Rush The Court

Never let it be said that Michigan State doesn’t take care of its own. Tom Izzo received a $500,000 raise from MSU yesterday as part of his reworked contract, plus 25 hours of personal-use time of a private plane every year. The quotes from athletic director Mark Hollis in this AP report via ESPN.com definitely give you a sense of how much Izzo means to both the school and the state, and that they have no problem doing whatever is necessary to make Izzo happy. Congrats on the raise and the wings, coach, but please,  just make that aircraft carrier game happen next year.

Mark Yost from the Wall Street Journal makes the case that Catholic college and universities do a better job graduating their student-athletes than their secular counterparts. We’d need a bit more time and space than what we allot here to fully evaluate such a claim, but in the story Yost mentions how Xavier’s Terrell (now Tu) Holloway gave credit to one of the sisters at XU for getting on him when he fell behind in a particular class. Quote from said nun: “They  [student-athletes] may have been attracted to Xavier by a coach, but from the very start, we make it fundamentally clear to them that they are here to receive an education.” We”d love to hear some thoughts on what you think of Yost’s assertion.

Ever wondered how much those new elite freshman are impacting your program? Luke Winn sure has, and he offers up a soul-rocking bonanza of tempo-free statistics as he endeavors to establish a realistic standard of what college basketball fans should expect from new star recruits-turned-frosh. Don’t read it during lunch or while otherwise distracted. That applies to everything in the M5, of course, but especially this one.

Portland senior Jared Stohl is one of the country’s best long-range bombers, but we have to figure the shot he fired when he told Pilot fans yesterday that the team would need them “when we beat Kentucky” might wind up on a Wildcat bulletin board on Friday night (then again, what’s he supposed to say?). John Calipari admits he’s “scared to death” of Stohl’s range and is obviously aware that Portland coach Eric Reveno possesses an excellent basketball mind. Fun viewing in store for late Friday, if you ask us.

We don’t usually give 40% of the M5 to one person, but this came across late and had to be included. SI.com’s Luke Winn heard from former Northwestern forward Kevin Coble regarding the latter’s odd departure from the Wildcats over the summer. This is only one side of the story, of course, but it looks like Coble was caught in a spot where he couldn’t make his doctors, himself, and coach Bill Carmody happy, and it led to Coble’s exit. It’s a must-read, and as much as we’d like to hear Coach Carmody’s thoughts on the matter, it’s understandable if he prefers to focus on coaching his current team and say no more about it.