1. If the pressure was not already on Steve Alford to land a point guard at UCLA before, the announcement that Kyle Anderson was planning on declaring for the NBA Draft after this season certainly should. Coming after Anderson’s solid, but uninspiring freshman year the announcement (by his father) seems somewhat strange and we are not sure what purpose it serves. At this point he is a borderline first round pick at best and that is primarily based on his potential (length and skills). If Anderson shows significant improvement he could be a potential lottery pick because of that potential, but “declaring” this early serves no purpose other than to create disharmony within the Bruins locker room.
2. There has been quite a bit of speculation that there is a growing movement that would bring about changes that would eventually lead to college athletes being paid. If you didn’t believe our warnings that it would not be happening any time soon, perhaps the comments made by NCAA President Mark Emmert yesterday stating that there was very little support behind the movement to pay college athletes from administrators. Emmert may be the public face of the NCAA and subsequently the target of most of the hatred directed at the organization, but he does raise some salient points. Whatever your opinion is on the subject of paying athletes, Emmert’s comments should further our previous statements that we are still a long way away from paying college athletes becomes a reality.
3. Mike Krzyzewski‘s comments yesterday voicing his disapproval of transfer waivers has managed to create a fair amount of controversy. It should be pointed out that none of his comments are unique and appear to be the party line for the old school. As several people have noted Krzyzewski was never asked if a player should be granted a waiver if his coach leaves. Of course that would also encroach upon the third rail of the transfer discussion–coaches moving around freely and players being taken advantage of when it is time to sign with schools. We would also be interested to see how Krzyzewski would react if be were given the opportunity to get a high-impact transfer that could obtain a waiver, which is a position that we believe he has never been in.
4. It has been a year since Jim Calhoun abruptly stepped down as head coach at Connecticut and as you would expect the local media reached out to him to discuss what he has been up to in the interim. The part of the article that will generate the most buzz is that “little itch” that Calhoun says he still to coach basketball. While we do find that interesting on some level, we doubt that he would ever come back to coach in any capacity at his age with his medical history. Having said that it is good to see that Calhoun is involved with the school and the players at some level.
5. Many college basketball fans have been focusing on the reported recruiting package deal of Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones and for good reason as the are rated #1 and #3 overall in ESPN’s recruiting rankings. However, they should also keep an eye on reports that Cliff Alexander and Jaquan Lyle are now also a package deal. The reports are based on a tweet that Alexander, the #2 overall recruit according to those same ESPN rankings, sent out saying that he and Lyle< the #22 overall recruit, would be playing in college together. While there are several teams on both players “lists” it is worth noting that Lyle said said that he favored Kansas recently and Alexander is also believed to be a Kansas lean at this point.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Elite point guard play has been a hallmark of John Calipari’s Kentucky teams. The Wildcats typically pluck one of the nation’s best floor generals from any given recruiting class, drill them in the arts of the dribble-drive offense, their draft stock soaring all the while, then – with Calipari’s customary backing – encourage them to enter the NBA draft, where a first-round selection awaits. From John Wall to Brandon Knight to Tyreke Evans to Marquis Teague, Kentucky under Calipari has become the most desirable landing spot in the country for highly-touted high school point guards looking for the quickest and most seamless path to the NBA. In fact, dating back to 2007-’08, when Memphis rode Derrick Rose’s face-melting talents to the brink of a national championship, Calipari has started a new point guard every season (a salient statistic pointed out late last week by The Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy). The run of truly elite point men ended in 2012-13 with Ryan Harrow, whose inability to handle the big stage, and general lack of talent and athleticism, was evident from the start.

There should be little expectation for a regression in point guard play when Ulis (likely) takes over in 2014 (AP Photo).

But the streak of alternating point guards continued all the same, as it will in 2013-14, when top-ranked Andrew Harrison, one member of Kentucky’s insane 2013 recruiting class featuring six McDonald’s All-Americans and three players ranked No. 1 at their respective positions, according to ESPN, will take over. Once Harrison leaves (probably after one season), Kentucky will have to brace itself for the likelihood – gasp! – of a point guard keeping his starting spot for more than one season. That was one of the implications of Marian Catholic (IL) guard Tyler Ulis, a consensus top-40 player in 2014, committing to Kentucky Friday. Ulis is not like the star UK point guards of recent vintage – long, physical, equal parts scoring prowess and distributive intuition. The 5’8’’, 150-pound guard is a point guard in the traditional mold – more a shot creator (NBC’s Rob Dauster, apparently impressed with Ulis at an AAU event, nicknamed Ulis “Tyler the Creator”) than a shot maker. Ulis’s stock soared this summer on the AAU circuit after a series of brilliant performances against elite competition, including a 22-point, 17-assist effort at the EYBL Peach Jam in a highly anticipated match-up between his team, Meanstreets, and the Howard Pulley squad led by Tyus Jones, the No. 1-ranked point guard in 2014, who is expected to commit Duke (and has reiterated his belief that he and Jahlil Okafor, the top-ranked overall player in 2014, are a “package deal”).

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Bennet Hayes is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @HoopsTraveler. Periodically throughout the preseason, RTC will take an in-depth look at the schedules of some of the more prominent teams in college basketball.

We have seen rapid and successful overhauls in Lawrence before, but perhaps never on this scale. Kansas is short five starters from a year ago, and in their wake arrives a decorated freshman class headed by a once-in-a-generation talent. Commitments from top-50 recruits Joel Embiid, Wayne Selden, and Conner Francamp had Jayhawk fans believing a quick rebuild was possible, but it was the May signing of Andrew Wiggins, the top player in the high school class of 2013, that has turned hope into belief. Another Big 12 championship and a return to the Sweet 16 would no longer constitute a brilliant coaching job by Bill Self, a man who has crafted many of them. Wiggins’ presence on campus has not only turned those achievements into mere expectations, but also transports hope to Lawrence that the ultimate prize – a National Title – is again a realistic possibility.

Could Perry Ellis Emerge As The Most Valuable Jayhawk Not Named Andrew Wiggins This Season?

• Team Outlook: Wiggins’ talent and projected impact has been well-documented, but even if he becomes the star he is expected to be, the Jayhawks will still need to develop the supporting cast around him. Perry Ellis (5.8 PPG, 3.9 RPG) is the one returnee that will almost definitely be a key part of that equation, but Nadiir Tharpe (5.5 PPG, 3.1 APG) and Jamari Traylor (2.1 PPG, 2.1 RPG) should also see minutes. We have seen Jayhawk role players emerge into key contributors after an offseason before, but no matter what happens with that trio, Bill Self will surely be relying on newcomers not named Wiggins to carry the load. Prime among them are freshmen Wayne Selden and Joel Embiid, who are expected to take over starting duties at shooting guard and center, respectively. Like Wiggins, both are projected as top-ten picks in next year’s NBA draft, so it’s a distinct possibility that this could be their lone rodeo in Lawrence. That being said, both need to add significant polish to their games, and despite the top-ten ranking recruiting gurus bestowed upon him, Embiid even drags the “project” title with him to Kansas. Freshmen guards Conner Frankamp and Brannen Greene are also consensus Top-100 recruits, and both will have the opportunity to compete with Tharpe and Selden for minutes in the Kansas backcourt. Rounding out the frontcourt rotation is Memphis transfer Tarik Black (8.1 PPG, 4.8 RPG) and redshirt freshman Landen Lucas. Black’s addition was another significant coup for Self this offseason, as he provides the Jayhawks with a player who has actually been through it all before at the college level. Black, like nearly every Jayhawk outside of Wiggins, could end up as a thirty-minute a game starter, a marginalized bit player, or nearly anything in between. There is tons of talent in Lawrence and a superstar to headline the show, but much of the onus for the destination of this Jayhawk campaign rests on Bill Self and how he fits all the pieces together – something Jayhawk fans should feel pretty good about. Read the rest of this entry »

1. The NCAA has taken a lot of criticism, but we have to give them credit for coming to their senses and granting Kerwin Okoro a hardship waiver after transferring from Iowa State to Rutgers. The NCAA has managed to make plenty of highly questionable decisions over the years, but Okoro’s struck a chord due to callousness of it. We have questioned the NCAA’s at times over the top willingness to grant family hardship waivers to players who had some distant relative who was sick or a father who lost or quit a job as a coach. In the case of Okoro, the NCAA denied his request to transfer to be closer to his family after his father and brother died within a span of three months presumably because they were already dead (I know stupid). In the end, the NCAA corrected itself so Okoro will get what he deserved in the first place.
2. Before we start to sound like NCAA homers, we should point out that we don’t agree with their decision to ban college coaches from attending practices at schools that are not underneath a governing body. The decision appears to target two schools–Findlay Prep and Huntington Prep–that produce an abundance of Division I talent so we suspect that coaches will be after the NCAA to reverse this. We can certainly understand the NCAA’s desire to cut down on diploma mills (not calling either of these programs that), but we are not sure what this accomplishes. The coaches will still be able to watch the recruits in games. This just makes it more difficult for recruits to catch the attention of a coach and slows down the process of recruitment. We also are not sure why they singled out these two schools as the ruling opens up a huge can of worms. Our best guess is that this ruling will get amended very quickly.
3. Although they missed out on Emmanuel Mudiay, Kentucky got a nice consolation prize in Tyler Ulis, a four-star point guard, who committed to Kentucky on Friday night. With Andrew Harrison a likely one-and-done player it was essential that Kentucky get a point guard to replace him and after missing out on Mudiay it appeared that they were essentially down to Ulis or Tyus Jones, who is believed to be a Duke lean at this point. Kentucky beat out Michigan State and Iowa for Ulis’ services. The one catch with Ulis is his size, or lack thereof, as he measures just 5’9″ and around 150 pounds. We would never doubt John Calipari’s eye for talent (or at least his ability to recruit it), but this will certainly be something to watch for when Ulis presumably comes in as Wildcats starting point guard in 2014.
4. It turns out that there is one more elite point guard in the class of 2014 who is still up for grabs after Louisville commit JaQuan Lyle backed out of his verbal commitment. Lyle is the second top point guard prospect to decommit from Louisville since July as he is following Quentin Snider, who backed out of his commitment from Louisville to commit to Illinois. It appears that the primary reason for Lyle’s decision was concern over playing time in a crowded Cardinal backcourt. We are a bit surprised that a player who is a top-25 overall recruit would be that worried about getting playing time on a team that admittedly has plenty of talent, but is not loaded with first round talent. Although Lyle has listed several teams, Kansas is the clear leader if they are willing to extend Lyle a scholarship.
5. On Friday we mentioned the very real possibility that Syracuse and Georgetown would restart their rivalry even after they moved to different conferences. We hoped that they would serve as an example for other schools that had abandoned rivalries due to conference realignment. Based on a recent radio interview with Mike Krzyzewski it appears that it is unlikely that Duke will resume playing Maryland anytime soon. In between criticizing conference realignment, Krzyzewski essentially said he did not think that the two schools would play unless they were paired against each other in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge (this is your chance, ESPN). We understand the logistical challenges of  scheduling non-conference opponents with the increasing size of conference schedules, but there are certain match-ups that we think should happen on a not infrequent basis and this is definitely one of them.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Conference realignment is destructive and all-powerful. It is not all-conquering. The most recent frenzy of shifting league alliances, fueled by a nauseating blend of football, greedy athletic department officials and lavish broadcast rights deals, prompted all kinds of doomsday scenarios for college basketball. At one point, as the Big 12 inched closer and closer to a landscape-altering implosion, it looked as if Kansas, one of the true bluebloods of the sport, would be left without a conference to play hoops in. We actually reached the point where Kansas joining the Mountain West was a real, imminent thing. You know what happened next. The Big 12 survived, and the Jayhawks continued to win conference championships without blinking. The Border War – Missouri and Kansas’ long-standing rivalry, which dates back to a bitter slavery-motivated Civil War-era feud – was lost with Missouri’s move to the SEC, and a host of defections from the old Big East led to the creation of a new hoops-only Big East and a super-charged ACC. But in hindsight, the movement was less injurious for college hoops than most predicted early on.

The extension of the SU-GU rivalry should motivate others to remake similar games into annual nonconference fixtures (AP Photo).

The biggest casualty? Rivalries. I mentioned the Border war, but the Georgetown–Syracuse hatefest – which reached peak intensity in 1980 when John Thompson II ended the Orange’s 57-game winning streak at the old Manley Fieldhouse, Syracuse’s home before the Carrier Dome – was also cast aside by conference switches. The Hoyas and Orange had played their last game as co-members of the Big East last season – including a thrilling, emotional overtime match-up in the Big East Tournament semifinals – and unless the two schools came together and decided to rekindle the rivalry outside of league play, college basketball would lose another of its great annual hate-filled match-ups. Syracuse and Georgetown were parting ways, but was there a legitimate reason they couldn’t they toss scheduling logistics and lopsided recruiting benefits (the Orange playing in talent-rich Washington D.C. is eons more valuable than the Hoyas traveling up to the great rural countryside of Syracuse, NY) aside, and agree to some sort of home-and-home arrangement? Was there really no hope? Syracuse had already schedule out-of-conference series with former Big East rivals Syracuse and Villanova, after all. Setting something up with Georgetown seemed like the logical next move.

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1. When last season ended many college basketball fans bemoaned the end of some of college basketball’s most significant rivalries including Georgetown–Syracuse. Both of last season’s match-ups between the two schools were hailed with a great degree of anticipation as they were expected to be the last time the rivals faced off for the foreseeable future and rightfully so. Well except for the fact that the two schools are now reportedly negotiating a ten-year deal that we would bring back the rivalry again. According to Syracuse officials their side has agreed to the “concept” of it, but are still waiting on a response from Georgetown officials. For his part, Georgetown coach John Thompson III also appears to be in favor of this. We doubt that there is anybody who would oppose rekindling the rivalry on purely basketball terms so we hope that conference and administrative politics do not get in the way of one of the best rivalries in college sports.
2. The deicision by Quentin Snider, a point guard who is ranked 28th overall in the class of 2014, to commit to Illinois over UCLA is a huge get for John Groce. The second year coach already had picked up a commitment earlier this month from Leron Black, a power forward ranked 36th overall, so this is shaping up to be one of the better classes in recent memory for the Illini. On the other end of the spectrum, this is a fairly significant blow for the Bruins who lost out of Jordan McLaughlin one day earlier. The Bruins should be able to weather the storm thanks to the presence of Kyle Anderson who will probably be staying at UCLA longer than he anticipated, but it still raises questions as to who will succeed him when he eventually leaves.
3. According to Myron Medcalf, Wichita State freshman guard D.J. Bowles underwent an unspecified surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota yesterday morning. Bowles had gone to Mayo earlier this week where he underwent a series of tests after collapsing while working out on September 3. We have no idea as to what kind of surgery Bowles underwent or when (if ever) he is expected to return to the court as the Wichita State staff is appropriately releasing extremely limited information. We could speculate as to what type of procedure Bowles had, but instead we will just wish him the best of luck in his recovery.
4. It turns out that schools with limited resources and questionable academic standards are not the only ones with issues with APR scores. A column in The Harvard Crimson earlier this week pointed out the relatively low APR scores of many programs including men’s basketball. Now, we will start off by saying that Harvard‘s APR scores for basketball are well above the numbers required to participate in the NCAA Tournament, but the article and more specifically the comments, which appear to be from Harvard students and alumni, indicate some of the sociological issues–seen more clearly in the big academic fraud scandal at the school a year ago–within the campus and these APR scores only seem to add to that.
5. We are getting to that point in the year where various publications start unveiling their preseason All-American teams. The Sporting News is one of the first we have seen and for the most part we tend to agree with their picks (you can watch the video and ignore the slideshow if you refuse to click through a slideshow). Our biggest issue with their first team is also their biggest issue with their first team, which is the omission of Julius Randle. To be fair it is hard to criticize them for leaving off a freshman, but we probably would have given him the nod over Mitch McGary. There should be plenty of other preseason All-American lists coming out over the next month or two, but we suspect that most of them will look fairly similar to this one.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

Dunk City was short-lived and it was awesome. Those are the two descriptions that pop into one’s head when you look back on Florida Gulf Coast’s headline-grabbing run to the last season’s Sweet 16. The Eagles didn’t just beat second seeded Georgetown and seventh seeded San Diego State in succession, they played some of the most ostentatious, brazen, high-flying hoops March Madness has ever seen. Florida Gulf Coast would have been a huge national story (which it was) even without the alluring mystery surrounding its Wall Street-bred head coach and his supermodel wife. All the elements – the highlight reel alley-oops, the beach-side campus dorms, the rollicking on-court celebrations, under-recruited point guard Brett Comer’s neglected high school basketball career, the immense branding and academic exposure the Eagles’ run granted the barely two decades-old university, Andy Enfield’s wife – made the Eagles America’s collective sweetheart. Florida Gulf Coast’s reign was brief, but it was brilliant. No one will forget Dunk City.

With his first big recruit in tow, Enfield is acquiting himself well in his new job (AP Photo).

Nor did prospective employers believe the man behind the madness, Enfield, just happened to get hot at the right time – the typical formula for big NCAA Tournament upsets. The moment Florida finished off its humbling 12-point Sweet 16 win over the Eagles, Enfield became one of the nation’s hottest head coaching candidates not named Brad Stevens (Speaking of which: miss you, Brad). His name was floated about the college hoops coaching carousel, though for a time it seemed no one was convinced (after just two NCAA Tournament wins), that Enfield had more to prove before landing a high-major job – until USC finally, with immense outside apprehension, took a leap of faith with Dunk City’s creative genius. A lot of people were dubious about USC’s perceived decision to hire a coach because of two impressive wins in a wacky, unpredictable, upset-breeding ground of a single-elimination basketball tournament.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Recruiting has never been as simple as John Calipari makes it look. Winning national championships, plucking the annual Rivals Top 150 of its very best talent, sending them off to the NBA Draft, and  grinning with every lottery selection. It is a self-sustaining cycle, and it has long since worked. That’s the part that makes sense. Most coaches don’t have the luxury of bringing in six McDonald’s All Americans to an iconic, tradition-laden program – so they use scouting acumen, and developmental prognostication, to find the best players the best teams have neglected (or temporarily dismissed) and scoop them up before engaging in a recruiting battle they can’t possibly win. Most high-major programs offer their own uniquely attractive features, true–even non-bluebloods offer variously amenities and benefits many top high schoolers find appealing. But generally, their job is more difficult than John Calipari’s. At this point, Calipari’s program basically recruits itself (Calipari is a terrific recruiter on his own merits, and he’s been in battles for top players with other big-name programs before, but there are a number of factors – program, coaching history, track record of NBA preparation – that give him a leg up on competitors). Most other coaches need to do a lot more heavy lifting before landing the players they sign.

From national championships to alumni games, Calipari has no rival on the recruiting trail (Getty Images)

Not only does he boast those obvious advantages, Calipari has a few recruiting tricks up his sleeve that he can pull out at a moment’s notice. There was the famous Jay-Z incident, in which the hip-hop mogul visited Kentucky’s locker room after the Wildcats advanced to the 2011 Final Four, not to mention his backstage access to Hov’s Barclays Center-opening concert. Or the controversial “greatest day in the history of the program” remark, which referred to Kentucky’s landmark five first-round selections in the 2010 draft, a statement representative of Calipari’s desire to – above winning championships, even – turn the high schoolers he recruits into wealthy professional basketball players using one year of Kentucky-based tutelage as their developmental pathway (in lieu of the impossible solution: the abolition of the NBA’s 19-year-old age limit). And then, my personal favorite: Calipari apologizing to recruits in June 2012 because “I’m spending the majority of my time answering questions from NBA teams about my six guys.” The subtle brilliance of that tweet is everlasting; sorry, five-star high school hoops stars of the world, but I’m busy talking to NBA scouts.Your questions will have to wait. It’s perfect.

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1. Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of one of the most horrifying days in American history. You undoubtedly read, heard, or watched many individuals discuss their experiences during that day and afterwards. While most of the coverage focused on first responders and people directly affected by the attack the events of that day affected people in this country in all walks of life including college basketball. Jeff Eisenberg was able to speak with several coaches about their memories of that day. In many ways, we have moved on from the events of that day (for better and worse), but as anybody who is old enough to remember the events of that day will tell you it is something we will never forget.
2. Over the past month USC has picked up several transfers. Yesterday, Andy Enfield picked up his first significant high school recruit as Jordan McLaughlin committed to play for the Trojans. McLaughlin, the #4 point guard and #18 overall recruit in the class of 2014 [Ed. Note: He is #43 according to Rivals], chose USC over UCLA, Indiana, and Kansas. Given the dearth of backcourt talent at USC, McLaughlin should be able to step right into the role of starter for the Trojans. The one issue this will raise for USC is with Katin Reinhardt, who transferred from UNLV to play point guard to increase his chances of playing in the NBA. The arrival of McLaughlin–an actual point guard–might affect the team’s chemistry if Reinhardt is unwilling to accept a subordinate role in the backcourt.
3. With McLaughlin committing, there is one less elite point guard recruit available and according to reports another one–Tyler Ulis–is on the verge of committing too. Ulis is said to be deciding between Iowa, Kentucky, and Michigan State. Ulis will make his announcement on Friday at 8:20 PM ET with the live coverage being provided by High School Cube News. The addition of Ulis would be big for any of the three programs, but is considered particularly important for Kentucky who lost out on Emmanuel Mudiay and will likely lose Andrew Harrison to the NBA Draft after this season.
4.  The team that Bobby Hurley inherited at Buffalo contained some excellent building blocks, but the Duke legend also appears to be quite adept at recruiting as he managed to land Lamonte Bearden, a 4-star point guard out of Wisconsin. Hurley managed to convince Bearden to come to Buffalo over Oregon State, Saint Louis, and San Francisco although there are some reports that his grades may have cooled his recruitment by those schools. If Hurley is able to get Bearden to campus and eligible to play, it would be one of the more impressive recruiting jobs for this year’s class that we have seen.
5. Sports Illustrated released the second part of its five-part investigative series on Oklahoma State‘s football program yesterday. This part focused on the questionable academic standards required of the team. The series has managed to inspire the expected outrage from Cowboy fans, but as we mentioned on Twitter yesterday the outrage seems to be much less than it was for Miami and almost seems muted. As for our overall reaction to this series and others like it is that while we can appreciate the amount of work that goes into it, we feel as though the work and outrage is incorrectly directed at the programs when instead we as a society should be focusing on the culture around these institutions and society at large that allows this type of behavior to happen.

1. When Luke Winn recently wrote about the up-transfer phenomenon his examples were typically players whose performance exceeded the expectation of observers allowing them to move up a level of play. Robert Upshaw, a top-50 recruit coming out of high school, does not quite fit into that category. During his freshman season at Fresno State Upshaw averaged 4.1 points and 3.8 rebounds per game before being dismissed from the team this summer. Despite his poor performance Upshaw will be one of Winn’s up-transfers as he is heading to Washington. For his part Upshaw has acknowledged that he “had some maturity issues” while at Fresno State so hopefully he can turn his career around and fulfill some of the promise he showed coming out of high school.
2. By now you have probably read the piece by Doug Gottlieb analyzing the controversy surrounding Johnny Manziel and the media’s coverage of the situation. While Gottlieb is very eloquent with his analysis of Manziel’s situation and open in how he relates it to his own well-chronicled ordeals we are not sure his column is necessarily as strong of an argument against paying student-athletes as some would believe. We can certainly see Gottlieb’s argument and student-athletes are given much more than many observers would like to believe, but the reality is that there are certain individuals who if allowed to utilize free-market forces would certain generate significant sums of money. Of course, as we have pointed out in the past this entire issue is much more complex economically and politically than most pundits have stated.
3. Florida State may have lost out on Xavier Rathan-Mayes (at least temporarily) after he was ruled academically eligible for the coming season, but they got a nice consolation yesterday when Cinmeon Bowers, a 6’6″ junior college forward who averaged 11 points and seven rebounds last season, committed to play for the Seminoles. Bowers, like Rathan-Mayes, was heavily recruited by the Seminoles, but initially failed to qualify academically leading to his time at Chipola Junior College. Bowers fielded quite a few offers and was reportedly also seriously considering Louisville and Memphis, but eventually opted to stay in the area. Bowers will be eligible to play during the 2014-15 season, which is the same point that Rathan-Mayes could become eligible too potentially providing the Seminoles with a much-needed boost.
4. Yesterday, Sports Illustrated released the first part of its five-part series detailing its 10-month investigation into Oklahoma State and its football program. While the investigation focuses on the football program and we are a basketball site, we thought the public reaction to the story (admittedly to only one-fifth of the story) was interesting in how little the media reacted to this story as we predicted in yesterday’s Morning 5 given how worked up they got over a fairly similar story about Miami just a few years ago. Perhaps the most interesting reaction to the report was the reaction of Jason Whitlock to Thayer Evans and the lack of support Evans got from other media members.
5. For your incredibly awkward link of the day we will turn to Durham where Mike Krzyzewski recently discussed his encounter with Jay-Z and Beyonce. After introducing LeBron James as Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year, Krzyzewski took his seat and noticed a pair of empty seats that were eventually filled by the couple who are arguably the most influential couple in music. While Krzyzewski reports that he is a fan of Jay-Z (we have a hard time imagining Krzyzewski listening along to almost any of Jay-Z’s music), he claims to be “madly in love with Beyonce”. What happened next according to Krzyzewski appears to be an encounter that was not much different than Chris Farley’s famous Saturday Night Live interview with Paul McCartney.