- A report by the National College Players Association and Drexel University professor Ellen J. Staurowsky is set to be released today that claims that the average Division I men’s basketball player is “worth” nearly $265,000 per year and Duke players come in at nearly four times that (approximately $1 million). We had a brief recap of the information that was released yesterday and plenty of pundits and fans weighed in yesterday across the Internet claiming that this as yet unreleased study was clear evidence that the players were being cheated out of small fortunes. We are reserving judgement until we have time to review the data and how the extrapolated the players reported values. As Homer Simpson once said, “People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.”
- Another story that was all over the place yesterday was John Thompson Jr. revealing that he was scheduled to be on American Airlines Flight 77 that was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 before a producer from The Jim Rome Show persuaded him to take a flight a day later. According to the report, the Georgetown legend was planning on flying to Los Angeles to make an appearance and wanted to fly there on September 11th so he could make it to a friend’s birthday party in Las Vegas on the 13th, but when the schedule for the interview did not work out Danny Swartz, the show’s prodcuer, insisted that he fly to Los Angeles on the 12th and he would make sure that Thompson made it to Las Vegas for the party on the 13th. Thompson noted that at the time he was quite harsh with Swartz, but after learning that he would have been on the doomed flight if not for Swartz’s persistence he now thanks him for saving his life.
- An earlier proposal name the court at Maryland‘s Comcast Center after Gary Williams appears to have run into some significant roadblocks. While support for the proposal still seems strong there appears to be an influential minority that is against the idea because of their belief that it would be a slight to Lefty Driesell and women’s coach Brenda Frease as well as a potential loss of revenue by passing up on having a commercial entity sponsor the court because apparently having the arena named after a corporate entity isn’t enough. [Ed. Note: Seriously though we think Rush the Court sponsored by Apple has a nice ring to it and we know that Tim Cooke has the money for it.] On some level we can appreciate wanting to honor Driesell, who was an accomplished coach during his run at Maryland, and Frease, who also won a national title, but neither of them is associated with the university’s reputation at this point to the degree that Williams is. We also understand the sentiment to “make amends” with Driesell, whom some feel was wrongly fired after the death of Len Bias, but based on our brief interaction with him we don’t think that Driesell harbors any major grudge against what the university did based on the situation although we do think he might still be upset with how the media reported the situation.
- It looks like Arizona might be on its way to locking up another major recruit as Kaleb Tarczewski, one of the top high school players in the class of 2012, has narrowed his choices to Arizona and Kansas and scheduled visits to both schools. Tarczewski also still has North Carolina on his list, but did not schedule a visit there so we are guessing at this point crossing off the Tar Heels from his list is just a formality. As for the two remaining schools, Tarczewski is scheduled to visit Kansas this weekend and Arizona next weekend, which will coincide with their football game against Oregon. Although it is possible that the visit to Lawrence could blow him away and he could commit to play for the Jayhawks after some Blue Chips-like scene at Allen Fieldhouse (the scene involving Bob Cousy not the ones involving bags of cash, a tractor, a Lexus, or a new house for mom), but we tend to lean towards the team with the last shot at a player. If that is the case, Sean Miller may be adding another big piece to a class that will be a consensus top 5 class even if he does not add another player after Tarczewski.
- As we mentioned only half-jokingly yesterday, we are going to be having a conference realignment item pretty much every day here and we are not going to disappoint you today. Ok, maybe the fact that this continues to make news will be disappointing to many of you. In the latest twist, a group from Texas traveled to Oklahoma on Sunday in an attempt to convince the Sooners not to leave the Big 12 for the new Pac-12 in anticipation of their reported formal application to become the Pac-12’s thirteenth member. Chalk it up to schadenfreude, but the fact that officials from Texas are going up to Oklahoma essentially on their hands and knees begging a school to stay in the conference is hilarious after the Longhorn essentially spit in the face of every other school in the conference by signing a 15-year, $300 million contract with ESPN to create the Longhorn Network in what was a power play to separate themselves from the rest of the conference.