Player Name: Marcus Morris

School: Kansas

Height/Weight: 6’9/230 lbs.

NBA Position: Power Forward

Projected Draft Range: Mid- to Late Lottery

Overview: On a roster full of potential first round draft picks, Marcus Morris established himself as the team’s top player. Although the team did not live up to expectations as it fell in the Elite 8 to a hot VCU team, anybody following Marcus had to consider this year a major step for him individually as he was named Big 12 Player of the Year and 2nd team All-American while averaging 17.2 PPG on 57% FG and 7.6 RPG. In doing so, he exhibited an ability to not only play inside, but also an ability shoot from outside. Although he will never be a major threat from the perimeter (and he is not as good of a shooter as his twin brother Markieff–34.2% versus 42.4%) his shooting has progressed to the point where a NBA team would have to at least respect his outside shot and bring a forward outside to put a hand in his face. The big question for Marcus will be whether he is big enough to battle inside with NBA power forwards or if he will fall into the dreaded “tweener” category. If he does fall into that group he may lack the perimeter skills necessary to compete against NBA small forwards, but he may be able to make up for it because of his “motor” and willingness to battle all over the court.

Marcus has the skills to play in the NBA, but can he battle inside?

Will Translate to the NBA: Marcus will probably end up being one of those versatile all-court power forwards in the NBA, which traditionally has been a warning sign for NBA executives, but in recent years has become in vogue with several solid NBA players adopting such styles. At times Marcus could play at either the 3 or 4 position, which could be a blessing or a curse in that he could fill either position depending on the situation, but it could also expose him to mismatches in certain situations. He probably will never be a superstar and might not even become a perennial All-Star, but he should be a solid rotation player even if his physical limitations (height and explosiveness) limit his ability to become a major impact player.

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1. Earlier this year Washington‘s Venoy Overton was involved in a salacious case where he was accused of statutory rape before local police decided not to pursue the case further. Now it appears that Overton has found himself in trouble again as he was arrested yesterday afternoon for promoting prostitution. According to police reports, an 18 year-old female was questioned for “prostitution activity” and told police that her boyfriend, Overton, brought her there and told her to engage in prostitution. According to the female, Overton gave her specific instructions on what acts to perform, what to charge, and what percentage he took. Lorenzo Romar, who took quite a bit of heat this season after letting Overton return to the Huskies after his prior run-in with law, issued the following statement: “I have been informed of the arrest of Venoy Overton and I am extremely disappointed.  My staff and I spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy attempting to mentor Venoy prior to his recent graduation, so this news is especially troubling.” Overton, who graduated on Saturday with a degree in American Ethnic studies, is expected to appear before a judge today.
2. The guys at Lost Letterman caught up with former prep star Lenny Cooke recently. For those of you who not aware Cooke was one of the premier high school players in the country in the Class of 2002 and considered by many to be at the same level as two more well-known players in his class–Amar’e Stoudamire and Carmelo Anthony. Through a series of bad decisions and unfortunate events Cooke never played a minute in college or the NBA. Today, Cooke’s legacy will probably come from the 2001 ABCD Camp where Cooke, a rising senior, was matched up against a hyped rising junior named LeBron James in what was supposed to be a match-up for the ages. Unfortunately for Cooke, LeBron, who was already demonstrating his knack for coming up big in big moments (wait, what?), destroyed Cooke on both ends of the floor to start the LeBron hype machine going full force while Cooke began his rapid fall.
3. It appears that Virginia coach Tony Bennett may almost be ready to turn the Cavalier program around with a solid group of recruits. Virginia, which had been one of the better programs in the ACC during the 1990s, has only made the NCAA Tournament once in the past decade. After a 7-9 record in an admittedly weak year for the ACC, Bennett could have the Cavaliers primed to be a sleeper in the conference and could challenge the second tier of teams (the ones not named Duke or UNC) in the very near future.
4. Earlier this week we linked to a column by Dana O’Neil talking about the difficult jobs of college basketball assistant coaches. Yesterday, Ohio State‘s Brandon Miller, considered by many to be one of the top assistant coaches in college basketball, stepped down citing a need to spend more time with his family. Although it isn’t an ideal time to try to find a new assistant coach with the summer recruiting season about to heat up, the Buckeyes recruiting should not suffer too much as Thad Matta already has two experienced assistants in Jeff Boals and Dave Dickerson and could potentially promote newly hired video coordinator Greg Paulus to take Miller’s place.
5. When Oliver Purnell took over at DePaul last year it was widely considered one of the tougher rebuilding projects in America, but had some potential with the ability to recruit local Chicago high school players. While Purnell did have some success in his first year (winning the school’s first Big East game after a 24-game losing streak and its first road conference win since 2008) it was a very difficult year again for the Blue Demons. Things may get even tougher for Purnell as he will have to replace both Devin Hill and Eric Wallace who have decided to leave the program with Hill leaving for Loyola and Wallace leaving for Ohio State.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• 3′s Company | #3 Allan Chaney to Play Next Season: “TechHoops.com has it on good authority that #3 Allan Chaney will suit up for the Hokies next season. The 6’9″, 235 lbs. forward, who has been battling a heart ailment for the last year that kept him off the court, would add a big time low post presence to an inexperienced Virginia Tech team. Word on the street is he may even get back the year he lost due to his condition, perhaps making him just a sophomore next year.” (Tech Hoops)
  

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1. Yesterday was a busy day for former UConn forward Jamal Coombs-McDaniel as he not only received a deal from a judge allowing him to enter a state-run drug education program that would leave him without a criminal record (outside of the Internet) and he announced that he would be transferring to Hofstra where he will join former UConn assistant Patrick Sellars (the one who was thrown under the bus in the Nate Miles fiasco).
2. We are only week away from the NBA Draft and most pundits expect the Cleveland Cavaliers to select Kyrie Irving with the #1 overall pick. Even though most people consider this a weak year overall there are a few people who are quite high on Irving. Basketball Prospectus is apparently high enough on him to write an a post comparing him to Derrick Rose. We don’t think that Irving is even close to the prospect that Rose was coming out of his freshman year (the comparison is probably based on most similar game rather than potential), but it is an interesting analysis.
3. Over the years Dick Vitale has become somewhat of a lightning rod for fans upset about perceived biases against their teams so much so that they often forget that he was a pretty good college coach (and a lousy pro coach). Detroit, the school that he coached at from 1973-77 and led to the NCAA Tournament in 1977, has announced that it will be naming its court as “Dick Vitale Court at Calihan Hall” during the school’s nationally televised game against St. John’s on December 5, 2011 (more on it here from RTC). We are sort of on the fence with this one. On one hand the program does not have a great track record of success and Vitale got them to the NCAA Tournament, but on the other hand it could be interpreted to be a desperate plea to garner some national attention.
4. We have been writing about “package deals” for several years now dating back to the sketchy Michael Beasley–Dalonte Hill deal, but assumed that they were going to be less frequent with the NCAA trying to be more vigilant on all fronts. It turns that belief might have been a bit premature as some are questioning a potential assistant coaching job offer to the father of 2012 recruit J-Mychal Reese. According to some reports J-Mychal’s father has offers from Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and LSU. Although he does have nearly a decade of experience as a high school coach some are questioning it and it should be worth following over the next year.
5. UTEP rising sophomore John Bohannon got himself into a mess over the weekend with an anti-gay tweet stating “#letsbereal it is NOT cool to be gay! (Zro voice) *jordan shrug*.” Bohannon subsequently deleted the tweet and posted another tweet stating “To those who were offended by my tweet a few days ago- Didn’t mean any disrespect by it as I do not judge anybody by their sexual preference and would hope you would not judge me by one tweet. Thank You.” UTEP has not issued a comment other than that Bohannon reportedly issued the original tweet in reference to a lyric by rapper Z-Ro that stated “Seems like today, it’s cool to be gay.” Within the UTEP student community response has been mixed, but mostly negative, which is not too surprising. We are sure that Bohannon will be reminded of this at a more than a few road games during his college career.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Mark Turgeon: Maryland’s Personnel “Not Where It Needs to Be”, May Go Four Guards: “No one doubts that Mark Turgeon is inheriting a not-great situation at Maryland, at least in the first season, but I have to say I didn’t expect him to say as much.” (Testudo Times)
  
• Dwayne Polee transfers to San Diego State: “As you know, Dwayne Polee II, the skinny jumping jack who was Steve Lavin’s first recruit to the St. John’s program, decided to transfer from the Red Storm program to be closer to his sick mother… though the playing time crunch at the wing was also a factor.” (Rumble in the Garden)
• Fab Melo Court Case Pushed Back To June 23: The rising sophomore will be in court in a little over a week. (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Harrison + God’sGift getting ready on campus: “Good news to hear: D’Angelo Harrison has come by the St. John’s campus to work out, and God’sGift Achiuwa is on campus in summer classes.” (Rumble in the Garden)
• Scoop Jardine Blogs About Chris Paul Camp, Missed Flights, Bowling: Selected highlights from Scoop’s latest blogs. (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)

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1. Everybody applauded Shaka Smart a few months ago when he turned down the allure of programs with bigger names to stay at VCU with the hopes of building an elite program there. He may do that, but it looks like he will need to do it with a new coaching staff as Radford snapped up VCU assistant Mike Jones and Boston University is apparently strongly considering another VCU assistant, Mike Rhoades. As for Jones, he may have a difficult time cleaning up the mess left by former coach Brad Greenberg, who resigned after numerous irregularities were discovered within the program.
2. For much of the past year college fans have been inundated by rumors about conference realignment. One move that definitely stayed under our radar was Seattle moving to the WAC. The move that will become official in the 2012-13 academic year will allow the men’s basketball program, coached by former UCLA point guard Cameron Dollar, to compete at the Division 1 level in the first year that they are eligible for the NCAA Tournament. While most fans are not that familiar with the Seattle program, they do have an impressive pedigree if you are willing to go back nearly 50 years. In 1958, led by Elgin Baylor, they made it to the NCAA Championship game before losing to Kentucky, 82-74, and in 1966 they handed Texas Western (yes, the Glory Road team) its only loss of the season in their last game before the NCAA Tournament. The current Seattle team is significantly less talented, but should be aided by the depleted WAC, which will see Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada leave the conference in the next two seasons.
3. When Missouri hired Frank Haith after the season ended they were widely ridiculed (ok, we were in that group), but it looks like he is making some significant moves with the addition of Auburn transfer Earnest Ross (13.1 PPG and 6.6 RPG as part of an anemic offense last season) and he is reportedly in the hunt for UConn transfer Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Pepperdine transfer Keion Bell (yes, the guy who dunked over seven people). If Haith can land that trio, the media ridicule about the hire may soften although questions about his in-game coaching will remain.
4. When Dwayne Polee announced that he was transferring from St. John’s several weeks ago we speculated that it might have had something to do with the influx of talent that Steve Lavin was bringing to the Red Storm. Yesterday, Polee announced that he was transferring to San Diego State and was applying for a hardship waiver (his mother has a medical condition requiring surgery) that would allow him to play for the Aztecs next year. Although Polee had a disappointing freshman campaign this is a big signing for Steve Fisher and could help the team transition from Kawhi Leonard era to the future if Polee can find his game again now that he is back in California.
5. Last night we went on a Twitter rant questioning the public’s anger at LeBron James for not fulfilling his potential (or at least what we perceive it to be), but we won’t question the existence of the widespread hatred of James and his current Heat team. Even before the season began, Sports Illustrated released a list of the top 25 most hated teams of all-time and had the Heat, who had yet to play a game together as the 25th most hated team of all-time. We are sure they would move up the list if it was done again today, but we were surprised to see that three college basketball teams–1983-84 Georgetown at #23, 1991-92 Duke at #12, and 1989-90 UNLV at #9–were rated ahead of the Heat. We aren’t exactly sure where the Heat would rank if the list were done again today, but we are guessing that they would rank higher than all three of those teams.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• The NCAA And UK In A Row Over Calipari’s 500th Win: “In spite of receiving what appeared to be clearance from the NCAA to recognize John Calipari’s 500th win earlier this year, the Committee on Infractions is essentially attempting to revoke that go ahead, and has threatened UK if they do not change their earlier statement.” (A Sea of Blue)
• Perea says neither Adams, Elite influenced decision: The 2012 uber-recruit responds to allegations about his recruitment. (Inside the Hall)
• Cal Wants Terrence Jones To Be Like Derrick Williams: “Calipari said that Jones’ decision to return indicates that he’s ready to be challenged to be the best player in the country and elaborated by saying that he wants him to transform like former Arizona player Derrick Williams.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)
  
• Royce Woolridge Transferring to WSU: “Just when you thought you could sleep at night, no longer worrying about basketball scholarship numbers, Ken Bone and company go and land another player. Former Kansas Jayhawk guard Royce Woolridge announced Friday he will be bringing his talents to Pullman, Wash.” (Coug Center)

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1. In one of the more ridiculous controversies that we can remember the NCAA has apparently notified Kentucky that it was unhappy with the school’s decision to honor John Calipari for winning his 500th game on February 26th after beating Florida. Calling the ceremony “troubling”, “extremely troubling”, and “very troubling” the NCAA asserted that because Calipari’s 1996 NCAA Tournament run with UMass and the entire 2007-2008 Memphis season were vacated he actually has 42 less wins than the school claims he has. The entire debate is sort of boring on its face, but you can be sure that Wildcat fans will use it as ammunition for their claims that the NCAA is out to get their program.
2. The announcement by NCAA President Mark Emmert that he would be convening a retreat for around 50 college presidents to discuss the current state of the intercollegiate athletics might not generate a lot of buzz right now, but you should definitely keep an eye on it because there is a chance we could have some monumental decisions come out of that meeting. Normally I think these type of retreats are useless and essentially function as a big tax write-off, but in light of some recent proposals (particularly the discussion by the Big Ten to pay some student-athletes) and some major scandals (first at USC and now at Ohio State) the stage is certainly set for the NCAA and the universities to make a stand. Given their track record they probably won’t, but now would be a great time to start.
3. Dana O’Neil published a piece over the weekend about the lives of NCAA assistant coaches and the sacrifices that they have to make while trying to climb up the coaching ladder. While most of the news about basketball coaches is about the huge contracts or the NCAA violations in reality most of them are working very hard for a lot smaller sums than many would expect even if we wouldn’t claim that they are struggling to survive. It is an interesting look at their day-to-day lives and is definitely worth a read.
4. One of the reporters from Scout caught up with UNC point guard Kendall Marshall at Chris Paul’s CP3 Elite Guard Camp and got a pretty good interview with the rising sophomore. Outside of the usual stuff (how long it took to get over the UK loss, wanting to win a title, etc) the thing that caught our eye was that Marshall claims that Harrison Barnes has shown the most improvement of any of the UNC players over the offseason. If that is true and Barnes can come close to being as good as he was hyped as being, the Tar Heels could be even more ridiculous than we expect them to being coming into the season.
5. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced the field and game times for its 2011 Tip-Off Tournament that will feature Kentucky, South Florida, Penn State, Old Dominion, Vermont, Long Island, Marist, and Radford. The Tournament features a pretty odd format that is built around a set of games on the weekend of November 19th-20th, but also features games during the week preceding and following that weekend. It all seems very complicated, but let us simplify it for you: Kentucky should crush all of these teams.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 23, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night. There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: Jimmer Fredette

School: BYU

Height/Weight: 6’2/195 lbs.

NBA Position: Point Guard

Projected Draft Range: Mid-First Round

Overview: After spending much of his junior year as a relatively under-the-radar star that only true hoop junkies appreciated, Fredette burst onto the national stage with a series of scintillating performances that turned him into a cult hero  where you could refer to him as just “Jimmer” and everybody would know who you were talking about (ok, maybe his unique name helped with that last part). Fredette’s skills were most evident in a home game against San Diego State where he lit up the Aztecs for 43 points and later in the Mountain West Tournament when he torched New Mexico for 52 points. For all of Fredette’s gifts as a scorer there are major concerns about every other area of his game. The most notable issue is his matador defense that could become a major liability at the next level if he is asked to defend an opposing point guard for any extended period. There are also concerns about his abilities to run a NBA offense against any level of pressure. Because of the stark contrast between certain NBA All-Star level skills (his shooting and scoring abilities) and his D-league skills (defense), Fredette remains one of the most intriguing prospects in the 2011 NBA Draft.

Can Jimmer make the transition to the NBA?

Will Translate to the NBA: Jimmer appears to fit a very specific role in the NBA in our eyes: a scorer who can come off the bench and score in bunches, or, at the very least, stretch opposing defenses to give his team an ability to attack the rim or feed the post. He will probably play as a point guard, but his primary function will be instant offense and he will probably have to rely on another player to act as the primary initiator of the offense to take some of the load off of him. He will probably struggle on defense unless his team can hide him with a zone defense (or something similar), limiting his minutes, but there are plenty of NBA players who are sub-par defenders that remain in the league and play meaningful minutes so it is easy to imagine Fredette staying in the league for a number of years.

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1. One of the main topics of discussion that has come out of the NBA Finals has been the continuing confounding play of LeBron James. There have been several theories proposed about why James has apparently failed to live up to the hype on the NBA’s biggest stage. Some of the theories are personal (founded on such flimsy rumors that we won’t even reprint them here) while others are about his willingness to assert himself as the dominant presence on the team. One of the more controversial (yet non-libelous) theories from this weekend was that LeBron’s failures are due to not having learned under the crucible of the NCAA Tournament. The theory, which was proposed by Mike DeCourcy, sparked a minor firestorm on Twitter over the weekend. Although another editor on the RTC Twitter feed appears to have agreed with DeCourcy, the opinion is not universal among the RTC chiefs. While I can agree that James and some other prep-to-pros might have had improved areas of their game playing at the college level I have a hard time using a sweeping statement that says that everybody (or even James) would necessarily have been better off having experienced college basketball (yes, it hurts to say that as a college basketball site). For every flaw in LeBron’s game that we can see (there aren’t many) we can point to twice as many in most four-year college players who played under some of the finest coaching minds that college basketball has seen. While DeCourcy’s argument will spark some debates it is too simplistic to really capture the difference between the prep-to-pros and the 4-year players.
2. Speaking of college players making the transition to the pros, it appears that several of the biggest names in college basketball last season are having difficulty adjusting to the rigors of the NBA Draft work-out sessions. We have heard many reports of prospects dropping out of workouts followed by reports that the prospect had already been given a guarantee at a higher spot. Unless those prospects are Kyrie Irving or Derrick Williams don’t buy into any reports of a guarantee this year. The post also has some interesting notes on Kawhi Leonard and Brandon Knight as well as a few other players.
3. The saga of Tony Woods seems like it won’t end. The former Wake Forest forward who was dismissed from the team after a domestic violence charge has been drawing a lot of attention from some big names like Kentucky, Louisville, and Texas. However, some analysts (Rick Bozich in particular) think that the hype for Woods has been way overblown and some teams will be lucky to have not signed him. Any team would welcome some with the talent of Woods, but the question becomes is whether the potential off-court trouble is worth it. That is a question the various coaching staffs will need to answer themselves.
4. Tennessee went before the NCAA over the weekend and one of the people called to speak was former coach Bruce Pearl. The testimony, which is essentially sealed for now, will be the only meeting between the two sides before the NCAA hands down its penalties later this summer. This was important not only for the entire Tennessee athletic department, but also Pearl, who many expect will receive the show-cause penalty, which has served as the death knell for many promising coaching careers.
5. Just when you thought all of the recruiting for the class of 2011 was done it turns out that yet another previously committed player has reopened his commitment. This time is was Merv Lindsay, who had orally committed to Texas Tech back in April before Pat Knight was fired. Lindsay visited Kansas on Friday and reportedly enjoyed his visit there. Although Lindsay doesn’t have the typical pedigree for a Jayhawk recruit (wasn’t even in the Rivals top 150) Bill Self has an open scholarship after DeAndre Daniels decided to go to UConn so Lindsay may end up playing in Lawrence if he decides the place is right for him.