Posted by nvr1983 on April 23rd, 2013
- There have already been plenty of transfers in a little over a month since the season ended, but few transfers will hurt their teams as much as Angel Rodriguez, who announced that he was transferring from Kansas State with two years of eligibility remaining. Rodriguez, who averaged 11.4 points, 5.2 assists, and 2.1 rebounds on his way to an All-Big 12 Second Team selection, stated that his reason for transferring was a desire to be closer to his family in Puerto Rico. We are not sure if this means he plans on going back to Puerto Rico or trying to find a program that was just a shorter trip (possibly Miami, but even that is not a quick trip to get home for Rodriguez). In any event Rodriguez will have to sit out a year (unless there is a family health reason driving his decision), but there should be no shortage of suitors for the services of Rodriguez who appeared to be developing into one of the top point guards in the country.
- With conference realignment continuing to change the landscape of college sports at least one conference–the ACC–is trying to protect itself from outside interests. Yesterday, the ACC announced that its 15 member institutions had agreed to a Grant of Rights through the 2026-27 season that gives the ACC the television rights for those schools during that period. In theory this would still allow schools to transfer during that period, but with those schools unable to generate any money for their new conference we cannot imagine many schools being interested in poaching ACC schools. We were unaware of these policies before the ACC’s announcement yesterday, but apparently several of the major conferences already have them in place. We are not sure if this would actually hold up in court, but so far nobody has challenged it. Of course there is a first time for everything, but we hope that something can slow down the ridiculousness that is conference realignment.
- For all of the negative publicity that the NCAA gets the one thing that constantly amazes us is how reluctant schools are to fight back against it. As Andy Staples points out there is a movement in that direction, but as you would expect schools are hesitant to do so publicly for fear of retribution from the NCAA. As several administrators have note the NCAA appears to have moved in a direction that may run contrary to what the member institutions, a charge that even Mark Emmert admits to. The question is whether the administrators are willing to actually take a stand and whether they can get enough support behind them to create the type of meaningful change that is needed. We are less than optimistic that it will happen any time soon given the nature of bureaucratic inertia, but it will happen eventually.
- Yesterday we mentioned the possible move by the NCAA to move up the start of practice by two weeks, but they may be looking at a more significant move–changing the shot clock from 35 seconds to 30 seconds. Andy Katz polled 37 Division I coaches about the proposed changed and 28 of the 37 favor a shorter shot clock although there are some notable exceptions. The big question is whether or not it would increase scoring and frankly the answer is not that clear. When Ken Pomeroy took a look at the subject in a 2012 post he noted that over time offenses have become more efficient, but have fewer possessions. Still Pomeroy did not necessarily come out in favor of a shorter shot clock, which he addressed directly saying “scoring would remain unchanged and we’d just hear the shot clock buzzer go off more often”. For his part Andy Glockner is also not convinced that shortening the shot clock will lead to any meaningful improvement in the college game. While we would not be opposed to a shorter shot clock we would like to see the NCAA address issues with the flow of the game before jumping to the shot clock.
- In terms of first Division I jobs Chris Casey appears to have landed a pretty good one as the new head coach at Niagara. Casey, who left Division II Long Island University, inherits a program that won the MAAC regular season last year with the youngest roster in the conference and returns all, but one rotation player after former coach Joe Minalich left to take over at Hofstra. While Casey has some impressive credentials including a 62-25 record in his three seasons as a head coach and various accolades as an assistant at St. John’s and Central Connecticut State. We do not expect MAAC teams to get much attention, but Niagara should be favored to win the MAAC next season so Casey does have a decent amount of pressure to produce early.
| morning 5, Regular Features
| Tagged: angel rodriguez, chris casey, kansas state, niagara
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