Thursday Morning Dump

- BREAKING NEWS: According to a report in the Denver Post (h/t Beyond the Arc) BYU is going to stay in the MWC. We will have more on this shortly.

- Today's must read: Jay Bilas. Its insider, I'm sorry (No I'm not), but its great stuff debunking the myth of Ben Howland and the NBA.

- ESPN announces it's schedule for Saturday Gameday. I'm most certainly looking forward to February 26th, when Duke travels to Blacksburg to take on VaTech. The atmosphere is going to be electric. But then again, so will the atmosphere at Kansas State/Kansas game, the Kentucky/Florida game, and the Pittsburgh/Villanova game.

- Speaking of the World Wide Leader, the ESPN "Summer Shoot-a-round" series focused on the Big East yesterday. Jay Bilas predicts Pitt to be the top team in the league, followed closely by Villanova, Syracuse and Georgetown. The Big East has had some serious turnover in the past two seasons, and a handful of teams will feature younger, more inexperienced squads. When you play in a 16-team mega-conference, experience will win you games, and that's exactly what Jamie Dixon's squad has. He doesn't have a bunch of superstars, but what he does have are a couple of gamers, and that's exactly what you need in order to survive the Big East.

- Everyone knows about how loaded John Calipari's 2011 recruiting class is, but Rick Pitino hasn't done a bad job over in Louisville -- even with Marquis Teague and Michael Chandler opting out of their commitments. Things would get even prettier if Quincy Miller and Deuce Bello both ended up Cardinals. According to Adam Zagoria, that could be a reality.

- Gary Parrish has nothing but rave reviews on the Florida Coaching Clinic. As Parrish states, this was no recruiting camp. This was a two-day exchange of knowledge from one basketball junkie to another. You really get the sense that this is what the coaches love doing, and they are getting less and less opportunities to do so. Seriously, this is a must-read.

- Morehead State has been placed on probation by the NCAA due to recruiting violations.

- The Big East released it's schedule for repeat opponents. Villanova will play Syracuse and Pittsburgh twice (along with Rutgers), Pitt will play 'Nova, West Virginia and South Florida twice. This link is definitely worth your click, and your subsequent five minutes of perusal.

- Yesterday we wrote an article about how Taylor King does more college-hopping than Tommy Amaker, and lo-and-behold, King has done it again. As of Wednesday afternoon, King has decided not to attend USC (Which would have cost him $50K and made him sit out a year). Instead, he will enroll at NAIA juggernaut, Concordia University. (Actually, I have no idea if Concordia is a juggernaut. I know nothing about the school, other than it sounds like a type of grape juice.)

- Marcus Jordan explains the makin' it rain tweets.

- Want to know who is going to be good this year? Look at the number of returning minutes for each team. At least that's what Villanova By The Numbers says. I hate Villanova, and I hate math, but for some reason, I feel like they might be on to something. I know it's a couple days old, but it took me a while to digest it all. Again, I hate math.

- Joe Pasternack has the toughest recruiting job in the country. The head coach at New Orleans lost just about everyone when his team was downgraded from D-I to D-III. In any economy, convincing talented high-schoolers to pay-to-play is a tough job.

- College Basketball Daily is doing a great series on introducing us to new head coaches. Today we get to learn more about Howard University's new coach, Kevin Nickelberry.

- On Tuesday we dropped a link stating that Kentucky-recruit DeAndre Daniels would be spending a year at prep school instead of heading directly to Lenxington. But apparently this might not be the case. As with everything Kentucky-related, it's still up in the air.

- Eamonn Brennan continues his best case/worst case scenario column. This time he focuses on the Big East. Does having all 16 teams in the conference tournament constitute as "worst case scenario"?

- a good-read from the Baltimore Sun on Syracuse freshman C.J. Fair, who passed up his senior year

- Adam Zagoria reports that highly-touted recruit LeBron LeBryan Nash will announce his college decision on October 21st live on ESPN. He will be choosing between Oklahoma State, Baylor and Kansas. It should be noted that he is the half-brother of former Cowboy star Byron Eaton.

- Iowa State assistant Jeff Grayer is leaving in order to return to Michigan to be closer to his family

- Michigan lost another game in Belgium, sending their exhibition record to 0-3. Somebody get World Wide Wes on a red-eye to Brussels ASAP. There is clearly something we don't about Belgian basketball. Or maybe Michigan just isn't that good.