- Not only do rosters begin to solidify this time of year, but coaching staffs do as well. Washington State made a big change earlier in the week by demoting assistant coach Jeff Hironaka. As the article points out, Hironaka has seemed close to landing a head coaching job somewhere around the nation the past couple years. His ability to teach and develop players made him one of the top basketball IQ assistants in the conference, but weaknesses in recruiting led to his eventual demotion to the title of director of player development and special assistant to the head coach. With the move solely motivated by recruiting, head coach Ken Bone will look to add an assistant in the coming weeks that has recruiting contacts around the country. Hironaka can no longer recruit off-campus or give instruction during games, but his salary will remain the same.
- Sticking on the Palouse, the Cougars learned on Thursday that center Richard Peters out of Westwind Prep International did not qualify academically to make it to Washington State, and will instead pursue a junior college. However, this did not come with much surprise to the Cougar coaching staff. In anticipation of Peters not qualifying, Bone signed a pair of transfer centers in Jordan Railey and James Hunter in recent weeks. In addition to Railey and Hunter, signees for next season include guard Demarquise Johnson and forwards Richard Longrus and Brett Boese.
- Oregon State received great news earlier this week when it received an signed letter of intent from small forward Victor Robbins. Robbins was not pursued hard by the Beavers until after Jared Cunningham announced he would forgo his senior season, but the three-star out of Compton High saw a hole to fill and decided to spurn offers from Gonzaga, Washington, and Georgia. Robbins will be the first in line to fill the small forward/shooting guard role left by Cunningham, and his signing will free up shooting guard Roberto Nelson to work solely on his shot this summer.
- Robbins and the rest of the Beavers will start the 2012-13 season a little early by taking a summer trip to Spain and France. The trip will take place August 18-28, but most importantly the Beavers will receive 10 additional practices before flying to Europe. Those will be huge as the Beavers add four new players to this year’s roster (small forwards Robbins, Langston Morris-Walker, Jarmal Reid, and center Maika Ostling), along with a pair of players (forward Daniel Gomis and guard Michael Moyer) who sat out the 2011-12 season. One player who won’t be making the trip is forward Rhys Murphy. Murphy requested and was granted a release from his scholarship, and while he intends to graduate from Oregon State, he is reportedly “exploring his options”. The move is an odd one as Murphy was in line to get solid minutes this season. Oregon State’s last foreign trip came prior to the 2007-08 season, when the Beavers traveled to Italy and posted a 2-2 record. Prior to the 2002-03 season, former head coach Jay John led Oregon State to a 4-1 record in Australia in his first year with team. This season, the Beavers plan to several games against “very good teams” according to head coach Craig Robinson. In addition to the basketball, Robinson says “We are hoping that we can get a nice sort of team-bonding experience out of it, as well as some cultural nuances that the guys can look back on as great memories.” The Beavers have been known to incorporate basketball road trips with cultural/educational experiences, as last season the Beavers visited New York City and Washington D.C. in the middle of an 11-day East Coast trip.
- In other scheduling news, Arizona State will be playing real, official basketball games in the 2012 Las Vegas Invitational. The other seven teams in the field are Creighton, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Florida A&M, Cornell, Presbyterian, and Longwood. Before all eight teams head to Vegas, the four small/mid-major schools will play a pair of games at the four power conference teams. While in Vegas, the four lower schools will play a two-round tournament, as will the four power conference teams. The only known game for the Sun Devils so far is that Cornell will be traveling to Wells Fargo arena for one of the regional games. Cornell will also travel to Wisconsin.
Connor Pelton (300 Posts)I'm from Portland. College basketball and football is life.