Thursday Morning Dump

- This is the must-read article of the day, the week, and probably the month: The Shame of College Sports. If you really don't want to read it all (Which, seriously, I suggest you do), then venture over to Deadspin to skim through their cliff notes on the article. Again, this article is MUST-READ

- Andy Glockner previews each of the BCS-Conference teams....in 140 characters or less

- Cal-State Bakersfield got themselves some "Smurf Turf" for the hardwood

- Mike DeCourcy provides a great-read on Victoria Sun, a former sports writer and die-hard Syracuse fan who is now the Director of Operations at Eastern Michigan (EMU's new head coach Rob Murphy, is a former-Syracuse assistant)

- Dick Vitale dishes out his list of "Dazzling Diaper Dandies"

- Dana O'Neil explains why the balance of power is back in The Ivy League. She also explains why former-Princeton star Mitch Henderson is one of the reasons why the balance is back. Speaking of The Ivy League, former-Columbia head coach Joe Jones is going to be a perfect fit for the Boston Terriers, at least that's what Andy Katz believes (And are you really going to disagree with Dr. Katz?)

- Andy Bottoms breaks down why the Detroit Titans could be one of the best Non-BCS teams in the country this season

- I remember watching this "Outside the Lines" piece when it aired in back in 2009. I'm glad this guy is getting put away

- Vanderbilt's Lance Gouldbourne was mesmerized by the tennis action that took place the past two weeks in Flushing, NY

- Gonzaga's Demetri Goodson isn't the only hoopster that's going from the hardwood to the gridiron

- Just days away from making his much awaited decision, highly-touted recruit Kevin Anderson has no idea where he wants to go

- Some changes have been made to Marathon Madness

- I've been through "Hell Week" before, and well, it was Hell. But what VCU was put through might even be worse than Hell, if you can believe it

- It's about time Oregon State's Jared Cunningham got some recognition (Even though B.I.A.H was dapping him up last year)

- According to Adam Zagoria, highly-touted recruit Mitch McGary has no plans to make a decision soon

- Virginia could be in for a breakout season, and fifth-year senior Mike Scott could be a big reason why

- Jeff Eisenberg sought out the knowledge of Big Ten Network analyst and former tOSU/NBA star Jim Jackson to help preview the Big-Ten Conference

- Texas A&M got a verbal commitment from Texas-native Alex Caruso

- Seven-foot-tall Iowa-native Adam Woodbury decided to stay in-state and attend IU

- How safe is Kansas if Expansionocalypse hits? Why on Earth would Texas go to the ACC? (They Should join the Gulf Coast Conference, not the ATLANTIC COAST Conference). It seems like Florida State doesn't really want anything to do with realignment. Speaking of Expansionocalypse, Andy Katz details the potential economic fallout if the Big-XII folds

- Damn, New Mexico State has a lot of tall players

- I love reading the interview transcripts between Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar and beat report Percy Allen. Romar always provides thoughtful responses and Allen doesn't just lob softballs. I recommend you bookmark the Seattle Time's Husky Blog

- Rush The Court provides a fantastic breakdown of Kentucky's 2011-2012 schedule

This is video of Sarah Palin back in 1987. Why is this relevant? Because in 1987, she was bone'd by Michigan sharpshooter Glen Rice (This totally made my day). Seriously, check out some of the twitter responses. I mean, this story is so big even the British tabloids have gotten a hold of it (Seriously, this story made my day. Go find Rex Chapman on Twitter if you never want to stop laughing at Sarah Palin jokes)




There is no way in Hell Aaron Gordon is only 15 years-old




I cannot tell you how long I've been waiting for somebody to put together a video like this






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There's a reason that college basketball players are in such good condition

Every team at every level of college basketball has some form of 'Hell Week'.

When I was in college, Hell Week was the first week of official practices in mid-October. That week always ended up being the same week as our Fall Break, meaning that our coaches had free reign at us without having to worry about class schedules. Obviously, that meant double sessions. The mornings consisted of conditioning -- sprints, two-mile runs, weights, plyos -- all before lunch. The afternoons were reserved for our actual practices, which were just as intense and physically demanding. Six days of this was brutal.

That, however, seems like a cakewalk compared to the 6 am Navy SEAL training Shaka Smart has his players going through. From CBSSports.com's Matt Norlander:

The workouts go from 6:30 to 8 a.m., though can feel three times as long. Burgess said at some points it was absolutely brutal, as you’d imagine. I spoke to him early Wednesday morning, and he sounded tired as hell.

“We carried each other, did a lot of push-ups,” Burgess said. There was also ab work, tug-of-war and sled-tugging. Wednesday morning was more individual workouts. “We had to run, do bear crawls, crab walking. It was a lot of long-distance running. ... He’s trying to get our mental aspects of the game right. He teaches us to battle fatigue just like our coaches have all along."

Frankly, any conditioning workouts you go through early in the season are going to be brutal, whether they are based on Navy SEAL training or not. That Navy SEAL factor only adds to the level of anxiousness the players have when they crawl into bed early in order to be able to wake up for pre-dawn bear crawls. (If you have never done a bear crawl, try doing a lengthy sprint crawling on your hands and feet, not your hands and knees. Not fun.) . But the cool part about VCU's workout are that everyone on the staff -- including head coach Shaka Smart all the way down to the Director of Basketball Operations -- is taking part. Its a team building exercise, learning to overcome adversity and legs made of gelatin as a team.

"The great, great thing instructor McGuire preached was, when you get done, you don’t stand and rest. You go back to last. You go back to the last guy in line and help him finish," Smart told Norlander.

There may only be one team in the country that would trade their conditioning sessions with VCU: the Memphis Tigers.

Why?

Because they are spending their fall working out with the terrifyingly mysterious Frank Mastriciano. How intense are his workouts? Freshman Adonis Thomas has already put on 25 pounds of muscle, going from a 6'7", 205 lb kid to a chiseled, 230 lb beast.

How intimidating is he? The Memphis players won't even talk about him.

"Is that Frank yelling?" Memphis beat writer Jason Smith asked Preston Laird at a late-August workout he was allowed to attend.

"I'm not saying anything," Laird answered, smiling.

Later, after Smith thought he caught a glimpse of Mastriciano, he asked Ferrakhon Hall for confirmation. Hall simply "smiled and shrugged his shoulders".

And you think cross-fit is tough.
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Don't understate what Ohio State lost in Jon Diebler and David Lighty

Its amazing when you think about it.

Ohio State, the team that many believed to be the best in the country for much of last season, returns their slimmed-down all-american center in Jared Sullinger, an underrated sophomore point guard poised for a big season in Aaron Craft, and a senior in William Buford that is an 18 ppg season away from becoming the program's all-time leading scorer. Throw in productive sophomore DeShaun Thomas and a loaded recruiting class, and you would think this team had national title favorite written all over it.

But they don't.

In fact, they barely have hype heading into the season, but that's what will happen North Carolina returns their entire team, Kentucky once again reloads on the recruiting trail, and UConn restocks their shelves in late August with the best high school big man in the country.


Its astonishing, really. Ohio State lost three games last season. One was on the road at Wisconsin, where no one wins. Another was on the road at Purdue, where, well, ditto. The third was in the Sweet 16, where Kentucky needed a horrific night from Buford and a last-second shot from Brandon Knight to advance. And no one is talking about them.

"We won 34 games, were the No. 1 overall seed, and we had the No. 51 player drafted in the NBA, and that was it," Ohio State coach Thad Matta told ESPN's Andy Katz in a column Katz posted on this subject yesterday.

Quantitatively, Matta is right. They bring back sophomores -- and rising stars, arguably two of the best at their position in the country -- at the two most important positions on the floor, point guard and center. They have a potent scorer on the wing and they have plenty of young talent to fill in the gaps and the minutes that are left over.

But by referring to the graduation of David Lighty and Jon Diebler as losing nothing more than "the No. 51 player drafted", Matta is doing an incredible disservice to what those two seniors provided the Buckeyes. Their value to that team goes well beyond the numbers that showed up next to their names in the box score. (Those numbers weren't insignificant, either -- 24.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 5.7 apg and 165 threes on 47.7% shooting from deep.)

"The intangibles will be missed, and those two were phenomenal practice players," Matta told Katz. "They brought energy every single day. They were upbeat and always smiling and always wanting to give more."

Leadership is immeasurable, and there's no doubt that the leadership those two provided the Buckeyes last season made a difference on their record. But both Diebler's and Lighty's contributions go beyond the intangibles.

Its hard to put into words just how good of a shooting performance Diebler had as a senior. He was the most efficient player in the country last season by a wide margin, which is a large reason he was tops amongst wing players in terms of value added despite using less than 1/7th of his team's possessions. He shot 50.2% from beyond the arc while taking more than six attempts per game. That's an unreal number.

What Thad Matta would do is use Diebler as Sullinger's primary post-feeder. This put defenses in the unenviable position of having to double off of Diebler on the wing, sending a double team from Craft/Buford/Lighty (37.7%/44.2%/42.9% from three, respectively) at the top of the key, or try to double team with the other big man, which leaves a wide open post player on the opposite block. Diebler's ability to feed the post and bury open threes made him the definition of a floor-spreader. He was a huge reason that Sullinger was able to get opportunities to operate one-on-one in the post. (See the image below, where Luke Winn broke down Ohio State's standard offensive set last season.)


Lighty's value was in his versatility. There wasn't anything on a basketball court that he couldn't do. For starters, he was a terrific defender, capable of guarding any position one through four, and a good enough rebounder that Ohio State could afford to play with four guards around Sullinger. Offensively, he was a good enough shooter that you couldn't leave him open, an explosive enough penetrator that you couldn't play up on him, and unselfish and skilled enough to make the right pass when he drew an extra defender.

You will find little argument that Lighty and Diebler were role players throughout their careers. But as seniors, both players were the best in the country at playing their role; Diebler the best spot-up shooter and Lighty the best glue-guy. Throw in the fact that both were perfectly happy to play within their role on the team, and Matta had the best of both worlds -- seniors that were talented enough to be stars at many other schools across the country, but that wanted to win badly enough that they would play a complimentary role to a freshman.

That is what made Ohio State such a good team in 2010-2011. Talented and experienced role plays that understood and perfected their role in maximizing the talents of an all-american center.

So while Diebler and Lighty will leave Ohio State as nothing more than "the No. 51 player drafted", the void they leave in the Ohio State lineup will be very, very difficult to fill.

I'm not saying the Buckeyes won't be the favorite in the Big Ten or a national title contender.

I'm just saying there is a valid reason why they aren't being talked about in the same sentence as Kentucky, North Carolina, and now UConn.
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Coach K's limo: why is everyone so impressed?

Every Tuesday night, from 10 pm to 11 pm, I am indisposed. You see, that's when the new episode of Sons of Anarchy comes on FX every week, and while I love TiVo as much as anyone, SoA is one of the few shows where I need to watch it live. Its that good.

So you can forgive me for missing out on the hub-bub surrounding Coach K's decision to roll up to see Class of 2013 studs Jabari Parker and Julius Randle in a limo yesterday.

But can you also forgive me for not understanding why this is such a big deal, especially considering he actually showed up in a Yukon Denali with a driver? Frankly, it would be more surprising to me if Duke showed up in something other than a limo.

Now, Coach K -- and two other member of his staff -- were far from the only coaches in the gym yesterday. Illinois, Michigan State, Ohio State and Kansas were among the other coaching staffs reportedly watching Parker's workout. Now, I've been in my share of limo rides. I went to prom and I've been in wedding parties. Hell, Troy was able to talk his dad into expensing our ride to the airport to go to the final four in an escalade with a driver.

I get how cool it is -- and how cool it seems from the outside -- to be riding in a limo.

But it also makes me wonder just how the rest of these coaching staffs are getting around. Is Thad Matta stuck waiting in the absurdly long lines at Hertz like the rest of us Joe Schmoes? Does Bill Self roll up to workouts pushing a Prius? Honestly, I think I'd be more impressed to see a coach roll up like Xavier's Chris Mack did in Vegas two summers ago.

One thing I did notice as I went back through my twitter feed last night was that people were saying this is exactly what Duke wants, people talking about their recruiting tactics. I disagree. Coach K probably wanted Parker and Randle to know he took a limo, but now that the entire college basketball world knows, doesn't this also mean that Coach K is going to have to take a limo to see every recruit he visits this fall? Otherwise, won't a recruit -- and a recruit's inner circle -- start saying they don't want us as much, they didn't show up in a limo?

Maybe its a good thing Glen Rice took our attention away from this.

It also gives a whole new meaning to this commercial:


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Sarah Palin's biography claims ... she slept with Glen Rice?!?

For the first time ever, I think I've found an argument that could convince me that college athletes shouldn't get paid.

It doesn't come from Jay Bilas. Its not an argument put out there by anyone that works at the Atlantic or ESPN or the NCAA. Its an excerpt from a book written by investigative reporter Joe McGinnis, who moved in next door to Sarah Palin. From The National Enquirer:

McGinniss claims Sarah had a steamy interracial hookup with basketball stud GLEN RICE less than a year before she eloped with her husband Todd.

Sarah hooked up with the NBA great, then a 6-foot-8 junior at the University of Michigan when he was playing in a college basketball tournament in Alaska in 1987, the book says. At the time, Sarah, just out of college, was working as a sports reporter for the Anchorage TV station KTUU.

A publishing source told The ENQUIRER that McGinniss claims Sarah had a “fetish” for black men at the time and he quotes a friend as saying Sarah had "hauled (Rice's) ass down."

A source unrelated to the book told The ENQUIRER, Todd was very much in the picture at the time and the couple married just nine months later.

In the book, McGinniss quotes Rice as confirming the one-night stand.

A one-night stand with an eventual vice-presidential candidate, and a hot one to boot. I'd say that's worth the money that Rice's scholarship didn't cover and the thousands of dollars he created for the University of Michigan by leading them to the 1989 NCAA title. I'm not even being sarcastic. What a great story.

And the crazy part is it may be the second-funniest incident Rice has been involved in. In 2008, he was arrested for beating the hell out of a guy he found in the closet when he caught his wife cheating on him. I wonder if R. Kelly will do a 12 part series on "Sleeping with Sarah Palin" now?
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Wednesday Morning Dump

- Archie Goodwin shreds one third of the Big-XII Conference in a recent interview

- Gary Parrish drops some seriously important information about Coach-K's recruiting tactics: He uses a limo

- Former-Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden went on 'Good Morning America" yesterday and detailed how he coached through prostate cancer in 2007. Jim Calhoun and Steve Lavin proved that this can be done on the hardwood too

- a look at what the most recent Expansionocalypse implications mean for the Big East. This is what the Big East might look like if Expansionocalypse takes place

- Would you believe it if I told you Renardo Sydney was almost as talented as Kobe or LeBron?

- Maryland will in fact name the court at the Comcast Center after Gary Williams

- The NCAA has adopted a new rule regarding transgender athletes

- Florida's Cody Larson (You know, one of the players who got kicked out of a bar and tried to rob a car) got deffered prosecution

- A look at the additions and subtractions made to ACC rosters

- A good-read on Mark Prosser, the son of the late-Skip Prosser

- USC's star guard Jio Fontan injured his ACL late this summer during an exhibition game in Brazil. Yesterday it was reported that he will miss the entire season after surgery is performed

- Speaking of Siena, the school learned that forward Lionel Gomis has been granted an extra year of elligibility

- The Jordan Brand Classic high school recruiting showcase will return to Charlotte in 2012

- Eamonn Brennan provides an off-season look at the Big-Ten.

- Brennan also lets us in on a dirty little secret: He's afraid of super-conferences. But Jay Bilas has no such fear (Jay Bilas is immune to fear)

- Is John Calipari the "George Clooney" of recruiting? (Wait, does that mean Anthony Davis is Stacey Keibler?)

- Matt Norlander had Jeff Borzello as his guest on his most recent podcast episode (If listening to Borzello talk about himself for 25 minutes is your type of thing, then by all means click the link)

- According to head coach Lorenzo Romar, the 2012 recruiting class is not a a critical recruiting year for the Washington huskies

- Santa Clara assistant coaches got a chance to work as the head coach of the Broncos during exhibition games on the team's trip to Canada (that's actually a pretty cool concept)

- Siena forward David Martens will redshirt this season after successful surgery was performed on his torn labrum. The 6-foot-9 forward is disappointed, but is looking forward to getting back on the court next season

- Big Apple Buckets is a daily must-read for anybody interested in NYC-area hoops. The latest post pontificates whether or not New Jersey Tech can reach .500 this season

- According to Andy Katz, John Calipari is undecided about his future with the Dominican Republic National Team

- Ed Cooley wants Friar basketball to be a "must-see" event in the state of Rhode Island

- Former-Cornell player Dennis Doyle passed away over the weekend. the former player and coach also starred in the critically-acclaimed documentary "Hoop Dreams"

- Monmouth got a commitment from 5-foot-10 guard Christian White

- in case you didn't already know, it was a great decision for Andre Drummond to attend UConn

- The Arena Pulse is going to have their eyes on five particular teams this season

- The mother of former-Kansas forwards Marcus and Markieff Morris will receive an award for helping their former teammate Thomas Robinson

- If you have any questions about CAA team schedules, visit this page

- A Daly Dose of Hoops predicts the order of finish in The Southland Conference

- An inside look at what it takes to become a walk-on at Marquette

- Former-Kansas star Josh Selby might be involved in a "gay scandal"? (Why is this news?)

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The NCAA gets one right

I rail on the NCAA as much as anyone on the blogosphere, but if I am going to critique them for their mistakes then I must also give credit when credit is due.

And the NCAA's decision to grant Lionel Gomis two extra years of eligibility is the correct one.

The name probably won't be familiar to you, but I guarantee his story will touch you. Gomis, a native of Dakar, Senegal, lost his mother when he was 14 years old. He tried living with his estranged father, but that didn't work out. Without a consistent income, Gomis and his sister were no longer able to afford the private school that they had been attending, so he took two years off from schooling. His basketball ability was enough, however, that he was noticed by the SEEDS -- Sports for Education and Economic Development -- Foundation, which brought him to the States. Due to the language barrier, he ended up having to reclassify one year at Blair Academy.

But thanks to a new NCAA rule that requires players to finish their high school classes in a five-year window, the NCAA ruled that Gomis had a single year of eligibility available to him -- he lost two because of the years he sat out in Senegal and the third because of the year that he reclassified at Blair.

Thankfully, the NCAA reversed their decision today, granting Gomis and his teammate Imoh Silas three years of eligibility; they both have to sit out this season after reclassifying at their american high schools.

"Our compliance staff and basketball coaches have done a great deal of work assembling documents and gathering information that led to Lionel earning back two years of eligibility," director of athletics John D'Argenio said.

"We will continue to seek new information to support a reconsideration of each case."

Sitting out this season won't be easy, but having three years of eligibility is better than having just one.

And at the very least, Gomis and Silas will both get an education. Because that's the goal of college athletics, right?
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Study: Duke players are worth over $1 million annually

I just finished reading The Atlantic's piece titled "The Shame of College Sports". I'm not sure there has ever been a takedown of the theory of amateurism in collegiate athletics than the thorough research and pointed analysis of Taylor Branch. Case in point:

For all the outrage, the real scandal is not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it’s that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—“amateurism” and the “student-athlete”—are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not.

That article came out a day after the AP released a report on a study conducted by advocacy group for athletes called the National College Players Association and Drexel University professor Ellen J. Staurowsky. One of the key passages from the AP said:

that playing big-time football and basketball is a full-time job, and an NCAA study released this year backs that up. It found that players in the Football Bowl Subdivision — the highest level — reported spending 43.3 hours per week during the season in athletic time commitment, while Division I men's basketball players reported 39 hours a week in season.

The report said that players at the most powerful programs are worth far in excess of even the average athlete. The report estimates that Duke's basketball players are worth the most, at around $1 million each, while Texas' football players top that sport at $513,000 each.

The complete results of that study can be found here. The NCPA posted a couple of key nuggets from the report:

- University of Texas football players’ fair market value was $513,922 but they lived $778 below the federal poverty line and had a $3,624 scholarship shortfall.

- Duke basketball players were valued at $1,025,656 while living just $732 above the poverty line and a scholarship shortfall of $1,995.

- The University of Florida had the highest combined football and basketball revenues while its football and basketball players’ scholarships left them living $2,250 below the federal poverty line and with a $3,190 scholarship shortfall.

That is a lot of information to soak in. But I urge you all, particularly those that oppose paying players, to read it and digest it. We'll have our thoughts posted some time tonight or tomorrow.
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Tuesday Morning Dump

- There were a couple of good reactionary articles written in response to the report that BCS-conference college athletes are worth an estimated $100K per year, with basketball players "earning" somewhere near $265K

- The other big news in the realm of college hoops was the continued discussion of Jim Calhoun's manipulation of the NCAA

- Speaking of NCAA shadiness, Deadspin had a great article about how and why journalists became fascinated with collegiate scandals

- This has got to be a head coaching first: NC State's Mark Gottfried is going to skydive onto the field at this weekend's football game against South Alabama

- Former-Georgetown coach John Thompson Jr. was supposed to be on the 9/11 flight that crashed into the Pentagon. Click here to find out why he didn't get on the plane

- Ken Starr, yes THAT Ken Starr, took to the interwebs to explain how much it would cost to end the Big XII Conference

- SEC commissioner Mike Silve hopes that Texas A&M can join the conference before the end of 2012

- Boston senior Jake O'Brien will miss the entire season following a second surgery on his left ankle

- Ten rising sophomores to watch out for in the Big East

- Should Maryland name their new court after Gary Williams or Lefty Driesell?

- NBA Draft Net breaks down the top NBA prospects from the FIBA Americas PO Tournament

- Inside The Hall previews the top non-conference games featuring Big-Ten schools

- A great-read on Colorado freshman Damiene Cain, who is hitting the books as hard as he plays on the hardwood

- Highly-touted recruit Kaleb Tarcezewski will visit Kansas and Arizona in the next two weeks then will make his decision between the two schools

- DeMatha standout Jerami Grant is set to make his college decision this week

- Cincinnati freshman Shaquille Thomas has been cleared by the NCAA and will arrive at school in the near future

- Georgia-native Brandon Morris chose Athens as his college destination

- Langston Walker-Morris is headed to Oregon State (LWM was a high school member of B.I.A.H Posterized)

- Illinois picked up a pair of recruits in the Class of 2013

- Joel Francisco recaps the anything and everything from the Fullcourt Press Fall Showcase

- Diamond Leung details the progress made by Pac-12 freshman during the preseason

- Matt Norlander fills us in on the summer travels of UT-Arlington

- Rush The Court provides a great analysis of Ohio State's 2011-2012 schedule

- BT Powerhouse drops some knowledge on Purdue's 2011-2012 schedule

- Arizona State has released it's full schedule for the upcoming season

- A Daly Dose of Hoops predicts the order of finish in the SoCon

- Tayshana Murphy, a female high school basketball player from Harlem, was shot dead in her apartment building early Sunday morning. She was being pursued by a handful of D-I programs. This is the second time in seven days that a female basketball player has been murdered. Last week, Florida A&M's Shannon Washington was stabbed and killed by her girlfriend Starquineshia Palmer

The Hawaii Rainbow Warriors did some beach training next to a rainbow


Hawaii Basketball - Beach Workouts Begin from Warrior Insider on Vimeo.

(H/T to Diamond Leung)


This was the photo at the top of Gary Parrish's article on Kentucky recruiting.

Consider this the first-ever B.I.A.H "Caption Contest"

Go.

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John Thompson, Jr, was supposed to be on Flight 77

In one of the more unbelievable stories of college basketball's ties to 9/11, Georgetown's legendary head coach John Thompson, Jr, was supposed to be on American Airlines flight 77, the one that crashed into the Pentagon.

You can here the whole version here, but the gist of the story is that one of the bookers for Jim Rome's TV Show had been trying for a year to get Thompson on the air. Thompson finally agreed to come on, but he had an engagement in Vegas on September 13th. Danny Swartz, the show's booker, wanted to get him on air on the 12th, and while Thompson initially booked his flight for September 11th, Swartz was able to convince him not to come out until the 12th.

Seriously, give this a listen. Its incredible.

On the one hand, can you imagine if Thompson had actually gotten on that plane? He was one of the greatest coaches in the 80's, the guy that built Georgetown basketball and Hoya Paranoia. How much different would the climate of Georgetown hoops be right now? Would the younger Thompson still be the head coach? Yesterday's anniversary would have held a completely different meaning for that program, that's for sure.

Perhaps what is more amazing is that the stubborn Thompson, who isn't exactly known as a man that is willing to conform, allowed himself to be talked out of going on Rome's show on the 11th.

(h/t CBS)
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Mark Emmert: It ain't our fault, blame Calhoun

Mark Emmert's tenure as the president of the NCAA hasn't exactly gotten off to a smooth start.

From the overload of scandals we had this summer -- Miami's partying and Ohio State's tattoos to Cam Newton's payday and North Carolina's "tutors" -- to the shifting conference alignment that could one day make his job obsolete, there is no doubt that Emmert has had plenty on is mind this year.

But as much as he should be concerned about players getting paid and students skipping out on school work, you have to figure that he would be bothered by what has happened with UConn over the past year. I'm paraphrasing here (I suggest you go and read through this), but essentially, after being disciplined for poor APR numbers and a serious recruiting violation, UConn's punishment has involved winning a national title, having their head coach force out their AD, and landing the No. 1 recruit in the country despite scholarship reductions while forcing a less-talented player (and more legitimate student) that grew up in a group home to go off scholarship and on financial aid.


That does go against everything the NCAA is supposed to stand for, right? I can't be the only one that sees that, am I?

Jeff Jacobs, a columnist for the Hartford Courant that isn't afraid to sharpen the knives when writing about Calhoun, tried to get in touch with Emmert regarding Calhoun's actions. The response he got?

"We do not know the specific details of this situation, so we encourage you to contact the institution for that information."

That was it. No call back from Emmert. No comment on the situation. Just a sentence from the NCAA director of public and media relations.

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

And I had such high hopes for Emmert, the guy that so passionately and at such length about the need for change in college athletics. But like his predecessors, Emmert simply doesn't get it.

Every coach in the country would have done what Jim Calhoun did in order to get Andre Drummond, the best big man in the country, into school for a year. Every. Single. One. And as despicable as it seems from our point of view, remember what we are dealing with. Bradley is a kid that comes from a troubled background, having grown up in a group home in Tennessee. He's going to get a significant amount of financial aid. There's a chance that Bradley ends up going to school for free -- or close to it -- even if he isn't on scholarship.

Regardless of what happens with Bradley, the bottom line is that Calhoun and UConn -- for all intents and purposes -- did not receive a punishment from the NCAA. They didn't even use a loophole. They manipulated the system to their benefit, taking advantage of the NCAA.

And Emmert doesn't see anything wrong with this?

Frankly, the issue here isn't that Calhoun fudged the scholarship numbers, the issue is that he was allowed to do it by the NCAA. The problem is that what happened here isn't against NCAA rules. How do you fix it? Make scholarships be four or five-year contracts, not renewable every year. Or make a requirement that once a player receives a scholarship for a season, he'll always be a scholarship player. Or simply give the NCAA's president the power to veto a move, to say "Nice try, but we ain't dumb."

Because that's how Mark Emmert and his staff look right now.

Dumb.

He's trying to push the blame onto Calhoun. He's trying to deflect responsibility away from himself and his office. In his mind, college basketball coaches should be the beacon of moral responsibility. In reality, allowing them to choose between enrolling talent and keeping marginal players that need a free education on scholarship is about as smart as the detectives on Law & Order: SVU allowing a serial molester to coach their 11 year old's soccer team.
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Hoops Housekeeping: Oklahoma State, Houston, and North Texas add players

Regardless of what conference Oklahoma State winds up playing in come 2012-2013, Travis Ford is in the midst of asserting himself as a force on the recruiting trail.

Over the weekend, Ford landed a commitment from Marcus Smart -- the No. 10 recruit in our Consensus Recruiting Rankings -- and his high school and AAU teammate Phil Forte. Smart is a powerful and athletic 6'4" guard. He's known for his work ethic and competitive spirit -- he's more of a blue collar player than most top ten recruits -- but he's developed an all-around game to the point that he can play all three perimeter positions. Most importantly, he's a winner. Forte is just 5'11", but the PG is known as one of the best shooters in the class.

Smart and Forte join Kamari Murphy, a talented 6'8" forward out of IMG Academy by way of Brooklyn, and Adam Wing, a two-sport star from Kentucky, in OSU's 2012 recruiting class.

If Ford can keep LeBryan Nash around for more than one season, he'll combine with Smart to form one of the most physically imposing tandems in the country. It should be enough to compete at the top of whatever conference (or superconference) they end up being a part of.



Houston lands two top 100 players: Incredibly enough, a likely McDonald's all-american candidate picking a school was probably not the biggest recruiting news of the weekend.

Houston picked up commitments from two top 100 recruits on Sunday night. Danuel House, a 6'6" small forward and the No. 26 player in our Consensus Recruiting Rankings, blew up as a junior, going from a local talent to a kid that some had in the top 20 in the Class of 2012. Houston head coach James Dickey also earned a commitment from Chicken Knowles (his real name is Danrad, but there is no way we'll ever use Danrad when he has a nickname like Chicken), a skilled but skinny 6'9" face-up four.

The significance of this commitment cannot be overstated. First, the obvious -- Houston doesn't normally recruit at this level. Not since the days of Phi Slamma Jamma, at least. House and Knowles both more or less had their pick of schools in the midwest, and they chose Houston. That says something about Dickey's recruiting efforts.

More importantly, however, is that both Houston and Knowles hail from the Houston metro area. There is a ton of talent that comes from that area every year, and keeping those kids close to home is Dickey's first priority as coach.


North Texas adds more talent: Grambling star Justin Patton dominated the North Texas Mean Green a season ago, finishing with 26 points and 10 boards agaist UNT's solid front line.

This season, he'll be competing for minutes with them. After Grambling was given a one-year postseason penalty for a low APR score, Patton left the school and enrolled at UNT. He found out last week that he will be eligible to play this season.

"Justin will be a great addition to our basketball team and give us some much-needed depth,” UNT head coach Johnny Jones said. "He has the ability to play both ends of the floor and has a great knack for scoring and rebounding. That is a great combination for us."

UNT loses three longtime starters next season, and while they do add former top 25 recruit Tony Mitchell, he will not become eligible until December. Patton will be a nice way to tide Jones' club over before forming one of the better frontcourts in the midwest come Sun Belt play.


Ineligible freshmen?: Kevin Ware was ruled ineligible by the NCAA until at least December on Friday, joining Michael Chandler of UCF and Chris Jones of Tennessee as the top 100 recruits that won't be suiting up in October.

But there are also plenty of other big names that are awaiting clearance, including the three members the Kansas recruiting class (Ben McLemore, Jamari Taylor and Braeden Anderson), Amir Garrett and Norvel Pelle at St. John's, and Jahii Carson at Arizona State. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has been cleared academically, but he is awaiting to hear word about the issues he was involved in as an AAU player.
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Monday Morning Dump

- There was a lot of terrific stuff written about 9/11 yesterday. I think this was my favorite.

- And if you want you read something non-9/11 related, check out Sam Mellinger's column on Dick Vitale.

- There are quite a few freshmen that may not be eligible to play this season. Some pretty big names on this list.

- Speaking of freshmen, Oklahoma State got commitments from Marcus Smart and Phil Forte. Then Houston landed two top 100 recruits in Danuel House and Chicken Knowles. Finally, Louisville landed a sleeper in point guard recruit Terry Rozier.

- Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant wanted to get some answers from NCAA President Mark Emmert. The prez didn't really oblidge (Great-read)

- Archie Goodwin doesn't want to go to Baylor. Because their colors are green and gold. And they are an Adidas school.

- North Texas landed Grambling transfer Justin Patton.

- Jeff Eisenberg had an interesting interview with Kwamain Mitchell of St. Louis.

- Five for the Weekend is always pleasant.

- The last name on this list is gold.

- UConn will be playing in the aircraft game in 2012-2013. So can we just go ahead and skip the "is Jim Calhoun returning for the 2012-2013 season" song and dance?

- Jason King takes a look at the preseason tournaments.
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Never Forget

There isn't much to be said on a day like today that hasn't already been written 1,000 times over.

Personally, as hard as it is, I will not remember today for the terror that we all lived through. I refuse to. I don't need to tell you how awful 9/11 was. You already know.

Today, I'm going to remember the heroes that this tragedy created. The firefighters that climbed 80 stories to go into hell to try and save the lives of complete strangers knowing full-well the risk that mission carried. The people on Flight 93 that saved countless lives by sacrificing their own. The men and women who were inspired to fight for and defend our country overseas by the images they saw on television.

You don't need me to tell you how to mourn those we lost. But when you do, remember that number would have been much higher without that heroism.



We Will Never Forget -- 9/11/01
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Weekend Dump

In honor of this special weekend, Ten Year Anniversary of 9/11/01, Start of NFL fantasy football season, my return back to the United States, I have decided to provide you with a Weekend Dump.

- Eamonn Brennan provides you must-read story of the weekend. He went out and gathered some amazing quotes from college basketball players recalling their memories of 9/11/01 (DO NOT PROCEED WITH THE DUMP UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED THIS ARTICLE)

- Gary Parrish provides his always-entertaining "Five for the Weekend"

- A great-read on Dickie-V and the tremendous effort he puts in to giving back to the community

- Kemba Walker wasn't on any Pre-season All-America teams last season, and he certainly made all of us look like fools. Mike DeCourcy provides a list of players (and two teams) that could make us look like fools again.

- Rick Ross will be performing at Memphis' Midnight Madness

- Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott doesn't want to add any more teams. Kansas Coach Bill self calls conference realignment "hypocritical". ACC officials are mulling the idea of raising the buyout price

- The first aircraft carrier game is still months away and yet planning a sequel in 2012 is already being talked about

- Maryland's football uniforms have been the talk of the town this week. Do you think potential recruits don't take school colors and uniforms into consideration when deciding their futures? Think again. Archie Goodwin eliminated Baylor from his list of potential schools because he doesn't like the green/gold color combination

- Jason King opens up the reader mailbag

- North Texas picked up another transfer and now looks to be the favorite to win the Sun Belt Conference and make it's third consecutive trip to March Madness

- Former-Wright State head coach Ralph Underhill passed away early Friday morning. He was 70 years old

- The campaign to name the court at Maryland's Comcast Center after Gary Williams is starting to tread some water. It seems like the name is still up for debate. Speaking of the Terps, their fans want to see Wale at Midnight Madness (The DMV-native performed at Georgetown's Midnight Madness last season)

- A bunch of great words on the under-appreciated coaches in the MAAC

- Arena Pulse previews the 76 Classic

- UC-Riverside wants a new identity and a new logo

- Click here to find a link to every team schedule for the Atlantic-10 Conference, a long with a bunch of A-10 related links

- Tom Izzo hung out with "The Situation" (Is this considered news?)

- Bowling Green has themselves a fan-made music video (It's already better than anything Swiperboy has made)


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Sorry Coach K, I don't buy it

The final 2.1 seconds of the 1992 NCAA East Regional Final between Duke and Kentucky is the greatest 2.1 seconds in the history of college basketball.

Game. Set. Match. Take It to the Bank. Bar-none. Fuggedaboutit.

Whatever or however you want to say it, you know it's the truth.

Duke will be celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the 1992 National Championship team this season, and will also be celebrating the induction of Bobby Hurley into the Duke Athletic Hall of Fame. During the promotion of Hurley's induction, Coach-K noted that he believes the point guard's shot against UNLV in 1991 was a bigger shot than the one Laettner made a year later.

Sorry, but I'm just not buying it.

I mean, just watch the video.



It wasn't just the pass. Which, by the way, may be the most beautiful one-handed full-court pass in the history of college basketball.

It wasn't just the drop-step to fade-away jumper. Which, by the way, may be arguably the most beautiful drop-step to fade-away jumper in the history of college basketball.

And it wasn't just the post-shot pandemonium. Which by the way, may be arguable the most pure moment of disbelief and utter joy in college basketball history. Seriously, show me 1.3 seconds of Thomas Hill crying in disbelief and I won't not get choked up. The gleeful high-stepping of Laettner after the shot sank? You can't script it, or re-script it (Well, you can try to re-script it, but it's not as good as the original. Well unless you are Chris Farley).

But what makes it great is the whole moment. Four beautiful sequences placed one after the other, to make arguably the most iconic March Madness moment in March Madness history.

Maybe Coach-K doesn't think it's the biggest shot in Duke history because he was worrying about the win instead of embracing the sheer madness of the moment spill out on live television.

At least I'm not the only person who thinks Coach-K is wrong. Usually, I agree with what Coach-K says and does. But I couldn't disagree more with the multi-time National Championship-winning coach.

Maybe I'm biased because I was a 90's child. Sure I'm an 80's baby, but my passion for college basketball was born in the early-to-mid 90s. I didn't have the luxury of seeing the Lorenzo Charles put-back and Jim Valvano's subsequent dash to find a hug. For me, and probably countless other kids during the early 90's, the Laettner shot was the one I recreated countless times in my driveway.

The crazy thing about that shot is that we've seen shots like this since then. Ali Farohkmanesh's shot against Kansas was more unpredictable. Kemba Walker's buzzer-beater against Pitt was a bigger dagger. We've definitely seen buzzer-beaters more crazy than "Laettner in '92".

So maybe coach-K is right. Maybe it's not the best shot in Duke history.

But it's certainly the best moment in Duke history.


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Friday Morning Dump

- This story makes me a huge fan of Tom Crean.

- Luke Winn continues his fantastic series of breaking down the best players by position of the efficiency era. You'll be surprised by No. 3 and No. 4.

- Corey Schmidt has been doing some heavy-lifting over at Basketball Prospectus this summer. His most recent analytical piece deals with the lack of APR scores by HSBCs. (Something we pointed out when the APR came out... But seriously, Schmidt has been killing it with the original analytical content. His stuff is must-read status)

- If expansionocalypse does indeed happen, and this is what the Big East/South/Midwest might look like. Joe Lunardi explains why conference expansion could possibly destroy the NCAA tournament.

- We are not going to write anything about conference realignment until something is official. But I will link Mike DeCourcy's article that says Baylor -- and the rest of the Big 12 -- has a case if they decide to sue.

- Florida's Erik Murphy has been reinstated by the Gators basketball program four months after he was arrested for attempted car theft

- Just nine months after tearing his acl, Abdul Gaddy is not only cleared to play basketball, he is well on his way to making 18,000 jumpers before the start of the season.

- Interesting read on Mitch McGary's recruitment to Michigan

- Shaq has a statue at LSU now

- The official twitter account of Seton Hall athletics retweeted something that Kyle Anderson, a top five recruit in the country, tweeted about his visit to Seton Hall. You get all that? Well, it was a minor -- really minor -- violation.

- More Draft Express prospect profiles, this time breaking down top ten prospects in the Big Ten.

- Shocker Hoops has your updated Wichita State schedule

- The Dagger has some quality A-10 non-conference games for your perusal.

- The man that shot former Memphis guard Antonio Burks is heading to jail for 97 years.

This is Jabari Bird. He can jump high:


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Erik Murphy reinstated, Cody Larson still suspended

The University of Florida got some big news on Thursday afternoon when it was announced that forward Erik Murphy broke up with his fiance Sloan had been reinstated to the team.

If you've forgotten, Murphy was part of the ill-fated crew of Gators that decided it would be a good idea to try and break into a car after a night of bar-hopping. After Murphy and student manager Josh Adel were arrested, they spent a good five minutes talking to Cody Larson, who redshirted this past season, on speaker-phone. From the back of the police cruiser. The cops got it all on tape.

Criminal masterminds, those guys.

Anyway, Murphy had his sentence reduced to a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief that resulted in a $440 fine, 50 hours of community service and a ban on drinking for a year. He got lucky. That tends to happen when you aren't on probation.

Larson wasn't so lucky. You see, he was on probation stemming from an arrest -- for abusing prescription drugs -- during his senior year of high school, a crime that got him thrown off of the team. Larson has another hearing in Florida on October 31st, and when that legal process is over, he will have to deal with South Dakota's legal process.

Florida has a thin front line this season behind Patric Young, thin enough that even with Murphy and Larson in the fold, Billy Donovan is expected to play a four-guard lineup at times.
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Santa Clara's Robert Garrett cuts weight ... to zip-line?

You ever heard of a college basketball player cutting weight?

I certainly haven't, but that's exactly what Santa Clara's Robert Garrett did on the team's trip to Vancouver. You see, Santa Clara had set up a couple of excursions that included things like zip-lining, but those activities had a weight limit. If you were over 250 lb, you had to sit them out. Garrett got to Vancouver at 255 lb.

So he did some sprints and changed his shoes and ... hell, I'll let him tell it:



That's a great story.

Can you imagine what those Canadian folks thought when they saw a 6'10" kid doing wind sprints and jumping jacks and pulling off his socks, all in an effort to sweat out those last two pounds?

(h/t NHR)
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The best story of the day

This is not a new video, and if you are an avid college hoops fan, you've likely already seen it.

But I don't care, because it is more than worth posting.

That right there is Eric Valentin. He's a 5'4" guard at Wisconsin-Green Bay. Heading into his senior year, he was a walk-on for three years. But coach Brian Wardle decided it was time for "EV" to be put on scholarship. And that's a helluva way to let him know. (Jeff Eisenberg caught up with Valentin here.)

The ironic part of all of this is that I have a sneaking suspicion that Valentin will make a difference at some point this season. You see, the he has an uncanny ability to knockdown half court shots. In fact, he's a world record holder when it comes to shooting from half-court. If life were a movie, Valentin would see his first action of the season in some criticial game, coming in with 1.2 seconds left on the clock and hitting the game-winning half-court bomb.

RU-DY! RUUUU-DY! RUUUU-DY!
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