It’s been a light few days, but we’re here to get you caught up on the few things surfacing…

• Florida’s Alex Tyus was transferring, now he’s not.  This confused us until we remembered that he learned from Donovan two-step from the master himself. 
• Bruce Pearl’s romantic overtures know no bounds… not even the head football coach’s wife (not that we blame him). 
• Oddly, USC is no longer recruiting big man Renardo Sidney (who moved to LA three yrs ago for marketing purposes).  Now he may be heading back home to Mississippi St?  Stay tuned on this one.
• Will Syracuse be the one-year football destination for Greg Paulus?
• The NBA’s early entry deadline was Sunday – here are a few of the last-minute entries:  Mississippi St.’s Jarvis Varnado (no agent), UConn’s Ater Majok (no agent), Tennessee’s Tyler Smith (no agent), USC’s Taj Gibson (no agent) and BYU’s Jonathan Tavernari (no agent). 
• Returning:  Iowa St.’s Craig Brackins (a major coup), Michigan’s Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims.
• Gary Parrish doesn’t believe that Davidson will recapture the Curry magic for quite some time. 
• It’s hard to believe this didn’t happen now that the FBI has brought charges against Karen Sypher for attempting to extort Rick Pitino for $10M, two cars, a paid-off house and college tuition.  Wow.  Regardless, we have to agree with Goodman when he says nothing good is ultimately coming from all of this.
• He was only “holding it” for someone named “Luck.”  Welcome to Nevada basketball in the post-Mark Fox era.
• Wichita St.’s Gregg Marshall got a one-year contract extension (to 2015) after an improved second year at the school.
• Good to see the NCAA gumshoes going after the big boys like Northeastern, who received two years probation on Friday.

Since Duke ended its season in humiliating fashion against Villanova in the Sweet 16, almost every pundit has suspected that Gerald Henderson would forgo his final year of eligibility to enter the NBA Draft. In the middle of all the NFL Draft coverage earlier today, he announced that he would enter the Draft, but had not hired an agent yet.

Before any of the Cameron Crazies get their hopes up too high that he might return (and make Duke a heavy favorite to win the ACC next season), it should be pointed out that this is most likely a precautionary measure just in case he gets injured before the deadline or something along those lines. In addition, the fact this his father (Gerald Sr.) was an accomplished player who played with at least 3 current GMs (Danny Ainge, Kevin McHale, and Larry Bird) means that young Gerald will likely get plenty of feedback about what range he is most likely to be drafted if he decides to stay in the Draft.

Based on what the NBA Draftniks are saying, Henderson looks like he’ll be drafted anywhere from around #10 (NBADraft.net has him at #9) to a mid-1st round pick (ESPN.com’s Top 100–Insider access required). While most guys of Henderson’s ability tend to base their decision on whether or not they have guaranteed lottery spot, I can’t really see the benefit (in terms of NBA Draft status) of him coming back for his senior year. Everyone knows that he has NBA-level athleticism and he made a big jump between his sophomore and junior year, which should show scouts that he is improving. While he might hone his game  little more (add some 3-point range) with an extra season at Duke, the bump in his stock would be negligible since he’s never going to be a top-3/5 pick. For the Crazies holding out hope that he’ll return for one more year at Duke, the deadline to pull out of the Draft is June 15th.

That sound you just heard is from all the heads exploding along Tobacco Road. Apparently this was part of the UNC barnstorming tour, but I have no idea what Paulus was thinking. At first, I thought it might be his brother Mike (preposterous, but not much more than Greg Paulus in Carolina Blue), a QB at UNC, but he doesn’t look like Greg.

(h/t to 850 The Buzz)

Update: After looking at this picture a little more closely (and not posting at 3 AM), I’m beginning to think this is a Photoshop job. Paulus couldn’t possibly be dumb enough to pose for a picture like this wearing UNC clothing, right?

Update: According to our friends at 850 The Buzz, the picture is real and the baby was completely fine posing with the others players, but as soon as Paulus held her she started to cry.

We have mentioned Gary Williams and his struggles to keep his Maryland program relevant since Juan Dixon left College Park, Maryland, but it looks like he might he temporarily fixed one of the many problems with a commitment from Terrence Ross, a 2010 recruit from Montrose Christian (same high school as Kevin Durant) in Maryland. Ross is a 6’5″ SG who transferred to Montrose from Portland, OR before his junior year. Even though he only averaged 13.5 PPG this year (partly attributable to playing alongside Mouphtaou Yarou, a senior who is ranked 10th in Rivals Top 150), he is a 4-star recruit who is ranked 31st in his class by Rivals with some ridiculous athleticism (see below).

Keeping an in-state star might not seem like a big deal to most people (especially when you’re the only legit program in the state), but it is from Williams who has lost a bevy of stars (Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, and Ty Lawson) to out-of-state programs in recent years as well as the aforementioned Yarou, who signed with Villanova. While this might not necessarily mean that Williams has righted the Terrapin ship, it is certainly a very good start.

After weeks of speculation about where he would end up (Michigan? Duke? Green Bay?!?), it appears that former Duke point guard Greg Paulus has made a decision about where he will be playing next year. The former Gatorade National High School Football Player of the Year has decided to go from the hardwood of Cameron Indoor Stadium for the FieldTurf of the Carrier Dome next year. [Ed. Note: Interestingly Cameron Indoor, which is well known for its small size and the heat that Dick Vitale whines about on every telecast, has air-conditioning. The Carrier Dome (as in the HVAC company) does not.]

Unlike at Duke where he lost his starting point guard job as a senior, Paulus (a native of Manlius, NY just outside of Syracuse) will likely step into a position where he should compete for the starting spot on a team that went 3-9 last year, but did manage to win at Notre Dame (one of the colleges that recruited Paulus as a QB out of high school). Although Syracuse football coach Doug Marrone named Ryan Nassib as his starting QB less than a month ago, I think Marrone may let a National High School Football Player of the Year compete for the job.

Assuming that Paulus enrolls at Syracuse, it raises an interesting question of how Syracuse (a basketball school even during the days of Donovan McNabb and Marvin Harrison) will embrace one of the most despised players in college basketball. Based on their wholesale acceptance of Eric Devendorf, I think the fans at Syracuse will take to Paulus, who is less demonstrative (and doesn’t have any accusations of violence against women to his name) especially if he can make their football team respectable again.

Bonus Question: How many games will Paulus play at QB before he gets sacked and someone performs a mock tea-bagging? I’m going with game #2 at Penn State on September 12th. Fortunately, I don’t see anybody on the Syracuse schedule that is a big enough rival of Syracuse to have a repeat of this.

After arguably being the third best team in the state of North Carolina the past 3 years (behind UNC and Davidson in 2008 and behind UNC and Wake Forest in 2009), Duke may have just ended up with the best team on Tobacco Road and the ACC by simply holding onto its stars this off-season with the possible exception of Gerald Henderson. Let’s run through the challengers for Duke in the state of North Carolina (NC State left out for Sidney Lowe obvious reasons).

Wake Forest? Having lost James Johnson and Jeff Teague to the NBA Draft, Dino Gaudio will be hard-pressed to replicate this year’s success (outside of their embarrassing first round loss to Cleveland State) with just Al-Farouq Aminu returning to lead the Demon Deacons. I’d say they’re going to be worrying more about playing for a NCAA bid than about challenging Duke for the ACC title (although Teague may ultimately return).

Davidson? Although Davidson’s drop-off this year (from a missed Jason Richards‘ 3-pointer at the buzzer away from the Final 4 to a NIT also-ran) made the Wildcats seem like an unlikely threat this coming season, having Stephen Curry in the mix meant that the Wildcats had the potential to threaten any team in the country (even if some people think he isn’t quite all that he’s hyped up to be). However, today in a move that wasn’t surprising to all but the most deluded fans, Curry announced that he will turn pro and hire an agent ending any chance of stealing Pete Maravich‘s career scoring record (done in 3 years without a 3-point line). Good luck playing for a Southern Conference title and a 15-seed for the next few seasons Wildcats.

UNC? Going into the off-season, the Tar Heels posed the greatest threat to Duke next season even with the loss of all-time ACC leading scorer Tyler Hansbrough (I know it sounds weird to me too), Danny Green, and Bobby Frasor (the Deadspin commenters will miss him more than Tar Heel fans will). As all Tar Heels knew the fate of their 2009-10 season hung on the decision of juniors Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington. If either of them returned (both returning was just a pipe dream), Roy Williams would have another national title contender with Marcus Ginyard, Tyler Zeller, and Ed Davis returning and John Henson, David Wear, and Travis Wear (and potentially John Wall) coming to Chapel Hill next year. Instead, both Lawson and Ellington declared for the draft today. Assuming that Ty can hire a designated driver from now until the NBA Draft, I don’t expect to see either of them suiting up in Carolina blue again as they are both at their peak value. The Tar Heels are a shoe-in for the NCAA tournament next year and will probably will be in contention for a top 4 seed particularly if Wall decides to not listen to his handler Brian Clifton and play for Roy.

What does all this mean for Duke, which has struggled to live up to its reputation and ESPN’s infatuation since Chris Duhon left?  Although Coach K will have to wait a year to add Seth Curry, and there has been no official communication from Durham, I’d have to guess that it would look something like this. . .

So for all of you Duke haters, get ready for an unbearable next 11 months (especially if the Devils, and not UNC, garner the services of John Wall). For all the Duke fans, the pressure is now back on. Just making it to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament won’t cut it this time.

Yesterday the pairings for the 2009 ACC/Big 10 Challenge were announced, and cries of rejoice went up from Iowa City through Evanston over to State College as the Big 10 schools realized that they have a fighting chance at actually winning their first Challenge in the eleven years of its existence.   Let’s take a look at the matchups and show you the games where the land-grant institutions (+NW) from the midwest can actually make this happen.

Penn St. @ Virginia – PSU is coming off of an NIT Championship and will return its best player, Talor Battle, along with a strong corps of juniors.  UVa will still be learning new coach Tony Bennett’s system.  This is a winnable road game for the Big Ten, and PSU will win it.

Maryland @ Indiana – Assuming Greivis Vasquez returns to school (he should), Maryland should be able to pull away from Indiana relatively easily.  Even moreso if they nab Lance Stephenson.  Tom Crean has a nice recruiting class coming in, but it’s heavy on volume, not stars, and Maryland should get this one.

Michigan St. @ UNC – Goodness, haven’t we seen enough of this already?  We don’t care who UNC loses or Michigan St. keeps.  It’s in Chapel Hill, and even that doesn’t matter.  UNC wins.

Northwestern @ NC State – NW wasn’t terribly far from being an NCAA team this year, and they return most everyone; NC State was pretty far from it and they may lose Brandon Costner.  The gut says this is a winnable game for the Wildcats, but you never know with those guys.  If the Big Ten expects to win this year’s challenge, though, they’ll need this one, so we’re giving it to them.

Virginia Tech @ Iowa – Todd Lickliter’s extremely young team should make a leap of progress next season, but we’re still not sure they’re ready for Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen.  ACC gets the road win.

Wake Forest @ Purdue – Best game of the Challenge, with two black/gold teams taking each other on.  While Wake has proven it can look dominant in November/December before crumbling in February/March, Purdue will be super-jacked for this one.  Look for Hummell and Moore to outplay Teague and Aminu as the home team wins.

BC @ Michigan – In Y2 of John Beilein’s rebuild in Ann Arbor, he worked miracles.  Next year his best two players (Harris and Sims) return, and Crisler Arena will become a place nobody wants to play.  Big 10 win.

Duke @ Wisconsin – these are the games where the home team camps out for weeks in anticipation of beating the Devils, only to watch as Duke eviscerates said home team by 18 pts in the first half on their way to a laugher.  Wisconsin will think it can win this game; Duke knows better.

Florida St. @ Ohio St. – For the first time in four years, OSU won’t be bringing in some 7-foot top recruit, but they won’t need it because they’re bringing back everyone else, including star Evan Turner.  FSU will lose their star Toney Douglas and Uche Echefu, and while they’ll be very good next year, they’ll still be adjusting to life without those players at that time.  OSU at home gets the W.

Illinois @ Clemson – This game is a tossup because both teams bring back a substantial amount of talent as well as bring in strong recruiting classes.  We have a feeling that Illinois is about to become relevant nationally again, but we’re not sure Clemson is ready to cede their spotlight.  Especially in December, when Clemson excels.  We’re going with the home team here.

Minnesota @ Miami (FL) – Tubby welcomes back every player of consequence from an NCAA squad while bringing in a top 12 recruitng class.   Miami isn’t that tough to play at anyway, but especially when Frank Haith loses three of his top five players (incl. Jack McClinton).  Minnesota wins.

There you have it.  Final results (projected):

Big Ten: 6
ACC: 5

The key tossup games in our eyes are Northwestern @ NC State and Illinois @ Clemson.  The Big Ten will need to win one of those two to supplant the ACC for the title of this challenge for the first time in, um, ever.

Andy Katz wrote in his blog today that the NCAA Legislative Committee voted on Monday to make a rule change effective in 2010 that would shorten the amount of time that an early entry would have to ‘test the waters’ with NBA teams before making a final decision to enter the draft.

If the NCAA board of directors endorses the legislative panel’s decision to reduce the early entry decision window from six weeks to approximately one week, there won’t be any reasonable way for underclassmen to test the draft process. USA Today first reported the panel’s decision, which would make underclassmen decide by May 8 whether they were staying in the draft. The current deadline is 10 days before the draft in mid-June. (The rule would go into effect for next year’s draft class.)

This legislation was the compromise position after the ACC came to the table asking for a ten-day window following the conclusion of the national championship game.  We’ve written about this before, but let us reiterate for those of you who missed our first tirade: this is a TERRIBLE decision.

As Katz points out very clearly in his post, the withdrawal deadline would then become somewhere around the end of the first week of May each year, which would allow players a window of a mere 7-10 days in which to make themselves available for private workouts with NBA teams.  And if you’re like us and your collegiate days are well into the rear-view mirror, you may have forgotten that the end of April/beginning of May also usually coincides with exams for most college students around the country, even those who play basketball on the side.  In other words, the NCAA is making it that much harder for a prospective early entry to get good feedback on his status.

Let’s take a quick look at a system that generally works – the current one.  Last year, there were 69 American players who originally decided to test the waters.  Thirty-five of those players felt confident enough in their standing to stay in the draft, and 28 of those (80%) were actually selected on draft night in MSG (21 with guaranteed money in the first round).   Now we aren’t going to say what was going through the heads of every one of those 34 players who returned to school (guys like Josh Akognon, Chase Budinger, Jerel McNeal and of course the Carolina trio), but we’d absolutely wager that many of them iniitally thought they were ready for the NBA.  It was only after they were able to get objective feedback from NBA scouts and teams as to their projected draft status that they were able to make an informed decision to not cede their remaining eligibility on a gut feeling.

How quick we are to forget our history.  The reason the early entry withdrawal  rule was initially instituted was to allow players like Scotty Thurman and Thomas Hamilton to get good, objective feedback on their draft status prior to making a final decision.  It’s very easy to think you’re a lottery pick when you’re the best player on a successful college team and everyone around you is telling you that you’re a superstar.  It’s less easy to think that when scouts tell you that you’re undersized, need to work on your shooting or you’re slow for your position at the next level (i.e., the truth).   What the NCAA is endorsing here is the opportunity for more of the former and less of the latter, which will ultimately mean that more players are going to make an ill-informed gut-based decision to stay in the draft, only to be surprised when they’re not chosen six weeks later.  It’s bad for the players’ futures, who throw away an opportunity at a degree and further training in basketball; it’s bad for the schools who could benefit in many ways by getting key non-NBA-ready players to return (cough, cough, UNC), and it’s bad for the game itself, which is always enriched when the players who should still be playing at that level are actually doing so.

Now, we know who is driving this – the coaches (how dare some of these guys complain!).  Despite all the hollow and vacuous lip service they give to being there for their kids and wanting only what’s best for their players, what they’re really doing is making life easier on themselves.  By shaving five weeks from the early entry withdrawal deadline, it will now give Coach Blowhard another month to finish recruiting, shore up his roster and adequately plan for the next season.  There is some merit to this position – some – but by making it eminently more difficult for his players to learn their individual strengths and weaknesses from an objective source prior to the withdrawal deadline (e.g., the NBA Combine, scheduled to start in late May of this year),  they’re much more likely to fall back on gut instincts which will almost always favor the dream of the NBA over taking more exams.  Any benefit to the coach and program by this initiative is more than lost by enabling poor decisionmaking from the players.

From our stance, this is an unconscionable position for the coaches to take, especially given how much they talk about helping their players get to the next level, and we’re extremely disappointed in this decision.  Let’s hope the NCAA Board of Directors shoots it down next week.

I’m guessing that Coach K‘s publicist scheduled this one thinking that he might be able to pull in a few book sales from The Colbert Report’s viewers, but I have my reservations about that demographic buying much or reading anything. Regardless what ensued was an interview that was at times awkward, but mildly interesting. Personally I think Coach K is more in line with Oprah than Stephen Colbert  (plus an “Oprah’s Book Club” sticker would be worth at least a million copies sold to middle-aged women).

A couple interesting points from the interview:

• He calls Michael Jordan the best player he ever coached (as an assistant on the Dream Team–if you need a clarification on which Olympic team that is you can leave the site) even though he played at UNC (blasphemy–expect a bunch of strongly worded letters to the editor of The Chronicle).
• He thinks players should be allowed to go directly from high school to the NBA. Any guesses how long David Stern waits after finding out about this interview before he puts a price on Coach K’s head.

(h/t to Chris Littmann of SportingNews.com)

From the he-better-get-used-to-this department, we came across this story of Tyler Hansbrough making an arse of himself at a recent barnstorming exhibition game against something called the Crossfire Ministries in Asheville, NC, Sunday night.  From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

Fans who attended Sunday’s exhibition game at the Asheville Civic Center between the ACC All-Stars and Crossfire Ministries noticed that North Carolina All-American Tyler Hansbrough made a hasty exit.  Crossfire’s Richie Stevens was fouled on an impressive move toward the basket and made two free throws for a 101-100 lead late in the game.  With the All-Stars trying to maneuver for a potential game-winning shot, Hansbrough was whistled for traveling in the final seconds. Apparently annoyed — and you know poor Tyler never gets a call from the refs — Hansbrough left the court, followed by some other members of the team, before the final horn sounded.  To be fair, an announcement had been made that there would be no postgame autograph session like the one that was held after Saturday night’s game because the players had a commitment and had to get on the road.  More than one fan has mentioned that they were a bit surprised by Hansbrough’s reaction.

This comes on the heels of a story last week of Psycho-T acting the spoiled jerk in a previous exhibition game against a bunch of high schoolers from Hickory, NC, by woofing at the players on the court and clamming up in the autograph session afterwards.

The good news is that Hansbrough already appears to have this NBA prima donna thing down.