1. Looking for a kid to root for in two years (after a redshirt year)? Look no further than Jimmy McDonnell, now possessive of a spankin’ new basketball scholarship at Temple. Mike DeCourcy has a great summary of a young man who wasn’t even a college hoops prospect of any kind early in his high school hoops career, but became one through hard work and the help of a couple of coaches who saw something in him. He sounds like one of those first-to-arrive, last-to-leave kinds of players to us, and that’s something we can always get behind.
2. It would be tough to root against Deandre Daniels, too, a top prospect in the 2011 class (ESPNU #28, Rivals #10, Scout #8 PF) who might reclassify into the 2010 class within the next 24 hours. Daniels missed a lot of school two years ago to help care for a grandfather stricken with cancer, got moved to the 2011 class, but has caught up with his original 2010 class through night classes and summer school. After decommitting from Texas for 2011, he’s got several scholly offers for this season, and Kentucky appears to have a head in front, which should surprise nobody anymore.
3. Kansas lost a couple of players on Wednesday when C.J. Henry and Chase Buford both decided to put Lawrence in their rearview mirrors.  Buford averaged about two minutes a game over 11 appearances and decided that he wants his senior year of college to be that of a regular student. Henry, as you may recall, was a first-round draft pick of the Yankees back in 2005, received a $1.6 million bonus and had his tuition paid by the Yanks at Memphis. When brother Xavier committed to Kansas and John Calipari left for Kentucky, C.J. was released from his LOI and enrolled as a Jayhawk, redshirting his freshman year.  He’s out of baseball, and after averaging five minutes a game over 15 games last season for KU, he’s looking to continue his basketball career elsewhere.
4. Jay Vincent, a former teammate of Magic’s on the ’79 Michigan State championship team and a nine-year NBA veteran, was indicted yesterday in an online employment scam. He and a partner were pinched for allegedly fronting a company that prepared people to inspect bank-foreclosed homes, asking applicants for money in advance for liability insurance and background checks. Turns out, no policies were bought, and no background checks were performed. The total take? Close to $2 million.
5. After having jerseys retired in three sports in high school, Drew Shiller didn’t exactly see a college career filled with hip surgeries and long stretches on crutches and in physical therapy/rehab. After starting at San Francisco, he transferred to Stanford, but always felt limited because of his surgeries. He stuck with it, though, and in the process made two Pac-10 all-academic teams and just took his master’s degree from Stanford. Nice short profile by the San Jose Mercury News.

With the growth of the AAU summer circuit it has been difficult for fans and coaches to keep track of all the action. There are few places where that has been more evident than in Las Vegas where at times there have been four tournaments going on simultaneously on dozens of courts making it impossible for someone to catch a potential superstar that everybody seems to have missed (Anthony Davis, anybody?). This year, however, there are only two tournaments to follow: the Super 64 and Fab 48 (you can guess how many teams each tournament has). If you only had one tournament to go to this weekend in Las Vegas (and how could there possibly be anything better to do in Vegas in the 120 degree dry heat?), we would suggest the Fab 48, which features the majority of the “big names” (for some reason the Super 64 doesn’t list its top players and we can’t figure out who plays for what AAU team), is NCAA-“certified” (although the Super 64 might be too), and also managed to snipe the last two Super 64 champs. Here’s a sampling of the talent (commits have the school next to their name) that will reportedly be at the Fab 48:

***Miller may not be at the Fab 64 (details below)

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