Morning Five: 09.29.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on September 29th, 2014

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  1. Pittsburgh suffered a significant blow when it announced that fifth-year senior Cameron Wright would be out for ten weeks after undergoing surgery on his broken left foot on Friday. Wright averaged 10.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game last season and is the Panthers’ leading returning scorer after scoring just 4.3 points per game as a sophomore. Wright is expected to return just before Christmas meaning that he will miss the team’s Maui Invitational trip and their  ACC/Big Ten Challenge match-up against Indiana, but should be back in time for the start of ACC play.
  2. Ty Hudson, one of the top point guards in the class of 2015, committed to Clemson on Saturday giving Brad Brownell his first commitment in the class of 2015. Hudson committed while on his official visit at Clemson, but the bigger factor was probably the team’s new assistant–Ritchie Riley–who had recruited Hudson while he was an assistant at UAB and is widely attributed as the driving force behind Hudson’s decision to go to Clemson. Hudson had also been looking at Mississippi, Oklahoma State, and South Florida.
  3. ESPN will have a new voice on-air next season as Jim Calhoun will be working with the network. Calhoun, who has been promoting a documentary in advance of its premiere next week, has not finalize the details of what his work will entail, but he is expected to be doing studio work at ESPN. We never know how coaches will translate to television, but after the Bob Knight experience the past few years we are looking forward to seeing Calhoun on TV particularly when he is talking about that team from upstate New York.
  4. Carlton Bragg, a consensus top-20 player in the class of 2015, will take a visit to UCLA on October 31 after having an in-home visit with Steve Alford. Bragg, a 6’8″ power forward out of Ohio, has narrowed down his list to Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and UCLA. He already has two visits set up at Kansas (October 10) and Kentucky (October 17) so this would be his third planned visit, but according to reports Bragg does not plan on committing until the late signing period so we would not expect an announcement any time soon.
  5. Former Louisville commit Antonio Blakeney has set-up visits at Missouri (October 17) and LSU (November 7). Blakeney as you may remember backed out of his commitment to Louisville less than two weeks after his initial commitment. As we have stated before, many suspect his recruitment is being influenced by Blakeney’s Nike AAU connections, which was obviously in conflict with Louisville’s adidas contract. The other two schools on Blakeney’s list–Kentucky and Oregon–are also Nike schools so you can figure that this will be followed closely by fans on all sides.

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Morning Five: 09.26.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on September 26th, 2014

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  1. What was a promising string of recruits for Larry Brown has continued to dwindle as former SMU commit Matt McQuaid announced his commitment to Michigan State yesterday. McQuaid, a four-star shooting guard out of Texas, backed out of his commitment to SMU in late July and also was courted heavily by Indiana, Texas and Creighton. In the end, McQuaid said it was the relationship that he developed with Tom Izzo, cemented by an official visit to East Lansing this past weekend, that led him to commit to play for the Spartans. Michigan State picks up one of the best shooters in the country to add to two other four-star commits in Deyonta Davis and Kyle Ahrens.
  2. North Carolina State junior guard Trevor Lacey was arrested last Friday for failing to show up for a court date related to a February speeding ticket. Lacey, who sat out last season after transferring from Alabama (averaging 9.3 points per game while there), was stopped for riding a moped without a helmet a little after midnight, but was arrested for missing an April 4 court date for a February 23 speeding ticket. Lacey is now scheduled to appear in court on Monday for the February ticket and also has a November 13 court date for last Friday’s clinic. While we don’t want to minimize an arrest, this is one that we feel will lead to nothing more than a slap on the wrist from the athletic department.
  3. South Carolina has joined a growing list of schools that will offer four-year guaranteed scholarships. The school will reportedly give these scholarships to players in football, men’s and women’s basketball, and women’s tennis and volleyball. Athletes in other sports will have to divide up a predetermined number of four-year guaranteed scholarships with the allocations within each team to be determined by the coach. According to the school these guaranteed scholarships can only be revoked “if the student-athlete 1) decides to leave the team; 2) becomes ineligible; or 3) violates University or athletics department policies.” Although many schools have launched similar programs it is far from universal so we will be interested to see if the schools that do gain any kind of recruiting advantage.
  4. One of the most exciting things about the start of each season is waiting to see which player will be ready to make the leap to become a household name. Obviously, some of the incoming freshmen stars will make that leap, but other times it is players who have been around, but now are given the opportunity to shine. Monte Morris could be a prime example of that with DeAndre Kane no longer in Ames. Morris put up an NCAA record with a 4.79 assist-to-turnover ratio as a freshman including 6.9 in Big 12 games so he obviously has the tools to guide the Cyclones. As Dana O’Neill notes Morris also an interesting back story that we think you will hear repeated on telecasts quite a bit this season.
  5. Basketball doesn’t lend itself to advanced statistical analysis the way that baseball does due to the nature of the game, but it has come a long way in a relatively short period of time and has gained acceptance by many fans. At this point nearly every baseball fan has heard of Bill James, but we doubt that many have heard of Dean Oliver, who is basically the Bill James of advanced basketball statistical analysis. Even those who know of Oliver are not that familiar with his background, which Adam Rosenfield does a good job of covering in his article on Oliver. We are not sure that we necessarily agree with Oliver that today’s traditional stats will become extinct as we believe the more useful ones will survive and be used with the similarly useful advanced metrics.

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Morning Five: 09.25.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on September 25th, 2014

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  1. Emmanuel Mudiay‘s decision to head to overseas–maybe partially influenced by questions regarding his eligibility–has sparked some discussion about the possibility of more players spending a year overseas–and be paid–rather than going to college. This is hardly a new phenomenon with Brandon Jennings being the most prominent player to follow this path, but it appears that several players in the class of 2015 are contemplating it. According to Mudiay, three highly rated players in the class of 2015 have contacted him about following in his footsteps. Mudiay didn’t offer any names, but based on the comments in the column by Evan Daniels it would seem like  Jaylen Brown is the most likely candidate in the class. Obviously there is a long time to go until the class of 2015 matriculates and we doubt that this will become a trend, but it is something worth keeping an eye on.
  2. Dunk City might not be getting back to the Sweet Sixteen any time soon, but Florida Gulf Coast picked up a significant addition when Rayjon Tucker committed there yesterday. With Brett Comer, Bernard Thompson and Jamail Jones all entering their senior years this season, the Eagles will need a lot of help starting in the  2015-2016 season, which means that Tucker, a three-star small forward out of North Carolina, could play a big role. It is also a big addition for second-year head coach Joe Dooley as it shows that he can still capitalize on the team’s NCAA Tournament run from two seasons ago despite Andy Enfield leaving for USC soon after the season ended. The school–or at least the location–could sell itself, but there are plenty of schools you could say that about that cannot be consistently competitive. Tucker is not the first significant pick-up for the school after Enfield’s departure, but could help provide the program with momentum going forward.
  3. Lost in all of the Mike Krzyzewski-Team USA debate over the past week is the question as to how much longer Krzyzewski will even be at Duke to “exploit” any recruiting advantage he may have. As we have pointed out many times the Krzyzewski coaching tree is not particularly noteworthy in terms of potential successors. One name that has been mentioned at times is Johnny Dawkins. With his experience as a star player at Duke, working under Krzyzewski as an assistant, and coaching at a big-time program he would appear to be an ideal fit. Unfortunately, his job security at Stanford has been questionable at times, which makes the extension that was announced yesterday notable. The timing of the announcement–details on years and money were not made public–is strange since it would seem that Dawkins does not have anything to bargain with like open jobs. Dawkins, who has a 117-87 career record with four postseason appearances, was on the proverbial hot seat early last year before turning it around finishing with a Sweet Sixteen appearance that included a win over Kansas. We are not sure that Dawkins is the right fit for the Duke job when it opens up eventually, but as long as he has a job at a major program he should be viewed as a top-tier candidate.
  4. Schools cannot financially incentivize student-athletes to come play for them outside of scholarships, which have been discussed here and on other sites ad nauseum, but they can improve their surroudings. The most well-known example of this is Kentucky’s Wildcat Coal Lodge, but even smaller programs need to try to keep up. One example of this is at Houston where they announced their planned “Basketball Development Facility” (basically practice facility) with a reported $25 million price tag. The construction is expected to start this week and finish by August 2015. With what has essentially become an arms race in this area we wondering how much of this is to try to get ahead the competition as opposed to merely trying to keep up with it.
  5. Ivan Cruz Uceda will half to sit out the first half of the season for Miami due to a NCAA rule requiring a student-athlete to enroll in college one year after graduating high school. Cruz Uceda, a native of Spain who turns 23 on October 24, played at Harcum College where he averaged 14.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.1 blocks per game as a sophomore before committing to play at Miami. We don’t claim to be experts on NCAA bylaws, but you would assume that someone in the Miami athletic department would have seen this coming months ago. In any event, it put the Hurricanes in the difficult position of having only nine scholarship players to start the season with seven of them being newcomers. Cruz Uceda will not be eligible to play until January 13 in what should be an extremely difficult environment for this first game–a trip to Duke.

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Morning Five: 09.16.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on September 16th, 2014

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  1. Louisville‘s banner 2015 recruiting class just took a big hit as Antonio Blakeney announced (sort of) that he would be reopening his recruitment after committing to play at Louisville less than two weeks ago. The reasons for his decision were not disclosed, but at least one analyst went on record saying that the decision was related to shoe company affiliation. Although it is uncommon for a recruit to go back to a school after reopening his commitment there have been a handful of high-profile cases in recent years. If Blakeney decides to move on, the smart money would be on one of his other five finalists: Florida State, Kentucky, LSU, Missouri, Oregon, and USC. We will let you take a look at that list and do the math on which one is not like the others.
  2. With the United States winning the World Cup of Basketball we expected much of the talk following the event to focus on the dominant performance by this team and possibly calls for the United States to return to playing with either college players or at least to field a younger team. That thought was turned on its head with Adrian Wojnarowski’s column essentially saying that the only person benefiting from the current situation was Mike Krzyzewski. While we do agree with some of the points in the article–particularly the nice recruiting benefit that Krzyzewski gets as the coach of a variety of NBA superstars–the idea is not much different than many of the other college coaches who coach international teams including some who coach foreign countries even when they have no known prior association with that country. Overall, the column feels a little bit too much like a hit piece and as many have pointed out the situation certainly benefits Krzyzewski, but it has helped some NBA players further their games and Krzyzewski would hardly be alone in using someone else’s platform to lift him and his program up another level.
  3. It has been a rough few days in Pauley Pavilion. Just a few days after incoming Australian freshman Jonah Bolden a partial qualifier unable to play this year, according to reports UCLA denied admission to transfer point guard Jon Octeus. A graduate transfer from Colorado State, where he averaged 13.4 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, Octeus was expected to help replace the output the Bruins lost with Kyle Anderson’s departure. Unfortunately for Octeus, who left Colorado State to go to UCLA to help his prospects of playing in the NBA in what he described as “a business decision” (so much for the academic transfer), the Rams already filled their roster. Octeus had been looking at Tennessee, Missouri, and Cincinnati prior to committing to UCLA so there is a chance he could end up there although we are not sure the mechanics of how quickly a graduate transfer would work especially since many schools would have already started. As for the Bruins, they are left to try to piece together what should be a disjointed backcourt that would have been held together by Octeus’ presence.
  4. After taking a four-month medical leave of absence, Alan Major has returned to his position as head coach. Major, who underwent a pair of surgeries for glaucoma as well as a procedure for an arrhythmia, had taken a leave of absence in May so he did not miss any games. In the interim, three assistants managed the day-to-day operations and will probably handle some of that responsibility as Major eases back into his job. In his four seasons at Charlotte, Major has compiled a 61-63 record, but has shown steady improvement going from a 10-20 his first year to over .500 the past two years.
  5. In the wake of the Ray Rice scandal there has been increased interest around the issue of domestic violence (something that should have been a bigger issue long ago). In general we don’t see too many issues in college basketball, but it does happen occasionally as it occurs to have happened with Texas guard Martez Walker, who was suspended indefinitely after being charged with assaulting his girlfriend. Walker, who averaged 4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game last season, will have to deal with the legal system in much the same way that others before him have, but based on public sentiment after the Ray Rice elevator assault video was released as well as the victim’s report that this was not the first episode we doubt that we will see Walker in a Longhorn jersey anytime soon.

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Morning Five: 09.12.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on September 12th, 2014

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  1. Villanova picked up a big commitment yesterday from five-star point guard Jalen Brunson bringing their 2015 class to three as he joins shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo and power forward Tim Delaney. As Jeff Borzello notes, Brunson’s recruitment was complex and probably wasn’t decided until after Brunson’s father, who was expected to be part of a package deal as an assistant coach, was arrested for alleged sexual assault. Brunson is from Illinois so this is another tough loss for Illini fans, but it still early in the recruiting season so there are still plenty of big names available.
  2. Josh Pastner’s decision to hire Keelon Lawson is paying dividends more quickly than many anticipated. In addition to having a pipeline to Lawson’s kids, who are all highly recruited, Pastner will also get Dedric Lawson, who was the #7 overall recruit in the class of 2016, a year early as Dedric announced that he will reclassify to the class of 2015. By doing so, Dedric will join his brother K.J., ranked #38 in this class, at Memphis next year. The move should not come as too much of a surprise because Dedric’s birth date would make him eligible for the 2016 NBA Draft.
  3. The season hasn’t even started yet, but we already have a pair of significant ACL injuries to report. The most significant one will probably be at Illinois where they appear to have lost Tracy Abrams for the season due to an ACL tear. Abrams, a senior who started all 35 games last season, averaged 10.7 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game last season. Fortunately for Illinois, they appear to have an adequate and seasoned replacement in Oregon State transfer Ahmad Starks. Valparaiso might not be so lucky in terms of finding a replacement for starting point guard Lexus Williams who will also be undergoing surgery for a torn ACL. Williams averaged 6.5 points and 2.3 assists while starting 23 games as a freshman last season. Unlike Illinois, Valparaiso has not set a time table for Williams’ return after his surgery, which is expected to be performed today.
  4. Outside of the Brunson and Lawson news there were also several other significant announcements. The first comes from four-star forward Mickey Mitchell, who recommitted to Ohio State. Mitchell had initially committed to Ohio State, but reopened his recruitment over the summer before finally deciding (we think) that Columbus was the right place for him. Four-star shooting guard Rex Pflueger committed to Notre Dame giving the Irish more options to help with scoring after Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton leave following this season. On the other end of the spectrum is Kedar Edwards, who reopened his recruitment after having previously committed to Florida State. Edwards was previously expected to play for the Seminoles this season, but for reasons that aren’t clear to us did not enroll. With Florida State picking up several top-tier recruits last week, perhaps Edwards realized that Tallahassee might not be the ideal location for him even for the upcoming years.
  5. We are not sure how many of you have been watching the FIBA Basketball World Cup (judging by the online response we have seen not too many of you), but with the Finals coming up this weekend we were wondering how long the pro experiment will go on. We are young enough (well at least one of us) to not remember what it was like to have amateurs represent us at championship level events against professionals from other countries. It seems like every time there is another international competition the cries for going back to the old format grow louder. While at some level we enjoy seeing the US beat up on the rest of the world, which is something we would expect to do regularly if all of the best NBA players participated, we wonder if it wouldn’t be better just to have a group of players who were really committed to the program although with the brief stops in college for many top players that might not be realistic.

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Morning Five: 09.08.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on September 8th, 2014

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  1. This weekend might have marked the start of the NFL season for some, but it was also a big one for college basketball recruiting. Florida State was the big winner picking up a pair of top-50 recruits in Dwayne Bacon and Malik Beasley. Both announcements, which were made separately, came on Friday night and gives the Seminoles one of the top classes in the country early in the recruiting season. Louisville also added to its already strong class with the addition of five-star guard Antonio Blakeney. That announcement probably puts the Cardinals in the #1 or 2 spot in the recruiting standing this year with Arizona being the other top choice. We would have considered Oregon State‘s ability to add two top-tier recruits–Trey Tinkle and Stephen Thompson Jr.–last week to be particularly noteworthy except the recruits were the sons of the team’s coaches. Still the addition of those two plus Derrick Bruce is a potential game-changer for the program that has been mired in mediocrity (at best) for quite a while. Texas A&M also picked up a big piece on Sunday night when D.J. Hogg, a five-star small foward, committed to play for the Aggies. While they have not struggled for quite as long as the Beavers, the Aggies haven’t really been relevant since the 2010-11 season.
  2. We have seen a lot of strange movement with top recruits over the years, but Thon Maker‘s international movements appear to be unique. Maker, who is widely considered the top recruit in the class of 2016, came to the United States from Australia (via Sudan) and now is being moved to Canada along with his younger brother Matur, also a top prospect. Maker could conceivably end up reclassifying to the class of 2015, but with all of this movement we don’t know how realistic that is. The decision to move was made by Maker’s guardian, who will also serve as an assistant coach at his new school. We can only hope that this is being made in Maker’s best interest even if we disagree with the general idea behind all of this movement.
  3. After nearly a month Charleston finally found a replacement for Doug Wojcik as it announced its decision to hire Earl Grant. Wojcik was fired in the wake of allegations of abuse against his players, an issue that has become increasingly common. The process to replace Wojcik took longer than expected and likely drove off many of the potential hires that the school looked at. Grant has spent the past four seasons as an assistant at Clemson and at the age of  37 could serve as a potential long-term coach the school needs (or it could be just a stepping stone for him). We normally don’t like to bring race into the discussion of hiring/firing, but as Gary Parrish points out in his background on the situation at Charleston it likely played a role.
  4. We would expect Miami to be a better team with the addition of several key transfers, but they might have lost a big piece last week when Davon Reed underwent surgery after tearing the meniscus in his left knee during an offseason workout that could  keep him out for four to six months. As a freshman last season, Reed started 10 games while averaging 6.6 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.2 assists in a little over 20 minutes per game and scored 11.5 points per game in two ACC Tournament games while coming off the bench. The school has not officially announced whether Reed would redshirt so there is a chance we could see him around the second half of conference play.
  5. We are not sure if the decision by certain Georgia Tech coaches to make impermissible calls just three days after their NCAA hearing was brazen or idiotic, but it helped to get the school two more years of probation. The school’s current probation now extends to June 13, 2017 after its coaches, who were already on probation, made hundreds of impermissible calls and texts. We have gotten to the point where we are not really sure what to make of all of these probation announcements. On one hand, the school was already on probation so you would figure that if they mess up again they should get more than a slap on the wrist. On the other hand, these violations are completely unrelated to the other violations and might not even be violations any more.

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Morning Five: 08.14.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on August 14th, 2014

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  1. The big news of the past week for college basketball and college sports in general was the decision by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to rule in favor of Ed O’Bannon (and 19 other plantiffs) in a 99-page decision. The ruling essentially means that players could be in line to get a share of the billions of dollars generated by college TV and video game deals. While we are still in the early stages of this case (and issue) it might be the most strong rejection of the NCAA’s amateur model we have seen yet. The ruling doesn’t necessarily mean that the players will be getting money any time soon, but instead removes restrictions on issues pertaining to a player’s likeness. The NCAA is obviously not thrilled about this decision and plans to appeal. Lester Munson has a pretty easy-to-read recap of the issues in what is a fairly complex case for those of us not in the legal field (or inclined to read 99 pages).
  2. Of course the next question is how much would a player be worth in the “free market”. There will be all kinds of numbers thrown around by people coming up with formulas to figure this kind of thing out. One figure that seems to have caught on a bit is that the average player is worth $212,080 based on calculations by Neil Greenberg of The Washington Post. We don’t claim to have PhDs in math, but the numbers seem a little suspect especially one that claims that the average player is worth nearly 40% as much as Dakari Johnson. The average player may have had a bigger impact on his team that Johnson does on Kentucky, but there is no way that the average program brings in anywhere close to the money that Kentucky does (or that the average team turns a $2.5 million profit).
  3. Speaking of big money, Maryland finally settled with the ACC for a sum of $31.4 million in order to exit the conference. The battle, which has been going on since November 2012, was one of many involving schools looking to exit conferences on the conference realignment carousel. The ACC had initially demanded full payment of a $52 million, which led Maryland to file a countersuit for over $150 million. With Maryland already an official member of the Big Ten for nearly one and a half months it seems fitting that at least one more of these suits was settled before Maryland actually competes in its new conference. Now if we can just get rid of any more conference realignment we might be onto something.
  4. By now you have probably seen the “most hated team state map” that has been floating around. We aren’t going to take the time to really pick apart this analysis (summary: a lot of states hate Duke–not as many as you might think–and then there are a bunch of regional rivalries). The one thing we would point out is that the map would have benefited a lot from increased fidelity because many of these areas of hatred are probably based around certain cities (like where rival schools are located). If you are looking for a little more nuanced breakdown of some of the results, check out Jeff Eisenberg’s analysis of the hate map.
  5. There were also a couple of significant pieces of transfer news this past week. Colorado State added Grambling transfer Antwan Scott, who led them in scoring with 15.7 points per game last season. The addition of Scott is even more significant because he is eligible to play immediately with a graduate student transfer waiver. The other news is still somewhat in limbo as Cody Doolin, who transferred from San Francisco after a falling out with the team, was able to get his senior year of eligibility back, but is still waiting on the NCAA to rule if he is eligible to play immediately for UNLV.

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Morning Five: 07.31.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on July 31st, 2014

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  1. It seems like just yesterday that Pauley Pavilion was being renovated (ok, maybe two years ago), but the court that has been home to more men’s Division I national championship teams that any other might need a little touch-up. A flood on Tuesday at UCLA‘s campus may have caused serious damage to the floor and other areas of the arena not to mention other buildings on the campus. While the flooding has stopped it will probably be several more days before the school has a better understanding of how much work will be needed to fix whatever damage has been done.
  2. The decision by Chad Frazier to leave UAB following his domestic violence arrest should not be completely unexpected, but is still a significant loss for the team. Frazier, who transferred from Gulf Coast Community College, was first-team All-Conference-USA last season and the conference’s Newcomer of the Year. Frazier averaged 17.7 points and 4.3 assists per game last season putting him fifth and third in the conference respectively. Frazier was arrested following a domestic violence incident in April in which he reportedly threw a woman into a bookshelf. It is unclear where Frazier will end up, but with his production we wouldn’t be surprised to see him back at the Division I level in the near-future.
  3. Nobody ever said John Calipari’s methods of building a #1 recruiting class and it turns out that they aren’t, but probably not in the way that you were thinking. According to work done by Kyle Tucker, Kentucky spent $342,713.91 on Calipari’s private jet costs last year for recruiting and nearly $450,000 between the basketball and football programs for private jets for recruiting. There are plenty of people who have made comments critical of these types of expenditures on something as relatively unimportant as college athletics, but that money is more than worth it for the school with the publicity that they get from the program’s accomplishments (well, at least the basketball program).
  4. Some people might consider it an admission of guilt, but North Carolina is offering student-athletes who left the school before they completed their undergraduate degree the opportunity to return to complete that degree with financial support similar to what they received under their original scholarship. The program (“Complete Carolina”) will go into effect beginning with the 2015-16 school year. The school claims that it has informally had this program for years, but now is making it a formal program like many other schools already have. We still aren’t sure if they will offer this program to student-athletes, who received diplomas, but feel that they might not have been taught enough or done enough to earn the credits that they received.
  5. The NCAA might not allow alcohol sales at its championship events, but that does not stop from doing so at games outside of the NCAA Tournament. According to reports, Southern Methodist sold more than $350,000 in alcohol at 13 home basketball games last season. That money is divided between the school and the vendor (no idea on the percent breakdown), but it gives you an idea of how much money alcohol can bring in at these games even with students pre-gaming (of course, all of them being 21 or older) if SMU can bring in that much money at 13 home games for a good, but not great team.

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Morning Five: 07.18.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on July 18th, 2014

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  1. We have heard of package deals before (we even wrote about it in the early days of the site), but the decision by Memphis to hire Keelon Lawson as an assistant is unique even by those standards. Now Lawson is not just some random guy off the street as he played college basketball and led a Tennessee high school team to a state title so you could make the case that he was a legitimate hire albeit a rather unusual one as his credentials are not particularly noteworthy. The thing about him that is noteworthy is that he is the father of four elite recruits. The oldest of those recruits is K. J., a top-50 recruit in the class of 2015, who has already committed to play at Memphis. The others are reportedly even better with Dedric (class of 2016) being a top-10 player and two much younger ones–Chandler (class of 2019) and Jonathan (a sixth-grader)–being considered even better. The fact that the official Memphis release linked above does not mention any of them (even K. J., who already committed) is amusing to say the least. It will be quite a bit of time before Chandler much less Jonathan is making official college visits to it will be interesting to see how this relationship between Keelon and Josh Pastner evolves.
  2. The announcement that John Adams, the NCAA supervisor of officials, will be retiring after the 2015 Final Four might not strike some as particularly noteworthy, but it is to us. Outside of issues regarding when players can enter the NBA Draft and those regarding amateurism we things have been more hotly debated than recent rule changes. Adams is not directly responsible for creating these new rules, but his job is to make sure that they are uniformly enforced throughout college basketball and works with conferences, who are then in touch with their officials, to try to improve on certain areas where enforcement is less than ideal. Adams has caught a lot of heat over the years for the way that certain rules are enforced, but overall we think he has done a good job and whomever is selected to follow him has big shoes to fill.
  3. Yesterday, attorneys in Rhode Island announced that they will not be pressing charges in the sexual assault case at Providence that led to the dismissal of Brandon Austin and Rodney Bullock after a grand jury determined their was insufficient evidence to move forward in the case. The case stemmed from a report of sexual assault in November 2013 in which a female student accused the two players of sexually assaulting her. Austin as you might remember transferred to Oregon where he was involved in another sexual assault case that led to his dismissal there. He is now enrolled at a community college in Kansas. Bullock stayed at Providence and is expected to play for the team this season.
  4. On Wednesday, Maryland announced its 2014 Hall of Fame class, which was headlined by Len Bias. While all the others that were honored are very accomplished (ok, we have never heard of anybody else on that list), Bias stands out for several reasons. The most obvious of which is the way that he died. Some people like John Feinstein feel that the way that Bias died should mean that he is excluded from the Hall of Fame. While this leaves a somber note on Bias’ legacy, that alone should not keep him out. Obviously people will have their own views on morality and drug use, but excluding Bias keeps out a significant part of the history of Maryland basketball, which seems myopic. How the school decides to handle Bias’ legacy is another issue, but one that the school should address and not try to sweep under the rug.
  5. One of the nice things about the offseason is that it allows people to work on stuff that they otherwise wouldn’t have time to get to. For some people that means non-basketball things. For Ken Pomeroy, it means even more in-depth situation analysis. His latest task is dissecting the decision on whether a team should foul when tied late in a game. This installment is just an initial look at the data with Pomeroy promising to get more complex in his analysis in the next installment. This probably won’t catch on as much as the “foul up 3” debate, but it is still an interesting one.

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Morning Five: 07.16.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on July 16th, 2014

morning5

  1. The big college basketball news of the week was the decision by Emmanuel Mudiay to back out of his commitment to play at Southern Methodist to play overseas. As Mike Lemaire points out in his piece on the news it is a huge blow to SMU and Larry Brown’s plan for a quick turnaround. Outside of Mudiay’s concern for his family’s financial well-being during his year at college, which will probably be allayed in the near-term as he heads to Europe, there were also questions as to whether issues regarding financial compensation or academic concerns would have already made him ineligible to play in college anyways. With Mudiay’s talent, he has the potential to make the transition back to the NBA eventually like Brandon Jennings did in 2009, but we will miss seeing his talents try to reinvigorate the SMU program.
  2. Sean Miller might not be John Calipari on the recruiting trail yet, but he is still doing a pretty good job. His latest addition is Ray Smith, the #26 prospect according to ESPN in the class of 2015. Smith, a 6’8″ small forward, verbally committed to Arizona soon after tearing his ACL. Although Smith might miss his entire high school senior season recovering from the injury it could be a blessing for the Wildcats, who beat out several other prominent schools to land Smith, who might not have committed to them if he had more chances to showcase his talents. As Adam Finkelstein notes, the Wildcats have already had four straight top-10 classes, but this one has the potential to be a top-5 class or even #1 overall if things break right for them.
  3. There were interesting pieces of news that will lead players to miss some time next season. Butler transfer guard Austin Etherington, who averaged 2 points and 1.6 rebounds at Indiana last season, is expected to miss 3-4 months after undergoing surgery on his right foot. Georgia dismissed Brandon Morris after the junior forward was arrested on felony charges of intent to sell marijuana. Morris averaged 8.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game last season, but also missed three games due to an undisclosed violation of team policies. Iowa suspended Peter Jok after he was arrested for driving his moped with a revoked license. Jok, a sophomore, already had his license revoked after receiving a DUI on his moped in April so this will be a second strike against him. Although Jok only averaged 4.4 points per game as a freshman last season he was expected to pick up many of Roy Devyn Marble’s minutes and production. We are assuming that Fran McCaffery will let Jok back on the team, but if he doesn’t it would be a big loss for the Hawkeyes.
  4. We were not even aware Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg had a pacemaker (or any cardiac issues for that matter) until he had a battery replaced in the pacemaker yesterday. The pacemaker was put in at the time of his surgery for an aortic root aneurysm as the result of a complication from surgery (injury to the bundle of His) that necessitated the need for a pacemaker. Apparently, Hoiberg noticed that his heart rate was not elevating to the normal range leading to the replacement of his pacemaker battery. According to Hoiberg and the school the replacement appears to have been uneventful, which is not surprising given how straightforward it is, but is still good to hear.
  5. Lost in the media onslaught around LeBron’s decision to come home was its impact on college basketball. Or at least the impact that it nearly had. Everybody knows about the reports that John Calipari, Tom Izzo, and Billy Donovan had been contacted about the Cleveland job, but it appears that Bill Self was also approached by the Cavaliers about the vacancy. All four stayed at their current jobs, but we wonder if they might have felt differently had they been offered the job with LeBron there. So although there were no college coaches moving on to the NBA we would keep an eye on Cleveland as a potential destination particularly if things do not work out between LeBron and David Blatt.

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