Rush The Court

It was a semi-busy weekend as the last few players thinking about declaring for the NBA Draft waited until the Sunday night deadline to make their decisions public…

• The biggest news is that UCLA guard and all-american Darren Collison will remain in Westwood for his senior year.  It will be an interesting six weeks at UCLA as Ben Howland will await word on which of the remainder of his starters will come back (among Josh Shipp, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute).  We predict Shipp and Mbah a Moute will return. 
• In a parallel situation across the country, UNC’s sixth man Danny Green became the third Tar Heel to declare his intentions to test the waters, joining teammates Tywon Lawson and Wayne Ellington.   In a related vein, STF posits that UNC ’09 will be must-watch tv next winter.  We would tend to agree, but only if we can make a deal with ESPN that Vitale/Patrick are nowhere near any of those games.  If not, all bets are off.      
• Other early entry news.  UConn’s Hasheem Thabeet is sticking around for his junior year, while USC freshman Davon Jefferson will sign with an agent and is leaving for good. 
• In case you were wondering, Big East POY and Pitt forward Sam Young will remain in school for his senior season.  Along these lines, Vegas Watch thinks that the Big East is in a position of strength (losing the least talent) going into next season.  Jeff Goodman backs that up by putting 8 teams in his post-early entry, pre-draft deadline Top 25. 
• Reviews are so far mixed on whether Stanford’s hire of Johnny Dawkins was a good one.  Here’s a good one a mediocre one, and a not-so-good one. 
• This is why using only stats to decide a champion is absurd.  No way in hell are 92 Duke and 96 Kentucky not 1-2 (either way).