- If you want to get upset with a coach and a school for abusing its control over a player, check out Todd O’Brien‘s first-person account of his attempt to try to play for UAB as part of a graduate school transfer, but being thwarted by Phil Martelli and St. Joseph’s. O’Brien chronicles his attempts to gain his release from the school and the denials by what appears to be an increasingly petty Martelli. Obviously, we are only getting one side of the story here, but St. Joseph’s appears to have been offered a chance at offering an appropriate rebuttal and issued what amounts to a non-denial denial. This story won’t get as much attention as all the reports about players behaving badly or being offered extra benefits and it is a very rare occurrence (this is the first time it has happened in NCAA history), but it should not get swept under the rug.
- The latest Hoop Thoughts column by Seth Davis touches on a variety of topics including Khem Birch and other prominent freshmen who have left school after one semester or less. One of the interesting points that Davis makes is a reference to a piece by Luke Winn this summer that showed that players who switched high schools were more likely to decommit. Obviously, leaving a school after you have already enrolled there is a big step from switching commitments as a high school player, but it does suggest a certain lack of loyalty and stability. As our previous point noted, this issue can get more complicated if a school is unwilling to accept a young adult’s change of heart. If you caught Seth’s Twitter rant last night, you can be sure his Hoops Thoughts column may have looked very different if it were released today.
- One of the aforementioned freshmen who left school early (and attended multiple high schools) is Jabari Brown, the five-star recruit who left Oregon after less than a semester. Brown left Eugene under unclear circumstances and was soon followed be fellow freshman Bruce Barron. Reports yesterday indicate that Brown is headed to Missouri and cited his mother as saying that her son had a “good fit” with the system and Frank Haith. If Brown enrolls at Missouri, he could become eligible as early as next December and would be a big addition to a team that will lose quite a bit to graduation.
- Speaking of Oregon, the school was a victim of a cyber attack in the wake of its 67-54 loss to Virginia. The school’s website had a fake quote sheet for Oregon’s Dana Altman in which he was critical of the team’s pregame spaghetti and said he “wasn’t that impressed” with Virginia’s Mike Scott. The page has been scrubbed from the Internet although if you play around with Google Cache you can easily find it (ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan got a screen cap of it before it was taken down). We are sure that the people at Oregon were not amused by the stunt, but the fake quotes were fairly benign (other than the Mike Scott one) so while we don’t condone hacking this was pretty humorous (unless it happens to us).
- We usually try not to question the medical/personnel decisions of coaches and teams here, but the decision by Thad Matta to play Jared Sullinger today against Lamar is a strange one. As the interview session continued, Matta appeared to back off his assessment that Sullinger would play today and moved towards something more akin to probably play. Ohio State would be wise to remember that it was just this past Saturday when Sullinger, who was already battling back spasm, had to get x-rays on what appeared to be broken foot that turned out to be negative. If Matta has any doubt in his mind about Sullinger’s health, he should rest him for both Sullinger’s future and for that of this Buckeye team. The Buckeyes could probably play without Sullinger and any starter not named Aaron Craft and easily beat Lamar in Columbus.