• Here’s an interesting (if not well-edited) piece on the seventh circle of hell known as watching AAU basketball in the midsummer heat of Vegas as an assistant coach.
• Just in case you’d forgotten, Deron Washington can dunk.  Hard.   
• Did Tim Floyd have an ulterior motive in signing Lil Romeo to play at USC?  Demar DeRozan says hello.    
• Billy Gillispie is considering using “special teams” in basketball for specific situations.  In Lexington, the only special teams that matter are ones that hang banners – the populace could not care less how it’s accomplished. 
• After a 14-44 record in two seasons at the helm, Ricky Stokes was “promoted” to a position within the athletic department at East Carolina.  Mack McCarthy (309-177 at VCU and UT-Chattanooga) will take over as head coach. 
• Doug Gottlieb gives his takes on players poised for breakout years based on his summer viewing of their pickup games.  Takeaways:  Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and DJ Augustin are the real deal. 
• The Wages of Wins, one of our fav blogs, analyzes the impact of superstar power on winning titles in the NBA.  Conclusion:  It matters.  A lot.  We’d love to see something like this for the NCAA Tournament, especially given the knockout nature of the tourney.     
• Finally, in the “you’re doing a great job, Brownie,” category, props to Joe Alleva for keeping his job as the Duke AD.  His accomplishments during his nine-year tenure include presiding over the worst football program in America as well as throwing his lacrosse team under the bus amidst unsubstantiated allegations.  Keep up the good work! 

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 2:40 pm by rtmsf and is filed under fast breaks. Tagged: aau basketball, athletic director, billy gillispie, demar derozan, deron washington, derrick rose, dj augustin, doug gottlieb, duke, east carolina, joe alleva, kentucky, kevin love, lil romeo, mack mccarthy, ricky stokes, tim floyd, usc, virginia tech, wages of wins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.