Even Ohio State player/alum Clark Kellogg is picking Florida... My prediction is Florida, but I'm not sure how close it will be. It will definately depend on what the zebras do foulwise. They already ...fouled up two NCAA semifinals (one men, one women). Let's hope the zebras let the players decide the game on the court, not on the bench!

Yes, the national championship between Ohio State and Florida will tip off at 620pmPT/920pmET on CBS and CBS-HD where available. The pre-game show (prelude to a championship) starts at 6pmPT/9pmET. Both ESPN and CSTV will have a 90-minute preview show starting at 430pmPT/730pmET. ESPN's Cold Pizza will have a morning after recap on Tuesday. CSTV will have an NCAA repeat marathon this weekend.

Stan Heath finds his feet real quick as he is named the new South Florida coach, for five years for a total of $4.25 million with incentives. Apparently Kevin O'Neill (O'Neal?) had personality incompatibilities with the South Florida people, while Stan Heath proved to be a much better personality/temperament match... Waiting by the phone: Allegedly both John Beilein (Michigan) and Jeff Bizdelik (Colorado) are sitting on job offers and will be making a decision in the next few hours...

Right around 10pmPT/1amET, after they play "One Shining Moment", and the press conferences, interviews and postgames are over, there will be a new sheriff in town, the Kentucky Job Opening!, or as I like to call it in pop-culture-speak, "Kentucky Coaching Idol 2007"... Check/bookmark these Kentucky websites for news, opinions, rumors and everything else UK basketball: Ky Sports Radio, John Clay, Aaron UK, Sea of Blue, Rivals, Scout, FireTubby.com, Brett Lawson... Of all the stories, this is particularly interesting/buzz-worthy because a Florida writer thinks Billy Donovan should go to Kentucky, which got Florida fans rather upset...

Vitale fans, check this promotion featuring DiGiorno and Vitale. You can send people customized pre-recorded voice messages from Dick Vitale that end with (you guessed it) Vitale encouraging you to buy/eat DiGiorno pizza. And you wonder why he was not (s)elected in the Hall of Fame? :-)

Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports reports that Dana Altman goes to Arkansas! after 13 years at Creighton.

Final Four TV Ratings: Georgetown vs Ohio State got a 9 (19%), while UCLA vs Florida got a 9.5 (17%). Overall this was a 9.3 (18%), and a 4.2 in the 18-49 advertiser-coveted category, and 3% from last year. ESPN story. The whole tourney was up a 2%.

Mike and Mike joined Dick Vitale today in asking for a sixth foul and pointing out that this is the only game where a trigger-happy referee can send a player to the bench real early (not just Oden/Hibbert, but also happened during the women's Final Four (Candance Parker and Ivory Iverson-Latta)). I support six fouls and the coach option to leave a player in after the sixth and get penalized with two shots and the ball for the seventh foul and beyond.


Hall of Fame Announcements!. At a press conference (at the Final Four in Atlanta) that started five minutes late (were they busy doing recounts?) the following seven (7) have been (s)elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in the class of 2007. The enshrinement will take place in September 2007:

As a Coach: Pedro Ferrandiz (Spain/Real Madrid)

As a Coach: M. Novosel (Yugoslavia)

As a Zebra/Referee: Mindy Rudolph (NBA) (13th referee inducted in HoF)

As a Coach: Philip (aka Phil Jackson)

As a Coach: Van Chancelor (OleMiss/WNBA). He was on hand to receive the jersey and cried and laughed at the same time.

As a Team: The 1966 Texas Western (now UTEP) team! Congratulations!. (6th team to be inducted in HoF). Two of the starters were on hand to receive the jersey and the news.

As a Coach: Ole Roy (Roy Williams) (Kansas/North Carolina). Shockingly Ole Roy did not cry (at least not in front of the cameras)!

Also Bob Cousy himself presented the Bob Cousy award to ... *** drumroll *** Texas A&M's Acie Law!

The press confernece itself started long-winded with speeches. Just announce the winners! How hard is that? :-)

The list of candidates and my predictions are here
Not elected and crying
* Dick Vitale, Eddie Sutton, Bobby Hurley Sr, Adrian Dantley, Chris Mullin. The biggest surprise to me was Bobby Hurley Sr. Dick Vitale would probably get in if he was nominated as a cheerleader of the game.

Thanks for the link to With Leather. This is how they describe their site: "a blog by a man who loves athletics, strangely focused on hating almost everything in the wide world of sports. Except awesome stuff. And the occasional underdog..."


Satire Segment

How do you lure Majerus to coach your team? with food!

Sillest item of the day: The Donald Trump and Vince McMahon scripted "fight" and ensuing fight via their oven-roasted, steroid and android pumped, shiny and glazed bodybuilders.

Repeatedly during the "Center Court with Coach K" special on the Discovery Channel, the Rat kept mentioning "he broke my limits". This was a bit confusing as I wasn't sure if this was a basketball documentary or an HBO Real Sex special on SM/BD relationships.


Shopping Segment
One day only at Amazon (gold box deal of the day), a Wireless Body Fat Analyzer and Scale, with detachable screen (see pic below) for just $18 and eligible for free shipping (with orders over $25).

Daily Tourney Talk (Sunday)

Women's Tourney Instant Update: I hope no one read my predictions for game 1. I predicted Sylvia Fowles dominating the paint and LSU winning the game. Well, it may have happened in some parallel universe, but in this one, the Rutgers defense dominated LSU... The 2nd game is supposed to be a "woo woo" game (a Raftery term, not related to the story below), but instead it's just 5-2 after six minutes of play!... Speaking of which, Candance Parker's brother is none other than NBAer Anthony Parker. European basketball fans are also very familiar with him as he had a very successful career in the Euroleague with Macabi Tel Aviv of Israel.

Did you know? The first Chinese-American player to play NCAA division 1
college basketball was Willie "Woo Woo" Wong at Cal-Berkeley, coached by the legendary Pete Newell in 1949 (yes, 1949, and yes, the same Pete Newell who does the Big Man camps every summer).

Congratulations to future Texas (???) Coach Gail Goestenkors for being named Coach of the Year. Also congratulations for thinking of escaping the foul-smelling smug smog cloud that Coach K has created at Duke. Go to Texas Coach G! You will have great success there in a smug-free environment!

Xs and Os: When asked how he would defend Noah and Horford, Thad Matta said (jokingly?) we will play zone all the time. Then he said that during the last time they played Oden and Harris split time on those two, and he said to expect something similar. (Red herring???). One thing is certain: he can't use space-eater Dallas Lauderdale (the next T. Dials?) or Kosta Koufos since can't play before the Fall of 2007.

I never thought I would completely agree with Dick Vitale on any single topic, but I agree with his point, to not only give players six fouls, but also allow a player to play after his sixth foul, but each additional foul would be two shots and the ball. Everyone wants to watch the best players play and decide it on the court. We don't want to see another disaster where the stupid zebras (yes, you know who you are, you were the three stooges who got Oden and Hibbert in foul trouble) derail a game and ruin a highly anticipated matchup. Bad zebras!. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling on six fouls and beyond!

CSTV tackles some of the big issues Brian Curtis hosted a special edition of Taking Issue from Atlanta on CSTV. It tackled some of the big issues such as the new NBA draft rule, graduation rates, and diversity in coaches and athletic departments. The panel consisted of a university president, a coach, a player and an AD. Interestingly two of them are potentially involved in the Kentucky coaching carousel, the Florida university president (grouchy fellow - coincidence or ???), and Texas A&M coach Billy Gillespie (who allegedly won't sign a contract until he hears from Kentucky either way). The other two panelists were Michigan's Air Georgia, Brett Petway, finalist to the college hoops dunk contest and the Georgia Tech AD. Gillispie's (CSTV's spelling) comments did not reveal anything about his future. He did say that he wants college players to get their summer back; with the current setup and academic requirements, players have to register in both summer sessions; he supports a player's option in the NBA draft... The Florida president looked stern and grouchy, but I don't know if that's his regular personality (or he is p*ss*d that Donovan is leaving?).


It happened before, will it happen again? Ten years ago a promising young coach was on the verge of a repeat, with rumors swirling around him about another coaching job. The coach was Rick Pitino of Kentucky, and the other job was the Boston Celtics. Pitino lost that game even though his team was the favorite. Sounds familiar? Ten years later the roles are a bit reversed. Kentucky is now the pursuer, and Florida and Billy Donovan are the defending champions and favorites to repeat. Given the multiple connections between Pitino, Donovan and Kentucky, one can only wonder where there is a pattern here...

NCAA Final Prediction: Florida beats Ohio State, the Gators get the repeat, and that creates two big questions:
1) Will Billy Donovan stay or go?
2) Will the four juniors go to the NBA or stay and create history by going after a historical threepeat???

Hall of Fame announcement coming on Monday April 2, 2007. Official press release by the Hall of Fame... There should be a live announcement on NBA-TV, at 8am PT/11am ET on Monday, although not all tv listings are agreeing on this... My predictions on who should be IN or OUT are here

Required homework: Watch the Ohio State at Florida game from earlier this season. Yes, they are not exactly the same team, but there are certain patterns that will remain the same.

If you missed any of the games, you can watch them online for free at ncaasports.com/mmod. Or if you prefer to watch them on TV, CSTV will air an NCAA tourney marathon starting Sunday April 8, 2007. They will show around 10 games, each one repeating twice. Prepare your VCRs, DVRs, 8-track, and TiVos!

The Women's Final Four airs tonight on ESPN, pregame at 330pmPT/630pmET, game 1 LSU vs Rutgers at 4pmPT/7pmET, and game 2 around 630pmPT/930pmET. ESPN will go full circle with this game, with a different view and Doug Gottleib commentary on ESPN2, etc, etc. Pedictions: LSU wins with Sylvia Fowles leading the way, Tennessee wins a very close one, with Candance Parker getting close (or getting) a triple double.

An excellent resource on College Hoops is, the College Hoops Update website.


Satire Segment

With all the all-star games happening, and UCLA's miserable performance, one can only wonder how on earth did the Mc Donalds selection cmte picked James Keefe for the 2006 team. Keefe was probably not good enough to play in a hypothetical all-white McDonalds game last year (the 2006 class was very deep), let alone play in the real-world McDonalds game. Memo to the McDonalds selection cmte: Please select the best 24 players, not select players because they commit to Duke/UCLA/etc, or because you think that you have to have a minimum of 2-3 white players. Please select the best players! This is common sense!

If I was looking for a coach to coach my team of zero players, there's at least one NCAA college that would be willing to listen because it might increase his stock and contract... Who do you think I'm talking about? Find out here!

The Pope honors Coach K, Vatican to build tent city!

The Pope has decided to honor Coach K with a lifetime achievements honor as a great teacher of values and morality through sports. Additionally, the Vatican will borrow a page from the Duke playbook and create a tent city on the Vatican lawn, similar to the tent city called K-Ville at Duke. College students from all around the world will be able to camp overnight on the Vatican lawn for a chance to get front row seats for upcoming Papal appearances.

Coach K called it "a great honor for my family" and "I feel humbled by this". Vatican representantive Ricardo Vitali called this an excellent idea to reach young people in this day of decreased interest in religion and eroding moral values. Rabbi Daniello Shulmano, president of the Interfaith Council of Italy strongly applauded the move by the Vatican. Italian culture minister Doristella Burkeoli called it an event of historical signifigance. Sports minister Ricardo Phelpioni applauded Coach Krzyzewski because "he's on a mission". Italian sports reporter Michael Patricio called it a great intersection of sports and religion. Premiere Leagua basketball analyst Giovanni Lunardini welcomed the move as he hopes this increases basketball's popularity in a country where soccer (football) is #1.

However, not everyone was in favor of this. Outspoken italian sports writer Skipardo Baylossi called it a "sham" and a "blatant marketing scheme" that degrades the Vatican. His comments created a major controversy on Italian talk radio and TV.