Blockbuster news out of Louisville tonight, as the Courier-Journal is reporting that Rick Pitino admitted to police that he had consensual sex with Karen Sypher, the woman who allegedly tried to extort him for houses, cars and money.  The police reports show that Pitino had sex in a restaurant (all class, Rick!) with Sypher on August 1, 2003, and later gave her $3000 for an abortion as a result of that tryst.  Sypher has since alleged that Pitino raped her on that occasion as well as one other time, but prosecutors have to date resisted bringing charges on the matter, citing issues of Sypher’s credibility.  While the federal extortion charges remain against Sypher, we wonder whether this revelation might swing public opinion in Louisville more in favor of Sypher.  Probably not – after all, Pitino has two straight Elite Eights under his belt.

Follow-up Post: Pitino’s Sex in the Champagne Room

With the rate of news coming out these days, this’ll feel a little more like slow breaks…

• Academic Headstart.  This got almost no play over the weekend, but it should have because it has the smell of something that ends up being more important than anyone previously thought.  The NCAA Basketball Academic Enhancement Group (chaired by Derrick Rose?) recommended a requirement that each school should make an academic assessment of its incoming freshmen each season to determine whether the student-athlete is adequately prepared for college-level schoolwork.  If they are not (presumably using some objective measure other than the Jim Harrick, Jr., test), then they’ll be required to take six hours of classes over the summer (‘bridge’ summer coursework data shows a higher incidence of long-term academic success).  The big carrot is that, while they’re in summer school (and all players can attend if they like), they can work out for up to eight hours/week in athletic activities.  The catch, however, is that they must pass at least three of those hours to gain eligibility for the fall semester.  Should this recommendation come to pass (and it probably will), each school will have to balance a  fine line between the player assessment and player eligibility.  God forbid that the next Michael Beasley gets his high school grades and test scores in order, shows up at his school amidst great fanfare, only to fail college algebra over the summer and have to sit until December because the coach wanted those eight hours per week of court time.  It’s an interesting dilemma and it imposes a certain level of accountability on the schools themselves to take the academic side of things more seriously, which is a good thing.  Props to the NCAA for getting creative here. 
• Vegas Watch ACC Preview.  We’ll be sure to come back to this when we put up our conference previews later this fall, but we wanted to make sure that you guys alll have a chance to read the first installment in a really innovative series of posts breaking down each of the BCS conferences.  VW ran several regressions on the last three seasons to determine a fairly accurate predictor for future success using Pomeroy ratings, returning minutes and production and incoming recruiting rankings.  Looking at the projected 2010 rankings, it appears that those riding the Terrapin bandwagon have reason to believe, as Maryland is projected third, while those of us who were high on Georgia Tech (even prior to losing K. Holsey) may want to re-think that a little bit before October.  Keep an eye on this series because it’s fascinating stuff. 
• Deron Washington Hurdles into Eternity.  If, for some reason, you haven’t seen what Virginia Tech has done with its new practice facility yet…  It’s really too bad that Syracuse football doesn’t play Virginia Tech this year, or Paulus would have a fair opportunity to exact some revenge (he’s the third-string QB for the Orange as of this week). 

• Quick Hits.  2009-10 Preseason Tourneys: more than you can shake a stick at.  Kammeon Holsey: Ga Tech frosh out for the season.  John Wall dunk: have you heard about this dunk over someone named Jerry Stackhouse?  Kyrie Irving: um, yeah, maybe find a fallback to your fallback plan?  John Calipari in China: what’s he doing there again?  Atlantic 10: moving outside its traditional footprint to tidewater Virginia?  Top 10 Conferences: seems about right (on paper).  Norm Stewart: out of the fundraising game.  Mark Payne: who is he and why should you care?  Gary Parrish: agrees on the Delaware FUBAR.  Jon Scheyer: yeah, might want to double-check that sandwich, Jon.  Ron Hunter: looking to expand his shoe missionaries. 

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

And we’re back with the second installment of our Team of the 2000s feature.  Just to refresh the schedule we anticipate, we’ll be putting up #10-#6 this week, and #5-#1 next week.  Yesterday we picked Maryland as our tenth selection (over Gonzaga, Pitt, and several others) and we’re declaring today that the ninth best program of the 2000s is none other than the Syracuse Orange…  let the flames begin.

#9 – Syracuse

Overview.  This selection will be one of our more controversial top 10 selections. How can a team miss the NCAA tournament 3 of the 10 years of the decade and still manage to sneak into the top 10 when perennial Sweet 16 teams get left on the outside looking in?  Simple. Win a national title. Ok. It’s a little more complex than that, but in my eyes to be an elite program you have to win a national title (or at least come agonizingly close as a subsequent team on this list has done). Are we overvaluing that “One Shining Moment?” Perhaps, but to even the most hardcore college basketball fans like ourselves the eras are defined by the champions not the near-misses (with potential exceptions like the Jameer Nelson St. Joseph’s team). In this case, the Carmelo Anthony/Hakim Warrick/Gerry McNamara team outweighs the 3 NIT bids – two of those years were controversial snubs and the other was a late-season nosedive the year before Carmelo showed up in upstate New York. Beyond that the Orangemen have made two Sweet 16 appearances to go along with two Big East Conference tournament titles (in years they flamed out in the 1st round of the NCAA tournament). Despite missing the NCAA tournament two of the last three years, the Orangemen have shown signs of a resurgence with last year’s Sweet 16 appearance that followed their epic 6-OT win against UConn in the Big East Tournament and the addition of what appears to be a strong recruiting class.

Pinnacle.  As I noted before, the 2003 national title is the clear-cut choice here. Before Kevin Durant and Kevin Beasley, there was Carmelo Anthony. While Anthony may not have put up as spectacular numbers as the other two in his freshman season (and consequently didn’t win any national POYs from any major media sources – RTC didn’t exist at the time or he would have at least one award), he does have the one thing that neither of those two freshman picked up in their layovers in college: a national title. The 2003 Orangemen team will never be mentioned among the all-time great teams, but they rebounded from an opening-game loss to Memphis to finish a very respectable 30-5. Jim Boeheim started the same 5 for all 35 games: two freshmen (Anthony and McNamara), two sophomores (Warrick and Craig Forth), and one senior (Kueth Duany). Despite how history will remember this as “Melo’s team”, the Orangemen did feature three other double-digit scorers. In the NCAA tournament, Syracuse was only seriously challenged twice: once against a Marquis Daniels-led Auburn team staging a furious comeback in the Sweet 16 (a game I attended) and the championship game where Warrick blocked a potential game-tying 3 by Michael Lee in the waning seconds to give Boeheim his first and only national title to date.

Tailspin.  2008. After following up the 2003 title with a Sweet 16 trip (minus Melo), the Orangemen were upset in the 1st round in back-to-back years  (2004 and 2005) including infamously to the Taylor Coppenrath-led Vermont Catamounts. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse for the Orangemen, right? Wrong. Try back-to-back Selection Sundays in 2007 and 2008 where Jim Boeheim’s crew was the proverbial “last team left out”. Following that 2008 season, there were several vocal critics in the upstate New York area who were calling for Boeheim’s head.

Outlook for 2010s:  Grade: B+. It’s amazing how quickly things have turned around for Boeheim. While the Orangemen lose a lot in the backcourt (Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf) along with Paul Harris and Kristof Ongenaut, they are absolutely loaded on the inside where they boast returnees Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson along with 4-star recruit DaShonte Riley and Iowa State transfer (and Big 12 All-Rookie selection) Wesley Johnson. That alone should be enough for the Orangemen to compete in a relative down year in the Big East with DeJuan Blair and Hasheem Thabeet no longer roaming the paint. Syracuse won’t contend for a national title next year, but their fans aren’t thinking about the 2010 Final Four. They are thinking about cutting down the nets in 2011 when they will be bringing a loaded freshman class to the NCAA tournament with Fab Melo, Dion Waiters, and C.J. Fair. While this class can’t match the one that John Calipari stole brought with him to Kentucky, it’s an impressive haul for Boeheim. The question is whether Boeheim can continue this kind of recruiting success after they start reading the weather forecast for Syracuse in the middle of winter (actually, that’s never hurt him before, his players can’t read… we kid, we kid)…

Pitt’s Jamie Dixon picked up some great news today when it was announced that Centenary’s Chase Adams, a 5’10 waterbug point guard originally from Baltimore, is transferring to play for the Panthers and he will be eligible immediately.  With Centenary’s recent decision to move down from D1 to D3, all of its players were given the option to transfer to another school without penalty.  Dixon must be ecstatic because his returning backcourt is relatively inexperienced (Ashton Gibbs was the presumed incumbent), but now he’ll be adding the 2009 Summit League DPOY, a player who was eighth nationally in steals per game (2.7).  This goes along with some nice numbers in scoring (14.6), rebounds (4.2) and assists (4.5) per game.  It sounds as if Adams will fit the Panther ethos of hard work and defense to a T…

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

We are now seriously in the dog days of summer.  The July recruiting period is over, coaches are on vacation, and the college basketball news feeds have dried up like Hillary Clinton in Kenya.  Even Congress has taken the month off, meaning that RTC has been left thinking up new ways to entertain ourselves while we wait for the cool autumn breezes to arrive.  One idea we’ve been sitting on since the end of the 2009 NCAA Tournament has been to evaluate the top ten programs of the 2000s, culminating in a coronation of the Team of the 2000s.  Remember, next season – 2009-10 – actually falls into the 2010s, so when Kansas or Kentucky or Michigan St. or Butler wins that title, they’ll stake an early claim on the Team of the Next Decade, not the current one.

We used a hybrid analysis in constituting our top ten programs of the 2000s.  The numbers are extremely important – how many titles, F4s, Sweet Sixteens, NCAA Appearances, did you have?  How did you perform in your conference?  What about wins and losses?  NBA Draft picks?  Consistency?  But there’s also a qualitative component that we used – which programs ‘felt’ like they performed in the 2000s?  How do you handle programs who were consistently good vs. those who had a couple of really good years?  What if that team had a losing season, or multiple losing seasons?  All of these factors and more were considered in our analysis.  Hopefully we’ve come up with a fair representation of the top programs of the last decade, but as always, we encourage you to tell us where we’re wrong.

#10 – Maryland

Overview.  Had we reviewed the first half of the 2000s separately, Gary Williams’ program would have been right there with Duke and Michigan St. as the top program, with five NCAA appearances, two F4s and a title in 2002 to its credit.  However, the Terrapin program has fallen off considerably in the second half of the decade, with the Terps failing to make the NCAAs in three of the last five seasons and only winning a total of two NCAA games in the other two appearances (cf. with 14 wins from 2000-04).  Of the twenty-three programs we considered, Maryland had the worst overall W/L record, yet it’s a testament to their early-decade postseason success that they still managed to sneak into our top ten of the 2000s.  One positive for the program throughout the decade has been its relative consistency.  Although the Terps haven’t been a mainstay in the NCAA Tournament in recent years, they’re always in the conversation.  The program hasn’t endured a losing season since 1993, and even in their ‘bad’ years, Gary Williams still manages to coax a 19-13 type of year out of his players (resulting in NIT appearances).  The Maryland program is still a program to be feared (“fear the turtle”), but there are legitimate questions as to whether this program can again achieve the success that it did at the beginning of the decade under its current leadership.

Pinnacle.  Clearly the 2002 national title team featuring Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter and Chris Wilcox.  This team exorcised several years of obsesssive frustration on the part of Terp fans with respect to its most hated rival, Duke, and in so doing gave Maryland its long-awaited first national championship.  But it wasn’t easy: in fact, conventional wisdom at the time said that UM would never get there with that particular group.  When Maryland blew not one, not two, but THREE, games to Duke in utterly confounding collapses in 2001, there was a prevailing sentiment that the Terp program simply could not get over the mental hurdle necessary to beat the Devils and (by proxy) win a national title.  After an early-season shellacking in Cameron in 2002, though, the Terps finally put it all together and reeled off thirteen ACC wins in a row (including a convincing win over Duke in College Park) to win the regular season and secure a #1 NCAA seed.  Then, with the fortuitous news that the Devils were knocked out in the Sweet Sixteen by Indiana and Jared Jeffries, the Terps cruised through the field without worry about facing their longtime nemesis, and behind the scintillating shooting of Juan Dixon (26 ppg on 54% shooting), they cut down the nets for their first and only national championship.

Tailspin.   Other than the gut-punch moments in 2001 mentioned above, we’d have to say that Terp fans must be extremely frustrated by recent vintage Maryland teams consistently tanking down the stretch of the regular season.  In 2005, Maryland was a promising 15-7 coming off a win vs. Duke – they lost five of their next six games (incl. 0-1 in the ACC Tourney).  In 2006, the Terps were 14-4 only to finish 5-8 (1-1 ACCT) and settle for another NIT bid.  In 2008, they sat at 16-8 prior to a 2-6 finish (0-1 ACCT) that again led to the NIT.  Even last year, the Terps finished 1-3 prior to making a nice run in the ACC Tourney, and the one season they actually finished strong (7-0 down the streetch in 2007), they were one-and-done in the ACC.  These disappointing finishes have led some observers to ask questions regarding the leadership capabilities of their longtime coach – has he gotten complacent after winning his national title?

Outlook for 2010s:  Grade: B+. As long as the irascible Gary Williams is heading the ship at Maryland, there’s no reason to believe that the Terps will fall off sharply:  Maryland will remain competitive both in the ACC and nationally.  The question is whether he has the fire and drive to once again get Maryland to the top of the food chain, and we don’t think he does.  In order to prove us wrong, he’ll have to step up his recruiting in the fertile DC/Baltimore area.  Consider that in the last seven years since the 2002 championship, all-world players such as Kevin Durant, Ty Lawson and Carmelo Anthony went to schools outside of the area – two of them won titles, the other was a NPOY.  Would Maryland’s fortunes change substantially if they were once again keeping players like that close to home?  Of course they would.  The flip side of this is what might happen should Williams decide to retire in the next few years – where would the Maryland program go from there?  Williams has already had public battles with Maryland officials over recruiting and his graduation rate is abominable, and it wouldn’t shock us if he hung up the whistle (or had it hung up for him) before the end of his contract in 2012.   Some people question whether the Maryland program would flourish without Williams, remembering the dark days of the 80s under Bob Wade, but we disagree.  The recruiting bounty in the area alone is enough to attract a top-flight coach, and Maryland has historically supported its basketball program to the max.  Some new blood on the sidelines could once again move this program up from the top 20s (where it is now) to a top 10 program, but the key question to answer is how much longer will the state of flux with Williams last?

Oh, my!  Jerry Stackhouse, meet John Wall…

Florida International sent shockwaves through the recruiting world today when the #16 ranked player in the Class of 2010, Dominique Ferguson, announced that he will attend Isiah Thomas’ fledgling program over the likes of Duke, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana and UCLA.  The Thomas name and charisma still carries weight among HS kids because this is the second major recruit that Isiah has landed in his first summer of recruiting – highly-rated center Chris Coleman is committed to the school for 2011 as well.  At this rate, our post in 2007 will prove more prescient that we could have ever imagined. 

Last week we reported that the four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA teamed up to file a civil suit against the state of Delaware to block its plan to introduce single-game wagering on pro and collegiate sports beginning this fall – on September 1, in fact, just in time for the first college football weekend and the NFL kickoff ten days later.  (Let’s pause briefly to listen to the delirium from every ex-fratboy from North Jersey to DC for dramatic effect.)   Yesterday a US District Court judge in Delaware (who presumably likes the Eagles -6) rejected the cabal’s request for an injunction, effectively giving the First State the freedom to move forward with its plan throughout football season.  Trial, if it ever comes to pass, is scheduled to begin in early December.  Sounds perfect, right?

Not so fast.  Sensing that the Good Ship Moral Police was taking on too much water, the NCAA today announced that it will no longer allow its championships to be held in states that permit single-game wagering.  What an amazing coincidence!  While this new NCAA policy may hold significant sway in large, multi-faceted states such as California or Florida, Delaware is unlikely to see much of an impact.  According to the AP report on the matter, the state expects to take in approximately $53M in its first year of gaming; how much money could Delaware stand to lose from this policy?  To our knowledge, there’s never been a bowl game or an NCAA Tournament game in Dover, and there are no other cities of the size where the NCAA would host a major event.  The 1-AA playoffs involving University of Delaware?  Sure, but we’re only talking about a couple of games every few years there.  What else – non-revenue sports?  Yeah, keep trying. 

The fact of the matter is that this is a power play by the NCAA to create a precedent should any of its other states (e.g., ones that actually carry and profit from NCAA events) get the notion that they too should look into this sports gambling business.  Frankly, we don’t see how revenue lost could ever match what would pour into a state’s coffers, but that’s another argument for another time.  The important thing here is that the NCAA is not going to win this battle, and the East Coast will actually now have a reason to visit Delaware for more than the 30 minutes it takes to pass through it. 

We’ve been just as guilty as many others in speculating that Jim Calhoun, with his health issues and intolerance of alt-media gadflies, might be close to retirement.  A report today from the New Haven Register, however, dampens that assertion.  According to their sources, Calhoun is close to signing a multi-year extension with UConn, which probably belies the notion that Mr. Crankypants has any intention to retire soon.  Calhoun has one year remaining on his current deal which pays him a relatively paltry $1.6M per year (compared with the multiples of that other coaches are making), and if you hadn’t heard, he’s still making F4s at age 67. 

I have to admit that the news that our fair sport of college basketball was adding an additional (provisional) member from north of the border caught me off-guard (been too busy trying to figure out what the NCAA is going to do with Renardo Sidney or how many guys are going to try to dunk on Jordan Crawford). Before all of the “States’ Rights” people start flaming the comment section with xenophobic rants, you should check out the article, which lays out the reasoning behind Simon Fraser University‘s decision to compete with American schools (essentially that it’s cheaper to travel to play American schools along the Pacific Coast than fly from British Columbia to the East Coast where most of the Canadian college teams are located). The NCAA’s decision allows the Clan (let’s hope they don’t have home white jerseys) to compete with provisional status, but they can become a full member in Fall 2012. I’m assuming that their provisional status precludes them from competing in postseason play, but they will still compete in regular season games against other teams in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

While the article by Joe Lemire makes it clear that we shouldn’t expect a sudden flood of Canadian college teams into the NCAA (or whatever they will have to call it), I would suspect that several other schools will explore the option. Although the entry of Canadian teams into American college sports will have a bigger effect on some sports than others (say goodbye to that NCAA hockey title Boston University), it could have a noticeable impact on college basketball. Competing at the NCAA level would mean that Canadian schools could offer full scholarships, which is something they cannot do under current CIS guidelines. This might be enough to entice some of Canada’s elite talent such as Texas recruit Tristan Thompson to stay within the country instead of heading to the US. Even though most fans would only be able to name Steve Nash if they were asked to list Canadian basketball players, our northern neighbors have also produced some notable players such as Jamaal Magloire, Bill Wennington, Greg Newton, and Todd MacCullough (ok, maybe it’s not that impressive) that might not have left Canada to play college basketball if they did not have restrictions on athletic scholarships at the time.

Well we know what Cartman thinks of this idea... (Credit: http://silentorchestra.wordpress.com)

The more interesting question is whether or not the top Canadian teams that Lemire claims to be “the equivalent of low- to mid-level Division I schools” would join the NCAA. As Steve Konchalski (the “Canadian Coach K”) notes it would only really make sense for the top Canadian teams to aspire to compete at the Division I level. Would it be possible for one of these teams to sneak into the NCAA tournament? Could one of those teams eventually develop into a Gonzaga-level power? It seems unlikely, but movement by Canadian colleges into the NCAA would inevitably lead to some shuffling within conferences with Northern schools and potentially create some interesting rivalries (can’t wait for the first international incident between the Cameron Crazies and a Canadian school). At the very least it is something to keep an eye on in the next few years.