Morning Five: 06.21.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on June 21st, 2013

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  1. Billy Donovan did not come out and say that Scottie Wilbekin will be on next year’s Florida team, but his statement regarding the specifics of Wilbekin’s suspension suggest that it should not be too hard for Wilbekin to continue to play in Gainesville. Wilbekin is not allowed to workout with the team, but is allowed to lift weights on his own and workout with the coaching staff. Given those details we would be surprised if Wilbekin is not back with the team next season unless he does something dumb (again).
  2. There was a lot of action in the ongoing Ed O’Bannon lawsuit even if the actual trial has not started yet. You can read an excellent recap of yesterday’s action courtesy of Stewart Mandel. The most interesting aspect that came out yesterday was that there will be current athletes involved in the case. We are not going to go so far as to call these individuals trail blazers, but we imagine that any current athletes that join this lawsuit can expect to have the NCAA investigating everything about their recruitment and eligibility.
  3. You might want to hold back on those WNBA jokes around the new Big East commissioner. That is if the report from ESPN is true that Val Ackerman, the former WNBA commissioner, is in negotiations to become the next commissioner of the Big East. You may have heard Ackerman’s name mentioned recently for her report on how to improve women’s college basketball. Looking through Ackerman’s credentials she appears to be a pretty competitive candidate for the job and would appear to be a good fit for a job in a turbulent market with teams shifting conferences quite frequently although it will be interesting to see how a high-level female administrator would be accepted in an area that tends to be dominated by older males.
  4. When we saw an article about Wichita State beating Gonzaga pop-up in our RSS Reader yesterday we assumed it was some glitch sending an article from March, but it turns out that it was not. Instead, Andy Glockner decided to take a look back at the Shockers ridiculous 23-point outburst in 9 possessions that led to another disappointing early exit for Gonzaga. This sequence will not be talked about for years (most of you outside of the Spokane area probably have already forgotten about it), but it was one of the more remarkable things you will see.
  5. This year’s NBA Finals led to quite a bit of debate about the way that basketball is played/taught in the US and overseas. As you would have expected this led to quite a bit of bitter discussion from certain groups, but in reality is that there is probably something to be gained from exposure to both world. One example of this is Khadeem Lattin, a highly rated recruit who spent his sophomore year of high school in Spain. In the short term, the lack of exposure to US high school basketball scouts led to Lattin’s stock dropping, but as Jeff Borzello points out Lattin’s improved game and increased maturity could lead to bigger long-term gains for Lattin.

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Morning Five: 06.20.13 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on June 20th, 2013

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  1. Today’s biggest news in the college athletics world is likely to come down from Oakland, California, as a federal judge is expected to rule on a motion from Ed O’Bannon‘s legal team that would certify his lawsuit against the NCAA into a class action. We’ll have more on the importance of this topic later this morning, but the long and short of it is that if the motion is granted it would open the door for literally thousands of past and present athletes to sue the NCAA for the use of their likeness for, oh, the last four or five decades. The experts are mixed in evaluating what this could ultimately mean, but needless to say that the Doomsday Scenario — an end to the NCAA’s amateurism model of business — is on the table here. SI.com‘s sports law expert, Michael McCann, gives a really nice overview of what’s at stake out in the Bay Area later today.
  2. While on the subject of the West Coast, the San Jose Mercury News‘ Jon Wilner published a previously confidential email related to the O’Bannon case that outlines just how much money the Pac-12 stands to make with its television deal with ESPN/FOX. His estimate based on some number-crunching might include a tad of wishful thinking, but between the television contracts and anticipated BCS and NCAA Tournament payouts, as well as revenue from the new Pac-12 Networks, it wouldn’t surprise him if the total annual take-homes for the members approached nearly $40-50 million. Larry Scott may not be winning championships yet, but he certainly seems to be winning the business of college sports. Take that, SEC and Big Ten?
  3. Rick Pitino once wrote a book called “Success is a Choice.” Apparently he chose — or maybe it was the basketball gods he thought were promising him Tim Duncan — to not succeed in Boston as the head coach of the Celtics. Some years later, he went on to say that “the biggest mistake” he had ever made in his career was to leave Kentucky (or, as he called it, “Camelot.”). He now disagrees with himself. Last week Pitino told a group of Louisville local businessmen last week that, actually, leaving Lexington for the Celtics was the best move he ever made because his failure in Boston taught him humility. Of course, nobody knows what he really thinks about much of anything — the guy flip-flops better than the best politicians — but maybe give him a few more years and he’ll tell a group of Providence denizens that he should have never left there either.
  4. We honestly cannot imagine a scenario where Alabama forward Devonta Pollard will be allowed to return to the team next season, but there were dueling reports on Wednesday about whether he was still officially on the team. CBSSports.com reported from a source internal to the program that he was no longer enrolled in Tuscaloosa, while ESPN.com later reported (from presumably a different source) that Pollard is in fact still on the squad until his legal troubles are settled. Given the alleged fact pattern surrounding his charges — that he assisted his mother in the kidnapping of a 6-year old girl — we’re going to go out on a big limb and assume he will not be back. And frankly, if he is convicted of such an irresponsible crime, he shouldn’t get a second chance to play ball anywhere.
  5. They say that you can’t go home again, but that doesn’t stop most of us from trying to remember and, in some cases, re-live the past. New UCLA head coach and Indiana legend Steve Alford manages to find time in his busy schedule each summer to return to the Hoosier State and run a camp for elementary school children at D-III Franklin College. Although the expectations on him at his new job in Westwood are enormous, he is using this week to get back home and recharge his batteries around familiar, and supportive, faces. He won’t have a very long leash at UCLA, even next season, so this is probably a pretty good idea on his part.

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Morning Five: 06.19.13 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on June 19th, 2013

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  1. You may just be wiping the epic Game 6 of the Spurs-Heat out of your blurry eyes this morning, but it turns out that all the stars and incredible plays by the professionals making plays in The Finals doesn’t represent the only wow-factor surrounding the basketball world this week. As CBSSports.com‘s Gary Parrish reported yesterday, Canadian wunderkind Andrew Wiggins showed up in Lawrence, Kansas, for the his year-in-residence earlier this week, and already the reviews of the superstar recruit’s work ethic and talent are off the charts. Good news for Jayhawks fans: According to this KUSports.com report, the school also announced on Tuesday that its new contract with Time Warner to broadcast its third-tier television rights will ensure that Kansas fans around the country (and general college basketball fans wanting to see Wiggins) have more access than ever before (you have to read through the comments to understand it, but it’s there).
  2. Georgetown basketball hasn’t had the best 2013 thus far, given the embarrassing defeat to Florida Gulf Coast in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament, the subsequent loss of superstar Otto Porter to the NBA, and Tuesday’s devastating news that rising star Greg Whittington — who was academically ineligible for the spring semester, missing the FCGU debacle — has torn the ACL in his left knee and could be out for all of next season. In 13 games last season, the lithe Whittington averaged 12/7 along the front line as he and Porter shored up John Thompson III’s lockdown defense. Even without the return of Porter, good things were predicted for next year’s Hoyas with Whittington joining returnees Markel Starks, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, and Nate Lubick as a talented and experienced core to compete in the new Big East. Without Whittington available, Georgetown appears to be a bit light on offensive ability unless someone unforeseen steps up.
  3. A couple of years ago, we wrote this piece about an “all-world junior” at UNC-Asheville who happened to be the high-rising son of Grammy-winning rock legend Bruce Hornsby. Keith Hornsby enjoyed a pedestrian but solid freshman campaign before exploding to become a second team all-Big South selection as a sophomore, where he averaged 15/4/3 APG while shooting 38 percent from deep and a ridiculous 92.5 percent (second nationally) from the foul line. With the resignation of his head coach Eddie Biedenbach after the season, Hornsby decided it was time to move on. He announced on Tuesday that he will transfer to LSU, choosing the Tigers over NC State and St. Mary’s. Although he must sit out the required transfer year, this is potentially a very nice transfer pickup for Tigers’ head coach Johnny Jones, who is accumulating a good amount of talent down in Baton Rouge.
  4. Stories like these are part of the reason we love college basketball. Meet Elfrid Payton, one of the 12 players to make the U-19 USA Basketball team. The rising junior at Louisiana-Lafayette had absurd all-around numbers last season — 16/6/6 APG/2 SPG as an all-Sun Belt second team selection — but it was his play in the Team USA tryouts that has been turning people’s heads. As Mike DeCourcy reports, Payton’s exceptional athletic ability on the defensive end allows him to guard three positions along the perimeter, and his offensive talents have ensured that he will find playing time on a group that includes Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart, Duke’s Rasheed Sulaimon, and Washington’s Nigel Williams-Goss in the backcourt. We’re definitely excited to see this kid’s progression after this summer’s experience.
  5. Not everybody in this business was busy watching the the NBA last night, as Michigan head coach John Beilein made some time to visit Detroit’s Comerica Park to throw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the start of the Tigers-Orioles game. Wearing his college number (#35), he said that former Detroit great Al Kaline gave him a sage piece of advice to avoid embarrassing himself: “Throw it high.” His toss found the catcher’s mitt without issue, and he used the opportunity to share some of the thoughts he had on the Wolverines’ scintillating run to the national title game in April. His key takeaway: Enjoy it more. Wisdom, Beilein-style.

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Morning Five: 06.18.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on June 18th, 2013

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  1. There are a lot of appealing things about Miami. Outside of the great weather, beaches, warm weather, “scenery”, and the best pro basketball team on the planet there is also plenty of playing time available after the Hurricanes lost their six leading scorers from last year’s ACC Championship team. The latest player to decide to pack his bags for Coral Gables is Sheldon McClellan, who chose Miami over Oregon, Marquette, and LSU. Unlike Donovan Kirk (graduate student waiver) and Angel Rodriguez (seeking a hardship waiver), McClellan will have to sit out next season. When McClellan is able to play, he and Rodriguez could form one of the more potent backcourts in college basketball although McClellan will need to become a more efficient player (shot just 38.2 percent from the field while scoring 13.2 points per game last season) if the Hurricanes are to come close to the success they experienced this past season.
  2. It has been several weeks since news broke that Trevor Lacey was transferring to North Carolina State, but Lacey insisted it was not a done deal. Now it appears that Lacey is officially headed there as sources told CBS Sports that Lacey had sent in his paperwork to North Carolina State. Lacey may have some holes in his game, but he is about as close to a sure thing as you can have for a transfer as he averaged 11.3 points and 3.2 assists per game playing for Alabama. The timing of Lacey’s transfer should work out well for the Wolfpack who are expected to be down next year, but should return most of their team for the 2014-15 season when Lacey will be eligible again.
  3. It seems like we have a weird transfer story fairly frequently in the off-season, but Jermaine Marshall‘s tale is unique even among the those stories. In May, Marshall left Penn State saying that he was planning on pursuing a career overseas. Yesterday, he announced that he will actually be looking to transfer to another school for his final year of eligibility. Marshall, who averaged 15.3 points per game last season, should be a hot commodity on the transfer market even if he put up his numbers on a bad team.
  4. Many consider the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats one of the best teams in college basketball history and a good case can be made for them being the best team of the post-Wooden era. While there were many memorable players on that team one of the most popular among fans was Walter McCarty. So when McCarty’s NCAA Championship and special commemorative ring from that team appeared on eBay it surprised many Kentucky fans. It turns out that the rings ended up on the site in what has been described as a “Misunderstanding with [a] family member”. [Ed. Note: I hate when that happens.] Although we would assume that McCarty’s career NBA salary of $15,217,495 would be more than enough to sustain him to this point we have seen many athletes (and individuals from other endeavors) blow through ten times that money. We hope the reports are true and McCarty is not trying to unload the rings for financial reasons.
  5. We were a bit surprised to see Andy Glockner write a pair of columns about luck without utilizing Ken Pomeroy’s “Luck” data heavily, but his columns on the teams that he expect to have better luck and worse luck next season is still an interesting read. Although the column does not rely on advanced metric it does go into detail about why the teams should expect to have a better or worse record next season even if it has nothing to do with fortune or misfortune.

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Morning Five: 06.17.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on June 17th, 2013

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  1. We are not sure what to make of Jerome Seagers and his decision to transfer from Rutgers to Auburn then back to Rutgers in less than two months in the wake of the Mike Rice scandal and claims that he left Auburn because he wanted to be closer to his family in Maryland while recovering from his time at Rutgers. Basically the entire thing does not make any sense, which is how we often feel about many of these transfers. As you would expect Seagers will be eligible to play next season for Rutgers since he never played for Auburn although with the way the NCAA enforces rules we would not have been shocked if they made him sit out a year for his indecisiveness.
  2. With Ricky Ledo having sat out last season we had almost forgotten about him, but it appears that NBA scouts have not as the Providence freshman is getting plenty of workouts from NBA teams. Ledo, who was a partial qualifier, worked out with the Providence team last season and according to Providence coach Ed Cooley often played the role of the best player on the opposing team thanks to his skill set, which was certainly well above any of the Providence non-starters. We don’t think that Ledo’s presence last season would have made them a NCAA Tournament team last season, but if he performs well in the NBA you can be sure that more than a few Providence fans will be asking themselves what might have been if he had been able to wear a Friar uniform.
  3. We are never sure what to make of how college players perform at the international level or even in tryouts. Many times they can be an indication of a player making a leap to another level, but there have been many cases where players do not carry over that solid play to their college teams. The same can be said of poor performances. Still the decision by the USA U-19 National Team to cut Rodney Purvis and Shaq Goodwin from the team that they made last summer is an interesting one. As Mike DeCourcy notes both omissions were surprising given the way that Purvis performed in workouts and the lack of interior depth the team had that should have assured Goodwin a spot on the roster. While the team lacks a big college star outside of Marcus Smart it does contain an intriguing mix of players who would seem poised to become stars on their teams next season.
  4. The recruitment of Michael Chandler will be interesting because it was just two years ago that he was a top-50 recruit and a top-five center in the class of 2011. Of course, that was before he was declared academically ineligible and had to go to junior college ending up at Northwest Florida State where he averaged 4.6 points and 2.4 rebounds per game. Even though some players particularly centers take a while to develop those are pretty uninspiring numbers from a player at that level trying to play Division I basketball. Still it appears Chandler has plenty of suitors including Purdue. Given Chandler’s output at the junior college level we would be surprised if he ended up being much more than a marginal contributor at the high-major level.
  5. On the other end of the spectrum we have Kadeem Allen, a first-team JUCO All-American, who has drawn interest from Arizona, Kansas, and Oklahoma State. Last week, Arizona formally extended Allen a scholarship offer. We don’t pretend to follow the JUCO scene that closely (our comments on Chandler were reflective of his low production not his actual game), but the people we follow who know the JUCO scene seem to believe that he is a high-major player and his first-team status suggests that is at least a reasonable possibility. Allen will spend another year at the JUCO level before heading to Division I, but he could be an interesting addition to whatever team he winds up playing for.

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Morning Five: 06.13.13 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on June 13th, 2013

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  1. Another day, another mob with pitchforks standing outside the gates. ESPN.com‘s Darren Rovell reported yesterday that a group of former NCAA athletes has filed a $5 million suit in federal court against a company that sells photographs of college athletes without their express permission. Although the claim does not list the NCAA nor some 90 schools alleged to sell images to the defendant company, it wouldn’t be much of a leap to eventually go after them as well down the line. Under current NCAA rules, the schools have the right to promote their own games using player images, but the legal question will center around whether they also have the right to sell or transfer those images. This lawsuit is of course unrelated to the Ed O’Bannon likeness case also working its way through the system in federal court, but the underlying issue — that players are not compensated for their work and corresponding brand — is very similar.
  2. While on the subject of the mission of the NCAA and its member institutions, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a piece yesterday from a professor at Ohio State University named Steven Conn. Conn, an American history scholar, took his soon-to-be-former boss, OSU president Gordon Gee, to task not so much for his forced retirement based on a series of verbal gaffes; rather, for helping to create and propagate the “athletic-industrial beast that defines higher education now.” The point he’s ultimately making is that college presidents nowadays have to spend so much time dealing with their athletic programs because of the money and prestige associated with them, that they’ve completely lost sight of what the true mission of an institution of higher learning is supposed to represent. Interesting read.
  3. With all the pressure on programs to succeed in the revenue sports, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the average D-I men’s basketball coach has been at his current job for a total of 38 months — just over three years. This information and plenty of other coaching longevity tidbits comes courtesy of D1scourse, Patrick Stevens’ site examining college sports in the mid-Atlantic area. Although it was news to us that only one coach has survived at one school since the ’70s (Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, 1976), and only seven since the ’80s, the real takeaway from his analysis is that over 55 percent of true seniors who signed a letter of intent in November 2009 have experienced a coaching change in their careers. And yet we continue to penalize them for transferring, why, again?
  4. While on that topic, a really odd situation has developed involving DePaul forward Donnovan Kirk, a player who spent the first two years of his career at Miami (FL) before transferring to Chicago for the last two seasons. Given Miami’s success under Jim Larranaga especially relative to the train wreck at DePaul, Kirk has now decided to use his graduate transfer exception to head back to Miami for his final season. That’s right: a double-transfer where he is ending up at the same school where he originally started. He only averaged 6/4 last season for the Blue Demons, but he’s a great leaper and was among the Big East leaders in blocked shots per game (1.6 BPG). He’ll move right into a lineup in Coral Gables that is extremely lacking in experienced size, so this appears to be a win/win for both parties.
  5. The fortunes next season for another major basketball school in Florida — not FGCU, sorry — are still somewhat up in the air at this early summer point of the offseason. There are always a number of players finishing up coursework and dealing with standardized test scores to become eligible for next season, but in the case of Florida’s Chris Walker, there are serious concerns about his eventual eligibility. Not only does he still need to pass the ACT, which he has now taken three times, but he has to finish three core course requirements over the summer before he can enroll at the university in Gainesville. With most players these days getting themselves on campus for the early summer term to start prepping for next season, it doesn’t appear that will be an option for Walker very soon, if ever.

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Morning Five: 06.12.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on June 12th, 2013

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  1. As you probably already noticed yesterday was APR Day, the day that college administrators dread and one that spawns countless columns about inequities in the system. There were no major surprises in terms of which teams were ineligible and the biggest news of the day was probably the fact that Connecticut is eligible for the NCAA Tournament again despite having a four-year APR below 930 as they showed enough improvement that they were still able to qualify. The more interesting aspect of APR Day is that it led to several interesting articles such as those by Andy Glockner and Myron Medcalf that speak to issues beyond just educating/graduating athletes and are reflective of education in this country.
  2. The decisions on where conferences decide to play their conference tournament games has never been of particular interest to us since they are typically played at a neutral site and are based on purely financial reasons. Having said that the decision by the American Athletic Conference to play its first conference tournament in Memphis is an interesting one as it will essentially give Memphis a homecourt advantage with an automatic NCAA Tournament bid on the line. Typically conferences of the expected power of the AAC avoid playing at a non-neutral location for a variety of reasons including the benefit given to a team that is playing at home. It will be interesting to see where the conference decides to put its postseason tournament going forward if schools feel that Memphis is granted an unfair advantage.
  3. Yesterday we linked to an article about increasingly onerous transfer restrictions on players. We did not mention it specifically in our post, but as the article we linked to mentions players are able to get around this by opting not to tak e a scholarship at their new school. It happens infrequently, but in the case of a player like Kevin Olekaibe sometimes the circumstances are severe enough that the player is willing to pay his own way. In Olekaibe’s case the rising senior announced that he was transferring from Fresno State to UNLV even though he was not allowed to transfer within the Mountain West Conference if he accepted a scholarship. Olekaibe’s reason for transferring and hoping for a transfer waiver that would allow him to play right away is that he wants to be closer to his father who is paralyzed from the waist down and is unable to speak because of two strokes that he has had. The way that transfer waivers have been granted lately we would be surprised if the NCAA turned his request down.
  4. In the wake of San Antonio’s win over Miami last night, Seth Wickersham’s article on the Spurs success being a condemnation on the state of grassroots basketball in America will probably become a bigger talking point. While we can agree that American basketball has many issues to improve on (the outsized influence of certain individuals at the AAU level being one of the most prominent) it is worth noting that the US continues to be far and away the most prolific country in the world in terms of producing basketball talent and that goes beyond just the national teams we send out every year. The gap between the depth of our talent and that of other countries is probably more significant than you might appreciate from watching international competition. Another key point that the article conveniently glosses over is that Spurs star Tim Duncan is actually a product of the American basketball system that the article criticizes as he played four years of college.
  5. We are not sure if the Bernie Fine case will ever end. The former Syracuse assistant coach’s defamation lawsuit against ESPN is heading to federal court now and it appears that Fine and his lawyers are targeting the corporation at this time and no longer pursuing charges against the reporters involved in reporting the story. As anybody who has followed the case over the past two years knows the entire case has been extremely messy and Fine’s accusers have been questionable at best in terms of the reliability and consistency of their statements. At this point we imagine that Syracuse views this case the same way that many media members do in that we just wish it would end.

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Morning Five: 06.11.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on June 11th, 2013

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  1. Coming into this season Scottie Wilbekin‘s starting job was in peril with the arrival of talented freshman Kasey Hill at Florida, but you might have reasonably expected that the rising senior could bank on his experience and maturity to give him an edge in playing time. That is until Wilbekin was suspended indefinitely for an unspecified violation of team rules. This is not the first time that Wilbekin has been suspended indefinitely in the off-season as he faced a similar suspension last year and ended up missing the first three games of last season. We have no idea what Wilbekin was suspended for and if it is related to his suspension last year, but it places Billy Donovan in a difficult situation on both what to do with Wilbekin as well as how to ease Hill into the starting point guard job as we would expect Wilbekin to miss at least a few games at the start of the season if the infraction was significant enough to warrant the team disclosing it in June.
  2. It should not come as too much of a surprise but Andrew Wiggins will not be playing for the Canadian national team this summer. Wiggins like many of his American contemporaries is passing on the opportunity to play for his country’s U19 team at the FIBA World Championships. Like them Wiggins will be trying to get an early start on his college experience and given how brief Wiggins’ stay is expected to be that makes sense. Of course we do not expect this will have any long-term repercussions for Wiggins in terms of being named to future Canadian national teams as he is essentially viewed as the future of the sport in the country.
  3. Even in the crazed world of college transfers the decision by Jerome Seagers to back out of his transfer to Auburn is a curious move. Seagers, who averaged 6.5 points and 2.6 assists per game last season, announced his transfer from Rutgers to Auburn in the wake of the Mike Rice scandal. Now a month later Seagers has decided that Auburn is not the ideal destination for him. We will probably never be sure of the reason why Seagers decided to back out of the transfer, but according to Auburn the stated reason is that  “he hadn’t truly recovered emotionally from his time at Rutgers.” Whatever the reason is for his decision it will be interesting to see where Seagers ends up, but from the school’s statement it would appear that he wants to be closer to his family in Silver Springs, Maryland.
  4. Speaking of transfers The New York Times took a look at increasingly onerous transfer restrictions with a focus on a couple of particularly notable cases. The article does not take a look at some notable cases in college basketball where player transfers were blocked although the ones we have seen do not block nearly as many universities (see Todd O’Brien) so we know the problem extends beyond just college football. The big question of what drives these type of tactics is one that the article cannot get to bottom of because coaches will never talk about it, but it is likely one of asserting their power over the athletes to try to prevent future transfers by making the transfer process as difficult as possible.
  5. There are a lot of crazy stories happening with conference realignment, but one that will probably be largely overlooked is how moving conferences will change the finances for schools even in areas that are not the school’s primary focus. Take the move of Kenya Hunter for example. Normally we would not highlight the move of an assistant particularly one who has not been rumored as a top candidate for significant head coaching positions, but Hunter’s lateral move from Georgetown to Nebraska speaks to the changing finances of the two schools. This is not to suggest that Georgetown is falling apart, but instead should highlight how TV contracts can alter how an athletic program is built because five years ago we could not even fathom someone leaving Georgetown for a similar position at Nebraska (frankly, we are still having trouble comprehending it).

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Morning Five: 06.10.13 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on June 10th, 2013

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  1. The biggest news impacting college basketball over the weekend came from Tobacco Road, as the Raleigh News & Observer‘s Dan Kane has continued to push forward in his dogged pursuit of the truth involving to the North Carolina athletic department’s relationship with a decade-plus history of fraudulent courses involving many of its student-athletes. We plan on having more commentary available later today, but as Kane continues to show with his persistence, there doesn’t appear to be any question that the academic support people charged with assisting student-athletes in their coursework were entirely too cozy with the administrators — Julius Nyang’oro and Deborah Crowder — who were ultimately proven responsible for the no-show courses and other academically fraudulent activities. These recently released emails exhibit that Nyang’oro received perks and benefits that were ethically improper (i.e., sideline passes to UNC football games) given that athletes may have been steered to the bogus classes under his watch. This latest reveal gets Kane one step closer to a direct connection with the athletic department, as the academic support staff who appear to have been nudging athletes to these courses and providing Nyang’oro with perks are under the employ and direction of the athletic department. Are we to take at face value that these staff members were acting on their own in a rogue manner; or was there a wink-and-a-nudge agreement in existence here, from the top down? Credit to Kane to continue rattling the cage in Chapel Hill — apparently there are a number of possibly instructive emails that were not released because of student privacy and/or personnel concerns. We’ve said it before, but the University of North Carolina really needs to take more responsibility over this entire situation. 
  2. UNC, of course, has a ridiculously successful basketball program to protect, and keeping that brand viable and competitive is one of the cornerstones of the new ACC as it moves into a basketball environment that Mike Krzyzewski has already called the “best ever.” ESPN’s senior VP of college sports programming, Burke Magnus, did an interview with Al.com last last week, where he described college hoops programming as very important to ESPN’s continued success in the sports broadcasting marketplace, but also focused specifically on the new-and-improved Atlantic Coast Conference as the key to higher (even approaching college football) television ratings going forward. SI.com‘s Andy Glockner took the time to evaluate his statements — could ACC basketball become SEC football, in other words? — finding that Magnus’ hoped-for ratings may be a bit ambitious, but ESPN’s move of the ACC to Big Monday and the congregation of so many nationally-relevant programs in the same league will without question have a positive impact on viewer interest.
  3. Later today the sportscaster who probably had more influence than any other in making college basketball a name-brand, marquee American sport, will be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. Dick Vitale, long before he was Dookie V. or some kind of embellished caricature of himself, was must-see viewing along with the teams of the 1980s and 1990s — if you listen to some of those broadcasts now on ESPN Classic, a keen observer will note that Vitale’s analysis was often spot on, making his more muted schtick considerably more appealing as an exciting conversational tool. At some point around the turn of the last decade when Vitale lost interest in providing thoughtful analysis and instead became synonymous with cheerleading for certain blue-blooded programs (ahem), many of the younger generation of fans turned on him and have rightfully viewed him as an anachronistic dinosaur ever since. Still, his influence on the sport as a whole is far beyond what any other national college hoops broadcaster has ever reached, and Vitale deserves all the accolades he is now receiving, in this, the twilight, of his long and illustrious career.
  4. There was some transfer news over the weekend, as former Indiana guard Maurice Creek announced that he will spend his graduate transfer year at George Washington, and Illinois forward Myke Henry announced that he will spend his final two seasons at DePaul. Both players are transferring back home, as Henry is a Chicago native and Creek grew up in the suburbs just outside Washington, DC. The new Colonial, Creek, represents a very intriguing situation — a one-time rising star whose career was sidetracked by multiple injuries, he could provide an immediate lift on the perimeter to a young team desperately in need of some senior leadership and scoring punch. Henry will have to sit out next season, but he will join a talented recruiting class in 2014-15 with a year of action under its belt that can probably use the versatility on the wing that Henry can provide.
  5. There was some very sad news over the weekend, as colorful longtime Miami (OH) head coach Charlie Coles passed away at the age of 71. As the Athens Messenger writes in a column about his life, Coles was “one of a kind,” the kind of old school coach who “always had a minute; always had a story.” He retired from basketball in 2012 after enduring years of health issues, but his teams at Miami were generally known as very tough outs — he took the Red Hawks to three NCAA Tournaments including a Sweet Sixteen in 1999, a couple of NITs and CBIs, and was regularly competitive in the even-steven environment of the MAC. Twitter reaction around the college hoops universe about Coles‘ passing was proper and respectful, but this video of his press conference after a close-but-no-cigar loss at Kentucky in the 2009-10 season is perhaps more revealing (and fun). You can leave his family a note on his Legacy page here; he certainly will be missed.

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Morning Five: 06.07.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on June 7th, 2013

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  1. After leading North Carolina in scoring last season many people expected PJ Hairston to build on a game that many considered worthy of a first round pick next year. If Hairston was planning on doing that, he is off to a very bad start as he was arrested on Wednesday night for driving without a licence and for possession of marijuana. We are guessing that not much will happen to Hairston other than a lecture from Roy Williams and possibly some early-season punishment.
  2. One of the things that critics of the NCAA have latched onto recently is the difficult financial situation that some former athletes are put in when they get injured playing and are forced to endure a lifetime of medical bills with little assistance from the entities that they were representing when they sustained those injuries. In response to that the NCAA is creating a $10 million catastrophic injury insurance pool. As anybody who has dealt with trying to collect on an insurance policy is aware this can be extremely complicated so we are hesitant to say too much about it, but we will be interested in seeing how this money is distributed in cases where many would deem it necessary.
  3. With Michael Dixon’s move to Memphis there will be quite a bit of talk about whether or not he should be allowed to play immediately as he essentially sat out one season. As Dana O’Neill points out the precedent set by the Dez Wells case suggests that Dixon should be able to play immediately. Perhaps more importantly it also sets a dangerous precedent for how transfer cases are handled when dealing with issues involving sexual assault. Having said that there are plenty of other things that the NCAA needs to fix with the transfer process although this one may strike a chord with a bigger audience given the political and social implications of these type of cases.
  4. If you did not get a chance to watch a college basketball game on a ship the past two years, you may be waiting a while to see the next one. After the initial success of the Carrier Classic between North Carolina and Michigan State in 2011 there was relative explosion of games on ships. Unfortunately, the games last season were affected by bad weather and it appears that there will be no games on ships this season. As we have stated in this space before these types of games/events are nice in select conditions, but they need to be saved for special events not just as a gimmick to be used frequently. As such it makes sense to put a hold on these games for now until somebody can come up with a sensible plan for if (and how) these games should be played in the future.
  5. It always bothers us when we see a former college basketball player get into legal trouble and former UNLV star Patrick Savoy is no exception. Savoy, who led the Rebels in scoring his senior season, was arrested Wednesday night after attempting to sell $300 worth of cocaine to an undercover detective. Savoy, who never played in the NBA, but played internationally until 2007, was released from jail yesterday morning. We have not heard anything about Savoy’s past records and are not aware of how tough the drug laws in Nevada are (we would assume not too stringent given our image of Las Vegas), but given how quickly he was released we would be surprised if he faced a substantial penalty.

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