With the announcement today that the new downtown Louisville basketball arena will be named after local corporation KFC Yum!, the artery-clogging conglomerate that brings you such tasty fare as Pizza Hut’s Meat Lovers Cheesy Bites pizza (460 calories per slice) and Taco Bell’s Volcano Nachos (1000 calories) in addition to the new gastronomic delight of chicken, bacon and cheese known as KFC’s Double Down (1,430 mg of sodium), you’ll forgive us if our burgeoning chest pain means we can’t muster the energy to cheer this latest encroachment of corporate America into college athletics. 

So YUM!

Cardiologists throughout the area, however, put deposits down on additional properties in Mexico as Yum! will pay $13.5M over the next ten years for naming rights to the arena.  The deal also gives the company as many as eight concession spots throughout the building, ensuring a steady stream of in-game revenue from the good citizens of what Men’s Fitness ranked as the tenth fattest city in America in 2009.   

To their credit, the key principals in this deal are toeing the party line with their celebratory talking points.  Jim Host, chairman of the Louisville Arena Authority, said with respect to this deal, “We’re just tickled to death with the way it worked out.”  Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson added, “This is the icing on the cake, the cherry on top the icing.”  Color us cynical, but these statements are no more coincidental than Rick Pitino finding the keys to Porcini’s at the bottom of his trousers pocket.

Luckily, Louisville officials have shown considerable foresight in this regard and have already covered all of their bases.  We kid you not.

Now if that isn’t a classic example of rack ’em and stack ’em, then we don’t know our process improvement theory.  Louisville will host defending national runner-up Butler on November 16, 2010, to christen the building.  Over/under on fan visits to the Norton care center that night? 

It’s the first day of the spring signing period, and we saw a few of the top remaining undecided high school seniors choose a cap (or jersey) and commit to a college today.  Two of them were surprises only insofar as they’re big-time recruits who decided to attend mid-major schools, but it was Kentucky that made the most noise today.  This info came mostly from the ESPN-U broadcast, so we’re showing each player’s overall rating in the ESPNU-100 Class of 2010 in parentheses:

The biggest verbal of the day was no surprise, since the buzz about it had long preceded the actual announcement.  Point guard Brandon Knight (4), a 6’5 lightning bolt who can score as well as he leads, pulled out a blue cap and committed to play for John Calipari at Kentucky.  He joins Enes Kanter (25) and Stacey Poole (51) in a Wildcat class for next year that might not yet be complete.  The bill of Knight’s UK baseball cap already had a major curve to it, confirming what everyone already knew — this decision was made a long time ago.  Later in the day, the top prospect in the class of 2011, 6’7 small forward Michael Gilchrist also verballed to Kentucky, further ensuring that there will be virtually no hangover after the honeymoon season of Wall/Cousins/Patterson/Bledsoe.

Knight follows another blue-clad wearer of #11.

In a class top-heavy with excellent point guards, two mid-majors scored fine floor-leaders this afternoon.  6’1 PG Ray McCallum (17) decided to stay home and play for his father at Detroit, and 6’5 SG Trey Zeigler (33) — sporting the greatest full windsor knot we’ve ever seen, with apologies to ESPN-U workhorse Lowell Galindo — continued the father-son trend in the state of Michigan by donning a Central Michigan cap.  Zeigler’s father Ernie is the coach for the Chippewas.  Zeigler specifically cited Butler’s run to the championship game this past season as one of the reasons he was comfortable in playing for a mid-major program.  There’s no question that the chance to play for their respective fathers was an incentive for these gentlemen to commit where they did, but it will be an interesting thing to watch over the next couple of years as to whether or not other top-flight recruits pull the trigger on staying close to home at other mid-major schools, especially if another small program can equal or even surpass Butler’s achievements from 2009-2010.

Speaking of the Bulldogs, we should note here that Gordon Hayward has decided to submit his name for consideration in this year’s NBA Draft, but he won’t be hiring an agent anytime soon.  Butler supporters — and there are definitely legions more, after this past season — will be sweating out Hayward’s decision-making process this summer; the Bulldogs will lose Willie Veasley and Avery Jukes to graduation, which is substantial.  Hayward’s departure would make a trip to Houston next April all but impossible.  If he comes back, though, that means the Hayward/Shelvin Mack/Matt Howard/Ronald Nored nucleus would all be returning, and we’re confident that coach Brad Stevens can groom players to fill the spaces left by Veasley and Jukes.  Butler has no commitments within the top 100, but we doubt Stevens is sweating.

Sullinger, a Columbus native, already has the Buckeye staff smiling. (G. Housteau)

Marquette took a step in replacing the graduated Lazar Hayward today by signing 6’6 SF/PF Jae Crowder, the junior college player of the year.  Crowder averaged almost 19 PPG and led Howard College (TX) to the juco title this year.  This one had been known for some time, but Marquette coach Buzz Williams made the official announcement today.

Despite Kentucky’s recruiting haul today, as it pertains to the class of 2010, the top rating still belongs to Ohio State.  They’re extremely excited about getting 6’8 PF Jared Sullinger (2) on campus (as well they should be), in addition to 6’8 SF Deshaun Thomas (12), 6’4 SG Lenzelle Smith, Jr. (80), and 6’4 SG Jordan Sibert (82).  North Carolina isn’t far behind, with Roy Williams bringing in the top-ranked player in the class in 6’8 SF Harrison Barnes (1), 6’6 SG Reggie Bullock (18), and 6’4 PG Kendall Marshall (22).  With Kentucky rumored to be leading for at least two other players within the top 30, and eight players in the top 100 still undecided, the matter of who has the best recruiting class could be altered as soon as this Saturday at the Jordan Brand Classic in New York City, where more players are expected to announce their college intentions.

Sorry about the delay in announcing this, but we want to make sure that our 2010 RTC Bracket Nonsense winner gets his/her due…

First Thing on Google Images For "WildLeather" - We're Afraid to Ask

Your 2010 winner is…  WildLeather43 with his/her ivymania bracket.  In a very tough year to make picks, he/she managed to get half of the E8 and F4 correct as well as predicting Duke to win it all.  In fact, WL43, already had the first place trophy wrapped up even before the final game, as nobody in our pool took Butler.  WL43 will take home a Hickory High letter jacket, which he/she can wear around proudly as a reminder of the Hoosiers-inspired run that Butler made to the final possession this year.  Warning: there is leather involved, so hopefully things won’t get too crazy.

Second place goes to It’s Not Luck, who will have to contact us directly to get his prize of an RTC or Hoosier Daddy t-shirt (his choice).  Please email us at rushthecourt@yahoo.com to set up how we’ll send your prize, ok?

A final note on this is that your hoops-savvy RTC editors all finished in the bottom third of this contest, proving once again that we are a big steaming pile of blathering idiots (and yes, rtmsf is Chief Idiot).  Clearly we know nothing about this game, but we appreciate you all pretending that we do.  Until next year…

Butler University announced this afternoon that head coach Brad Stevens has signed a 12-year extension at the school, which will make the 33-year old the top Dog in Indianapolis through the 2021-22 season.  It’s clear that what the school might not have been able to do in terms of annual salary, they were more than willing to do with length of the contract.  This kind of job security is almost unheard of for such a young coach, and is certain to put a fair amount of pressure on Stevens to tap the magic genie and get back to the Final Four again.  There will be a Friday news conference in Indianapolis to announce it formally.

Stevens Will Be in Indy For a While (AP/D. Cummings)

Fans at Oregon, Wake Forest, Clemson and Rutgers are all probably disappointed in this news, but it’s possible that the only job Stevens would seriously consider taking in the future is at regal home-state program Indiana.  Even though Stevens went to school at DePauw University, it’s well known that he’s a Hoosier at heart.  But at least now those programs can move away from their lovesick pursuit of Stevens to a more realistic choice that fits their values and goals.  You have to love the coaching carousel!

You know how this works… here are some random thoughts bouncing around our head as we come out of a pretty damn good Final Four in Indianapolis.

Welcome to Indy!

Coach K is the Current Dean of Coaches.  But let’s get one thing put to rest right away.  He’s not John Wooden.  For all you presentists out there convinced that the era we’re currently in is tougher than any other previous one, get your head out of your sphincter.  Make all the excuses you want, but Wooden beat all comers west AND east, year after year after year after year (ten times in twelve seasons).  We could go on and on about this, and if the numbers were anywhere near each other (like if K had eight titles to Wooden’s ten), we’d entertain the argument.  But they’re not, and Coach K would probably be the first to chastise you of such foolishness.  Now, with that said, Krzyzewski is a clear #2 all-time with his most recent title.  Tom Izzo came into the Final Four with everyone gushing about his six appearances in the last twelve years, but it’s K who has done it better for longer, now with eleven F4s and four national championships to his credit.  Whenever he decides to retire, and there’s a good chance it won’t be for another decade, Coach K will have far surpassed the man whom he set his eyes on as a target way back in the early 80s — UNC demigod Dean Smith.  What seemed like a herculean impossibility at that time ultimately came to pass, as Coach K is now the Dean of Tobacco Road and the Smith family tree of he and Roy Williams must combine championships at UNC to simply match those of K (something undoubtedly not lost on Williams in his lair at this very moment).  Furthermore, Krzyzewski proved with this year’s team that he doesn’t have to have better talent than everyone else to cut down the nets — his other championship teams were stacked to the brim with future pros, but it will ultimately be the 2010 national titleist that raises his legacy from one of the coach with the best talent to one of the talent with the best coach.

K: Best in the Business

Greatest Title Game Ever? Had Gordon Hayward’s half-court shot found net, we’d be on board with this.  The storyline is just too good.  Even better than Villanova taking down big, bad Georgetown in ’85 or NC State’s miracle of miracles two years earlier.  The Jimmy Chitwood/Bobby Plump comparisons would have been endless, and we’re a little more than halfway convinced that we’d have seen our first-ever title game RTC should the ball have gone through.  Unfortunately for most of America, like many life-story endings awkwardly forced into a Hollywood template, reality leaves you waiting for the next moment that never comes — the Hayward shot didn’t magically bounce up in the air and fall back through…  The truth is that the national championship game was a hard-nosed, calculating, defensive-minded drama between two teams where every single point came with a price tag.  But it wasn’t beautiful, and in order to have greatness bestowed upon a game, it usually needs to end with a make rather than a miss.  This is not always the case, but it’s difficult to buy into the GOAT argument when the last made field goal occurred with just under a minute remaining (as a comparison, the widely-accepted greatest game of all-time, 1992 Duke-Kentucky, had five lead changes in the last 35 seconds of overtime).  So where does it rank?  Still pretty high — for our money, this was the best championship game since 1999 UConn vs. Duke (yes, Memphis-Kansas was thrilling, but not for the entire game), and is definitely in the top 6-8 in the post-Wooden era, but let’s keep our wits about us here. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Forget the Coach K to the New Jersey Nets rumors (seriously, how cool would it be to watch Krzyzewski turn down increasingly ridiculous offers…  $15M: nah.  $25M: no way.  $50M: sure I’ll think about it.  $100M: ok, but only if you throw in something for Collins and Wojo.), the hottest coaching commodity that we’ve seen in a great number of years is none other than Butler’s 33-year old wunderkind, Brad Stevens.  Everyone in college basketball circles would love to be in his position right now, with a limitless number of suitors and a potential preseason top-five team returning in 2010-11.  If you’re Stevens and you decide to leave, you can ask your new employer for the moon; if you’re him and you decide to stay, you can ask your current employer for Venus.  No matter what his final decision will be, he can make demands that few ADs, Barry Collier included, can afford to turn down. 

The Butler Money Man (Indy Star/R. Scheer)

Given that environment, there are currently three open positions with enough name recognition, cash and prestige to lure Stevens away from his home state of Indiana.  Let’s break down each of those situations plus a fourth alternative of staying at Butler for a while longer. 

Oregon.  Oregon has made no bones about its desire to get a big name to replace Ernie Kent this year.  Tom Izzo and Tubby Smith have already reportedly turned down the Ducks and Phil Knight’s mattress stuffed with cash, but both of those guys are old-timers (relatively speaking) who have climbed the mountaintop before.  Stevens is 33 years old and makes a good living at Butler (~$400k annually), but he has two young children and when you’re facing the prospect of generational wealth as he would at UO (~$2-3M), it clouds the somewhat feel-good picture of staying at Butler for the ‘fit.’

• Pluses: Obviously, money and top-rate facilities in the form of the brand-new Matthew Knight Arena (opening Winter 2010-11) and the adjoining practice facility.  A commitment to basketball through Phil Knight’s largesse.  A down Pac-10 will make for an easier ascendency to the top in the next two seasons.  Oregon loves its Ducks — strong statewide support.  Did we mention the money? — five mediocre years there and he’s still sitting on a huge bankroll. 
• Minuses:  In its heart of hearts, Oregon is a football school.  Recruiting to Eugene isn’t easy outside of the Pacific Northwest, and an Indiana guy would probably be out of his element there.  He’s looking at a rebuilding situation next season — the Ducks will not be very good for a while.  Oregon basketball feels more like a stepping-stone appointment rather than a destination one.  It rains an awful lot there.

Can Knight Shovel Enough Dough Stevens' Way?

Wake Forest.  With today’s firing of Dino Gaudio after three seasons and two NCAA trips, it’s clear that Demon Deacon AD Ron Wellman has bigger things in mind.  The school has a small but passionate fanbase that would hire the Easter Bunny if they thought he could beat Duke and Carolina on a regular basis.  Wake has money to spend, but there’s no bottomless pot of (black and) gold of which Wellman can draw from like Oregon.  Still, the ACC is still the most prestigious basketball league in America, and Wake is a prime situation for the right coach.

• Pluses:  Tobacco Road: few places in the country match the commitment and passion of the fans in this part of the country about college basketball.  Stevens would find a similar situation to what he left in Indiana.  There is enough talent in the Carolinas and Atlanta to support another top twenty program in this area on talent alone — Wake could provide the platform for Stevens to make that leap and pay him handsomely for the privilege.  Like Butler, Wake is a small, private university with a commitment to academics, so he wouldn’t be making a huge change in comfort level.
• Minuses:  Tobacco Road: did we mention that three of the last six champions and two Hall of Fame coaches reside about 80 miles down the road in Durham and Chapel Hill?  Many a coach has come to NC State and Wake Forest with high hopes only to learn that harsh reality the hard way.  Getting wins in the ACC won’t be as easy a proposition as it was in the Horizon League.  Butler is a low pressure job, but Wake demands a lot from its coaches — perhaps more than can reasonably be expected.

Read the rest of this entry »

If 70,000 people can act in unison as a single living organism, that moment was when Butler’s Gordon Hayward put his shot into the air from fifty feet last night.  The crowd, roaring its approval after Duke center Brian Zoubek intentionally missed his second free throw attempt with 3.6 seconds remaining, took a collective breath.  All eyes bored through the orange ball as it sailed in the direction of the opposite goal, and when it approached the intended target, there wasn’t a soul in the house who believed that it would actually miss its mark.

The Dream Seemed Possible (Indy Star/S. Riche)

To the consternation of screenwriters, the assembled media, neutral fans, the entire Hoosier State, underdogs everywhere, and advertisers calculating their future CBS promos – pretty much everybody except Duke fans – it did.  The ball hit the backboard, caromed onto the rim and popped off the front of it a little too hard, securing Duke’s fourth national championship in the last twenty seasons.  It wasn’t supposed to end that way, said the storybook tellers.  The tiny school from a few miles north of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was supposed to give us the timeless Hoosiers story in modern form — with Gordon Hayward taking the role of history’s Bobby Plump and the Butler Bulldogs channeling Milan High.  Instead, in a brutal reminder that real life isn’t Hollywood and history doesn’t often repeat itself, it was an old familiar face and and name who were left standing tall at the end of this night — Coach K and his Blue Devils.

As has been written numerous times in the lead-up to the Final Four and championship game, Duke may be the Evil Empire in the eyes of most college basketball fans, but this particular group of Blue Devils is eminently likable.  Looking back at some of Krzyzewski’s more vitriol-inspiring teams, the 2009-10 national champion lacks an identifiable villain embracing his role as a coldblooded assassin such as Christian Laettner; there is no impossibly accomplished athlete-cum-scholar like Shane Battier on the roster; and the only people on the team who inspire a wipe-that-smug-off-your-face response in fans are assistant coaches Steve Wojciechowski and Chris Collins.  The players themselves engender no such particular hatred.

Gotta Give Him His Due (Indy Star/S. Riche)

No, the only possible element of the 2009-10 Duke Blue Devils is the Darth Vader of Hoops himself, Mike Krzyzewski.  Fans love to hate the man who has now surpassed his mentor Bobby Knight with the most titles in the post-Wooden era, and it’s in no small part because of his sustained success over three decades of college basketball.  This site in particular has been very critical of Coach K’s recruiting strategy of the last half-decade or so, largely eschewing one-and-done type of players in favor of the three and four-year ones who develop over time from very good ball players to great ones.  We didn’t think that his plan of focusing on those next-level recruits like Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer, Nolan Smith and so on without the assistance of an elite NBA talent or two could result in a national championship.  We were wrong.

And we were wrong because of Coach K’s brilliance as a sideline tactician and his ability to learn from personnel mistakes over time.  There’s been a laundry list of big men in the post-Boozer era who have come to Duke and never amounted to much more than window dressing as K highlighted his perimeter attack — Michael Thompson, Josh McRoberts, Jamal Boykin, Olek Czyz, etc. — but his decision to stick with Brian Zoubek in the post this year despite three previous seasons of largely inconsistent play turned this team’s greatest weakness into a strength.  While the bulk of the Devils offense still came from the perimeter, the interior defense and rebounding (esp. second chances) that Zoubek provided was an element that the team hadn’t seen since The Landlord was patrolling the paint in the mid-2000s.

Zoubek's Toughness Helped Duke Win the Title (Indy Star/S. Riche)

From our view, this was the difference in not only Duke’s season but also last night’s game.  According to the stat-keepers, Zoubek blocked two shots but his presence was felt on numerous others as the Bulldog players had trouble finishing layup attempts in the lane all night long.  His 7’1 reach was especially important in forcing Gordon Hayward’s potential game-winning fadeaway to hit the rim an inch long, and his six offensive rebounds resulted in seven additional points for his team.  In a game as close as this one, it’s very easy to see his importance.  In previous years, it’s unlikely that without Zoubek inside that the stable of Duke perimeter defenders would have been able to keep an offensively efficient team like Butler to a mere 34.5% shooting, one of their worst showings of the season.

It’s not likely that this particular Duke team will weather well in terms of historical significance, but because of that fact it may have represented one of Coach K’s greatest coaching achievements while cementing his place as the second-best coach of all-time.  His three other champions were loaded to the gills with NBA talent, while it’s difficult to envision anyone other than Kyle Singler on the 2010 champs getting much of a look at the next level (and let’s be honest: Singler is nowhere near as talented as any of Williams/Battier/Boozer or Hurley/Hill/Laettner on the other Duke title teams).  With the bulk of his team likely to be back in Durham next year and a couple of stud recruits joining the team, Coach K will have a good shot at moving past Kentucky’s Rupp with the second-most titles from a single coach and make a run at tying bitter rival UNC with a total of five national championships.  At age 63, you have to figure that K will have several more good chances to get there in the next decade.

The 2009-10 college basketball season has just ended. Rather than dwell on the past, let’s look towards the future. That’s right, folks, hot off the presses: the first 2010-11 Top 25. Our assumptions on who is staying/leaving are within the team breakdowns.

1. Duke- Assuming Singler stays for his senior campaign, the defending champs are the clear preseason #1. Kyrie Irving and Seth Curry join the fun already started by Singler and Nolan Smith.

2. Butler– The Bulldogs should be a favorite to make another Final Four run. Hayward bolting while his stock is sky high would drop them a bit, but Matt Howard, Shelvin Mack and Ronald Nored all return.

3. Purdue– Losing Chris Kramer will hurt in the defense/leadership category, but the core should be back for another run in the loaded Big Ten: JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore and a healthy Robbie Hummel.

4. Michigan State– Lucas’ injury likely means he’s back for a senior season. Raymar Morgan is the only subtraction of note. Big years for Draymond Green and Durrell Summers should be expected.

5. Georgetown– Assuming Monroe goes into the lottery, the Hoyas should still be loaded. The other four starters return and it wouldn’t shock us if Chris Wright and Austin Freeman both contended for Big East Player of the Year.

6. Kansas State– The Wildcats will miss Denis Clemente, but nearly every other important piece is back, including Jacob Pullen. Curtis Kelly, Dominique Sutton and Jamar Samuels boost the frontcourt.

7. Ohio State-Evan Turner was Mr. Everything for the Buckeyes, but Thad Matta’s program won’t miss a beat. William Buford could be primed to break out and Jared Sullinger will contend for freshman of the year honors.

8. Tennessee– Bruce Pearl certainly lost some important pieces, but we also like their returning weapons, led by Scotty Hopson, Melvin Goins and Brian Williams and stud frosh Tobias Harris.

9. West Virginia– Their jump shooting issues could be even more pronounced without Da’Sean Butler, but Devin Ebanks, Kevin Jones and a healthier point guard duo is enough for a top ten ranking.

10. Kentucky– As presently constituted, the Wildcats are not a top ten team or anywhere close. But this is John Calipari we’re talking about. He should nab Brandon Knight and either C.J. Leslie or Josh Selby.

Read the rest of this entry »

We had a chance to tool around the Butler campus today and check out the spirit of the place a few hours before the national championship game. We think we saw, oh, maybe two people who weren’t sporting their Butler gear, and it looked like they were lost. In addition to the throngs of students (if a school of a little over 4,000 students can have “throngs”) riding that wave of anticipation until game time, there was an impressive number of hoop lovers walking over to an open Hinkle Fieldhouse to have a look. We think, on this occasion, it was less because Hoosiers was filmed there and more because people wanted to get a closer look at a great old arena and find out more about this Butler place…

Two of the many waiting on buses destined for Lucas Oil Stadium.

Painted in the front yard of a Butler fraternity house. Sort of Whellistonian, yes?

The school had provided school buses — yes, the big yellow guys with no seat belts — as transportation for students. We assume this was so they wouldn’t have to pay for parking, right? The girls in the photo below estimated that out of the near 4,000 students enrolled at Butler, around 3,000 were projected to be at the game tonight. Lines had formed for the buses long before we got there, and five full ones left en masse while we were talking to fans. Twenty more were expected.

Decked out and ready to go. The blue ribbons on the Bulldog's legs were tied to almost every tree and lampost on campus.

Read the rest of this entry »

You guys ready for some Duke-Butler tonight? Only 6.5% of Americans in ESPN’s National Bracket picked either the Devils or Bulldogs to be playing tonight on the game’s grandest stage, yet here they are (we can safely presume less than 1% had both). You already know the key matchups and what each team likes to do, the question is which team will bend first tonight. Will it be Duke with the pressure of the favorite and an estimated 50,000 vociferous fans pulling against them; or will it be Butler who finally senses the gravitas of the sitaution and gets out of their game. Both teams are so well-drilled that it’s difficult for us to believe either of them, but someone will have to lose tonight. Who’ve you got?

Read the rest of this entry »