Morning Five: 05.08.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on May 8th, 2014

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  1. We knew that the moment Eron Harris received his release from West Virginia he would be a hot commodity so it should be no surprise that most of the significant programs have already contacted him the same day that he received his release. According to reports, Butler, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Michigan State, New Mexico, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and UCLA contacted him within two hours of Harris receiving his release. Harris, who averaged 17.2 points while shooting 42 percent from three-point range as a sophomore, is from Indiana and according to his father being closer to home could be a major driving factor in his selection, but compatibility with a coach would be a bigger factor.
  2. Jamal Jones might not be the same caliber of player as Harris, but his departure from Texas A&M is a big blow for their program. Jones led the Aggies in scoring last season with 13.4 points per game while adding 3.9 rebounds per game. He has not indicated which destinations he is considering, but this is not the first time that he has left a school as he played one year at Mississippi (ok, maybe the word play is overstating it since he only played 25 minutes all year) before moving on to Lee College for a year before moving to College Station. Jones’ production might make him an appealing transfer for some coaches, but we suspect that his tendency to move so frequently will make many coaches weary of pursuing him.
  3. Nick Faust‘s announcement  that he was longer committed to Oregon State after Craig Robinson should hardly be a surprise. What is surprising is that he committed to a school with such an unstable coach and that the school waited this long to fire Robinson with how much a late firing could affect recruiting. While Faust says he is “open to everyone” his most likely destinations would appear to be Richmond, Cleveland State, Siena, UCLA, George Mason, and George Washington, which were the other schools that he considered before committing to Oregon State. Out of those the only one that we would be surprised by him going to is UCLA because we can’t envision a scenario where a player of Faust’s caliber would decide to play at Oregon State instead of UCLA particularly with how poorly the Beavers played under Robinson. Faust also has not closed the door on going to Oregon State in the end depending on who Robinson’s replacement is.
  4. They are not necessarily big-name positions, but two of the few remaining Division I coaching vacancies filled over the past two days. Coppin State took more than a month to find its new head coach before settling on Michael Grant. Although Grant is coming from Division II Stillman College he does have coaching experience at the Division I level going 26-31 in two seasons at Southern between 2003 and 2005. If going from Division II to Division I seems like a big jump that is nothing compared to what Bob Walsh is trying to do at Maine, which hired him from Division III Rhode Island College. Unlike Grant, Walsh has no coaching experience at the Division I level outside of serving as an assistant at Providence.
  5. If you ever wondered why some assistants at top programs did not jump at any head coaching opportunity, we would direct you to the recently released information about the new contracts that Kentucky‘s assistant coaches received. One of the assistants, Kenny Payne,  signed a two-year extension worth $500,000 annually. That figure puts him ahead of almost 1/4 of head coaches who led their team’s to NCAA Tournament bids last year. Coming in just behind Payne are assistants John Robic and Barry Rohrssen, who will be paid $375,000 per year. Those figures my pale in comparison to John Calipari’s annual salary of $5.5 million, but all of them should be quite comfortable and should keep them loyal to Kentucky unless a pretty big program comes after them.

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Morning Five: 05.06.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on May 6th, 2014

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  1. By now you should know that we are not surprised by Craig Robinson getting fired even if we are a little surprised by the timing. Robinson’s time in Corvallis was highlighted by the fact that he is the brother-in-law of President Obama. Unfortunately for Robinson and Oregon State fans his team actually had to play games. With the exodus of talent from Corvallis following a 16-16 season things were not looking good so it makes sense that they would cut ties. Our only question is the timing this late in the recruiting season and less than a week after Nick Faust committed to play there. Late last night, Jeff Goodman reported the Oregon State players were making a push with the school’s AD to hire ex-Oregon State & current UCLA assistant David Grace and even mentioned the possibility that Hallice Cooke might return to Corvallis if Grace is named head coach.
  2. Oregon State was not the only school in the state to make headline es yesterday. In Eugene, news broke that Dominic Artis was transferring while Brandon Austin and Damyean Dotson were no longer participating in team activities. While the team has not released any information on this, The Oregonian uncovered a police report from two months ago implicating the three took part in an alleged rape (full report here–warning: graphic descriptions). The police did not go forward with the investigation because of a lack of evidence, but it might be enough to finish their time there. Artis appears to be the first to exit following a rough sophomore season highlighted by a nine-game suspension to start the season. Despite a bad season he was expected to be the team’s starting point guard. Although Austin has not made any comments about leaving we would assume that he does not have much leeway after transferring from Providence following a suspension for a report of sexual assault. Dotson’s background is not quite as controversial, but it will be interesting to see how Dana Altman handles this situation since he is already losing so much of his team from last year.
  3. Speaking of programs spiraling out of control, Mark Turgeon came out yesterday and “took responsibility” for the transfers. Honestly we have no idea what that even means other than Turgeon admitting that a lot of players are leaving Maryland. Unless Turgeon is stepping down or identifying an area that he will change that might make a difference (winning would be a start) we can’t really take too much from this. As we have stated before we would be surprised if Turgeon has more than a year or two left in College Park unless he turns this thing around and the only reason we would give him two years is because they are moving to the Big Ten and the administration is already busy with that.
  4. We will give Donnie Tyndall a bit of a pass as he continues to lose players from his Tennessee roster since he just inherited the team. The latest players to look elsewhere are Darius Thompson and A.J. Davis. At this point, both players have asked for their release and although Tyndall says the players might still come back to Knoxville we think that is wishful thinking. Neither player would be considered a significant contributor although Thompson started 10 games last year (averaging 2.6 points, 2.4 assists and 2.0 rebounds per game last season), but he was just a freshman and could have been a steadying influence as Tyndall tried to build his own team. With the way things are going for Tyndall we would not be surprised to see open tryouts in Knoxville pretty soon.
  5. Everybody talked about New York City being the center of conference tournament action with conference realignment, but there appears to be quite a bit of action down in Washington, DC. The ACC has already committed to playing at the Verizon Center in 2016 and now the Big Ten will be playing its conference tournament there in 2017. The deal is reportedly an attempt to bring their brand to the East Coast with Maryland and Rutgers joining the conference. With the importance of these areas for recruiting we would not be surprised to see more conferences attempt to make the move to the area to get exposure to the high school players there.

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Morning Five: 05.05.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on May 5th, 2014

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  1. We try not to get into NBA issues too much here, but the Los Angeles Lakers coaching vacancy hangs like a big cloud over college basketball particularly in Storrs, Connecticut. Among the many candidates for the job is Kevin Ollie, who might be the hottest NBA commodity among college coaches given his recent NBA experience and the fact that he is coming off a title. Even if there is nothing going on between Ollie and the Lakers the possibility has scared the Connecticut administration enough that they are reportedly willing to pay Ollie double his current salary, which would bring him up to almost $2.5 million per year. The Lakers could certainly pay more than that so it is something to keep an eye on.
  2. Kansas had an interesting close to last week. Soon after losing Naadir Tharpe to a transfer, the Jayhawks found out that Devonte Graham would be coming to Kansas after one of the more complicated recruiting sagas in recent years. You may remember that Graham had committed to Appalachian State and signed a National Letter of Intent, but wanted to back out when his stock shot up. Former Appalachian State coach Jason Capel refused to release him. When Capel was fired and replaced the new coaching staff let Graham out of his letter of intent. In a strange way, this will probably work out better for Kansas because Graham might already be better than Tharpe or any of the point guards that the Jayhawks have.
  3. The newest conference challenge involving the Big East and Big Ten is one that we would have loved to have seen a few years ago when the Big East was much stronger, but it is something that we will still enjoy. The Gavitt Tipoff Games will be held annually starting next season and feature eight games between the two conferences through the 2020-21 season with the games being spread out from Tuesday through Friday during the first full week of the regular season. Given the lackluster opening that college basketball typically has this could be a nice boost for the sport.
  4. The coach’s son might have helped put Creighton on the college basketball map for casual fans, but it might be transfers who keep it there. The Bluejays had already received a commitment from Boston University transfer Maurice Watson Jr and now they have added Nevada transfer Cole Huff, who committed to Creighton over the weekend. Like Watson, Huff will sit out next season and have two years of eligibility left when he is able to play during the 2015-16 season. Last season, Huff, a 6’8″ forward, averaged 12.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. Those numbers will not make anybody forget about Doug McDermott any time soon, but they could help ease the transition into the next stage for the program.
  5. There were two notable transfer announcements that were significant for very different reasons. The first and least complex one was the decision by Seth Allen to leave Maryland. As we mentioned last week when it was first suggested that Allen might be on his way out we have to question how long Mark Turgeon will last in College Park as Allen, who averaged 13.4 points and 3.0 assists per game after coming back from a broken foot, is the fourth Terrapin to transfer since the season ended about a month ago. The other interesting transfer announcement came out of Air Force where Tre’ Coggins and Darrius Parker announced that they would be leaving the school. As you may have noticed the decision by two players to transfer typically is not noteworthy (or frankly that interesting), but in this case it is because the two reportedly are reportedly leaving due to issues with the required five-year post-college service required of all Air Force graduates. We have not heard otherwise so we are assuming that Coggins (16.0 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game) and Parker (3.8 points and 2.1 rebounds per game) will have to sit out a year although given the other transfer waivers that we have seen granted we would not be shocked to see them request one from the NCAA since their reported issue with the school was a required post-college commitment.

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Morning Five: 05.02.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on May 2nd, 2014

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  1. Just when you thought that the coaching carousel was done, Mike D’Antoni announced that he was resigning as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night. Although there are reports that the Lakers are interviewing Tom Thibodeau there are other reports that they have expressed interest in both John Calipari and Kevin Ollie. While we have not heard anything to suggest that either is actively looking for this job (Calipari actually tweeted that he was committed to his Kentucky team) it would not be shocking if a college coach (even a Hall of Famer) jumped at this job if offered. You may remember that Mike Krzyzewski seriously considered the Lakers offer back in 2004. Obviously, the Lakers were in much better position then than they are now, but it is still one of the most prominent positions in sports so it would be hard for some to turn down.
  2. Naadir Tharpe may never have been the type of point guard that Kansas needed to put itself over the top and win a national title, but his departure for Kansas will leave a void in their backcourt that they will need to fill. Tharpe’s time in Lawrence was marked by inconsistent play and culminated in a very-NSFW tweet, but his stated reason for leaving is to be closer to his daughter who he says has been dealing with medical issues that requires her to have regular office visits. Tharpe will likely be headed to somewhere close to Massachusetts and his departure should mean that the starting job should be Frank Mason’s to lose and it does theoretically increase the likelihood that they land Devonte Graham.
  3. The schedule for this year’s Big Ten- ACC Challenge was released yesterday. The marquee game is clearly Duke at Wisconsin in what should be a matchup of top five teams. Outside of that there are a handful of interesting games–Syracuse at Michigan, Ohio State at Louisville, and Iowa at North Carolina–but the overall quality might be down because the ACC is so much better at the top of the conference. This will probably correct itself in a few years and the Big Ten might even win the event this year because of their depth, but in our eyes the main appeal of this event in its ability to pair up top teams in non-conference matchups that we might otherwise not see.
  4. Washington transfer Desmond Simmons announced that he was transferring to Saint Mary’s yesterday. Simmons averaged 5.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game this season after coming back from a knee injury, which forced him to miss the first ten games of this past season. Simmons is set to graduate so he will be able to play for Saint Mary’s next season, which will be a sort of homecoming for him as he grew up about 30 miles away from the school. Although Simmons headed to Washington after high school he reports having had a good relationship with Randy Bennett during his initial recruitment and actually had the Gaels in his final three coming out of high school.
  5. Former North Carolina State guard Tyler Lewis has found a new home at Butler. The sophomore point guard averaged 4.4 points and 3.8 assists per game this past season and his move into the starting lineup late in the season was cited as one of the reasons that NC State made the NCAA Tournament. However, Lewis never lived up to his McDonald’s All-American pedigree and with Trevor Lacey coming in we are sure that Lewis could see the writing on the wall. At Butler, Lewis will have to help rebuild a program that fell off hard with Brad Stevens’ departure, which was compounded by a loss of a lot of talent. In the end, this will probably be a better situation for Lewis in terms of playing time and level of his opposition.

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Morning Five: 05.01.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on May 1st, 2014

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  1. Yesterday was a surprisingly busy day on the coaching carousel. The big news came out late last night when Southern Mississippi filled its coaching vacancy by hiring Doc Sadler. The Southern Miss spot opened up when Donnie Tyndall moved to Tennessee, but he did leave a fairly good program for Sadler as the team went 56-17 in the past two seasons although they did not make the NCAA Tournament either season. Sadler compiled a 149-107 record at UTEP and Nebraska, but was fired in 2012 at Nebraska after going 12-18. It was just yesterday that the job was reportedly offered to Brad Underwood, who “decided” to stay at Stephen F. Austin just a few hours before the Sadler hiring was announced so we suspect that his decision may have been impacted by Southern Mississippi’s decision. The other announcement was that Tom Izzo intends to stay at Michigan State rather than pursuing a NBA job. In our opinion, this really isn’t particularly newsworthy although with coaches of Izzo’s caliber we always assume that some NBA team will have interest in Izzo. While Izzo stated that he plans on staying at Michigan State he noted that if the right offer comes up he might reconsider and he did mention the Lakers as such a job. And Mike D’Antoni did resign yesterday…
  2. It wasn’t that long ago that Rick Barnes was on the “hot seat”. After a surprisingly good season last season, Barnes appeared to be in good shape heading into next season with most of last year’s team returning. On top of that, he added Myles Turner, who committed to Texas yesterday essentially ending this recruiting season (at least for high school recruits). Turner, the consensus #2 recruit in the class of 2014, announced that he was heading to Texas in a press conference that was televised on ESPNU. For a more thorough breakdown of what Turner’s commitment means, check out Jeff Borzello’s excellent breakdown.
  3. We aren’t sure if one coach needs to replace another on the hot seat, but if he does then we would nominate Mark Turgeon. He already lost three players to transfer this off-season (more on one below) and now according to some reports both Seth Allen and Charles Mitchell have both asked for their release from the program. Maryland is denying these reports, but if true we cannot imagine how much longer Turgeon can stay on board. It is too late in the coaching carousel cycle for the school to get rid of him and look for a new coach and with their upcoming move to the Big Ten they need some stability, but they need to be looking in another direction. Last season, Allen averaged 13.4 points, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds per game while Mitchell averaged 6.5 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. If they do leave, Maryland will have lost five of its top eight players from last season to transfer.
  4. With most of his production from last year leaving and an undistinguished freshman class coming in we knew that Craig Robinson needed to do something significant if he wanted to keep his job. It appears that he has in the transfer market. Yesterday, Maryland transfer Nick Faust announced that he would be headed to Oregon State. Faust, who averaged 9.4 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 2 assists per game, will have to sit out this season and has one more year of eligibility left. According to reports, Oregon State is also active in reaching out to several other prominent transfers. This method probably isn’t what Oregon State needs for long-term success, but it might be enough to let Robinson keep his job for a few more years.
  5. Danny Manning hasn’t had his first practice at Wake Forest, but his tenure is already off to a rough start. Yesterday, Shelton Mitchell, the team’s top incoming recruit, received his release from Wake Forest. Mitchell, a four-star point guard, is recovering from an ACL tear is reportedly still considering Wake Forest, but is keeping his options open now that Jeff Bzdelik, the coach who recruited him, is no longer there. At this point, the only class of 2014 commit that Manning has is two-star shooting guard Rondale Watson. Manning might turn out to be a better coach than Bzdelik, but with that recruiting class it will be very hard to prove it in the ACC.

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Morning Five: 04.30.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on April 30th, 2014

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  1. USC transfer Byron Wesley has reportedly cut his list to Pittsburgh, Gonzaga, and Oklahoma State. As we mentioned last week, Wesley’s departure is a huge blow for Andy Enfield and he could become a significant addition to one of these three teams. Last season Wesley averaged 17.8 points (shooting 46.7% FG) and 6.3 rebounds per game. He will visit the three schools in the next few weeks before making his decision.
  2. Donnie Tyndall might not be able to keep Cuonzo Martin’s recruits, but he is making progress in terms of scheduling.Yesterday, Tennessee and Butler announced that they had agree to home-and-home series. Butler will travel to Knoxville this December and Tennessee will travel to Hinkle Fieldhouse in 2015. Obviously this had been in the works from well before Tyndall’s hiring, but was probably contingent on the approval of Tyndall (or whoever the new coach) was.
  3. Southern Mississippi is one of the few remaining coaching openings, but it appears that they might be closing in on their target as they offered Stephen F. Austin coach Brad Underwood their head coaching position. Underwood just completed his first year at Stephen F. Austin, but led the team to a 32-3 record including 18-0 in the Southland Conference and a NCAA Tournament win over VCU. With Donnie Tyndall having left for Tennessee fairly recently this would appear to be an outstanding hire for Southern Miss if Underwood accepts.
  4. With no new numbers to crunch one might expect Ken Pomeroy to not have much to do in the off-season. Of course, he has time to work on his algorithm, but he also has time to look back at the past such as with his review of  2002. Using his previously collected data, Pomeroy points out some key things that many people have forgotten like how ridiculously good that Duke team was that lost in the Sweet 16. If he is going to continue with this for other years, it could be one of the more interesting things to follow this off-season.
  5. On Tuesday, PJ Hairston signed with an agent. Although the articles that we have seen do not go into detail about Hairston’s agent we do not see any connection for this agent to Fats Hayden, who as you may remember was involved in the fiasco that led to Hairston losing his NCAA eligibility. Despite Hairston’s turbulent final year at North Carolina (or in and out of) he is still projected to be a mid- to late-first round pick although with his absence from the scene for nearly a year now we assume that his workouts will have a bigger effect on his draft stock than they otherwise would.

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Morning Five: 04.29.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on April 29th, 2014

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  1. Missouri’s long overly complicated coaching search came to an end yesterday as they announced that Kim Anderson, who played there and served as an assistant there, would be their next coach. Anderson has been the head coach at Central Missouri where he was 274-94 and won the Division II title this season. He may turn out to be an excellent hire, but the way the school handled the entire process hiring a search firm, spending more than $40,000, and being rebuffed by many more prominent names only to select a former player who was coaching only 1.5 hours away makes them seem less than competent. Anderson will have his work cut out for him as he will be inheriting a depleted team and will need to work hard to keep the recruits that Missouri had commitments from before Frank Haith “left” for Tulsa.
  2. The strange saga for Chane Behanan has come to an end. Well at least the college portion of it. Behanan, who left Louisville after multiple suspensions for marijuana use, had transferred to Colorado State and was expected to play for them next season. However, Behanan recently had a change of heart (perhaps related to Mitch McGary’s decision) and declared for the NBA Draft yesterday. When the rumors first surfaced that Behanan might leave, we mentioned that he was at best a late second round pick and nothing that we have heard since then would change our mind on that. If Behanan wants to go, that is his choice. We just hope that he is aware that he will likely be headed overseas if he wants a pro basketball career.
  3. Tennessee fans might want to temper their expectations for the first few seasons of the Donnie Tyndall era. Yesterday, the school announced that they had granted a release to CJ Turman meaning that all four of the players who committed to the school back in November have backed out after Cuonzo Martin left the program to take over at California. We wouldn’t feel too bad for Tennessee fans because their lack of support (combined with that of the administration) was probably the driving force behind Martin’s decision to move. Unfortunately for Tyndall he has to deal with the fallout.
  4. With the early entries declared and almost all of the major recruits committed people can start putting together legitimate preseason predictions. One such entity is the Las Vegas sports book, who put out their odds to win the 2015 NCAA title, which we stress are only for educational purposes. There are not any particularly glaring odds there although somebody might find one of the teams with greater than 25/1 odds interesting particularly ones with Hall of Fame level coaches.
  5. With all of the departures from the Mountain West yesterday’s news that junior college star Jordan Goodman had committed to play at New Mexico could be big. The Lobos will be without Kendall Williams, Alex Kirk, and Cameron Bairstow next season so the addition of Goodman, who averaged 18.1 points and 6.6 rebounds last season in junior college, could provide some much needed production. If Goodman’s name seems familiar it is because had been committed to Georgetown, Rutgers, and Texas Tech (yes, three different schools) in high school before going the junior college route. If Goodman sticks with his choice this time, he could pay dividends for the Lobos.

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Morning Five: 04.28.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on April 28th, 2014

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  1. Mitch McGary‘s early-entry departure from Michigan might be the most controversial ones that we can remember. McGary’s decision to leave after his sophomore season was not particularly shocking from a basketball perspective as he would have been a first-round pick had he not been injured this season and even now he is a borderline first-round pick. The reason that McGary’s decision is so controversial (and will be for quite some time) is that he was essentially forced out when he tested positive for marijuana on a random test. If McGary had stayed he would have had to sit out the upcoming season. As a result, McGary will be waiting anxiously on Draft night and John Beilein will have a much tougher task keeping Michigan competitive in the Big Ten next season.
  2. The good next keeps on coming in for John Calipari. After learning that most of his frontcourt was returning, Calipari also found out that Aaron and Andrew Harrison would be returning for their sophomore seasons. This does not necessarily make Kentucky the national title favorites, but certainly puts them on the short list of contenders. The one issue for Kentucky is that for all of their depth on the inside they will have surprisingly lack of backcourt depth. The one interesting aspect of this is that Kentucky might end up being more experienced than their opponents for the first time in several years.
  3. The news at Connecticut was more mixed. The Huskies already knew that they were going to take a hit with Kemba Walker leaving Storrs, but they had hoped that both DeAndre Daniels and Ryan Boatright would return for the senior seasons. Boatright decided to come back to Storrs for one more year while Daniels decided to cash in on a big NCAA Tournament run to enter the NBA Draft. While Boatright will help stabilize the Huskies next year the loss of an athletic presence like Daniels is a big blow. At this point, Daniels is projected as a borderline first-round pick although with his athleticism and skill set he is the type of player who could move up or down a Draft board fairly quickly.
  4. One of the problems with many of the earliest versions of the way-too-early top 25s is that they are based on conjecture and occasionally statements about who is and is not leaving. On April 17, Jordan Adams announced that he was staying at UCLA saying that he was “really excited about the team we’re going to have next year”. On Saturday night, Adams changed his mind and announced that he would be entering the NBA Draft. His reasons for leaving are unclear as he is probably an early second round pick although maybe he assumes that he can work his way into the first round and get guaranteed money or that some team or agent told him that he had that first round guarantee. Or perhaps he figured that going pro was better than spending another year in Westwood. In any event, it puts Steve Alford and the Bruins in a hole as they attempt to replicate the success that they had in Alford’s first season.
  5. We are not used to seeing Wisconsin at the top of preseason rankings as they tend to be underrated, but next year we do not think that should be an issue. The Badgers already have a loaded team and the one piece that we felt might declare for the NBA Draft–Frank Kaminsky–announced that he would be returning for his senior season in Madison. Kaminsky showed tremendous growth this season, but he was still projected to only be a borderline first round pick. His size and skill set would have made him an interesting late first-round pick. Instead he will return to Madison and should make Wisconsin one of the title favorite next season.

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Morning Five: 04.25.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on April 25th, 2014

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  1. The NCAA released a memo yesterday from its Board of Directors proposing a new structure that would theoretically be “more nimble, streamlined and responsive to needs – particularly the needs of student-athletes” as well as allowing conferences greater maneuverability in addressing the needs of the student-athletes within the specific conferences. Voting on the proposal will take place in August. While that sounds great in theory it is unclear how much power the student-athletes would have in such a system and how the NCAA’s constituency will react to it (especially the non-power conference schools).
  2. The Marshall coaching search has been one of the more unique ones that we can remember. They spent over a month courting Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni to be their next coach. As ridiculous as it sounds on the surface (going from coaching in front of Jack Nicholson and all the Hollwood stars to being in Huntington) it was somewhat plausible since Mike played at Marshall and grew up a few hours away. Oh, and there is also the fact that he might not have much time left with LA. A day after news leaked that Mike was not taking the job, Marshall announced that it had landed D’antoni just that it was Mike’s brother, Dan D’Antoni. Outside of the of how strange it is to settle for the original candidates brother, Dan has not coached at the college level in 30 years and had been serving as an assistant to his brother. The only way this would make sense to us is if there was an understanding that Mike might take the job when he is fired in LA.
  3. Two juniors–Spencer Dinwiddie and Khem Birch–made somewhat surprising decisions to leave school a year early. Dinwiddie is projected to be a mid-second round pick after his stock was hurt following a season-ending ACL tear in January. He averaged 14.7 points, 3.8 assists, and 3.1 rebounds per game last season before his injury and his all-court game could translate well to the NBA, but coming off an injury his stock will be relatively low. Birch is probably more like a late second round pick and probably more likely to go undrafted. Birch played sporadically at Pittsburgh before transferring to UNLV, but showed some of the skills that made him a highly coveted player coming into college as he averaged 11.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 3.8 blocks per game last season while picking up Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year honors.
  4. Myles Turner, the #2 prospect in the class of 2014 and only uncommitted top prospect, will announce his decision on Wednesday at 4 PM on ESPNU. Turner has narrowed down his list to Duke, Kansas, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Southern Methodist, Texas, and Texas A&M. Yeah, that’s not really narrow. There were some rumors that Turner was leaning towards Kansas and had been waiting on a decision from Joel Embiid, but it over two weeks since Embiid declared for the NBA Draft and Turner has not committed yet so we would not read too much into that.
  5. We will end today with some new developments in two longstanding legal cases involving college basketball players. The more well-known case involves Dez Wells, who reached a settlement with Xavier after he was expelled from the school on what he calls a false rape allegation. We are not privy to all the details of what happened in the Wells case, but from what has been publicly released we would call the school’s handling of the case “questionable” at best. The other case, which probably still will have a few more turns to it involves former Oklahoma State basketball player Darrell Williams, who was accused of sexually assaulting two women at an off-campus party in 2010. An Oklahoma court has overturned the conviction based in part because two jurors visited the crime scene and discussed the visit during deliberations. While this is good news for Williams, the District Attorney is still deciding on whether or not to retry the case so he may not be out of the woods yet.

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Morning Five: 04.24.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on April 24th, 2014

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  1. Yesterday was a big day for Kentucky as both Alex Poythress and Dakari Johnson announced that they will be returning to Lexington for at least one more season. Poythress has seen his stock drop during his two years at Kentucky to the point that he would have been a second round pick had he declared, but Johnson had the potential to be a late first round pick so it is somewhat surprising to see him stay. Kentucky still may have issues in the backcourt if the Harrison twins decide to turn pro, but they will have the nation’s deepest, tallest, and most talented frontcourt next season with Poythress, Johnson, Marucs Lee, Trey Lyles, Willie Cauley-Stein, and Karl-Anthony Towns.
  2. The news around Louisville transfer Chane Behanan is a little less clear. Behanan, who left Louisville after repeated issues with marijuana use, had announced his intent to transfer to Colorado State several months ago, but now reports are surfacing that he may have signed with an agent with plans to enter the NBA Draft. If he were to enter the NBA Draft, Behanan would be a late second round pick at best and most likely would go undrafted particularly with his off-court issues. Colorado State has not really commented on it other than to say that they “will support him in whatever decision he makes” while Behanan offered a vague denial.
  3. Two other big names–Jerian Grant and Jordan Mickey–announced that they will be returning to school next year. Neither player would have been a first round pick (at least not a guaranteed one) coming out this year so it makes sense for them to come back to school. Grant’s season was derailed when he was ruled academically ineligible. Grant had been averaging 19 points and 6.2 assists per game before his suspension so it is possible he would have left South Bend if he had a full season to showcase his game. Mickey posted solid numbers as a freshman averaging 12.7 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks per game. While Mickey certainly has potential he was projected as a late second round pick at best so his decision to come back also makes a lot of sense and could help make LSU a second-tier team in the SEC next season.
  4. People can complain all they want about Duke being on national television all the time and there is a degree of truth to those complaints, but Duke is certainly getting its share of prominent non-conference showdowns. In addition to their annual Champions Classic game (against Michigan State this year), a ACC/Big Ten Challenge road game, and the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic , Duke is close to scheduling a game against defending national champion Connecticut. The Huskies will be without Shabazz Napier, but could have Ryan Boatright and DeAndre Daniels back and will be adding Rodney Purvis. Duke will look completely different with the departure of Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood combined with the appearance of their top-rated incoming freshman class.
  5. At this point we are not sure how Craig Robinson still has his job (oh right, the brother-in-law) as Oregon State continues to disappoint. As if losing all five starters from a team that went 16-16 last season was not bad enough, he also will be losing Hallice Cooke, who was supposed to be the team’s top returning player at  8.2 points and 2.6 assists per game last season, after Cooke announced that he was transferring saying “Smh I gotta know what that NCAA tourney feels like ASAP”. We never really bought into the idea that players would want to play for Robinson just because his brother-in-law is the President, but his performance has been fallen short of even our tempered expectations. Now Robinson heads into next season with his top returning player being Langston Morris-Walker, who averaged 4 points per game last season. We are usually hesitant to put anybody on the hot seat, but time seems to be running short for Robinson.

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