- It could be argued that Brian Bowen will go down as the most significant recruit in Louisville basketball history (FBI investigation, NCAA sanctions, and Pitino/Jurich being fired) even though he will never play for the school according to a statement that the school released last week. Bowen, a top-20 recruit who is widely believed to be the player who the FBI says received $100,000, has reportedly enrolled in classes for the spring semester at Louisville, which has allowed him to remain on scholarship. We are assuming that this is a way to maintain his academic eligibility given his stated intent to transfer, but the idea of him transferring to play at another school seems ridiculous as we cannot imagine another NCAA school agreeing to take him with both a NCAA investigation and FBI investigation hanging over him.
- When did Vanderbilt become a destination for five-star recruits? Maybe it’s Nashville because it certainly isn’t the program’s history or its elevated court that is drawing in top-notch recruits. Whatever the case, Vanderbilt received its second commitment from a five-star prospect in two weeks as Simi Shittu, a 6’9″ power forward from Vermont, committed to play for Vanderbilt. Shittu follows Darius Garland, a 6’1″ point guard from Tennessee, as the first top-25 recruits the school has had since 2009. We aren’t sure what Bryce Drew is getting these recruits to come play for him at Vanderbilt, but they should make the SEC even more interesting next season.
- Some coaching extensions confuse us primarily because of the timing, but we cannot think of any that were as baffling as Wake Forest giving Danny Manning a six-year extension following his 2-4 start. The extension means that Manning is under contract through the end of the 2024-25 season although the school has not released details (apparently the extension itself was embarrassing enough). Manning, 45-57 overall at Wake Forest after last night’s win over Illinois, is a big name and last season did lead the school to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2010, but we don’t understand why the school would complete the extension after what we would kindly refer to as a rough start to this season. Of course, we also don’t understand in general why schools give many coaches, who are far from superstars, such favorable contracts, but then again we actually have to pay for the contracts we sign to while these schools/administrators just make someone else pay for it (usually taxpayers, students, or boosters).
- We normally try not to get too involved with legal issues (well, at least outside of that whole FBI investigation), but we were interested in Michael McCann’s analysis of the lawsuit filed against DraftExpress that claims the highlight videos on the site constitute copyright infringement. The actual case is quite nuanced (how else do lawyers get their billable hours?), but essentially the plaintiff in this case (Wazee Digital) licenses video content for the NCAA and claims that the DraftExpress videos, which use that content without paying licensing fees, devalue those rights and Wazee should be compensated for that. We won’t go into too much detail about “fair use” and other legal details, but encourage you to read McCann’s analysis because the outcome could affect the way that nearly all online sports video content is consumed.
- The strange coaching career of Tim Floyd came to an end on Monday night as he announced his retirement following a loss to Lamar. Floyd, probably best known as the coach to of the Chicago Bulls after Phil Jackson left and as the coach involved in the OJ Mayo scandal, had toiled in relative obscurity the past seven-plus seasons at UTEP, but before that compiled an impressive coaching resume that included 444 career wins (taking away 21 wins that were vacated from his season with Mayo). Floyd’s college journey included stops at Idaho, New Orleans, Iowa State, and USC before finishing at UTEP and made it to the NCAA Tournament at every stop outside of Idaho and UTEP making it to the Sweet Sixteen twice (Iowa State and USC).