1. In one of the least surprising early entry decisions ever Shabazz Muhammad announced that he would be leaving UCLA after one season during which he became two years older. Muhammad’s recruitment and arrival at UCLA was one of the more controversial ones and portended a career that was more hype than production. After Muhammad was reinstated (in part due to comments made by the boyfriend of a NCAA investigator on a cross-country flight) he showed flashes of ability that reminded people why he was considered the best player in his class for much of his senior year of high school, but those moments were separated by stretches of mediocrity and more ridiculous scandals including the ridiculous Gucci backpack controversy and the recent admission that he was actually a year older than he had previously stated. In the end, Muhammad did not live up to the ridiculous hype given to a recruit of his caliber, but he will probably end up being a lottery pick so we cannot really fault him for heading to the NBA, which he was been destined to do this summer even before he headed to Westwood.
2. If Muhammad needed any extra motivation to head to the NBA the performance of James Michael McAdoo this past season should help Muhammad feel more secure in his decision to strike while the iron is hot. Now we will start of by admitting that Muhammad was a much more highly touted prospect and produced more as a freshman than McAdoo has done in either of his first two seasons at North Carolina, but McAdoo was considered to be a potential All-American this season. In the end his play was so uninspired that he has decided to return to Chapel Hill for his junior season. Writers and fans can make all of the comments about improving his game that they want, but the fact is that McAdoo probably played himself out of the late lottery this season. With a solid year next season McAdoo could get back into the lottery and make himself more money, but he will have to compete with what is expected to be a much deeper draft class in 2014.
3. Unfortunately for Roy Williams, McAdoo will not be joined in the locker room by Reggie Bullock, who was named the team’s MVP yesterday and then promptly announced that he would be declaring for the NBA Draft. Bullock showed quite a bit of improvement between his sophomore and junior seasons (or he just started playing on a weaker team that focused more of the offense on him) as his points per game jumped from 8.8 to 13.9 and his shooting (field goal, three-point, and free throw) all improved. At this point Bullock is a borderline late first round pick so it is not unreasonable for him to leave school especially with how loaded next year’s Draft could be, but he needs to shoot well in his workouts if he doesn’t want to have his name called by Adam Silver.
4. We have no idea who is in Vander Blue‘s ear, but they are costing him a year of free education and are probably sending him straight to Europe or the NBDL as he announced yesterday that he would be entering the NBA Draft. Blue put together a solid junior season, but even the most optimistic projection we have seen for Blue has him projected as a late second round pick. For all of Blue’s ability he cannot reliably hit a college three-pointer (30.3% last season) and he is undersized for a shooting guard, which is a bad combination. While we won’t have to watch Blue deal with the consequences of his decision (don’t watch much NBDL or Euroleague action), we will probably see Marquette suffer as a result of the loss of senior leadership in the backcourt next season.
5. We already know plenty about the four players we have already mentioned, but there is one intriguing NBA Draft prospect who was highly regarded coming out of high school about  whom we know very little–Norvel Pelle. After failing to meet the NCAA’s academic qualifying standards, Pelle, who was once the #1 center in the class of 2011, has been floating in a no-man’s land and now must prove himself to NBA teams in a series of workouts over the next few months. Pelle certainly has the tools and at 6’1o or 6’11” he is very close to the magic 7′ mark–time to let the hair grow a little–that gets you drafted as long as you can walk and chew gum a the same time (and sometimes even if you can’t) so we don’t doubt that he will get looks from NBA teams, but he needs to prove himself in workouts if he wants to get drafted.

Bonus: Late last night news broke that Oklahoma State star freshman Marcus Smart would be returning for his sophomore season. Honestly, we have no idea why he would do this as he is a top-five pick on every mock draft we have seen. With how loaded next year’s incoming freshman class is there is no guarantee that he will improve his draft position. He clearly has some things that he can work on with his game (29% from 3 and 1.25 assist-to-turnover ratio), but we have no idea why he would have to work on that in Stillwater. Having said that the Big 12 suddenly got a lot more interesting next season.

1. I will start off today with a few words about Boston. We have been running this site for approximately six years now and there have been plenty of significant events/tragedies that we have not really talked about in this space for a variety of reasons, but this one hit closer to home for the primary reason that Boston was actually our home (at least for one of the two of us that run this site) for 11 years. I have not been back since leaving at the end of June for a new job, but was already planning on doing so this coming June well before the tragedy that transpired yesterday. I just want to send my condolences to those who lost loved ones yesterday and wish for a speedy recovery for all of those who were injured.
2. We knew it was coming, but yesterday Nerlens Noel made it official that he would be entering the NBA Draft. Some pundits may argue that Noel should spend an extra year in college to rehab from a torn left ACL, but we do not see the benefit. Noel, who was considered by many to be the #1 pick before he tore his ACL, is still considered a potential #1 overall pick depending on which team gets that pick. As crazy as it sounds the potential #1 overall pick in this year’s NBA Draft might get overshadowed on next year’s Kentucky team particularly if he is not 100% when he returns. There have not been many cases where an underclassman leaves early with such a significant injury, but these are exceptional circumstances.
3. Plenty of people have mocked the NCAA’s new academic standards, but for many recruits those numbers can be hard to meet, which has led to a rise in the number of recruits who pursue alternative routes to college including junior college. As the article points out New York City only produced one Division I men’s basketball player who was academically eligible and the standards are about to get tougher. As John Infante points out the new standards will also alter the calculus of eligibility for players who do not go straight from high school to Division I basketball. This might seem like a small story now, but it could become a big issue once the new standards go into effect.
4. Last season the Missouri Valley Conference was one of the best conferences in the country, but after it was announced that Creighton would be leaving we knew they were set for a downgrade. Yesterday we found out it would be a big downgrade as it was announced that Loyola (IL) would be replacing Creighton. Nothing against Loyola, which appears to be making attempts at improving its program by upgrading its facilities and hiring new coaches (unfortunately we are more familiar with their women’s coach than their men’s coach), but going from one of the top “mid-major” teams in the country to a 5-11 Horizon League team is a huge drop-off. Now the conference still has its fair share of heavyweights, but with this type of replacement we would not be surprised to see some other conferences try to poach some of the Missouri Valley Conference’s top programs.
5. One of the few bright spots for Purdue last season was how young they were. Their fans could ignore their 8-10 Big Ten record as merely growing pains for an extremely young team. They can still have those hopes, but while they maintain their top underclassmen the Boilermakers have been losing quite a bit of their supporting cast with the most recent departure being Anthony Johnson who asked for and was granted a release by the school. Johnson put up decent numbers as a sophomore (4.9 points and 2.9 rebounds), but shot a putrid 36.2 percent from the floor and was expected to see his minutes decrease with most of the team’s top players returning.

1. The Mike Rice fiasco at Rutgers will take a long time to play out, but the school appears to be taking the first step of moving into a new era with the expected hiring of Eddie Jordan as its new coach some time this week. Jordan, who was an honorable mention All-American at Rutgers and led the school to the 1976 Final Four, is probably best known for being the head coach of the Washington Wizards from 2003 to 2008 getting the team to the playoffs four straight years. Jordan is currently serving as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, which means he should be free to take on the duties of being the head coach at Rutgers in the not too distant future. His biggest task will be repairing the basketball program’s image after video of Rice’s abuse surfaced. If he is able to gain the confidence of recruits again this could be a huge hire as the New Jersey area produces more than enough talent to make Rutgers a nationally competitive team under the right circumstances.
2. It took longer than it probably should have, but on Friday Jim Crews had interim label removed from his job title at St. Louis as he officially was introduced as the head coach. Crews inherited a talented St. Louis team that was placed in a precarious position after Rick Majerus stepped down as coach before dying of issues related to worsening heart failure. What Crews did in getting his players to focus and buy into him as a coach was nothing short of remarkable. After winning the Atlantic 10 regular season and Tournament titles the Bilikens advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to a underseeded Oregon team. Although the loss of Majerus is undeniably huge, the St. Louis program should be in good hands with Crews, who won the Sporting News National Coach of the Year award this season and already has 25 years of head coaching experience  at the Division I level.
3. We have seen quite a few sons of coaches transfer schools from their father’s are fired, but Steve Alford’s move to UCLA has brought about two recruiting moves. First was the quasi-transfer of his son, a high school recruit who had signed with New Mexico to UCLA. Now Cullen Neal, the son of Craig Neal who was hired to take over at New Mexico after Alford left, has gotten out of his signed letter of intent at St. Mary’s and will play for his father. Although some might argue that letting players out of signed letters of intent is a questionable strategy given the power schools have over athletes in most situations the recent rulings by the NCAA would appear to indicate that the players would be given waivers to transfer immediately. We are not sure how much of an impact either Alford or Neal (the sons) will have at their new schools, but it will be an interesting to see how well they play for their fathers.
4. With the way the NCAA Tournament ended–all three Final Four games featuring controversial calls–Deadspin’s article on college referees and the way they deal with blown calls is well-timed. As is often stated nobody knows the name of an official unless they get something wrong (or they make a spectacle of themselves on television…and get something wrong). We have usually stood by officials when they make mistakes because we think in most cases there is no bias involved and the fact remains that if we had one hundred thousand people analyzing every single decision we made for two hours we would probably get a lot of criticism too. Having said that one of the interesting secondary topics discussed in the article is the travel and volume of games some officials do each season as they function as independent contractors and can be paid quite well for their work. Fatigue from travel and officiating games is certainly something that the NCAA and conferences can do by simply hiring officials and paying them set amounts based on the number of games they are contracted to do with provisions prohibiting freelancing that can compromise their ability to officiate games that they are paid to work.
5. Now that Rick Pitino is on his way to the Hall of Fame and has won national titles with two different schools some people in Kentucky are asking the (not-so) obvious question: If this were the Baseball Hall of Fame and you had to choose a “cap” to go in under, would Pitino go in under Kentucky or Louisville? The case for both schools is certainly compelling, but given his impact on Kentucky we would go with a Wildcat cap at least as of now. However as Mark Story notes the more likely choice would be Louisville given Pitino’s current allegiances and the fact that Kentucky fans would probably still hate him even if he were to enter the Hall of Fame after having left Louisville.

1. One of the downsides of taking a high-profile job is that some of your most questionable moments are brought out in public and Steve Alford learned that the hard way as his move to UCLA has prompted journalists to bring up the Pierre Pierce incident where Pierce was accused of sexual assault and Alford declared Pierce’s innocence (Pierce subsequently pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was eventually thrown off the team when he was involved in another similar incident). Yesterday, Alford finally relented and issued an apology (likely brought on by a wealthy booster or the school’s administration) in which Alford admits a mistake in judgement when declaring Pierce’s innocence and used the Iowa administration along with its lawyers as his own personal scapegoat for his ridiculous comments in 2002 (at least somebody learned something from the Mike Rice incident).
2. When Andre Dawkins stepped away from the Duke basketball team last season for personal reasons we were not sure if he would ever play for the team again, but it appears that he will be playing for the Blue Devils next season. While Dawkins has generated more publicity for his off-court issues (none of them his fault–coming to Duke early, his sister’s) he certainly has the ability (8.4 points per game during the 2011-12 season) to contribute to the team. The only problem is that the Blue Devils have more plenty of perimeter talent, but very little inside with the departure of Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly.
3. When we heard that Rick Pitino had promised his team that he would get a tattoo we assumed that he would back out of it, but he is sticking by it at least publicly. The latest news on the Pitino tattoo is that he is that it “will be a cardinal and it will say 2013 champions.” Honestly we wouldn’t expect anything less from Pitino. We just hope that there is some amusing photo of it in the Louisville preseason media guide. Actually we hope that he saves its unveiling for next season’s Louisville-Kentucky game as he shows it to taunt the Kentucky fans.
4. On Wednesday we pointed out that even though almost everybody had Russ Smith leaving Louisville there was one person — Smith himself — who had not come out with his intent to leave. Now it appears that Russ (or at least the people around him) appears to be having a change of heart as Rick Pitino said yesterday that Smith is 50-50 on the decision. On one hand we are not sure how much Smith can improve his NBA Draft stock with one more season since he will not get any taller and we really doubt that he will improve his decision-making markedly, but he is still a likely second round pick which means he would probably spend next year in the D-League or somewhere in Europe if he leaves the Cardinals program.
5. So, this Andy Enfield guy had a pretty good couple of weeks, right? On top of the pretty good couple of years, on top of the pretty good couple of decades… you get the picture. The new USC head coach stopped by the Tonight Show to see Jay Leno on Wednesday night, and well, it’s not hard to see how this guy has been mostly successful at everything he’s touched.

1. We are entering the early entry period where news about who will be putting their name into the NBA Draft. There will be plenty of time to criticize the players who make bad decisions (usually based on bad information), but we will start off on a positive note with the one player who we knew was going pro and is probably the only player we would have criticized for coming back to college: Ben McLemore. On the selfish side, we would love to see McLemore stay another year (or three), but given the financial hardships that his family faces it would be irresponsible for him to go back to college when he could help bring his family out of poverty with just his rookie contract. As for the other announcement we were in favor of Victor Oladipo will also enter the NBA Draft and his teammate Cody Zeller may be close behind. Now the only benefit we give McLemore over Oladipo (probably) and Zeller (definitely) is that McLemore has to deal with more pressing financial issues that the other two. All three of them could use work on their game and McLemore in particular could improve his draft stock by staying in school, but
2. We said there would be time to criticize the bad decisions players make we are already here. Today’s candidates are Russ Smith, who is leaving according to his father in a statement that everybody is taking as the truth, and Ricky Ledo, who did not play this year after being declared academically ineligible, but is still entering the NBA Draft. The Smith case is a little more complex because he played phenomenally well for five games of the NCAA Tournament and was probably the best player for Louisville during the NCAA Tournament even if Luke Hancock walked away with MOP honors. Still the bad Russ showed up on Monday night and that should have reminded NBA scouts and executives that he is too much of a gamble to spend a first round pick on. Of course, all this is based on a conversation by his father not the player so all of this could be completely incorrect and Russ might stay for his senior year. As for Ledo, he is a talented played with the frame and game to be a first round pick, but with his time away from the game and his reputation from the summer league circuit we don’t see Ledo making the first round either.
3. We are not sure how having four players transfer from your program is anything other than a bad thing, but when you look four players who contribute as little as the four that are leaving DePaul it doesn’t seem that bad. Of the four players, Moses Morgan is by far the most productive and even his numbers are not that inspiring (5.9 points and 2.3 rebounds per game as a junior last year down from 9 points per game as a sophomore). The moves are expected to open up roster spots for incoming players on a team that finished dead last in the conference formerly known as the Big East so hopefully they can find a few players to put around Brandon Young and Cleveland Melvin to make them more competitive in their new/old conference.
   
4. We mentioned several players that are leaving their schools–either for the NBA (or attempting to go to the NBA) or to different schools–but at least two players (Julian Boyd and Chris Otule) appear to be sticking around for their sixth year. Boyd, who was averaging 18.5 points and 6.1 points per game for Long Island University-Brooklyn before tearing his ACL last season, was granted a sixth year for medical hardship in what seemed like a near guarantee although you can never say that with the NCAA. The case of Otule is still in limbo as Marquette is waiting to hear back from the NCAA after he missed much of the 2008-09 and 2010-11 seasons with injuries. Otule’s numbers may not jump off the page as he only averaged 5.1 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, but he came up big for the team in the NCAA Tournament with two important 11-point performances that helped them advance to the Elite Eight.
5. The Boise State athletic department can at least say their men’s and women’s basketball teams interact with each other after Kenny Buckner, who played his last game for the school in the team’s First Four loss, and Brandi Latrall Henton, a player for the women’s team, were arrested for reportedly stealing food from a store (apparently a Wal-Mart). The two were charged with misdemeanor petit theft and were released after posting bond with their arraignment scheduled for later this month. This is amusing and dumb on some levels as college students presumably still have cafeterias available to them especially athletes on scholarship and it is not like Wal-Mart carries anything outside of possibly alcohol that college students cannot get in a cafeteria. However Hinton is the first Boise State basketball player to be arrested for theft in 2013 along with four men’s players including repeat offender Buckner who is set to be arraigned on April 16 along with three other players for a January arrest where they are accused of stealing several items including DVDs. This appears to be at least the third time Buckner has been arrested for theft. On the positive side with Buckner having finished his college basketball career so the school does not have to worry about suspending him.

1. Normally the day after the NCs AA Championship Game leaves feeling a little empty inside with the long off-season ahead, but last night’s game (and the first half in particular) was so ridiculously good that we are still buzzing from it. College basketball may not be at the same level it was in the 1980s, but as last night demonstrated it can still be amazing. So while we will miss college basketball for the next six month (we count practice) last night was a nice parting gift.
2. Last night may have been huge for Louisville‘s fans in terms of cementing themselves among the nation’s elite programs particularly with the Goliath next door, but according to research by Ryan Brewer, an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus, Cardinal fans have nothing to worry about as their program was  already the most valuable in college basketball. We have not had a chance to analyze the methodology for the valuations and we have seen some pretty ridiculous valuation models over the years (see hundreds of Internet IPOs), but the top 10 looks fairly reasonable even if we don’t agree with the order. If we get a chance to analyze the valuation models in more detail we will post more on it at a later date.
3. The night may have belonged to Louisville, but it was still a special night for 11 other individuals (and Rick Pitino) who were announced as the newest inductees into the Basketball Hall of Fame. The headliners for us were the men’s coaches–Pitino, Jerry Tarkanian, and Guy Lewis–all of whom should have been inducted long ago particularly the latter two. This year’s class may not have the standout name that grabs the headlines like Michael Jordan or the Dream Team have done in recent years, but as usual it should be another memorable class and we cannot say there is anybody in the group with whom we can see anybody making a reasonable argument against induction.
4. There will be plenty of news about players deciding to enter the NBA Draft over the next few days, but players are already transferring and we have noted several over the past few days. The most recent entries into the transfer pool are Pe’Shon Howard who is leaving Maryland and Anrio Adams who initially left Kansas then tried coming back before apparently being told that he was not needed any more. Howard appears to be leaving for family reasons as his grandmother is apparently quite sick. We don’t know all the details of his family situation, but it appears that his grandparents had a big role in raising him and he wants to be near her for his final season of eligibility. The Adams saga is a little more complex and as the above link alludes to Adams brought a lot of this on himself with his use of social media to announce publicly that he was transferring rather than discussing it with the coaching staff.
5. The coaching carousel may already started filling many of its open seats, but the position at Florida Gulf Coast is still open after the surprising departure of Andy Enfield to USC, but it looks like they are narrowing down the list of potential candidates. As you would expect the opening has generated more interest than you would expect for a program of FGCU’s caliber. Perhaps the thought of living in Naples (overrated in our opinion) is attractive to many coaches, but the opening has drawn some big names most notably former NBA coach Eric Musselman, who also submitted his name for consideration for the job in 2011 before being beaten out by Enfield. Personally we think the opening is overrated, but perhaps the appeal of the team’s style might lure some recruits that otherwise would never consider the school.

1. If you though the Rutgers fiasco was  nearing an end you would be wrong. Honestly, we could do an entire Morning Five just on every story that is going on with this case. On Friday, Tim Pernetti‘s letter of resignation was posted on the school’s official site and outside of the usual apology Pernetti claims that he tried to fire Mike Rice, but was stopped by the school. Obviously the school is refuting that, but as The New York Times illustrates the decision on Rice involved more than just Pernetti. Meanwhile, the people back at Robert Morris, Rice’s former employer, will reportedly look into his treatment of players during his time there as new allegations come out that Rice exhibited similar behavior while at Robert Morris. As for the next coach at Rutgers that remains up in the air as Danny Hurley, who was identified as a favorite for the job, appears to be staying at Rhode Island.  The current rumor is that Rutgers is targeting Ben Howland (they might want to read George Dohrmann’s article on Howland’s time at UCLA first) and Howland is interested. Oh, and Eric Murdock (the “good guy” in the entire mess)? He is being investigated by the FBI for possible attempts to extort Rutgers.
2. We would not be shocked if several players transferred from Rutgers in light of what has come to light (and even more what has not been revealed), but we are at a loss for what is going on at Tulane where four players including the team’s top two scorers were granted transfers last week and two more are in the process of doing so. Now the team is in flux and the administration has to be asking serious questions about what is going on with the program. Losing four players is bad enough, but now the program must enter damage control mode to prevent other players from transferring and perhaps more importantly keep recruits interested in coming there. The strange thing about this is that the team had a decent season going 20-15 overall and we haven’t heard any rumblings of improper conduct at the school. Still when half of a team transfers you begin to ask questions.
3. The other big off-court story of last week was the accusation against Ed Rush that he offered officials incentives to call a technical foul on Arizona coach Sean Miller. As we noted in Friday’s Morning Five, Rush stepped down from his post and on Saturday he tried to explain his actions (also available as the full transcript). Rush’s answers are about what you would expect from somebody who said something really dumb whether or not it was a joke. In the end Rush’s problem probably was not the joke, it was his reputation for targeting certain players and teams that made his incentive/joke such a hot button topic.
4. It may not be quite as nasty as the Rutgers story, which is much more fresh, but the fight between Miami and the NCAA is one of the nastier disagreements between the NCAA and a member institution that we can remember. On Friday, The Miami Herald released Miami’s request to the NCAA asking that it drop the case against the school based on a number of procedural errors (cover letter and full request here). The NCAA responded with its own 42-page letter to Miami saying that Miami is attempting to “deflect attention from the significant allegations that remain in the case”. This may be true, but the NCAA has screwed this case up so much that those allegations/acts are overshadowed by the incompetence of the governing body. The NCAA likes to pretend it has legal authority compelling individuals to testify, but doesn’t want the responsibility of acting like anything more than a kangaroo court.
5. The NCAA has been taking a lot of criticism from almost every angle, but as Dan Wetzel points out they hit a home run with their idea to bring the Division II and III Championship games to the Final Four. We have seen several amazing finishes over the years from those games, but very few of them live and never in person as the events tend to get relatively few fans as they try to compete with the Division I Championship for fans and that will clearly never work if they are looking for big numbers. So this year the NCAA decided to bring the fans to those games and as an added bonus made the tickets free. With the games being played on the Sunday between the Final Four game days it should continue to bring in quite a few fans exposing them to players and programs that they otherwise would never have seen play in person.

1. If you need a timeline for how the whole Mike Rice fiasco went down Don Van Natta Jr. has a excellent story on it and honestly every side of it seems dirty. In addition to the allegation that Eric Murdoch demanded nearly $1 million–nearly 14 times his annual salary–for his termination after missing a camp hosted by Rice the article also points out that Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti was likely working out the details on Rutgers move to the Big Ten when the video evidence came across his desk, which probably played a role in his light punishment of Rice at the time. We are sure that more heads will roll as this story unfolds with the most recent one being assistant coach Jimmy Martelli–son of St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli, who had his own off-court issues with a former player (see the Todd O’Brien saga)–who resigned for what has been described as similar behavior. Finally, as if you needed any more reason to shake your head at how Rutgers handled this situation Rice will receive a $100,000 parting gift/bonus for having completed the 2012-13 season, which he would not have received if he had been fired when the Pernetti first saw the now infamous tape.
2. We are not quite sure what to make of Mark Emmert‘s bizarre press conference yesterday [“full” edited transcript here] other that perhaps he was trying to show everybody that incompetence and egoism is not just limited to the administrations of the member institutions, but is also present within their governing body. At this point we do not understand the motivation for the NCAA to keep someone who has presided over repeated failures to even finish what should have been easy cases and managed to act so rashly that many people feel that they were too hard on a school that covered up years of ongoing pedophilia. Replacing Emmert will not fix all of the NCAA’s problems, but it would be a nice place to start.
3. It took the Pac-12 a little longer than Rutgers to come to its senses after being publicly outed, but Pac-12 Coordinator of Men’s Basketball Officiating Ed Rush resigned yesterday in response to reports that he offered gifts to officials if they would give Arizona coach Sean Miller a technical foul in a game that they did call a questionable technical foul (Miller’s only one of the season) that may have changed the outcome of the game. As we pointed out earlier in the week there was no way that Rush could keep his job and his resignation is nothing more than the conference offering him a way to save face. The problem for the conference is that this will remain an issue as fans, coaches, and players will continue to believe that some officials have a personal vendetta against them and now they have some evidence that it does happen.
4. This weekend when the announcers try to sell you on some heartwarming story about a family having to pay their way to watch their son play in the Final Four you can soak it up, but remember that it might not be true. Since 1999 the NCAA has had a Division I Student Assistance Fund that allows schools to “assist student-athletes with special financial needs” that are supposed to be academic, but can also be used for clothing and last year Ohio State and Kentucky used it to help bring the families of players to the Final Four. During the 2010-11 academic/athletic year, the NCAA reports that it paid out $66.1 million. As the article points out these funds have been used for a variety of sometimes strange things, but perhaps the more surprising thing is that many families do not know about it and many schools do not use it to help out the families and players (ok, maybe the last part is not that surprising).
5. Even if you are not a fan of advanced metrics you should be able to appreciate Shane Ryan’s in-depth piece analyzing how many key stats were created and the story behind the individuals who helped create them. Before we read this piece we had no idea how the fragmented recording statistics had been as recently as the Wooden era and should raise questions about any stats that you hear about that predate “The World’s Greatest Stats Crew”. We also wonder if there was nearly as much opposition to the way that they recorded statistics as we see from today’s old guard towards new advanced metrics.

1. It took at least four months longer than it should have, but Rutgers finally fired Mike Rice yesterday. The obvious reason for the dismissal is the (justified) public outrage towards Rice’s behavior even as the school’s administration and in particular Athletic Director Tim Pernetti tried to save face and justify their attempt to rehabilitate Rice. Of course, we don’t believe that for a second and Pernetti’s explanation is nothing more than trying to explain away the fact that if these tapes had not been released publicly Rice would still be the coach at Rutgers. As the New Jersey legislature is clearly aware something more needs to be done. Whether or not that happens when powerful people meet in back rooms remains to be seen, but we cannot imagine that Pernetti will be able to keep his job after this. because  As for the actual job opening, which seems to be a distant secondary issue here, it appears that Rutgers is targeting Danny Hurley to be its next coach. We are assuming that the Rutgers administration will look at Hurley’s previous work turning Wagner into a 25-5 team instead of the 8-21 season his Rhode Island team had this season. Or at least the fact that he does not have a record of using homophobic slurs and hurling basketballs at his players.
2. If you want an idea of how fickle coaching loyalty can be we would direct you to Miami radio where yesterday morning Richard Pitino was on talking about his Florida International program then a few hours later he was being announced as the next coach at Minnesota. Pitino, who spent just one season at FIU where he led the school to an 18-14 record and an appearance in the Sun Belt Conference Championship Game after shocking Middle Tennessee State, still has another five years left on his contract and reportedly will have to pay a $250,000 buyout, which should be pretty easy for him to pull together with the likely multi-million dollar contract headed his way. We aren’t quite sold on the hire despite Pitino’s season (singular) of (relative) success. Obviously his last name carries a lot of weight and he probably has a reference list that includes nearly every major coach in the country, but it is a big leap from the Sun Belt to Big Ten in one season.
3. You can call Marshall Henderson a lot of things and you can be certain that most of the negative things have been said by opposing SEC fan bases during Ole Miss’ road games, but you cannot say that he is not entertaining. His “Letter to Rebel Nation” is not nearly as entertaining as the infamous Auburn GIF, but it is interesting to see him be somewhat contrite and introspective. For a player with Henderson’s background it is somewhat surprising to see that he is able to think so deeply about his game and behavior and shows a depth of maturity that we never expected him to exhibit at such a young age. Ok, who are we kidding? That was obviously written by the athletic department with Henderson contributing the “Hotty Toddy” and his name. Have you seen his Twitter account?
4. This season’s final power rankings from Luke Winn are a little lighter than usual, but that is probably because he only has four teams to rank. Of course, Winn still manages to pack a lot of useful information into a limited amount of space. Unlike his usual sixteen team rankings Winn is not afforded much space to build up themes like he usually does, but he does provide an interesting look at how Nik Stauskas might fare against the Syracuse zone defense and how he would be best served positioning himself around the three-point arc. The other great nugget this week is his look at each team’s offensive efficiency coming out of timeouts, which might come into play this weekend. Or it might not if the Final Four is similar to the competitiveness of many of the games we have seen in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.
5. If you are looking for this year’s big NBA Draft story, you might want to stop watching the men’s basketball tournament and turn your eyes to the women’s tournament and Britney Griner. What’s that? Her team already lost? Well that hasn’t stopped Mark Cuban from offering yet another plea for attention as he has come out and said that he would consider drafting Griner in the second round of this year’s NBA Draft. We are not here to disparage Griner or her game, which is one of the most dominant we have seen in women’s basketball, but she would get ripped apart in men’s college basketball much less the NBA. If Cuban or another owner wants to give her a shot in training camp that is his choice (and money), but using a draft pick would be a waste of a potentially valuable commodity and something even someone like Cuban, who is a very intelligent businessman while still craving s the spotlight, would not be dumb enough to do.

1. It looks like the coaching carousel should be an opening in New Jersey pretty soon after video surfaced of Mike Rice berating players and throwing basketballs at them during several practices at Rutgers. By now pretty much every sports fan has seen it and the only question we have at this point is why Rice still has a job. When Rice was suspended for three games back in December for his behavior in practice we had no idea what could have led to that level of punishment as it appeared too harsh for something minor and too soft for something significant. It turns out the latter was true. Now we understand that emotions can sometimes get the better of us and make us do dumb things, but this was not an isolated incident as the videos show Rice acting this way on multiple occasions. At this point Rutgers has to fire Rice or should be shunned by every recruit in America not only in basketball, but instead in all sports as the lack of concern the administration has for the athletes, who are in no position to stand up for themselves, is appalling.
2. Speaking of incompetence at the highest levels, USA Today has a pretty impressive takedown of Mark Emmert looking at his career of failing upwards. As the article points out, failure and scandal seem to follow Emmert, but like any good politician he manages to deftly avoid him. The fact that he has done so poorly at so many things may just reflect his incompetence, but the fact that he has done so and still manages to be critical of others for similar faults suggests a more manipulative, sinister side to Emmert than many would expect. If there was any question about Emmert’s ability to lead (and to push blame onto others), this article should answer those.
3. If you are not a lawyer or have not been following the Ed O’Bannon case that closely, the primer that Andy Staples put together on the case and its potential implications is a great way to get up to speed. As some athletic directors have said this case could lead to a profound change in the business of college athletics including the way they are played. The case, which was initially thought of as little more than a legal curiosity, has come to strike fear in many in the NCAA and in athletic departments all over the country. If O’Bannon is successful in his case, it could change college athletics as we know it. As Staples points out the next big date in this case is June 20 and after that we should know a lot more about how this case may turn.
4. As we mentioned earlier the Rutgers job should be opening up pretty soon, but there was some more news on the mid-major front (yes, we meant that) as Jimmy Patsos announced that he was leaving Loyola (MD) for Siena. Patsos, who helped turn around Loyola, apparently beat out a fairly competitive pool of candidates and will be introduced as the coach at a press conference tomorrow. At Siena, Patsos will be inheriting a once powerful mid-major that has fallen off rapidly with the departure of former coach Fran McCaffery. We aren’t sure if Patsos can get the program to the heights it saw under McCaffery, but he can certainly lift it above where it has been since McCaffery’s departure.
5. When they decide to fix all the loopholes in transfer waiver policies one day they will use Trey Zeigler as an example of how they can go wrong. The one-time Central Michigan star transferred to Pittsburgh after last season and was granted a waiver–citing his father’s firing from Central Michigan–allowing him to play for Pittsburgh without having to sit out a year. It turns out that Pittsburgh didn’t fit him that well (and we are not just talking about his DUI in November) as Zeigler will seek to transfer again after less than a year at Pittsburgh. We are not sure what the specifics are behind Zeigler’s transfer are, but we suspect they are related to his drop in scoring from nearly 16 points per game in his first two years at Central Michigan to 4.4 points per game at Pittsburgh as he saw his minutes more than cut in half. We would guess that Zeigler is headed back to a mid-major where he can be the focal point of an offense and will be playing against lower caliber competition.