1. A year after announcing in the losing locker room that he would be returning to Ohio State, Jared Sullinger has decided to forego his final two years of eligibilty and will enter the NBA Draft. As we noted after what turned out to be Sullinger’s last game in a Buckeye jersey he still need to work on his game quite a bit. Although Sullinger did show signs of rounding out his game as a sophomore by losing weight and developing an outside shot it was not evident in that game for Sullinger. Sullinger will need to continue developing his game to have a long NBA career. He will still end up being a lottery pick and most likely a top 10 pick despite his limitations, but those flaws probably cap his ceiling.
2. Sullinger may be joined by another Big Ten underclassman as an initial report indicated that Michigan freshman Trey Burke was going to announce his intent to enter the NBA Draft. A few hours later his father released a statement indicating that Trey had not declared for the NBA Draft yet and was still taking classes at Michigan. While some viewed this as a denial of the earlier report to us it was just semantics as his father never said that Burke was not planning to declare for the Draft. Burke’s decision to continue classes is a little less reassuring to Wolverine fans because Michigan is currently in their Winter Term, which ends in less than two weeks with exam week the following week, so Burke could finish classes to preserve Michigan’s APR score and not affect his NBA Draft stock, which is important because he is a borderline first round pick.
3. Yesterday, one key member of Kentucky‘s national championship team announced his intention to stay in Lexington as John Calipari announced that he was not looking to pursue a NBA coaching career at this time. The most obvious suitor would be the New York Knicks, who some believe have the inside track to steal him from Big Blue Nation. On some level we could understand Calipari’s desire to stay with a passionate fan base who no doubt reveres him after he brought them their eighth national title, but if Calipari is given a chance to shine on the NBA’s stage (and with the NBA’s millions) it may turn out to too tempting to pass up after his brief run in New Jersey went so poorly.
4. Alex Oriakhi has listed his preliminary plans for his college visits. The Connecticut transfer will “definitely visit” North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, and Missouri while also listing Xavier, Ohio State, and UNC-Charlotte as potential visits. Outside of the UNC-Charlotte visit, which seems kind of random, the Ohio State visit becomes intriguing with the possibility that Oriakhi could potential step in to replace Sullinger. Clearly, Oriakhi is not quite the same caliber of player that Sullinger was at Ohio State, but he would be a nice bridge to the next dominant big man the Buckeyes want to bring in.
5. Early this morning, Samford  will introduce Indiana assistant Bennie Seltzer  as its next head coach. Seltzer, who has also worked as an assistant at Marquette and Oklahoma, will be returning to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama for his first job as a head coach. With two new head coaches without any previous head coaching experience in college basketball, Birmingham’s beat writers should be very active next season.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2012 at 5:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: alex oriakhi, bennie seltzer, indiana, jared sullinger, john calipari, kentucky, michigan, ohio state, samford, trey burke. 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.