- Over the past few weeks we had mentioned players transferring to new schools, but thanks to the NCAA requiring most players to sit out a year before being eligible to play most of those individuals will not be able to don their new uniforms any time soon. If you are looking for the new transfers who will be in uniform next season, Andy Glockner takes a look at the ten biggest impact transfers for next season. Most of these names will be familiar to college basketball fans, but we suspect that many of you may have forgotten about one or two of the m during their season waiting to be eligible.
- Details on the night club fight involving a Cincinnati basketball player (or more than one) are sparse right now, but we have our first punishment as the school dismissed Octavius Ellis from its basketball team. Fortunately for Ellis that appears to be the extent of his punishment as the school also stated that no formal charges will be filed. It appears the school dodged a bullet on this one as any arrests would have been a big blow for a program that has dealt with behavioral issues well before the events of this past season’s Crosstown Shootout. In the end, they will lose Ellis, a solid, but undistinguished high school recruit and his on-court production was marginal at best (25 minutes all year after injuring his hand). Given the fact that his biggest moment as a Bearcat was his involvement in the Crosstown Shootout brawl resulting in a six-game suspension we do not think they will miss him too much.
- We are not exactly sure why a report from last year is getting noticed now, but on Saturday The New York Times ran a piece on the 2010 College Racial and Gender Report Card and it appears to have generated some discussion despite the original analysis being published on March 3, 2011. The basic parts of the report (college basketball has more minorities working as head coaches than other sports, but having a declining percentage) are not particularly noteworthy especially since we already know about them. The part that may be more interesting is the numbers of African-American coaches in the SEC (7) versus the rest of the BCS conferences combined (11). It is possible that this is just a transient phase, but given the stereotypes applied to that part of the country by other regions it is cause for some interesting quotes by well-known individuals.
- Looking forward to seeing what mid-major powers Creighton and Murray State can do next season against the BCS powers? You may be out of luck as the two schools are having difficulty finding opponents willing to play them during the upcoming season. For teams from major conferences there is relatively little benefit in playing these schools as they can already rack up quality wins against teams within their own conference and without the potential “embarrassment” of losing to a mid-major even if it is one of the better teams in the country. Throw in the nightmare of having to contend with a preseason All-American and you have a match-up that almost no opponent wants.
- Many of our readers will have no idea who Bob Boozer was (no, he was not the father of former Duke star Carlos), but historians of the game will remember the former Kansas State star who was the #1 pick of the 1959 NBA Draft, a two-time 1st team All-American, and a member of the famous 1960 US Olympic team. Boozer passed away on Saturday following a brain aneurysm. Although his season-high points per game average of 25.2 points per game was topped by Michael Beasley in Beasley’s only season there you could make a very strong case for Boozer as the greatest Kansas State player of all-time. Not only did he achieve the individual accomplishments we listed above, but he also led the team to the 1958 Final Four and in 1959 led them to the #1 ranking in the final regular season poll before losing in the Elite Eight to Cincinnati and some guy named Oscar Robertson. It may be of interesting to fans that Boozer’s coach at the time was Tex Winter, who refined his Triple-Post Offense (later known as the Triangle Offense) at Kansas State before eventually passing it on to Phil Jackson who utilized it with a pair of accomplished guards–Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.