1. The extortion trial of Karen Sypher began Monday in Louisville, and the blockbuster allegation of the day came from the defense.  Sypher says that Rick Pitino threatened to have her “put in concrete in a river” if she didn’t keep quiet about their affair in 2003.  It’s going to be educational to see how the defense tries to spin this so that Pitino is viewed as the guilty party considering the amount of evidence that the feds already have in this case.
2. The second installment of the Flourishing Five came out yesterday, and the Wisconsin Badgers are the #4 pick.  As a reminder, CBS Sports is picking the five collegiate programs with excellent basketball and football programs.  #5 Pittsburgh was named last week.  The Badgers are a solid choice.  We’re going to predict that the next three (in order) are: Florida, Ohio State and Texas.
3. This is an interesting article from Dennis Dodd about how the ACC hasn’t shut the door on future expansion, having mocked up 14- and 16-team scenarios.  The ACC has to know that as a lesser football conference, it behooves them to be more proactive in this arena rather than waiting to get raided by the Big Ten and/or SEC at some future date.
4. The thing is, when Tom Izzo says that he believes Purdue is the Big Ten favorite next season, he realizes that his team (not the Boilermakers) will probably be standing later into March and April.  Would you bet against this guy in the postseason given what he’s been able to accomplish the last two with much the same cast of characters?
5. The Ivy League is still the Ivy League, regardless of the success of Cornell making the Sweet Sixteen and Harvard’s Jeremy Lin getting signed by the Golden State Warriors.  But there are some league insiders who believe the added attention that the conference has received will only help recruiting the type of players who would have otherwise gone to BCS schools.

1. The people in Cambridge, Massachusetts seem to think that Tommy Amaker has turned things around and that the success will carry into this season and beyond because of Amaker’s ability to recruit and the school’s “name.”  While we think there is a better chance of fielding a solid basketball team than a solid football team at an Ivy League school because of the pure numbers — getting five to commit is easier than 23 (or 11 if your players are going two ways) — but we just don’t see that happening, at least on a consistent basis (Cornell last year was a little bit like catching lightning in a bottle). Our favorite part of the article is Andy Katz crediting Amaker with guiding Harvard to its first postseason appearance since 1946 last year, when they qualified for the CollegeInsider.com Tournament created just a year earlier. What’s next? Saying that a team is ranked just because Ken Pomeroy has them ranked even if they are 347th?
2. We haven’t talked much about this topic yet (at least compared to some other sites), but the news and columns about the potential ban on early recruiting keeps on building. Today’s news comes out of Atlanta where Paul Hewitt said what everybody has been thinking: the new rule will mean that coaches will just have “a wink and a nod” agreement.
3. We mentioned some of the early fall-out from the Kansas ticket scandal in yesterday’s Morning 5, but we are here with another update as a second former KU official has pleaded guilty to an identical charge. Right now the losses from the scandal are estimated to be between $1-3 million. We have a feeling more heads will roll in this case.
4. Since Mike Bellotti, who you may remember as the coach who infamously compared the BCS to “a bad disease, like cancer,” left Oregon to work at ESPN, the Ducks have been searching for a new athletic director. They finally announced a successor yesterday when they named Rob Mullens, previously at Kentucky, as their new athletic director. While Mullens’ old job required him to answer to approximately 4.3 million Kentuckians, his new job requires him to answer to just one man: Phil Knight.
5. Nice piece by Dana O’Neil about new Charlotte coach Alan Major and his unusual path to get a head coaching job. Coming out of high school, Major had a chance to play for a Division II school, but instead opted to go to Purdue and try to walk-on. When he failed to make the team, he decided to essentially become Gene Keady‘s apprentice where he essentially shadowed the coaches. Now after several stints as an assistant coach at various schools, Major gets his chance to be the man, but he won’t have an easy road as he replaces Bobby Lutz, who was fired after a 19-12 season (and the longest tenure in 49er history plus five NCAA tournament appearances and two Conference USA titles). That will not be an easy act to follow for the first-time head coach.

1. Behold, the power of KenPom. On his blog, Mr. Pomeroy lists the ten most unlikely wins of last season in a two-part post, but don’t be surprised if you don’t remember a lot of them.  It’s a great read, and the statistics add to the wonderment, but this is not necessarily a list of big upsets like Pennsylvania over Cornell, or Northern Iowa over Kansas. By “unlikely wins,” he means games in which one team got down by a large amount and had an incredibly low probability of coming back to win, but did.  Great stuff as usual.
2. Somebody please explain to us why this isn’t being televised.  On September 18th, Bob Knight will be roasted by the likes of Steve Alford, Isiah Thomas, and a few rivals of Knight’s from his coaching days.  If this is going to be a real, honest roast and the speakers plan to get in some good licks on The General, we’d like to watch this for two reasons:  first, to watch Knight make mental notes of who’s saying what about him so he can keep it on file in his brain; second, because this thing is going down at a casino, to be privy to the conversations that would happen if these guys get good and lubricated around a blackjack table at three in the morning.
3. In a story appearing on a blog of the Birmingham News, one of Eric Bledsoe’s relatives and a family friend claimed yesterday that they — and not Bledsoe’s high school coach, Maurice Ford — helped pay the rent for Bledsoe and his mother during Bledsoe’s senior year of high school.  Also, the landlady of that property is also disputing her account of the situation originally published by the New York Times, which broke the story over a month ago raising the possibility that Ford had injured Bledsoe’s amateur status by assisting Bledsoe and his mother by paying their rent on occasion.
4. Two ex-Kansas athletic department officials have now been charged in the federal probe of the KU ticket-scalping debacle.  Last week, former assistant director of ticket operations Jason Jeffries was charged with “misprision of a felony” for his role in the scandal, and yesterday former assistant AD for sales and marketing Brandon Simmons received the same charge.
5. The Pac-10 couldn’t be any worse next year than it was last year, could it?  It just has to be better…right?  Well, SI.com’s Ann Killion isn’t bullish that the conference’s final season in its ten-team form will be any better than the 2009-2010 edition.

Without question, the condition of John Wooden is the most important concern in the world of college basketball right now, and certainly beyond it, and we will be updating the site as needed on that issue.  Because that is obviously a subject that demands much greater reflection, today’s Morning Five links five other stories relevant to our sport.

1. This has been a very busy week for college hoops news despite the calendar showing June.  We know that it won’t be today as we had all originally heard, but at some point in the near future USC will learn its NCAA-meted fate as a result of the Reggie Bush/OJ Mayo/Tim Floyd eras.  Should the Trojan faithful be worried?  Mike DeCourcy believes that the hoops program will come out relatively unscathed, but Floyd and the footballers?  Not so sure.
2. Is the Big 12 seemingly disintegrating right before our very eyes?  It would certainly appear to be the case after yesterday’s report that the Pac-10 is looking to raid the southern half of the conference and a stalwart such as Missouri failing to calm the whispers about its imminent move to the Big Ten.
3. Great story today by ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neil about Bill Courtney, the new head honcho at Cornell, and his boundless optimism.  He definitely seems like the kind of guy for whom it would not just be fun to play, but maybe play hoops with, as O’Neil references in the article.  It’s tough taking over a program that just had one of its best seasons and just lost its key players, but it sounds like Courtney will enjoy and smile right through any weighty expectations.
4. We know about DePaul not releasing Walter Pitchford from his LOI, and here we go again.  Joseph Young, son of former Houston star and Phi Slamma Jamma member Michael Young (who also happens to be Director of Basketball Operations at UH), had signed on to attend Providence, but wants out so he can be nearer to home and a sick aunt with whom he’s very close.  Providence is saying no dice, and the Youngs aren’t happy.
5. This was posted a couple of days ago, but if you haven’t read Seth Davis’ article about Steve Lavin immersing himself in his new position as the caretaker at St. John’s, here’s another chance.  Evidently the guy’s been so busy with vital aspects of the job like, er, recruiting, fundraising, and finding some assistants, that the he hasn’t even found a permanent residence in NYC yet.

It appears that Nike’s controversial Duke advertisement is the least of their worries.  In a move that was seen as a long time coming at the University of Wisconsin, the school recently dropped Nike from their apparel contract over a dispute with labor on severence pay.  This is the first time that any American college has dropped an agreement with the multi-billion dollar company over what the school perceives as worker’s rights abuses, but the school has had a history of taking the initiative in contract agreements.  Wisconsin recently ended contracts with both New Era and Russell Athletic over similar practices, and chancellor Biddy Martin had given Nike 120 days to pay $2.6 million to Honduran workers in severance pay and back wages that started the standoff.  Wisconsin’s main apparel supplier, adidas, has had labor issues of their own but their are no plans yet to sever ties with the other shoe giant.  Wisconsin’s take:

According to the university’s Labor Code of Conduct, local labor laws must be followed, the freedom of associated and collective bargaining must be respected, and responsibility must be taken for subcontractors. Since Nike acted outside these rules, its contract was terminated.

Is Wisconsin the First of Several?

The amount of royalty fees that Wisconsin stands to lose is in the neighborhood of $50,000, relative chump change in the world of athletic apparel at a major school like Wisconsin.  But perhaps most importantly for Nike, other schools may be getting in on the act as well.  Georgetown and Washington are interested in learning more themselves.  Oklahoma, which unlike Wisconsin has Nike as their primary sponsor, is getting pressure from their students to drop the company, even going so far as to write a column requesting that OU terminate their contract with Nike.  Cornell may also be following Wisconsin’s lead as multiple workers’ rights organizations on campus have supported a termination of their contract.  Although Nike does not own the factories where the wage abuses occurred, they do use the factories to manufacture their apparel, which activists say violates Cornell’s Code of Conduct.  The ball is already rolling downhill on several campuses and if Nike isn’t careful, they’re going to find themselves underneath an avalanche of negative publicity on this matter.

According to Google Finance, the company is worth nearly $37 Billion.  So why do they feel the need to take such a PR hit when $2.6 million should be pocket change to them?  Probably the same reason that some of their overseas employees make less than $5 a day — unless you’re a potential Oregon head coach, CEO Phil Knight is not known as the most generous man in the world.  But if he doesn’t calm the storm soon, he could be facing a much bigger hit than any money he owed his (subcontracted) employees.

Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Midwest Region (Tom Hager)

• One of Michigan State’s big advantages may be in their bench production, which has been averaging nearly 25 points per game lately and runs 11 players deep.
• According to Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson, the decision to sign the contract extension was a no-brainer.  He signed a 10-year deal that will pay well over $400,000 per season.
• The Washington Post notes that one of the major differences in the absence of Kalin Lucas is the contrasting and free flowing style that Korie Lucious plays at.  Lucious’ 13-point total in MSU’s game against Maryland was his highest total of the season.
• Everybody knows Ohio State’s Jon Diebler has an incredible range, but not many people know that he used to shoot for dollar bills to hone his skills.
• Michigan State is known for being mentally tough, but Northern Iowa is not used to the national exposure they have received from their trip to the Sweet Sixteen.  Although Ali Farokhmanesh has said that the confidence he receives has always been there, he admits that the media exposure has been overwhelming.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• The Kansas State/Xavier game is already being called the best of the Tournament so far. Which, given the context, is really saying something.  Even though the previous game in Salt Lake City saw one of the remaining favorites to advance to the title game fall, the nightcap definitely stole the headlines.
• With Butler knocking off Syracuse on Thursday night, they are now one game away from playing in the Final Four in their hometown, and regardless of the outcome on Saturday, they’ll be heading back to Indianapolis. The Bulldogs got several huge (and somewhat fortunate) plays by senior Willie Veasley down the stretch.
• For Syracuse, it is a very disappointing end to an otherwise spectacular year and ends the careers of seniors Andy Rautins and Arinze Onuaku and likely junior Wesley Johnson, although he says that he is leaning towards returning for another season rather than head to the NBA as a likely lottery pick. But CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel called it a fitting end for the Orange’s season after they hid the severity of Onuaku’s injury.
• But, aside from all that, just another boring night in the Tournament.

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We know it’s only a few hours before game time, but we’ve never seen a college basketball game that has divided people  or caused sportswriters to openly acknowledge for whom they were rooting as much as the Kentucky vs Cornell East Regional semifinal that happens later tonight.  It’s being billed (erroneously) as Good versus Evil, smart kids versus dumb kids (isn’t Patrick Patterson graduating after only three years?), and so on.  Some examples:

St. Petersburg Times/TampaBay.com staff writer Michael Kruse actually points to Cornell’s achievements as a model to follow to succeed in the flailing American economy (?!?), and also notes:

“The message of Cornell…is this: long view over quick fix, well-drilled over well-heeled, and sometimes smarter beats bigger.”

Boston Globe/Boston.com writer Dan Shaughnessy makes no bones about which side he’s on in his article yesterday:

“Here’s hoping Calipari and his guys take the apple in this one. Then we can tell them that Dr. Henry Heimlich is a Cornell man.”

And that’s not even the biggest slight.  We thought his mention of the Cornell seniors having to soon go out and “face a tough job market” was interesting, since there are seniors on Kentucky’s squad who will be going out into the same job market soon.  Taking umbrage to the Boston Globe article, Kentucky sports blog KentuckySportsRadio.com’s Matt Jones wrote a scathing rebuttal to the Shaughnessy piece.  Shaughnessy responded.  It then spilled over onto the radio waves, as a local Boston radio station had Shaughnessy and Jones live on the air for a debate on the issue (which was really a 3-on-1 ambush).

John Feinstein of the Washington Post also had something to say about the good vs evil angle:

“…there is no doubting the glaring contrasts between the two programs. Cornell has no media guide. Kentucky has three, including a glossy, full-color, 208-page (the maximum allowed by NCAA rules) recruiting brochure that poses as a media guide. No one asked Kentucky’s players on Wednesday what they hope to do after college because everyone knows what they hope to do after college.”

Baltimore Sun sports blogger Kevin Cowherd makes his rooting interest clear:

“Americans have always pulled for the underdog — it’s practically written into the Constitution. So how can you not root for tiny Cornell, the no. 12 seed, when it takes on mighty no. 1 seed Kentucky tonight in the East Regional of the NCAA Tournament?”

On this issue, we’ll give Kentucky’s DeMarcus Cousins the last word:

“It’s not a spelling bee.”

Hewitt Turns Down St. John’s.  It always seemed like a drop in prestige from our viewpoint, but you never know the myriad factors that influence a coach’s decision, so we thought there was a reasonable chance Hewitt would bolt Atlanta for Jamaica (New York, that is).  Turns out that he’s sticking with his Yellow Jacket home after all, as Andy Katz reported today that Hewitt will not be taking the SJU offer.  Once St. John’s gives up the pipe dreams of courting Rick Pitino or Billy Donovan, the school is expected to go hard after Seth Greenberg at Virginia Tech or Steve Donahue at Cornell. 

It’s here.  We’ve endured the three-day layoff and it’s time for more hoops.  We know you already know, but here’s our lineup for today in the order in which they’ll be showing up on our screens:

• #1 Syracuse vs #5 Butler
• #2 West Virginia vs #11 Washington
• #2 Kansas State vs #6 Xavier
• #1 Kentucky vs #12 Cornell

Everyone’s been talking about Cornell  (and Northern Iowa in the Midwest) — and well they should — but we doubt Butler, Xavier, and Washington will go quietly.  That’s how great this tournament has been; because of the achievements of teams like Cornell and Northern Iowa, we’ve heard next to nothing about what Xavier and Washington have done! Syracuse will not have Arinze Onuaku and you’ve heard about the Darryl Bryant injury by now, so we expect the Huskies will try to make life difficult for Joe Mazzulla.  It should be an amazing four games tonight, to say the least, and we’ll crank up the live window (located after the jump) about 15 minutes before the first tip.  We hope that as you watch the games you’ll join us for some live discussion, as well.  It’s Sweet Sixteen time!

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Over the next two days, RTC will break down the regional semifinal games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are Thursday night’s games from the East and West Regionals.

7:07 pm – #1 Syracuse vs. #5 Butler  (West Region)

We’re starting to worry about this Arinze Onuaku situation.  Sooner or later, Jim Boeheim’s team is going to need the 11 points, five rebounds and general defensive anchor support on the front line that the 6’9, 260-pound big man provides.  Rick Jackson is a serviceable replacement, but the fact that Onuaku reportedly hasn’t even suited up in practice since his injury against Georgetown on March 11 is cause for alarm.  Even if Syracuse survives to advance to next weekend’s Final Four, how productive could he possibly be?  So far, Syracuse hasn’t shown a need for him yet.  The Orange ran over Vermont and Gonzaga without breathing all that hard thanks to the superb play of Wesley Johnson and friends, but there will be a team in the very near future where they’ll need more than Jackson alone can provide.

That team will not be playing SU in the Sweet Sixteen, however.  Butler is an excellent team and Brad Stevens has gotten players other than Gordon Hayward and Matt Howard to step up this season, most notably Shelvin Mack who went 9-12 from long range in the San Jose pod against UTEP and Murray State.  Syracuse is not UTEP or Murray, though, and the wide-open looks that Mack was getting in those games will no longer be as readily available thanks to the length and quickness of the Orange’s perimeter defenders.  Furthermore, Butler center Matt Howard has enough trouble staying out of foul trouble against Horizon League teams; it’s not realistic to think that he’ll be able to play 30+ effective minutes against Jackson, Johnson and Kris Joseph inside.  The main problem we foresee is that Butler is not a very good offensive team in general — when Hayward and Mack aren’t firing on all cylinders, the Bulldogs have trouble scoring points.  Add that to the fact they’ll be facing one of the best offensive teams in America, and you have a situation where numerous things need to go exactly right for Butler to get this win tonight.  Even without Onuaku on the floor for another game, we just don’t see Butler finding enough offense to win this game.

The Skinny: The last time the Bulldogs made it this deep into the NCAAs, they ran into a long, athletic team by the name of Florida in 2007.  They played the defending and future national champions as closely as they were played in that tournament thanks to their control of the tempo, strong defense and  attention to detail, but it still wasn’t enough because the Florida offensive attack was simply too good.  We think the same thing will happen in this game.  Syracuse has too many weapons for the Butler defense to key in on all of them, and even if they catch SU on an off night, where will the Butler points come from?

7:27 pm – #2 West Virginia vs. #11 Washington  (East Region)

Most prognosticators felt that Washington had Sweet 16 talent coming into this season. Lorenzo Romar was returning reigning Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Isaiah Thomas, defensive stalwart Venoy Overton and a forward named Quincy Pondexter ripe for a breakout season. While Pondexter’s prediction panned out, guard play was shaky, road wins were hard to come by, and the Huskies found themselves on the NCAA bubble with seven losses in a weak Pac-10. A conference tournament win punched their ticket, though, and the Huskies have taken advantage of the opportunity, erasing a double-digit second half lead to beat Marquette and wiping the floor with Mountain West champion New Mexico. Their toughest test yet will come Thursday against Big East Tournament champion West Virginia. Washington needs to produce a near carbon copy of their performance against New Mexico. In other words, they need to play a near-perfect game. Thomas must keep his head on straight and continue to make outside jumpers. Overton must frustrate Da’Sean Butler, Elston Turner must continue to produce offensively and Pondexter must out-duel Devin Ebanks.

For West Virginia, Washington seems like a favorable matchup. They may have preferred Joe Mazzulla guarding Isaiah Thomas more than the sidelined Darryl Bryant anyway. Mazzulla is the superior defender and Bryant has been woeful shooting-wise the last three weeks. They also match up well with the length of Washington. Bob Huggins can throw a lineup out on the floor of players 6’6 or above with huge wingspans, meaning the long WVU defense could fluster Pondexter and force him into difficult shots. One possible negative to the Bryant injury is that it increases the likelihood that the Mountaineer offense will become too reliant on Butler to bail them out. He’s done it time and time again this season and in postseason tournament play. Does he have more magic up his sleeve?

The Skinny: West Virginia has a plethora of defenders that can frustrate Pondexter and they boast the best late-game scorer in the nation in Butler. That combination should prove enough to take care of Washington in fairly methodical fashion. Avoiding their typical slow start would be prudent.

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