ChicagoHoops.com has reported in the last few moments that class of 2011 star Anthony Davis has verbally committed to the University of Kentucky.  According to the story by writer Cavan Walsh, Davis’ father, Anthony Sr., said “I am glad the process is finally over,” and added that they regarded Kentucky as “the right fit for Anthony academically, athletically, and socially.”

Davis Adds to an Unbelievable UK Class in 2011.

Recruiting guru Evan Daniels also tweeted news of the commitment moments ago.

Using the ESPN-U 100 rankings, Davis joins top-ranked Michael Gilchrist, third-ranked Marquis Teague in the 2011 class for John Calipari and Kentucky.  Davis is ranked 12th.  On Rivals’ list, the trio of Gilchrist, Teague, and Davis would rank first, fifth, and eighth, respectively.  No matter which list you prefer, it’s a legendary class for the Wildcats, and it probably isn’t even complete.

As if things weren’t already hot enough in Texas this summer, something boiled over at UTEP yesterday as rising senior guard Myron Strong was dismissed from the basketball team by head coach Tim Floyd for, in Strong’s words, “violating dorm rules.”  When Strong communicated with the UTEP blog Miner Rush later on Thursday, though, he mentioned something else that might have had something to do with it:

The coaching in college isn’t fair to me. You know the coaches are gonna bring in who they want to bring in.  I only failed one drug test at UTEP. The first couple days Tim Floyd came to UTEP he tested our squad and the majority of the team failed.

The website pressed him on this issue, and Strong continued his harangue:

As far as the drug test, I’m not giving any names but if I got kicked out because of that, that’s just plain out wrong because I wasn’t the only person who failed. He wanted me out so he did anything in his power to do so. My senior year at that. I never wanted to leave UTEP and plus I failed a drug test months ago, so why am I now all of a sudden off the team? I don’t get Tim Floyd at all. He’s trying to basically ruin my image…

Floyd dismisses Strong, and has some holes to fill at the guard spot.

Strong, who averaged 2.9 PPG, 1.5 RPG and 2.0 APG in 13.3 minutes per game last season as a transfer from the University of San Francisco, continued to slam Floyd and the UTEP staff in that discussion, claiming that Arnett Moutrie and Derrick Caracter were pressured not to even consider testing the NBA waters or they “would not have a scholarship,” and that college coaches “preach to us to do the right thing but they’re the ones breaking all the rules.”  We don’t want to just repeat the whole story from Miner Rush, so go check out the link above after you’re done here.  The blog notes at the end that they’ve asked the UTEP athletic department for a comment but had received nothing.

Unfortunately, that’s not the end of this.  Taking a page out of J.R. Inman’s book, Strong brought up on his Facebook page the relationship between Floyd and former USC guard O.J. Mayo, writing (among other things), “I’m hearing [Floyd] had a fake charity event to pay OJ Mayo $100,000 to play for him. How did the ncaa [sic] let that slide?”

UTEP has been all but silent on the matter, offering little comment other than to say that Strong was dismissed.  But Memphis Commercial-Appeal writer Dan Wolken tweeted yesterday that he had spoken with Floyd, who confirmed that the dismissal was due to the failed drug test.

Strong will attempt to play next season at either Azusa Pacific University in suburban Los Angeles or Victory University in Memphis, according to his comments to Miner Rush.  A comparatively minor (no homophonic pun intended) contributor in the UTEP system, Strong’s ouster nevertheless leaves Tim Floyd with only two returning officially-listed guards who played more than three minutes a game last season, specifically scoring leader Culpepper (17.9 PPG in 33.3 minutes) and fellow senior Christian Polk (9.3 PPG in 24.6 minutes), though junior forward Julyan Stone (6.1 PPG in 30.8 minutes) spent some time at both guard and forward last year.  With Derrick Caracter now a Laker, Arnett Moultrie’s transfer, and now Strong’s removal, Tim Floyd has a team to rebuild, let alone an image that needed repair long before Strong took his complaints to various public forums.

[h/t: VBTN]

1. Jim Calhoun has to appreciate the support shown by many of his former players as the cloud of an NCAA investigation looms over Storrs, support that was evident on Saturday as many of his UConn family showed up to play in a benefit game for the Jim and Pat Calhoun Cardiology Center.  Heck, we’d pay $20 to watch Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor, Caron Butler and Rudy Gay in an alumni game, especially for a good cause.  The word “family” above is not used lightly, as Butler can attest to in speaking about his coach: “I’ll just sum it up like this.  He’s the closest thing to a father that I’ve ever had.”
2. It just won’t go away.  Karen Sypher says her trial was unfair because Louisville is a small enough town to feel the influence of Louisville coach Rick Pitino.  “I know now there is no justice system,” she told the AP.  And she also says that there was evidence in her favor that her defense attorney didn’t use, and that it will come out later.  Sypher will be sentenced on October 27th.  We’re fine with Pitino facing no disciplinary action from U of L, since this is a family matter more than anything else, but we’re still evaluating AD Tom Jurich’s statement calling his coach a “grand ambassador” of the program…
3. SI’s Luke Winn gave us stat nerds the warm-and-fuzzies when he broke out some serious numbers to predict some possible breakout players in the sophomore class for 2010-11 (a taste — Nebraska’s Christian Standhardinger makes the list).  His 2008 version yielded eerily accurate results to the point where we have our current crop of RTC interns investigating if there are some prop bets in Vegas on this topic.  And Luke, if you’re reading…yes, we’ll give you a cut.
4. Seton Hall announced on Friday that Ole Miss guard Eniel Polynice will be joining the Pirates as a transfer student next season.  Polynice will not have to sit out the typical year for transfers, taking advantage of an NCAA rule that allows early graduates to play their fourth season of eligibility elsewhere if their current school doesn’t offer postgraduate work in their field of study.  Polynice, a communications major who graduated in the spring from Ole Miss, sat out the 2008-09 season as a redshirt student.  He is a very nice late summer pickup for new Hall head coach Kevin Willard, who will need some experienced players to keep uber-gunner Jeremy Hazell under control and tutor a deep incoming class of freshmen.
5. If we were the president of Florida International University (and just to be clear, we’re not), we’d immediately call head coach Isiah Thomas into our office for a sitdown about a little something called focus.  Coming off a 7-25 season that finished on the high note of nine straight losses, you would think that if Thomas were fully committed to his current job, he wouldn’t be taking on part-time work as a paid consultant for the NBA team he helped destroy, the New York Knicks   The Miami media, to put it lightly, is not amused.

The battle…is now truly joined.

Late on Friday, an attorney representing Anthony Davis, Sr. told the Chicago Tribune that a lawsuit will be filed next week against Michael O’Brien and the Chicago Sun-Times.

According to the story at the online version of the Tribune, Mr. Davis’ attorney, Georgette Greenlee, told the paper that “It boggles our mind where O’Brien got his information from.”

The Sun-Times knew they could face legal action if they persisted with the story that the elder Davis had made a $200,000 deal with the Kentucky program in exchange for a commitment by the younger Anthony Davis, and after receiving that strongly-worded letter from lawyers representing UK, did they back down?  Only temporarily, but then came back with a story in which O’Brien claimed he had three sources claiming that Mr. Davis was shopping his son. Kentucky’s press release on Friday afternoon stated that they would support “any action” that the Davis family took against O’Brien and the paper, and it looks like that’s exactly what’s going to happen next week, unless the Davises are attempting to call what they consider a bluff by the Sun-Times.

But both sides appear extremely confident in this matter, which means that each thinks it has a piece of trump-card information that will annihilate the other.  If a lawsuit actually gets filed, it’ll be incredibly interesting to see what tidbits of information are revealed as a result of the discovery process.  Will Michael O’Brien and the Sun-Times produce solid evidence that will support their article and implicate the Davises (and maybe Kentucky)?  Or will we soon see Anthony Davis reviewing movies with Roger Ebert?  It’ll be one heck of a showdown.

Not only did the Chicago Sun-Times not back down, they’ve responded with vigor.

Not even two days after the University of Kentucky sent a letter to the S-T jumping on the paper’s accusation of them having given stud recruit Anthony Davis $200,000 to sign with the school, Michael O’Brien, the author of the original controversial article, stepped back up with another piece that claims:

“Sources from three separate universities told the Sun-Times that Davis, Sr. asked for money in return for his son’s commitment, with the amounts ranging from $125,000 to $150,000.”

There’s been no response from Lexington…yet.  The question is — should there be one?

Davis finds himself in the middle of a media maelstrom.

Just about every media outlet slammed O’Brien and the Sun-Times for publishing the original accusation based on what appeared to be a single-sourced “rumor,” burying it deep within the story, then revising the original article and not mentioning that they did a re-write.  O’Brien, asked by numerous outlets for a comment (including us), didn’t give one, but it’s safe to say that this story serves as his his response.

Let’s take a closer look at that new statement by O’Brien and the Sun-Times, though.  As you can see above, today’s article states that Anthony Davis’ father asked for money in the aforementioned amounts.  It does not say that Kentucky gave him anything, which is a bit of a comedown from the first article which was removed.  The dollar amount is different, too.  Are these three sources that the Sun-Times is holding up today different from the source that led to the first story?  If the original source is included, then why has the amount gone down from $200,000 to a maximum of $150,000?  And if these are indeed three different sources, then why weren’t they included in the original write-up on Wednesday?   Did he go out and find three new ones in the last 36 hours, and would they happen to have anything to do with the three schools said to be competing with Kentucky for Davis’ services?  Finally, why is the mention of three new sources backing O’Brien’s original version buried ten paragraphs down the page and not leading off the article?

The University of Kentucky is now in a strange position.  If they don’t come back with something stronger than a letter to the paper, they’ll look bad, and — right or wrong — people will wonder if they’re too busy covering their tracks to respond.  If they make good on the threat implied in that letter they sent on Wednesday night and actually get into this legally, then everything will come to light.  And we don’t just mean everything involved in the recruitment of Davis.  Once lawsuits get filed, subpoenas start flying and all the details emerge as part of the discovery process (just ask Rick Pitino).  Assuming everything John Calipari’s ever done in terms of recruiting is spotless, would he and UK want everything about his recruiting techniques and methods out there in the public for everyone to see?  That’s the best-case scenario for UK if this gets into the legal system.  Most people don’t want their trade secrets revealed, forcibly or otherwise.  Is there a chance the Sun-Times knows Kentucky would prefer to stay out of this legally, and is calling their bluff?  That’d be quite a gambit, but the paper has a lot less to lose here than UK.  No offense to Mr. O’Brien, but if he’s wrong about this, then he probably loses his job and the Sun-Times apologizes.  If he’s ends up being right, then Kentucky’s looking at NCAA penalties and John Calipari is looking at an even more tarnished reputation, not to mention the wrath of Kentucky fans.  You’d have to wonder if any program at any level would ever touch him again.

With this article today, the Sun-Times has directly challenged the University of Kentucky, and the fact that the paper actually quoted the letter sent to them by the school’s attorneys shows that they’re confident they’ve got the horses to back up their story, or they’re willing to go to the mat with UK on this because they have a lot less to lose.  And because of that, they’re winning this chess match right now.  It’s Kentucky’s move.

UPDATE:  Minutes after this story was published, the University of Kentucky issued this a press release, again denying the Sun-Times‘ assertions and — this is the most important part of the statement — saying it supports “any action” that Anthony Davis and his family (the school is not allowed to mention him by name, per NCAA rules) would take against O’Brien and the paper, but in terms of its own legal actions, the release states it is “evaluating all available rights and remedies it may have” against O’Brien and the newspaper.  Read the statement here.

The NCAA unleashed the database for academic progress ratings (APRs) for coaches in six different sports on Thursday.  While it’s fun to plug in coaches from a few other sports — anyone surprised by Pete Carroll’s 971, 24 points higher than the college football average in 2008-09, and six-for-six over 925? — the most fun for us comes from plugging in the names of college basketball coaches and seeing how they did each year.

First, though, just a little background.  The NCAA uses this little metric to determine how a team’s athletes are moving toward the ultimate goal of graduating, and the formula they employ to come up with the number is pretty simple.  Each semester, every athlete gets a point for being academically eligible, and another for sticking with the school.  You add those up for your team, then divide by the number of points possible.  For some reason, they decided to multiply those  numbers by 1,000 to get rid of the resulting decimal point (otherwise, it would have been as confusing as, say, a batting average), so if you get a score of .970, that means you got 97% of the points possible, and your APR score is 970. If you fall below the NCAA’s mandated level of 925, you get a warning, and then penalties if you don’t improve.  Keep in mind, though, that if a coach changes schools, he shares his APR with the coach he replaced.  And, the database only goes through 2008-09 right now.  That’s why if you search for John Calipari, you’ll notice he has two APRs — a 980 that he received at Memphis which he shares with Josh Pastner, and a 922 for the same season at Kentucky which he shares with Billy Gillispie even though Calipari technically didn’t coach a game at Kentucky during that season.  Because he was hired in 2009, he shares the APR with the preceding coach.  You get the picture.

Why is this man smiling? How about two straight perfect APRs?

A couple of the numbers that people have been talking about the most since the database was released are the two perfect 1,000s put up by Bob Huggins‘ last two West Virginia teams.  Most college basketball fans like to point the dirty end of the stick at Huggins when it comes to academics, and he’s been a lightning rod since his days at Cincinnati; rightly so, since his last three years as Bearcat boss saw APRs of 917, 826, and a eyebrow-raising 782.  But his scores in Morgantown have been excellent, so he’d appreciate it if we all found a new poster boy for academic underachievement.

An AP report today specifically mentioned Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun, who, in the six years the database covers, has had teams better than the national average — and over the 925 cutoff — only three times.  In fact, the APRs of his last three teams have steadily declined, posting scores of 981, 909, and (ouch) 844 from 2006-2009.  The same AP report fingered Kelvin Sampson as having even more harrowing results, having only two years in which he topped 900 (his 2004-05 Oklahoma squad scored exactly 900) — his 2003-04 Oklahoma team posted a 917, and his final roster at Indiana in 2007-08 turned in a downright hurtful 811.

With a new toy like this, there was no way we could keep from checking all of the APRs of the Ivy League schools.  The most impressive tally was by Columbia’s Joe Jones, who posted six straight perfect scores of 1,000 but will now evidently become an assistant on fellow Ivy man Steve Donahue’s Boston College team next season.  Only two teams in the league didn’t score a perfect score for the 2008-09 season.  The two bad boys of the league were Glen Miller, whose Penn team from that season put up — gasp! — a 950 (he had two straight perfect scores before that), and Tommy Amaker’s Harvard squad from that year, which posted a 985.

Earlier today, the jury in the Karen Sypher extortion case found her guilty on all six counts with which she was charged by the government.  From KSR:

• Three counts of extortion,
• Two counts of lying to the FBI, and
• One count of retaliating against a witness.

By our tally, that can result in up to 26 years in the hoosegow and $1.5 million in fines.  The sentence will be handed down within the next two months.

A couple of quick thoughts, here. You may recall that Sypher’s defense team did not bother to call any witnesses as part of their case.  This can only mean that her attorneys felt confident enough in the failure of the prosecution to get over that “reasonable doubt” threshold they’re required to achieve.  After an across-the-board guilty verdict, though, you certainly have to wonder about the radar and the handicapping abilities of that defense team.  Not only will she not be taking them on any trips out to Churchill Downs any time soon, but it’s conceivable that she could accuse them of ineffective assistance of counsel, a form of legal malpractice, and appeal this verdict.  This tactic rarely works, however, because even if your defense calls no witnesses at a trial where you’re found guilty, proving your counsel was incompetent is a very hard thing to do.  You’d pretty much have to have an attorney like the lawyer who went nuts and stripped naked during the deposition in the movie Michael Clayton to make that stick.

She can appeal, citing counsel's "ineffectiveness," but it's a huge stretch.

Read the rest of this entry »

We first heard about this a week ago (via Curtis Kitchen from 810WHB.com) and saw another mention of it late last night, so we most definitely had to take a minute to send some positive thoughts in the direction of former Missouri State, Saint Louis, and UNLV head coach and 1994 Henry Iba Award winner Charlie Spoonhour.  Coach Spoonhour, 71, was recently diagnosed with a lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and is currently awaiting a lung transplant at Duke University Medical Center in Durham.

Talk about a heck of an assist, though.  According to this report from St. Louis Today (the online manifestation of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch), a pair of fellow members of the coaching fraternity did a great service to Coach Spoonhour.  The Spoon is an old friend of West Virginia’s Bob Huggins, who called Mike Krzyzewski to help Spoonhour gain admission to DUMC.

As you’ve probably already figured out, there’s no cure for IPF, so the only way to get rid of it is to get some new lungs, or at least one new lung.  As if that weren’t frustrating enough, there’s no specific known cause for the disease (hence “idiopathic”), not even cigarette smoking or chemical exposures, except that it’s almost always seen in people over 50.  In persons with IPF, the lower and side parts of the lungs get gummed up with stuff called collagen, which is actually one of the most prevalent, normally-occurring substances in the body (and yep, it’s similar to the stuff they inject in people’s lips).  Patients start out feeling like they have pneumonia and get short of breath when they exert themselves because their lungs have trouble filling — but then, unlike pneumonia, it doesn’t go away, and the lung doctor eventually finds the disease on deeper investigation.

Anyway, enough pulmonology.  We say bravo to Huggins and Krzyzewski, but most of all we just want a suitable transplant match to be found and for Spoonhour to get through this as well as he can.  Get better, Coach, because we miss seeing and hearing you on the sidelines and the broadcast booth.  We’re all pulling for you!

The higher-ups in College Station, Texas keep on checkin’ that mailbox.

A few days ago, the Texas A&M student-run Battalion newspaper reported that Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe, the man credited with saving that conference, didn’t exactly seem fired up to discuss the $20 million the Big 12 is supposed to pay A&M annually as part of a deal that kept the conference intact, noting that Beebe would “get around to talking to A&M about this ‘hidden’ money.”

As you recall, part of the deal that held the Big 12 together a couple of months ago was that the “big three” schools — namely Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma — would each receive a yearly $20 million payment as part of a new ABC/ESPN/Fox Sports television deal and from the exit costs incurred by Nebraska and Colorado when they decided to bolt for the Big Ten and Pac-10, respectively.  Those exit fees (if they actually exist) from those two schools totaled upwards of $20-40 million, and five of the remaining schools — Baylor, Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas, and Kansas State, as reported in a summary of this situation by the Houston Chronicle — agreed to forego their shares of this money and let the “big three” divide it up amongst themselves, as long as those three schools would stay in the conference and thereby keep it together.  Texas and Oklahoma said thanks-but-no-thanks to that cash.  Texas A&M accepted it.

Will Beebe and the Big 12 come through with the $20M? We're betting yes. (AP/Cody Duty)

Also according to that piece by Brent Zwerneman in the Chronicle, a Texas A&M official stated last Wednesday that A&M doesn’t really care how the conference comes up with the money — just that the Big 12 honor their end of the agreement, and that failure to do so would result in both legal action and a reopening of talks with the SEC.   Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin spoke at an A&M event in Houston on Saturday and minced no words on the issue, proclaiming, “I guarantee you we will be treated fairly.  Whatever it takes.”  Loftin’s words came two days after Mr. Beebe reaffirmed that Texas A&M would get their $20 million cut.

For several reasons, we’re pretty sure that the Big 12 will come through.  Not only would they never live down the embarrassment from reneging on the deal, but consider that the payments don’t even start until the 2012-13 academic year, giving them ample time — something they didn’t have as the conference was crumbling in June — to figure out how to divide up the cash from the TV deal and the exit fees.  And if the conference somehow doesn’t hold up their end, Texas A&M would certainly make good on that SEC threat, enticing rival Texas to do the same, and leaving Oklahoma no incentive to stay put.  The price of not coming up with the money would seem to be the very existence of the conference.

Keep in mind, though, that as of right now this whole agreement involving the $20-mil is oral.  Until one of two things shows up in College Station — the dough, or a written form of the agreement — A&M will continue to play that SEC card, and you can’t really blame them.

In 1989, Deion Sanders posted a ridiculous 4.1-second 40-yard dash as part of his workout before the NFL Draft.  Now, Neon Deion has pursuers that even he might not be able to outrun.

The Courthouse News Service reported over the weekend that Sanders is named in a lawsuit in which he’s one of several folks accused of defrauding investors — investors consisting of the parents of around 50 high school student-athletes — getting them to throw their money into a book that was supposed to help increase the profile of these kids in the eyes of college basketball and football recruiters.

Priiiiime Tiiiime!

Here’s how this was supposed to work: prospects and their parents were given the opportunity to sign up to be included in a basketball version of PrimeTimePlayer Pages for a fee of $99, and the publication was to be distributed to college basketball recruiters, meaning college coaches and recruiting gurus.  The article even details an event in September 2009 at which Sanders was a speaker promoting the product, and the hoops prospects in attendance were given the chance to get into the book, at that time, at a reduced price of $39.99.  The parents of somewhere around 50 high school athletes paid the fee to have their kid included.

Sounds great, right?  Forty bucks to help your child’s chances of getting a college scholarship by getting their profile in a book endorsed by one of the most amazing athletes anyone’s ever seen?  What parent wouldn’t sign up?

Just one problem.  As of four months later, this special basketball version had evidently never been produced.  Not one parent, athlete, or college ever received a copy of the publication.  In fact, further investigation revealed that the original football version of the book allegedly produced earlier also never materialized.

That’s not all.  The producers of the as-of-now phantom publication reached out to the corporate world for advertising dollars, claiming that the money would go toward scholarships for high school student-athletes, and that the book would be sent to over 15,000 recipients.  The article notes how one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys contacted Sanders about all of this, received a call back from Prime Time himself who said he was unaware of this whole situation and that he’d take care of it.  The attorney never heard from Sanders again.  Incidentally, this page on the organization’s website lists two release dates for the basketball edition — in January and July of 2009 — which is interesting, since the gathering above was in September of 2009, according to the Courthouse News piece.

Check out the initial link above for the full story.  To us, this is worse than that similar Who’s Who of American High School Students deal most of us fell for a long time ago, because at least nobody from that organization specifically said they were sending that out to the Ivy League schools, or Oxford, or what have you.  Don’t despair, though, if you’ve missed out; you can still go to the PrimeTimePlayer website, look at photos of a besuited, smiling, and cocksure Sanders, and take advantage of this great opportunity for yourself.  Looks like that $39.99 offer is still on the table.