Found this floating around tonight (although a little dated)…

Here’s hoping that Obama’s health plan is more informed and prescient than his prediction of Pitt beating Memphis.

Um, just kidding, Barack… your bracket looks fairly similar to ours, actually. Hehe… um, please don’t tap our phones and emails, we’re just a lonely blogger trying to get some love here.

So the coaching carousel rumor mill is blowing up right now, and this one is on a little firmer footing than yesterday’s Knight/WKU rumor (which interestingly still hasn’t been refuted), but Pat Forde and others are reporting that UMass coach Travis Ford (and NIT finalist) will take over the head position of the LSU Tigers later this week.  The firm leading the search for a new head coach (and AD) had this to say:

Dan Parker of Parker Executive Search denied Wednesday an ESPN report that LSU is prepared to name University of Massachusetts Coach Travis Ford as its next basketball coach.  “We’re waiting on the new athletic director to be named today or tomorrow, then we’ll engage with him,” said Parker, whose firm was hired last week to assemble candidates and was also hired for the AD search. “There have been no interviews, but we have made some phone calls. LSU wants it to be an inclusive search.”

If the Bayou Bengals do hire Ford, we may as well start calling the SEC the Pitino Protege conference, what with three of his former players (John Pelphrey – Arkansas; Billy Donovan – Florida) running programs down there. 

This would be an intriguing hire.  Ford got the previously moribund Eastern Kentucky program into the NCAAs in 2005, and even gave his alma mater Kentucky a run in the first round before losing 72-64.  After a rebuilding year in 2006 at UMass, the last two seasons have been very successful by UMass standards (24-9 in 2007 and 25-10 thus far in 2008), culminating in two postseason trips to the NIT with the possibility of an NIT title tomorrow night against Ohio St.   

If true, LSU fans should be thrilled.  Ford is young, ambitious and has a strong hoops pedigree.  But hey, anything beats John Brady, right? 

Update:  Ford took his name out of consideration for the LSU job (ultimately taken by Stanford’s Trent Johnson), but he had that snivelling look of someone with one foot out the door after all.  He’s headed to Oklahoma St. to become Boone Pickens’ houseboy. 

I just noticed this story this morning, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my colleague rtmsf was aware of this and decided to turn a blind eye to it. . .

As we mentioned before, Wake landed a great 2008 class picking up 3 five-star players (Al-Farouq Aminu, Ty Walker, and Tony Woods). Although all 3 are top prospects, Aminu is widely considered the jewel of the class. Unfortunately, young Mr. Aminu has run into a bit of trouble. According to police reports, on March 14th Aminu went out with 2 of his teammates and shot a woman in the stomach with a BB gun (details of the story here).

Aminu decided to turn himself into police on March 28th (2 days after his 0-point performance at the McDonald’s All-American game) on charges of felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor criminal trespass. It seems like the victim is doing ok and that her husband has a sense of humor as he is quoted in the story saying that “his shooting at my house was better than his shooting at the McDonald’s game”. The victims also appear to be asking the DA to go easy on Aminu and his teammates. For their part Wake Forest and Dino Gaudio decided to issue the standard reply:

We are in the process of gathering all of the information on this incident and it would not be fair to make any statement or judgment until we collect all of the facts.

We (or at least I) will follow this story and keep you posted if and when anything else comes out. Hopefully after rtmsf fires off a passive aggressive e-mail to me, he can offer some legal insight into the case/charges.

We saw this last weekend during the games and have been dutifully searching for video of it ever since. Thanks to Mighty MJD for posting it on Youtube, because this is a must-see for all hoops fans…

Can the presumptive POY Tyler Hansbrough do this?

Lost in the news of Tom Crean’s decision to go to Indiana is the possibility that the Kansas Jayhawks are once again going into the Final 4 with rumors that their head coach is going to leave them. The last time they were here in 2003, they went through this with Roy Williams, who initially denied any interest in the open position, but left Kansas anyways a week later. With Sean Sutton’s resignation after his ill-fated attempt to succeed his father Eddie, there is an opening in Stillwater for one head ball coach.

Although Bill Self, an OSU alum, has stated that he is not running in the running to be the Cowboys next head coach, his press conference left us less than convinced that he is definitely staying in Lawrence. As Seth Davis noted last week (scroll to bottom), OSU has some serious Boone Pickens money to throw around. That and the chance to go back to his alma mater (potentially ending their ceaseless requests for donations) may be enough to convince Self to leave the Jayhawks empty-handed once again.

I would have a hard time understanding why Self would leave Kansas. I know that he is an OSU alum and maybe I went to a school with absolutely no school spirit (stupid city campus), but it just seems like Self has fewer reasons to go from KU to OSU than Williams had to go from KU to UNC. I would consider KU and UNC to be on the same level in terms of historic significance and about the same in terms of ability to recruit (slight edge to UNC), but KU absolutely destroys OSU in any objective or subjective measure (other than number of fans in Stillwater).

I just hope the Roy Williams tearfest this week isn’t interrupted by this. Seriously though if Self leaves for OSU, who would Kansas trust after getting screwed over by 2 coaches who hadn’t won a title yet and left their team after/during (depending on your level of cynicism) a trip to the Final 4? Danny Manning?

I am sure this will hang over the heads of Jayhawk fans during what should be the best week of their year (unless they beat UNC/Roy and the winner of UCLA/Memphis) as will the memory of Roy high-tailing it out of town for Chapel Hill. The thing that should really bother them is that Self has a history of this having left a big-time basketball school (Illinois at the time) for another school (Kansas). The thing is that he may be leaving them this time.

Here’s a quick look at some odds and ends from each of the 2008 Final Four teams, while we’re busily getting ready for our preview later this week:

North Carolina (#1 seed East)

how they got here: blitzkrieged the East region pretenders (MSM, Arkansas, Wazzu, Louisville) by an average of 25.3 ppg

why they’ll win it all:  no other team has as much balanced offensive firepower as Lawson & Hansbrough

why they won’t:  ol’ Roy can’t win the Big One with his own players 

strengths:  offensive rebounding (#1 nationally) and FT shooting (76%) avoids long scoring droughts

kryptonite:  athletic defensive-minded teams such as Clemson & Virginia Tech gave them trouble – all three other #1 seeds fit the bill here

key stat:  Carolina is 22-0 away from Chapel Hill this season

Kansas (#1 seed Midwest)

how they got here:   without playing an elite team yet (seeds #16, #8, #12, #10)

why they’ll win it all:  no team has a better combination of explosive offense with shutdown defense than KU

why they won’t:  need we say it?  Bill Self teams play tight as a drum under pressure

strengths:  great shooting team (#6 nationally from two; #8 nationally from three) 

kryptonite:  teams that can turn them over can beat Kansas (Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. did just that); lucky for them, none of the remaining four teams are tremendous at causing TOs

key stat:  KU almost shoots as well from three (40.1%) as its opponents shoot from two (40.9%)

Memphis (#1 seed South)

how they got here:   handily, with three blowouts and one shoulda-been (vs. Miss. St.) but wasn’t because of poor foul shooting

why they’ll win it all:  they have an NBA-quality PG named Derrick Rose who gets off on taking over big games (witness his 19.4 ppg average against BCS teams this year)

why they won’t:  the Tigers aren’t as tested as the other three teams still standing; they’ve played three close games all season (2-1)

strengths:  athletic and long jumping jacks who lock up shooters (#8 nationally in FG% defense from two and #7 from three)

kryptonite:  that old Calipari bugaboo – 60.7% from the line is fine in blowouts, but not in close games

key stat:  one loss by four points – 39-1 would make this an all-time great team

UCLA (#1 seed West)

how they got here:   by allowing only 53.3 ppg in four Tourney games

why they’ll win it all:  experience – all but Love have seen the F4 at least once before (and thankfully, Florida isn’t around this time)

why they won’t:  prolonged scoring droughts are fine against Pac-10 foes, but won’t fly against offensive juggernauts such as the other three #1 seeds

strengths:  everything on the defensive end – steals (#11 nationally), blocks (#13), efficiency (#2)

kryptonite:  a poor shooting night (<40%) against an athletic team dooms the Bruins, no matter how good their defense is

key stat:  12 – Howland wants to get his gold C while the Wizard of Westwood is still alive

According to reports on ESPN, Indiana is on the verge of signing Tom Crean as their new head coach. I think this is about as good as Indiana can expect since they are losing D.J. White (and most likely Eric Gordon), kicked 2 other starters off the team today (Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis), and face potential NCAA sanctions for the Kelvin Sampson fiasco.

Crean has done an excellent job after taking his first job as head coach at Marquette (previously was an assistant at Michigan State, Western Kentucky, and Pittsburgh). After struggling to stay above .500 his first 2 seasons, Marquette quickly became a national power during the 2001-2002 season going 26-7. Crean’s career at Marquette reached its apex in 2003 when he took his team to the Final 4 (Dwayne Wade may have had a little to do with that too). After that season, Crean’s teams spent 2 years in the NIT before getting back to the NCAA tournament.

It appears that Crean will leave Marquette in good shape as they finished 5th in the loaded Big East this year. The Golden Eagles ended their season in the second round with an 82-81 OT loss to Stanford on a Brook Lopez leaner with 1.8 secs left.

I think Crean will be an excellent hire for Indiana. The big question now is what kind of damage control he can do. His first order of business will be to get his new program on the same page. I’m not sure what kind of process he will have to go through with Bassett and Ellis, but I don’t think he can afford to lose them and stay competitive. Keeping Eric Gordon will be a stretch, but Gordon probably dropped at least 5 spots with his awful performance in the last month or two of the season. After that, he will be at the mercy of the NCAA as they decide the programs fate for the next few years.

Yes, it’s April Fools’ Day, and yes, our sources are only message board chatter, but thankfully we’re not beholden to the same journalistic standards as our forebears, so we can actually give thoughtful consideration to this wild idea.

Is Bob Knight currently in talks with Western Kentucky to become the next head coach of the Hilltoppers? If the chatter is true, Knight wants to coach a mid-major with a solid fanbase, and WKU would certainly fit that bill.

Hmmm…..

In other coaching news, Andy Katz is reporting that Indiana will hire Tom Crean from Marquette as the next head man for the Hoosiers. You better hope there’s another Dwyane Wade in the pipeline for Crean there, Hoosier fans (Crean has a 1-3 NCAA record w/o D-Wade; 4-2 with).

Update: nearly 36 hrs after posting, this rumor of Knight going to WKU has yet to die. There’s still not much coming out of the MSM, but the message board chatter refuses to give up on the assertion that Knight met with WKU officials in Bowling Green, Ky, last night. Stay tuned to this one.

Update #2:  Finally debunked here.  But the rumor had legs, that’s for sure! 

We haven’t broken out one of these in a while, but there’s no time like the present…

• The Lopez Bros. say adios to Stanford, merely three days after losing their Sweet Sixteen game to Texas.
• Western Kentucky head coach Darrin Horn is reportedly the choice to take over for the embattled G. David Odom at South Carolina, making Horn the second WKU coach in the last five years to leave for an SEC school (Dennis Felton – Georgia).  Update: apparently Odom isn’t leaving SC after all – in fact, he’s getting a new 10-year contract!
• Not that anyone expected otherwise, but Midwest Region MOP Stephen Curry is staying in school at Davidson for at least another year.
• The IU implosion continues in the aftermath of the Kelvin Sanctions saga – starters Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis have been kicked off of the team.  Just guessing, but methinks this miiiight have been purposeful.
• And former McD’s AA Taylor King (rotflmao) is transferring out from under the iron fist of Coach K at Duke – word is that Villanova or Gonzaga is his likely destination.
• Sean Sutton is reportedly getting forced out at Oklahoma St. – it’s been no secret around here that we thought he was doing a horrid job, we guess that the benefactors at OSU agreed. 

I know the topic has been written about ad nauseum before, but I haven’t seen anything substantial written in the major news sources about it after the Elite 8 so I’m going to pretend that I’m breaking this story. . .

As most of you know after the 2003 season, Matt Doherty of 8-20 in 2001-2002 fame “resigned” from his position as head coach at UNC. Because Doherty resigned before the Final 4, much of the talk in the week leading up to the Final 4 that year (along with a freshman phenom Carmelo Anthony) was about who would take over the prized position as coach of the Tar Heels. After Dean Smith retired, he was succeeded for a brief period by Bill Guthridge, but that was only viewed as a temporary fix as, well let’s just say that Guthridge had a lot of “experience” by the time he became a head coach. UNC hired Doherty who was fresh off a great run at Notre Dame where he won a Big East Coach of the Year award. After a strong start, Doherty’s team fell apart the next year before entering the 2002-2003 season with a talented group of freshman that you may remember (Sean May, Rashad McCants, and Raymond Felton). They got off to a hot start that year winning the Preseason NIT with wins over then #2 Kansas (and Roy Williams) and a very talented Stanford squad. However, they fell apart when Sean May was injured soon after. Doherty’s resignation sparked widespread rumors with potential coaches ranging from the absurd (Dean Smith returning) to the more realistic choices (Williams and Larry Brown). Even Dick Vitale chimed in with his thoughts on the candidates.

All of this led up to the championship game, where after a week of questions about their coach leaving, Kansas fell to Syracuse 81-78 when Hakim Warrick came out of nowhere to swat away Michael Lee’s attempt to tie the game. In the post-game aftermath, Roy Williams was interviewed by Bonnie Bernstein. What followed was one of the great moments in sports TV history. Watch and enjoy:

It turns out that in some ways this “interview” became more famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) than the game itself. Some media members were quick to defend Bernstein. As for Williams, who late on April 7th denied even thinking about the UNC job for a second, he ended up leaving Kansas and his recruits and signed with UNC on April 14th. We won’t get into all the details of the process because it ended up being really convoluted, but Joe Posnanski covered it fairly well in his interview with Roy Williams soon after Williams decided to go to UNC.

The domino effect of this saga is pretty interesting in its own right:
– UNC hires Roy Williams from Kansas.
– Kansas hires Bill Self from Illinois.
– Illinois hires Bruce Weber from Southern Illinois.
– In 2005, UNC (Williams) defeats Illinois (Weber) in the national championship game.
– On Saturday night, Kansas (Self) gets a shot at revenge against Williams.

I can’t wait to see what the Kansas fans have in store for Old Roy on Saturday night. . .