1. Shaun Assael of ESPN’s The File Blog (Insider) published the complete 208-page transcript of Rick Pitino’s courtroom testimony from the trial of extortionist Karen Sypher back in July.  Even if you don’t have time to read all of it (and really, who does?), he gives a nice rundown of what Pitino the Man faced in the spring of 2009 at the time he first received extortion demands from Sypher, while Pitino the Coach was trying to win the Cardinals’ first-ever Big East title on the court.  Interesting primary source material there.
2. While we’re on the subject of litigation, Tubby Smith may have saved himself a quarter-million bucks — well, the Hennepin County justice system may have — as the monetary damages awarded to Jimmy Williams from the trial against Smith and Minnesota was lowered from $1.25M to a cool $1.0M.  You may recall that Williams successfully sued Smith and the University of Minnesota for misrepresentation based on Smith offering Williams an assistant coaching job that led him to resign from Oklahoma State.  When UM athletic director got spooked by Williams’ association with prior NCAA violations at Minnesota, the school rescinded its offer.  Williams was left high and dry, and thus, the verdict went in his favor.  Minnesota isn’t satisfied yet, though, as the school plans to appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in an effort to vacate the verdict completely.
3. The Big 12 took the initiative and announced monetary settlements with Colorado and Nebraska on Tuesday that will allow both schools to become members of their new conferences — the Pac-10 and Big Ten, respectively — on July 1, 2011.  So what is the going rate for a conference buyout these days?  Try $6.863M for the Buffs and $9.255M for the Huskers.  Nebraska has a provision in its settlement that will allow it to reduce its penalty by $500k if the school is invited to a BCS bowl this football season.  Initially both schools were taking the stance that they owed nothing because the league was on the verge of dissolution, but saner heads prevailed and ultimately the fans of both sides (schools and conferences) will be better off for it.
4. It’s down to Duke, UNC or Kansas for Rivals #1 player Austin Rivers.  Just over two years ago Rivers committed to play for Billy Donovan at Florida, but the nearby Gators are now officially off of his list in favor of three of the biggest names in the game.  He plans on visiting all of his finalists in October, including UNC (Oct. 8), Duke (Oct. 15 – Midnight Madness) and Kansas (Oct. 22).  Carolina is so juiced for his visit to Chapel Hill that they’re already writing haikus about the kid.
5. In case you missed it, yesterday our very own columnist Andrew Murawa released the first of an eight-part series called In Their Words: Life at the Mid-Major Level, a tremendously informative overview of the difficulties that mid-major coaches and athletic staff face by virtue of limited resources and restricted budgets.  It’s not often that we promote our own stuff (note: this is not true), but the insights Murawa weaves from the voices of those at the mid-major level is well worth a read.  In Their Words will release every Tuesday morning for the next two months.

1. Good grief, could yesterday have been any busier in the college basketball world on a random August Thursday?  Between the Karen Sypher verdict, the release of several holiday season tournament brackets, coaching APRs and eligibility issues flying around, it felt like January around here.  Let’s talk Pitino…
2. The Chicago Sun-Times in response to its writer Michael O’Brien’s allegation (later removed) that Kentucky had paid Anthony Davis‘ family $200,000 in return for his commitment?  _________________________________________(crickets chirping)___________________________________________.  A slightly revised article on the S-T website, “Davis No Longer a Hidden Talent,” makes no mention of any payment nor offers a retraction or correction of any sort.
3. On a normal summer day, we might have a blast with this story from Kansas that they’re enlisting the help of students to redo their fight song now that Colorado and Nebraska are no longer members of the Big 12.  The winner will be announced on Oct. 23 this fall at Homecoming, but we can already say that the winner in our hearts and minds will be the clever student who comes up with a ditty trashing Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma for holding the rest of their conference brethren over the proverbial barrel and bringing it Deliverance-style in June.  C’mon, KU fans.  Send us something smart.
4. We dove into the Maui Invitational tournament brackets yesterday, in part because it has the best field and also because of the potential juicy Kentucky-Washington semifinal matchup, but several more tournament brackets were released as well.  Ready for some .pdf brackets?  The CBE Classic (Duke-Marquette and Gonzaga-Kansas State in the semis); the 2kSports CvC (Pitt-Maryland and Illinois-Texas); the Old Spice Classic (Ladies, look at your man…); and the 76 Classic were all bracketed yesterday.  Andy Katz has a tremendous breakdown of all the best pieces of the various tournaments here. 
5. The gray line between advisor and agent is holding up the NCAA’s confirming the amateur status of Kansas’ Josh Selby, according to CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish.  The question of Selby’s amateurism stems from an association with fellow Baltimore native Robert Frazier, who acts as Carmelo Anthony’s “business manager” and has admitted he acted as an “advisor” to Selby and his mother during his recruitment.  Parrish’s article also contains quotes from Bill Self and Selby’s mom, neither of whom sound terribly worried.

1. The big news of the day came from East Lansing, as twice-consecutive Final Four team Michigan State announced that it will no longer require the services of rising senior guard Chris Allen, a player who started 27 games last season and averaged 8/3/2 APG in a balanced offensive attack.  Tom Izzo stated that Allen had not met the standards required by him as a player in the MSU program, but he will help Allen transfer to another D1 program for his senior year (incidentally, Allen is the first player Izzo has ever booted).  After a year sitting out as a transfer, some lucky school will be the beneficiary of an athletic perimeter defender with the ability to knock down threes in rhythm (40% last year and 97 on his career).  As for preseason top five team Michigan State, the general consensus is that this loss will be negligible.  Their depth in the backcourt just got much thinner, but the feeling is that Korie Lucious, Durrell Summers and Keith Appling will be able to handle the additional burden.  Frankly, we believe that Izzo could take a team filled with incorrigible circus animals to the Final Four, so the Spartans will be fine.
2. If you believe Tre’Von Willis‘ lawyer, the senior UNLV guard facing domestic battery charges in Sin City expects to play a full season for the Runnin’ Rebels this coming season.  Willis is accused of choking his girlfriend in late June, but his attorney pleaded not guilty for him today and his preliminary hearing will not occur until November 22.  This could mean that any possible trial on this matter (if it came to that) could begin well into 2011, potentially freeing him up to play the entire season.
3. The Big 12 announced its conference composite schedule yesterday, and we’re happy to report that both Sunflower State showdowns will be televised nationally this year.  The game in Lawrence is slotted for Saturday, January 29 (ESPN), and the return game in Manhattan is two weeks later on Valentine’s Day.
4. Can you imagine a 20-team Big East that covered land from Kansas to NYC east-west and Boston to Tampa north-south?  Yeah, half the country, basically.  Adam Zagoria reported yesterday that the conference was looking at this opportunity should the Big 12 have ultimately disbanded earlier this summer.  In a related matter, Big East commissioner John Marinatto emphatically denied the persistent rumor that the conference was set to add Memphis to its lineup.
5. Count Mike DeCourcy among those who think the renewed calls for Rick Pitino to be fired from Louisville to be meritless.  It doesn’t really make much sense to us either, so little in fact that even last summer we never seriously entertained the idea that Pitino might actually lose his job there.  As we all know, basketball is serious business in Kentucky, and Pitino has done very well (although not extraordinarily so) there.  To fire him now (or last summer when the allegations came out) would not only put a huge financial burden on the school, but it would also set back the recruiting arms race that the arrival of John Calipari on the scene in Lexington has put into overdrive.  As for the Sypher trial, the prosecution rested its case on Tuesday; it’ll now be up to the defense team to poke tortellini-sized holes into it.

The higher-ups in College Station, Texas keep on checkin’ that mailbox.

A few days ago, the Texas A&M student-run Battalion newspaper reported that Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe, the man credited with saving that conference, didn’t exactly seem fired up to discuss the $20 million the Big 12 is supposed to pay A&M annually as part of a deal that kept the conference intact, noting that Beebe would “get around to talking to A&M about this ‘hidden’ money.”

As you recall, part of the deal that held the Big 12 together a couple of months ago was that the “big three” schools — namely Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma — would each receive a yearly $20 million payment as part of a new ABC/ESPN/Fox Sports television deal and from the exit costs incurred by Nebraska and Colorado when they decided to bolt for the Big Ten and Pac-10, respectively.  Those exit fees (if they actually exist) from those two schools totaled upwards of $20-40 million, and five of the remaining schools — Baylor, Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas, and Kansas State, as reported in a summary of this situation by the Houston Chronicle — agreed to forego their shares of this money and let the “big three” divide it up amongst themselves, as long as those three schools would stay in the conference and thereby keep it together.  Texas and Oklahoma said thanks-but-no-thanks to that cash.  Texas A&M accepted it.

Will Beebe and the Big 12 come through with the $20M? We're betting yes. (AP/Cody Duty)

Also according to that piece by Brent Zwerneman in the Chronicle, a Texas A&M official stated last Wednesday that A&M doesn’t really care how the conference comes up with the money — just that the Big 12 honor their end of the agreement, and that failure to do so would result in both legal action and a reopening of talks with the SEC.   Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin spoke at an A&M event in Houston on Saturday and minced no words on the issue, proclaiming, “I guarantee you we will be treated fairly.  Whatever it takes.”  Loftin’s words came two days after Mr. Beebe reaffirmed that Texas A&M would get their $20 million cut.

For several reasons, we’re pretty sure that the Big 12 will come through.  Not only would they never live down the embarrassment from reneging on the deal, but consider that the payments don’t even start until the 2012-13 academic year, giving them ample time — something they didn’t have as the conference was crumbling in June — to figure out how to divide up the cash from the TV deal and the exit fees.  And if the conference somehow doesn’t hold up their end, Texas A&M would certainly make good on that SEC threat, enticing rival Texas to do the same, and leaving Oklahoma no incentive to stay put.  The price of not coming up with the money would seem to be the very existence of the conference.

Keep in mind, though, that as of right now this whole agreement involving the $20-mil is oral.  Until one of two things shows up in College Station — the dough, or a written form of the agreement — A&M will continue to play that SEC card, and you can’t really blame them.

1. We’re starting to become concerned about the fall that Bob Huggins endured on Friday that sent him to the hospital with four broken ribs.  Initially it was believed that he would released on Saturday, but as of late Sunday night, Huggins was still being held in a Las Vegas hospital for observation purposes.  Doctors were apparently concerned about bone fragments that could cause other problems, and anyone who has had such an injury says that there is a great deal of pain while breathing.  Regardless, we hope that Huggins can get out of the hospital soon and resume his normal activities of recruiting, coaching and scowling at people.
2. This article at Fanhouse argues that USC basketball got off fairly easy in light of the OJ Mayo scandal and the subsequent penalties (or lack thereof) handed down by the NCAA.  Um, we guess?  What seems to be missing in this analysis is that the athletic department unsuccessfully threw Trojan basketball to the wolves in an effort to save the football program from harsher sanctions.  But at least they were proactive in getting in front of the problems and making the organization think that they were serious about self-policing in at least one sport.  If USC had been as cooperative with punishing themselves over Reggie Bush’s indiscretions as they were with OJ Mayo, the gridiron Trojans may not be facing a two-year ban from the postseason.
3. The Pac-10 coaches are discussing how the league plans to handle dividing up the new twelve team conference and everyone seemingly agrees on one thing — they don’t want to lose out on the fertile recruiting grounds of Southern California.  And with good reason, as the ten teams last year had 33 players from SoCal on their rosters, nearly 25% of the entire league’s cache.
4. This article on Dan Beebe, the “Savior of the Big 12,” paints a much different picture than the one that was being bandied about when it appeared the implosion of that league was imminent.  A good lesson learned here.
5. Former Oklahoma all-american and jazz musician Wayman Tisdale, who passed away from cancer in 2009, will be honored in perpetuity as the namesake for an award handed out by the USBWA to the top freshman player in America.  Given that nowadays the top rookie is often the best collegiate player in America as well (John Wall, Kevin Durant), this is a great way to remember the gentle giant from Tulsa.

1. The biggest news yesterday came when the NCAA announced that UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway has been tabbed to take over as the chairman of the Men’s D1 Basketball Committee for the 2011-12 season.  He will succeed the current chairman, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, next summer.  This is a peculiar choice given the timing that UConn is currently facing eight major recruiting violations in its men’s basketball program (including a failure to monitor charge, and if you believe this report, a possible 2-3 year probation) and rumors that Hathaway has been considering a move to Maryland, his alma mater.  According to the NCAA, if Hathaway takes the Maryland job, this chairmanship will not follow him.
2. Ask any middle-aged Duke fan if they remember the name Todd Leary, and without question you’ll get a knowing glance.  In the 1992 Final Four en route to Coach K’s back-to-back titles, Indiana’s Leary gave Blue Devil fans heart palpitations as he single-handedly brought Bob Knight’s Indiana team back from nine down in the final two minutes with three long-balls from all over the court.  Well, from that illustrious moment to this one — Leary pleaded guilty to fraud relating to a mortgage company scheme late last week in Ft. Wayne, and he is on the hook for $300,000 in restitution as well as possible prison time.  Nice.
3. Did you see Gary Parrish’s summer all-americans?  With three Big 12 players on his first team, it’s going to be another fantastic season in the nation’s heartland.
4. This is an interesting post from Bylaw Blog (“the unofficial blog of NCAA compliance” — awesome!) that suggests that the NCAA Infractions folks may be reaching a critical mass of knowledge in both football and basketball (about how “the system” actually works) to begin focusing on and targeting the volume cheaters.  We can only hope…
5. What do Rick Barnes (Big 12), Jeff Bzdelik (ACC), Fran McCaffery (Big Ten), Buzz Williams (Big East), Rick Stansbury (SEC) and Kevin O’Neill (Pac-10) have in common?  These six coaches in the BCS leagues tend to play their starters more than any other coach in that league, according to statistics compiled by Dan Hanner over at YABB in his typically stellar analysis.   (ed. note — Bzdelik’s and McCaffery’s numbers were of course from previous schools)

It’s not like Nebraska and Colorado were going to be on anyone’s short list for prime-time basketball in the 2010-11 season anyway, but we were a little intrigued to see how the Big 12 might handle its two lame ducks this season as a part of ESPN’s annual Big Monday coverage.   Excluding the other three bottom-feeders from last season — Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Iowa State — the remaining seven Tories schools will be featured on the package, beginning on January 17’s MLK Day with a rare Big 12 double-header and continuing each following Monday through the last two months of the regular season.  Here’s the schedule (all times CDT):

A Sunflower State Sorta Winter (Again)

• Jan. 17 – Kansas State @ Missouri – 4:30 pm
• Jan. 17 – Kansas @ Baylor – 8:30 pm
• Jan. 24 – Baylor @ Kansas State – 8 pm
• Jan. 31 – Texas @ Texas A&M – 8 pm
• Feb. 7 – Missouri @ Kansas – 8 pm
• Feb. 14 – Kansas @ Kansas State – 8 pm
• Feb. 21 – Oklahoma State @ Kansas – 8 pm
• Feb. 28 – Kansas State @ Texas – 8 pm

For two schools who supposedly held no value to anyone in conference realignment-land, the good people in Bristol sure seem to think that they’re worth something.  Kansas and K-State are involved in no fewer than seven of the eight Big Monday contests next season, with the biggest one of course falling on Valentine’s Day between the two in Bramlage Coliseum.  We’ve said it before, but the Big 12 continues to be a loaded league, and there’s a slight but realistic possibility that if the Texas schools and Oklahoma State come on strong late next season that all eight of these games could involve ranked teams on both ends of the court.

It’s seeing stuff like this start to come out, though, that really makes us anxious for next season.  What game do you guys like best in this television lineup?     

1. This is around the time of the year when the felonies start.  We guess that players get out of school, start feeling the summer heat and lose their minds.  Or something.  UNLV’s Tre’Von Willis, a first team all-MWC junior guard last season, was arrested Tuesday on felony charges of domestic battery by strangulation and grand larceny.  The person Willis allegedly strangled was his 28-year old girlfriend, which begs the question whether Willis may have been watching old Chapelle episodes before the incident.  There’s been no comment from UNLV head coach Lon Kruger yet, but obviously Willis is a big part of what he is expecting to put on the floor next season.  It’ll be interesting to see how he handles this one.
2. We figure that you’ve been on pins and needles all summer waiting for this decision, but the WAC announced yesterday that it will not expand in 2011.  What does this mean?  Well, with the loss of Boise State to the MWC after the 2010-11 season, the WAC will operate as an eight-team league for at least one year.  How quaint — an eight-team league.
3. What, no Craigslist?  This AP report examines the secondary market for tickets to NCAA events in light of the recent Kansas scandal.  Although we didn’t know that the NCAA had embraced Razorgator as its online ticket broker, it’s nice to see folks waking up as to how many people acquire ducats to these events.
4. So how much will Colorado have to pay for the privilege of leaving the Big 12 and moving to the Pac-10?  Probably about $10M more than they expected (had the Big 12 dissolved, as they undoubtedly thought would happen).
5. Coach K will talk one-on-one with Alabama football head coach Nick Saban on Wednesday night on Sirius XM radio, and we’re half tempted to listen to it just to see if the irresistible force/immovable object thing is really true.  Well, that and to see if the Russian spies show up.

1. Coach K is showing no signs of slowing down as he prepares for his summer stint leading the US Men’s National Team again.  The FIBA World Championships take place in Turkey in mid-September, and the team will be chosen from a pool of 27 players next month.  We’re guessing that the names might include the following: Kobe, LeBron, Dwight, Melo and Kevin.  As for Duke, even though K has to replace three starters, his team next year is probably more talented.
2. In this report, Big 12 coaches talk about their feelings as it appeared their league was going to dismantle last month as a result of the almighty football dollar.  Mark Turgeon and Frank Martin’s comments about how NCAA Tournament revenue finances the rest of the NCAA’s championships is the salient point here.  The NCAA needs to figure a way to get in front of the next round of massive expansion or face the ugly specter of eventually getting crowded out completely.
3. Former Memphis guard Roburt Sallie, a player who averaged just under six PPG yet famously dropped ten threes and 35 total points in the 2009 NCAA first round against Cal State Northridge, is transferring to Louisville for his senior season.  If he finishes his undergraduate degree this summer, as expected, he will be eligible to play immediately for Rick Pitino’s team.  His 11/4 averages and 44% three-point shooting will help UL immediately, a team reeling from losing its top four scorers from last year.
4. If you had to guess the game with the largest online viewing in history (subject to change annually, we’re sure), would you choose the US-Algeria World Cup game (during work hours on a Thursday morning) or… Florida-BYU from last year’s NCAA Tournament (incidentally, also on a Thursday during work hours).  Each game had over 1.1M online viewers, but the hoops game had slightly more.
5. Speaking of World Cup, this is great.  We have a rule around here that any and all Freddy Brown (Georgetown ’84) references will make it onto the site in some capacity, so we couldn’t resist when a comparison was made between Mexico’s Ricardo Osorio’s boneheaded pass to blow the game on Sunday and Brown’s gift to North Carolina’s James Worthy some twenty-eight years ago.

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

Now that the Draft is complete, time to look back at Thursday night’s winners and losers, from coaches to NBA teams to players to conferences and everything in between:

Paul George saw his stock skyrocket all the way to #10 and the Pacers, Al Bello/Getty Images

Winners:

Big 12 – One of the premier college basketball conferences has gained quite a surge of momentum in the last few weeks. Big 12 commish Dan Beebe convinced Texas it was in their best interests to keep the league in tact even after the defections of Colorado and Nebraska, two of the more downtrodden BCS-conference hoops programs in the country. After chopping off those two anchors, a ten-team, 18-game round robin format has been agreed to starting in 2012. The Big 12 momentum only continued at the draft on Thursday where an astonishing seven of the top 24 selections reside from the conference (and Kentucky isn’t even a member). Baylor’s Ekpe Udoh, Kansas’ Cole Aldrich and Xavier Henry, Texas’ Avery Bradley and Damion James, Oklahoma State’s James Anderson and Iowa State’s Craig Brackins, not to mention Cyclone transfer Wes Johnson, were all nabbed in the first 24 picks. The Big 12 barely trailed the ACC in terms of overall conference strength last season and the results of the first round only confirmed those numbers.

John Calipari – As Fox Sports Jeff Goodman astutely pointed out, expect plenty of John Calipari mug shots in near future drafts unless he bolts for a dream NBA job. Five of his Kentucky Wildcats from one recruiting class were taken in the first round on Thursday, from John Wall at #1 overall to Daniel Orton at #29. Next year could see two more Kentucky players announced early in the draft in center Enes Kanter and point guard Brandon Knight with forward Terrence Jones another potential first rounder. In 2011-12 when Marquis Teague, Michael Gilchrist and another top ten recruit TBD join Big Blue Nation, it’ll be the same Calipari hugging his revolving door of players on a June night in NYC. Don’t think this is just Calipari doing this for his departing players or that recruits are not noticing. He’s fully aware of what his face constantly showing up on ESPN’ s cameras means: furthering his reputation of sending talented players to the riches of the NBA. And quickly.

Paul George – It’s been a quick ascension for George, a workout wonder who saw his draft stock shoot up in the last few weeks until he landed to Indiana at #10. It’s doubtful even George saw this coming after being lightly recruited out of Palmdale, Calif, and settling on Fresno State for his college choice. George saw both his FG% and 3pt% plummet from his freshman to sophomore seasons and he only upped his PPG by 2.5 and RPG by 1.0 along with very low assist totals. He also played for a 15-18 WAC team against far more inferior competition than, say, Kansas’ Xavier Henry, who went one pick later to Memphis. Henry averaged 13.5 PPG, shot 46% from two and 42% from three on a team filled with players who needed touches.

Greivis Vasquez’ reaction – I don’t think anyone who watched Greivis Vasquez play four years at Maryland was surprised when they saw the emotional Venezuelan surrounded by family and friends in the crowd at Radio City Music Hall waiting for his name to be chosen. Vasquez has been projected as an early-to-mid second round pick- a scorer, leader and improved floor general that simply lacks the lateral quickness to defend NBA guards. Yet rumblings surfaced that Memphis loved Vasquez at #28. Sure enough, when he was pegged at that exact spot, the only outward, raw emotion we saw Thursday night emerged as Vasquez pumped his fist, hugged his family and practically sprinted to shake David Stern’s hand on the draft stage. Congratulations to Greivis.

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