If you are interested in participating, send your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com as we will be updating these posts throughout the day.

News

• Mark Turgeon Lands First Commitment at Maryland, 2012 Sleeper Guard Seth Allen: “Say what you want to say about Mark Turgeon, but he works fast. Just days after being hired, he’s already landed his first commitment of the 2012 class: Fredericksburg Christian (VA) 6-2 guard Seth Allen. Allen joins fellow Virginian Justin Anderson as the Maryland commitments in the 2012 class; the Terrapins will likely have at least five open scholarships in the class, thanks to the recent defections of Jordan Williams, Sterling Gibbs, Martin Breunig, and possibly Nick Faust.” (Testudo Times)
• Maryland Meeting with Dalonte Hill: Who He Is and Why He Matters: Some background information on the Kansas State assistant and why Maryland is pushing to add him to their new staff. (Testudo Times)
• Incoming ‘Cats Shun Team USA For Leg Up On Next Season: Michael Gilchrist, Marquis Teague, and Anthony Davis were among a group of 27 players that turned down an offer to play for the under-19 US National team in order to get ready to play college basketball. (A Sea of Blue)
  
• Florida Releases Assistant Basketball Coaches’ Salaries: The three assistants will be making between $100,000 and $235,000 in salary along with various extra incentives. (Alligator Army)

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1. Maryland may have made a solid hire in former Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon, but they had an awful week after his hiring as they appear to have lost every one of the commits in the incoming freshman class. The two biggest are Sterling Gibbs, the younger brother of Pittsburgh star Ashton Gibbs, and Nick Faust. While both players have stated that they are still considering coming to College Park this fall they remain uncommitted and are drawing attention from other schools. Gibbs, in particular, has drawn a lot of interest and is reportedly considering Texas very seriously. Turgeon’s ability to get these two players to come back to Maryland could determine how successful he is in his first few years in the ACC.
2. Turgeon has also been busy trying to land a different kind of recruit–Kansas State assistant/recruiting extraordinaire Dalonte Hill. According to reports, Maryland has made Hill an offer, which he is mulling over and will reportedly make a decision on early this week. Hill is an important piece of Turgeon’s plan to reclaim the Baltimore/DC recruiting area, which Gary Williams struggled to do in recent years. If Turgeon can lure Hill to Maryland, Terrapins fans could forget about the loss of Gibbs and Faust very quickly.
3. Speaking of Turgeon, Texas A&M appears to be set to announce that they will be hiring Murray State coach Billy Kennedy to fill the spot that Turgeon left behind when he headed to Maryland (discussed in more detail here). The Aggies were reportedly also looking at Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson. In the end they decided to go with Kennedy, who turned Murray State into one of the top programs in the Ohio Valley Conference. The Racers were able to win the OVC regular season title the past two seasons and scored a first round upset over Vanderbilt in the 2010 NCAA Tournament. Although this season ended in disappointment with losses to Tennessee Tech in the conference semifinals and Missouri State in the first round of the NIT, Kennedy appears to be an excellent hire for the Aggies. Kennedy will be expected to produce very quickly as Turgeon left the cupboard overflowing (at least for a program like Texas A&M) with what should be a top 25 team next season.
4. We are still about three months away from Midnight Madness, but Pat Forde is already thinking about the upcoming season and has compiled a list of ten things that he is looking forward to next season. We have to say just reading the list gets us more excited for the season. We are sure there are more reasons that you can think of to get excited for the season, but this is a pretty good place to start.
5. While Forde is focused on big picture topics, Fran Fraschilla is more interested in six of the most intriguing teams in the country next season (ESPN Insider required). Every team listed–Alabama, Memphis, Louisville, Baylor, Mississippi State, and Harvard–is intriguing in its own way, but we think the last three are the most interesting for a variety of reasons: Baylor with a returning top five pick in Perry Jones and two ridiculously athletic incoming freshmen (Quincy Miller and Deuce Bello); Mississippi State for the sheer ridiculousness of the Renardo Sidney era; and Harvard to see if they can finally win the Ivy League and make some noise in the NCAA Tournament.

The coaching carousel continued to spin this weekend in the domino-falling aftermath of Gary Williams’ retirement from Maryland ten days ago.  After swinging and whiffing on several names including Marquette’s Buzz Williams, Memphis’ Josh Paster, and former Knicks head coach and current broadcaster Jeff van Gundy (really?), Texas A&M has reportedly gotten its man — Murray State head coach Billy Kennedy.

Kennedy Moves on to Texas A&M

Northern Iowa’s Ben Jacobson was also in the running for the position, as both up-and-coming coaches interviewed with the school on Saturday.  Much like AD Bill Byrne’s last two hires for the Aggies, Kennedy is a coach who has put in his time in the lower reaches of Division-I basketball and demonstrated success at every stop along the way.  The 47-year old originally from Metairie, Louisiana, has spent the last five seasons at Murray State, keeping the Racer program among the elite of the OVC.  His MSU teams finished first or second in the conference regular season race all five seasons, and his last two teams — including 2010’s NCAA round of 32 entrant — played in the postseason.

The Texas A&M head coaching position has become a stepping-stone job under the steady hand and guidance of Byrne, as the last two coaches — Mark Turgeon and Billy Gillispie — parlayed their success in College Station to big-time basketball jobs at Maryland and Kentucky, respectively.  This is not to suggest, however, that Kennedy can’t have massive success at TAMU; the school’s athletic department budget ranks in the top thirty nationally, and its relative proximity to talent-rich Houston (two hours) and Dallas (three hours) make the program fully capable of moving beyond borderline top 25 status.  Kennedy may not have brought the enthusiasm that a brand-name hire would have, but so long as he keeps the program moving forward and breaks through to that elusive second weekend of the NCAA Tournament (Gillispie took the Aggies there once, in 2007), TAMU fans will be satisfied.

A big opportunity will await Kennedy in his first season in College Station next year.  The Aggies return five of its top seven players from a 24-9 (10-6 Big 12) team, and with conference powerhouses Kansas and Texas gutted by early defections this offseason, there’s a sense that A&M could be poised to move to the top of the Big 12 standings with its existing roster and a little good fortune.  Of the five returning players from the 2010-11 all-Big 12 team, Texas A&M is the only school with two — star forwards Khris Middleton (14/6) and David Loubeau (12/5).  If the perimeter players led by senior Dash Harris and incoming four-star recruit Jamal Branch come through in 2011-12, Kennedy may be in position to do something never before done in these parts: win a Big 12 basketball championship.

If you are interested in participating, send your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com as we will be updating these posts throughout the day.

News

• Calipari to Bobby Knight, Media: If You Must Know, 3.14: “John Calipari rarely misses an opportunity to twist the knife a little when those who feel comfortable blasting him for everything from recruiting violations (he’s never even been accused of any) to teams with academic issues, to defamatory falsehoods about class attendance. The old saying is, what goes around, comes around.” (A Sea of Blue)
• Martin Breunig, (Maybe) Sterling Gibbs Ask out of LOIs, Leave Maryland Shorthanded: “Mark Turgeon mentioned Maryland’s current commitments in his introductory press conference earlier today, stating that “the plan is to keep them all intact.” Looks like that plan has hit some bumps in the road. After news leaked that Sterling Gibbs asked out of his LOI earlier today, another of Maryland’s commitments, 6-9 F Martin Breunig, has also asked for his release from the university.” (Testudo Times)
• Nick Faust Asks out of Letter of Intent, Too, and Maryland Has No Signees: “The good news: Maryland is still being considered by both Gibbs and Faust, and probably Breunig, too. The bad news: they aren’t committed and there’s no telling what happens from here.” (Testudo Times)
• Analyzing the Draft Lottery Odds to See Who Will Go #1: “With the NBA draft lottery results ready to be announced Tuesday night, the fates of top overall prospects Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams will be known.” (Every Month Should be March)

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1. Upon hearing that Tubby Smith had been dealing with prostate cancer and is now cancer-free, we were reminded of Steve Lavin’s announcement back in early April that he had the disease, and that he had received an OK from his doctors that it was cool to delay his treatment until the season had concluded. Well, here we are — the off-season. Lavin is collaborating with his docs on what form(s) his treatment will take, but when you read this article by Kieran Darcy from ESPNNewYork.com, you’ll note two important points: first, Lavin’s done his homework, which should surprise nobody; he talks about PSAs and Gleason scores, so he’s going into this very familiar with his enemy, and that bodes well. Second, and more importantly, he remarks that he has a father who had prostate cancer at age 61…who is now 80.
2. Continuing on that theme, we think you should know that back in November a kid named Taylor Statham, who plays for a prep school called Westwind Academy in Phoenix, was guarding his man during a game and got kneed in the testicles. Good thing. If he hadn’t been, doctors wouldn’t have found Statham’s testicular cancer. Just like his hair during his three rounds of chemotherapy (and surgery), the basketball scholarship offers he was receiving just vanished. As of three weeks ago, Statham is cancer-free. Offers are returning. We suggest his eventual college coach use Statham for all last-second shots and game-winning free throws. After what this young man’s endured, we doubt he’ll be too intimidated by much at all.
3. Seth Davis’ summary of his attendance at the NCAA Enforcement Experience — LOVE that name, by the way — is a must-read. The event, put on in the same spirit of glasnost as the mock NCAA Tournament selection media gathering every February, was constructed to give the media a little insight as to how the NCAA investigates and adjudicates the many incidences of naughty business that happen in the world of college athletics. They started the thing with a video of an investigator mock-interviewing someone in a bathroom stall. Seriously, check it out.
4. We’re still sitting in the dark listening to The Cure songs following the announcement that Gus Johnson was not returning to CBS and therefore wouldn’t be calling NCAA Tournament games for a looooong time. At least — sigh — we’ll be able to see/hear him on Fox. And, according to the New York Daily News, you may have heard of the guy who CBS might have in line to take Gus’ place — Marv Albert. Fine. For that, we’ll at least open the blinds.
5. Sporting News reports that Murray State’s Billy Kennedy has emerged as a leading candidate for the vacant head coaching spot at Texas A&M. He was an assistant under Kermit Davis (yes, A&M fans, that happened) for the 1990-91 season, but obviously he’s more than made his own mark since then. He’s taken both Southeast Louisiana and Murray State to the Tournament, his Racers have averaged 27 wins over the past two seasons, and he’s 107-53 overall there. It might not be as sexy a hire as Buzz or Pastner (two names mentioned in the linked article), but something about this possible union feels right.

As the nation’s states, municipalities and university systems continue struggling to shake off the after-effects of a crippling recession that dried up government coffers and has resulted in huge cuts to education and other core social services, well-paid coaches at big-name schools are progressively becoming targets for political posturing and faux-outrage.  The latest coach to take heat for merely doing his job well is Texas’ Rick Barnes, who recently received a $200,000 raise from the university broken into two parts — $75,000 as a standard annual increase written into his contract, and $125,000 to keep his compensation among the top ten highest paid coaches in the country (a provision of his deal with UT).  His total compensation of $2.4M was approved on Wednesday by the UT Board of Regents.

Barnes is Taking Flak That We Feel is Undeserved

While we completely sympathize with higher education systems nearly everywhere in America that are buckling under the dual stresses of spiraling costs and a public generally uninterested in subsidizing those dollars, to place blame on a guy wholly funded by money from non-taxpayer sources is pandering in its worst form.  Check out these quotes from Texas lawmakers on the matter:

• “I’m a big fan of UT basketball and coach Barnes.  But at a time when everyone up here is fighting to come up with money to pay for education, it was disappointing.” — Sen. Kirk Watson (D)
• “I think it’s nuts.”  — Sen. Steve Ogden (R)
• “It’s not appropriate, not at a time when we’re scraping for money for education.”  — Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R)
• “It is bad timing.  They didn’t ask for my advice.”  — Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D)

We all remember how Connecticut gadfly Ken Krayeske caused a stink a few years ago in querying UConn head coach Jim Calhoun about the particulars of his then-$1.6M salary, causing the crotchety coach to fire back with several increasingly snide remarks.  That was bad enough, but this is different.  Not a dime of Barnes’ salary comes from the Texas general fund, which means the taxpayers of the Longhorn State no more pay his salary than they do that of the Prince of Wales.  Notwithstanding the deep coffers that the Texas athletic department has at its disposal, we’re also quite certain that the university reaps untold more millions as a result of Barnes’ salary (the Calhoun argument).

If Texas legislators are disposed to pick a fight over Barnes’ salary, they might want to consider his overall performance rather than fixating on the raise itself — when you consider that Barnes is a top ten coach in terms of annual salary, you would hope that UT would avoid the late season meltdowns of the last two years and he’d have more than a single Final Four appearance under his belt.  Frankly, at a football school like Texas, he’s done enough to enable job security for as long as he wants to coach there, but it seems as if the lawmakers completely missed the boat in their efforts to tilt at windmills today.

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist at Rush the Court.

Let the anticipation begin. Let the hype build. Let the #1 vs. #2 talk commence.

Okay, so the annual Kentucky vs. North Carolina clash is still a distant seven months away. But as soon as Harrison Barnes turned down lottery millions to return to a loaded roster at North Carolina, and fellow first round guarantee Terrence Jones followed in his path, every college basketball fanatic had an identical epiphany: UK vs. UNC, 2011 edition, could be the biggest non-conference clash since Memphis battled Tennessee in February of 2008. From a pure talent level, nothing has approached it since Memphis battled UCLA in a national semifinal (Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Darren Collison, Chris Douglas-Roberts) or Carolina met Illinois for the title in 2005 (Deron Williams, Raymond Felton, Marvin Williams, Sean May, Luther Head, Rashad McCants).

Granted, success at the professional level isn’t guaranteed, but Kentucky vs. North Carolina in December could produce seven lottery picks and ten total first-round selections: Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller, John Henson, Kendall Marshall and James McAdoo from the Heels and Anthony Davis, Michael Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, Marquis Teague and Doron Lamb from the ‘Cats (if only DeAndre Liggins or Brandon Knight had opted to return). In a one-and-done era where coaches are often hesitant to pit their teams against other loaded contenders early in the season, that type of talent accumulation in one game is extremely rare today.

Terrence Jones surprising return to school boosted UK's chances of another FF

To conjure up our collective college hoops juices at the start of a painfully long offseason, here’s a glimpse at what we can look forward to in early December from a matchup-by-matchup standpoint, followed by an initial verdict in the ongoing debate over who should be considered the premiere team in the land for 2011-12.

Point Guard: Kendall Marshall vs. Marquis Teague

The point guard matchup is the standout reason why this game has so much appeal. Marshall and Teague are extremely similar in their styles, strengths and perceived weaknesses. Both operate effectively in the open floor where they can push tempo.  Teague should mesh seamlessly in John Calipari’s dribble-drive attack and Marshall in Carolina’s favored secondary break. Born floor generals blessed with advanced court vision at such a young age, both will be asked to remain in their comfort zone and play the role of creator for the multitude of talented weapons each has at their disposal. Marshall and Teague will also defend each other in similar fashion by sagging defensively and forcing jump shots. Marshall receives the edge mainly because we’ve seen his magic on full display at the collegiate level already, but while Teague won’t be quite as explosive or dynamic as his predecessors at the position under Calipari, his importance is no less vital to the success of Kentucky next season. Edge: Marshall.

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Much of the talk last week about Gary Williams’ replacement centered on the relative attractiveness of the Maryland basketball head coaching position.  It was interesting to see where people fell on this.  Some folks viewed the job as a borderline top ten slot, citing its rabid fan base, its top-tier facilities, its conference affiliation and its location in a recruiting hotbed as evidence supporting that contention.  Others suggested that the position was really more in line with a top 25 ranking, a place where fans have unreasonable expectations and league affiliation (read: Duke and UNC) actually hinder the program’s status more than it helps.  It’s an interesting debate, and it got us thinking about how we would rank the top twenty or so jobs in college basketball as of today.

It Says Here That Duke is the Top Job in College Basketball

After thinking about it for a few days, we broke the twenty out into five groupings, as shown below.  We view the jobs within each grouping as roughly equal to each other, using the inexact criteria that coaches would be unlikely to jump ship within a grouping, but would be heavily enticed to do so in a grouping above theirs.  Note the word, “inexact.”  Each individual has different motivations and will make professional decisions on criteria distinct and separate from ours (e.g., Billy Donovan turning down Kentucky twice, and Jay Wright/Jamie Dixon turning down Maryland).  But this analysis doesn’t take the current coach into consideration; this is meant to be an examination of the attractiveness of the job itself.  Feel free to tell us how stupid we are in the comments below.

Coaching Pinnacles

These five positions are destination jobs that guarantee big paychecks, huge followings, and, unless an elite NBA job comes calling, an expectation of long-term stability.  They represent all but one of the top six programs of all-time, and the daily pressure on each of these fellows to succeed at the highest level is among the most excruciating in collegiate sports.

1. Duke. Possesses unbelievable facilities with a national brand synonymous with long-term, sustained success.  Every college coach in America would give this job a glance if offered.
2. Kentucky. The only reason UK isn’t #1 is because dealing with the expectations of the always-rabid/sometimes-insane fanbase turns some coaches off on the job.  Otherwise, everything you need to succeed is in place.
3. North Carolina.  Only slightly less rabid of a fanbase than UK, but equally remarkable in resources, national support and pedigree.  The only negative is a prevailing sense of the coach having to be a Carolina “insider” to succeed there.
4. Kansas. Certainly few complaints here, buf it the top four jobs were available in the same year and three elite coaches were in the running, KU would be the odd school out of that musical chairs equation.
5. UCLA. Sigh… this job is still elite regardless of a juxtaposed fan base that on one hand is apathetic while on the other expecting Final Four and national championship banners every year.

The Football Schools of Eternal Comfort

Don’t Worry, Be Happy…

These three jobs are roughly interchangeable.  They represent most of the amenities and professional respect of the above five positions with approximately 1% of the same pressure to perform.  Their coaches make massive amounts of money, have great facilities and enjoy fertile recruiting bases, but basketball remains a distant second banana on these three campuses and is unlikely to change soon.  So long as their teams don’t completely tank, they have better job security than just about anyone.

6.  Ohio State. OSU moves ahead of the other two in this grouping because the fans are generally more supportive of its program than at UT or UF and everything else — resources, recruiting, etc. — is pretty much a wash.
7.  Texas. Retirement job.  The pipeline of talent is such that the Texas coach can win 20-25 games every year in perpetuity with an occasional NCAA run and the vast majority of UT fans will be satisfied, even happy, with their program’s success.
8.  Florida. Why take a Kentucky job with ridiculous levels of expectation and pressure on an annual basis when you can coast with good teams year after year after year after year at Florida?  The theme among all of the schools in this grouping is long-term comfort without constant pressure to win a national title.

The Third Tier of Hope & Optimism

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Over the weekend, Duke announced that recently fired Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel had been selected to be its newest assistant coach. The announcement itself was noteworthy as Capel, who just two years ago was considered one of the hottest names in coaching, had fallen to the point where he was forced to take an assistant coaching position. The question of how Capel had fallen so quickly could be answered in several ways (most notably the departure of Blake Griffin and the disappointing performances of McDonald’s All-Americans Willie Warren and Tiny Gallon), but remains mysterious.

Capel will be returning to Duke (Credit: Bryan Terry/NewsOk.com)

Capel’s return to Durham also raises the more intriguing question of who is next in line to succeed Mike Krzyzewski when he eventually decides to retire, a possibility that was made more clear recently with the retirement of Gary Williams, one of his chief rivals in the ACC at nearly the same age as Krzyzewski. The first question is whether the Duke administration will want to pursue an internal candidate or would look at outsiders. We imagine that Krzyzewski would make a strong push to hire an internal candidate or at least someone with strong ties to the program, but the performance of most of the disciples from his coaching tree has been underwhelming to put it lightly. There have been a number of prominent head coaches (Mike Brey, Tommy Amaker, Johnny Dawkins, Quin Synder, and Capel) who have coached under Krzyzewski during his time at Duke as well as two others serving as associates alongside Capel (Steve Wojciehowski and Chris Collins).

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1. Well, this is certainly interesting.  According to this piece from wralsportsfan.com, the aircraft carrier on which public enemy #1 Osama bin Laden was buried at sea could be the same one used for the Veteran’s Day event featuring an outdoor game between North Carolina and Michigan State next November.  One of two ships will be used for the game — either the USS Ronald Reagan or the USS Carl Vinson — and the Vinson is the carrier which received  and disposed of the body of the world’s most wanted terrorist last week.  If we get to cover this game on November 11, we’ll definitely do some looking around for evidence of this — perhaps a marker of some kind, or a Kilroy Was Here insignia.  Oh, and ESPN will carry this game — no surprise there.
2. Minnesota’s Tubby Smith on Tuesday announced that he has been dealing with prostate cancer for the last year, but his most recent check-up revealed that he is now 100% free of the disease and he is “feeling great” as a result.  This is great news, of course, and Tubby joins a number of prominent head coaches who have been treated for this illness in the past several years — names including Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, UConn’s Jim Calhoun, and most recently, St. John’s’ Steve Lavin.  We’re pretty sure that this is not something confined to Big East coaches and Tubby Smith, but it does prove again the necessity for men over the age of 50 to have regular testing in this area, as it could ultimately save your life.
3. More on this later today, but the $200,000 raise that Rick Barnes received after his second straight disappointing season (and fourth in five years) proves that the Texas head coaching job is a plum position for someone who can simply tread the water of reasonableness year after year.  His new salary will be $2.4M per year now, but a 6-5 NCAA record in the last five years considering the number of top prospects that have passed through Austin is somewhat shameful.  At a basketball school, he would have already been run out of town for this level of performance; but at Texas, it’s worth a  9% raise.
4. Now that rosters are mostly set for the 2011-12 season (knuckleheads over the summer notwithstanding), Luke Winn is ready to present us with his Power Rankings for next saeson.  How awesome is it that he dropped some Belmont on us in the #16 slot.  Keep workin’ it, Luke.  While on the topic of rankings for next season, Jeff Goodman also came out with his Top 25 yesterday.  He, however, shamefully did not rank the Bruins from Belmont.
5. And now for something completely different.  Remember that Venoy Overton story from the latter half of the season that involved him being investigated and later exonerated for a sexual assault?  Seattle Weekly dishes the details from the 227-page police report that paints a somewhat different picture than the one bandied about the Seattle area for the better part of two months last season.  It’s well worth a read, especially with respect to holding our tongue the next time we roll our eyes when a player gets accused of some kind of sexual assault — you just never know.   Read it.