1. It did not take Rhode Island long to find a new head coach as they announced Dan Hurley as their new head coach at a press conference yesterday. Hurley has limited coaching experience at the college experience, but the experience he has had so far has been phenomenal as he turned around the Wagner program leading them to a 25-6 record in just his second year there. While almost everybody understands the move by Hurley, Gary Parrish notes that it is interesting in light of comments about how Hurley would not be using Wagner as a launching pad, but then did so just two months later.
2. The situation at Southern Illinois appears to be a little less clear. Initial reports suggested that Bruce Weber had been offered his old job again. However, later in the day the school denied those reports and said its search was still ongoing. Weber appears to be the leader to become their next head coach, but the school reportedly has up to eight candidates (mostly current assistant coaches) who they would target to become their next head coach.
3. Scott Sutton interviewed at Nebraska on Monday according to his father. Sutton, who is 250-161 in 13 seasons at Oral Roberts, appears to be one of the hotter names not named Shaka this offseason as we have also seen his name linked to Tulsa and Mississippi State. With so many options on the table, we suspect that Scott will have his choice of leaving Oral Roberts if that is his desire. We should also point out how humorous other reports of this story were that reported “sources” had indicated that Scott had interviewed with the Huskers. While his father is technically a source, he is probably a little more credible than your average anonymous source.
4. Long time followers of our site are familiar with the musical works of Renaldo Woolridge (aka Baller Vol). Woolridge, who was a senior at Tennessee this season, was granted a hardship waiver and given an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. Interestingly, Woolridge plans to use that extra year to transfer to another school. We are not sure what his reasons are, but Cuonzo Martin appears to have signed off on the transfer unlike a certain coach in Philadelphia.
5. There were a couple of big transfers in the Pac-12 yesterday. The biggest was the announcement that Trent Lockett, the leading scorer for Arizona State last season, would be transferring to be closer to his ailing mother. Lockett, who averaged 13 points and 5.8 rebounds per game last season, is expected to head back to Minnesota to be closer to his mother although he has not announced which school he intends to transfer to for his remaining eligibility. Lockett is the 12th Sun Devil to leave the program in the past four years although we cannot pin this one on the program as there appears to be more serious family issues at play here. Alexis Moore and Curtis Washington both announced yesterday that they would be the second and third Trojans in a week to transfer from USC. While things may seem really bad for a team that was 6-26 this season and now has lost three of its better players from last season, there is some hope in the form of a talented group of incoming players.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 at 5:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: alexis moore, arizona state, bruce weber, cuonzo martin, dan hurley, Garrett Jackson, mississippi state, nebraska, oral roberts, renaldo woolridge, rhode island, scott sutton, southern illinois, tennessee, trent lockett, tulsa, usc, wagner. 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.