- Early August is certainly a strange time for a team to announce that a player is transferring, but that appears to be the case for Mount Saint Mary’s, which granted Shivaughn Wiggins a release to transfer. Wiggins, the NEC Rookie of the Year last season, averaged 9.6 points, 2.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game last season. We have no idea where Wiggins is looking at transferring or what his reasons for transferring are, but we imagine there will be quite a few mid-major programs that will be looking for a player of his talents particularly with three more seasons of eligibility remaining.
- The news that the rental car that was driven by P.J. Hairston had received 12 parking citations over a two-month period should not necessarily add any more weight to the case against Hairston, but given all of the evidence–circumstantial or otherwise–building up against Hairston it certainly does not help his case. It should be noted that it is unclear if Hairston was in possession of the car at this time and given the fact that the people handing over the keys to this car did not seem to be screening the drivers too closely it might be difficult ever finding that out. Still given the noise around Hairston somehow this has turned into another “major” story about him. We are assuming that North Carolina and Roy Williams will see through this (one of the few times that we can say that about a recent scandal at North Carolina) and wait for more evidence to come out. Of course, with the way things are going for Hairston this summer it might not be too long before that evidence comes out.
- For the third part of their Candid Coaches series, the writers at CBS Sports asked coaches whether it is realistic to assume that they can prevent a player from accepting impermissible benefits. It is not surprising that 96% said they did not think it was realistic. Some of our more cynical readers might point out that this is somewhat self-serving in the event that the coaches get embroiled in a scandal, but we were more interested in the 4% (maybe one coach out of 25 since they do not specify how many coaches they talked to) who thinks that a coaching staff can prevent a player from doing so. We have read the reasoning behind his vote, but it seems incredibly naive. Coaches and programs can certainly do things to reduce the likelihood of these infractions, but it is ridiculous to think that it can be prevented completely.
- The rest of the country may have football (or Breaking Bad) on their mind, but we are still counting down to the start of the college basketball season. With that in mind Seth Davis spoke with five prominent coaches–Travis Ford, Josh Pastner, Cuonzo Martin, Mark Few, and Steve Alford–to discuss their off-seasons and thoughts about the upcoming season. None of them gave any shocking quotes (or at least ones that Davis printed), but it was interesting to see how publicly confident they all seemed to be. We are particularly interested in seeing how Alford and Pastner react to their new school and conference over the next few months particularly since they are both in the most precarious situations of any of the five coaches interviewed.
- Last week we linked to a story about former Northern Colorado assistant Christopher Craig and warnings that police had issued to local churches about the threat he posed. On Thursday, he was arrested for an outstanding misdemeanor drug possession warrant. Craig, who had been labelled an “Islamic jihadist”, was found with marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and shotgun shells. While this certainly is not the ideal outcome for Craig it is certainly a better resolution (for the time being) that what could have been envisioned when he was at large after having made threats against members of churches and was being pursued by authorities. We have no idea what was going on in Craig’s life, but we hope that he can straighten himself out.