1. It is a good thing that Ken Krayeske was not from Kentucky or John Calipari might be having some YouTube-worthy press conferences as a new report indicates that Kentucky leads the nation in spending on basketball recruiting with a budget of $434,095 last year, which was significantly more than any program other than Kansas, despite the state (like many others) facing a large deficit. Before the Wildcat fan start ripping us apart, it is worth noting that the basketball program had an operating profit of $5.2 million last year.
2. Late last week Ralph Nader questioned how athletic scholarships are handled, which started a small controversy online. Now David Steele has weighed in on the subject and says that while Nader was right to question how college athletics function he was wrong by focusing on the athletes and should have focused on the people in charge of the athletes.
3. With the college basketball season nearing its conclusion many fans will start shifting their focus to whether certain players will declare for the NBA Draft. Michigan fans appear to be among the first to get that news as Darius Morris has decided to test the NBA waters although John Beilein believes that Morris won’t stay in unless he has a guarantee of being a first round selection. Based on what we have seen and heard we would expect Morris to be back in a Wolverine uniform if that is in fact true.
4. UCLA fans were less fortunate as Tyler Honeycutt has declared for the NBA Draft and signed with an agent. They will have a new point guard though as Larry Drew II, the controversial former UNC point guard, has elected to play for the Bruins. Now we all have to hope for a UNC-UCLA match-up in Chapel Hill to bring up all the Larry Drew II-Kendall Marshall story lines again.
5. The AP announced its All-American team yesterday and most of the selections won’t be a surprise. The notable parts of the selection process were that three senior were on the first team, which is the most since 2006, and there were no unanimous selections as Jimmer Fredette came the closest to being a unanimous selection, but was 1 vote short (time for an investigation). The one selection that might be a little controversial is JaJuan Johnson over Derrick Williams particularly after the NCAA Tournament, but other than that the team seems pretty sound and even the Johnson selection is defensible.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 at 5:15 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: darius morris, derrick williams, jajuan johnson, jimmer fredette, john beilein, john calipari, kansas, kendall marshall, kentucky, larry drew II, michigan, north carolina, tyler honeycutt, ucla, unc. 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.