The ACC.

To most American sports fans, the mere mention of those two words conjures up immediate images of Michael Jordan from the baseline, Christian Laettner from the top of the key, Jim Valvano searching for a hug, Dean Smith calling for the four corners, and Mike Krzyzewski collecting rings like a Kardashian at Tiffany’s.  The ACC, perhaps more than any other conference in our lifetime, defines college basketball.  The cultural affinity for the sport down on Tobacco Road and beyond is only rivaled by the SEC’s obsession with the pigskin, and with the recent additions of hoops powerhouses Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the mix, the league stands to become even stronger.  It only makes sense that we would begin our power conference microsite roll-out focused on the league with the most history, tradition and passion for the game.

The ACC microsite is intended to focus exclusively on the stories coming out of the league on a daily basis.  Our two staffers, Matt Patton (@rise_and_fire) and Kellen Carpenter (@kellenlc), are talented and knowledgeable ACC insiders who plan on bringing you thoughtful commentary, analysis and criticism on a regular basis.  Get to know them at Twitter or you can contact them directly by clicking on their names.

Welcome to the next phase in the living history of RTC, the ACC microsite.

1. We aren’t sure if the NCAA is taking a tougher look at academic transcripts, but it seems like there have been more major recruits ruled academically ineligible in the past few weeks than we are used to (more likely that is is just the recency effect). The latest incoming freshman to fall under the watchful eye of the NCAA is Ohio State recruit LaQuinton Ross who was ruled academically ineligible by the NCAA. NCAA rules state that non-qualifiers cannot receive a scholarship or play for the year and lose a year of eligibility if they remain at the school. Ross is reportedly trying to circumvent that rule by attending another school and retaking the necessary classes and tests to qualify academically then enroll at Ohio State in January. It is a risky strategy, but Ohio State’s season could depend on whether Ross is able to qualify as the Buckeyes lack depth and experience on the perimeter and Ross could bring an interesting blend that might be enough to propel the Buckeyes into the Final Four given all the other pieces they already have in place.
2. In a story that may only interest fans that hate Duke (wait, that includes fans of every other college basketball team?) recruit Alex Poythress has reportedly cut his list to four schools and the Blue Devils are not among that group after telling Poythress they are no longer interested in recruiting him. Given the media storm surrounding Mike Krzyzewski‘s potentially rule-breaking recruitment of Poythress during the July recruiting period we have to say this is sort of humorous. We doubt that Duke will ever discuss why they were no longer interested in Poythress so the entire incident will probably just end up being something relegated to Internet message boards like the Myron Piggie saga.
3. We normally stick to college basketball, but we found Malcolm Gladwell’s article on the financial incentives of some professional franchises (in this case the New Jersey Brooklyn Nets) particularly insightful in light of the current NBA work stoppage and all the debates about NCAA finances. While we have had our qualms with Gladwell’s analysis in the past (see here) he does an excellent job of distilling a rather complex issue into a simple one. Just remember this article and the example of Bruce Ratner when you hear a team or school talking about taking a significant loss on a sport. We aren’t saying that some schools/teams don’t lose money as we firmly believe that many programs are in the red, but it is something you should look at with a grain of salt.
4. Speaking of the new Barclay Arena, the Atlantic 10 has decided to move its conference tournament there starting in 2013. While we wouldn’t consider this a major coup, it is a nice addition and will help build up the marketability of Barclay’s for more sporting events in the future. As for the Atlantic 10, this will the fifth venue for the post-season tournament since 2000, but does stay close to their major geographic region, which has traditionally been Philadelphia. We are guessing that both Barclay’s and the conference hope that this location can be a little bit longer-lasting than some of the recent previous sites even if the stability of many conference is questionable at best.
5. When Memphis added Luke Walton to its staff we thought it was little more than a cute marketing gimmick, but it appears that Josh Pastner is serious about utilizing Walton as he has been taking him on recruiting visits including one to visit Alex Poythress who has kept Memphis on his list (unlike Duke). While we do find this entire experiment interesting we do question the impact that Walton’s presence has on the recruits since (1) Walton didn’t play at Memphis, (2) he has no tie to the school other than knowing the coaching staff, and (3) he is gone as soon as the NBA ends its work stoppage. If we were a top high school recruit, Walton coming into our house would mean a lot less than someone like John Calipari or Mike Krzyzewski coming as Walton is nothing more than a celebrity fan kind of like Justin Timberlake except that our sister wouldn’t be going crazy when Walton walks in the house.

1. We guess this technically is still news even though we don’t buy the whole “BREAKING” aspect that the mainstream media has tried to make it out to be, but we guess we have to mention that the SEC has formally accepted Texas A&M into the conference with its first games starting next season. If there is anything noteworthy with this announcement it is that the SEC has basically called out the Big 12 schools that threatened legal action and told them to go ahead and file their ridiculous lawsuit because no reasonable court would accept it. Of course, our next reaction was that now that the SEC has 13 teams in the conference for next season they will need to get a 14th team pretty soon. Of course, we all know what that means. More conference expansion rumors. . .
2. Former Connecticut star Tate George was arrested late last week on accusations that he defrauded investors of nearly $2 million in a Ponzi scheme based on the premise that he was operating a $500 million real estate portfolio. The details of the reported scheme are kind of complex and are detailed in great length in the well-investigated piece that we linked, but things do not look good for the former UConn legend who hit what would have been “The Shot of the 1990 NCAA Tournament” before Christian Laettner hit the first of his two “The Shot”s. Given the involvement of former Stanford point guard Brevin Knight we wonder if there will be more names of prominent college basketball coaches and players coming out in the near future.
3. Taylor Branch made waves recently with his prodigious article in The Atlantic (discussed here) that generated quite a bit of discussion online, but was met with little public resistance until Seth Davis decided to chime in with a dissection of Branch’s column. For his part, Branch has responded to Davis (sort of) where he concedes several of the points that Davis makes, but points out several other major issues in his article that Davis did not address. However, the most interesting thing to us is that Branch essentially uses his literary glove to challenge Davis to a podcast duel. As much as we are looking forward to this confrontation (Seth, stick to sports and avoid civil rights) we are also looking forward to speaking with Mr. Branch later this week about the issue, which we will update you on when we have more details.
4. We have started our series highlighting the schedules of some of the top teams in the country. Andy Glockner at SI.com has taken a slightly different approach as he has chosen to highlight/call out the teams that play some highly suspect schedules. The list runs the gamut from 3 of the top 5 teams in the country (not counting some middling program called Duke) to a team that has never made the NCAA Tournament. We have not had a chance to go through every single team’s schedule yet (don’t worry, it is coming), but we think there are probably a few other BCS conference teams that are not featured that have pretty embarrassing non-conference schedules. However, based on the schools that Glockner selected we are guessing that he had some pretty interesting e-mails this week.
5. After deciding to go public with his diagnosis of prostate cancer in April Steve Lavin has decided to undergo treatment. At the current time Lavin is deciding between surgery and/or radiation therapy and will make the decision within the next two weeks to treat what the team’s physician described as a “relatively low-grade cancer”. According to St. John’s, Lavin is not expected to miss any time and should be able to rejoin the team for their first practice in mid-October. We wish Lavin the best of luck with whichever treatment option he pursues.

1. As we’ve said before, one of the few positives that’s come out of the conference congealment/realignment mess is that some writers have simply had enough and are pulling out all the stops in their critiques, and the readers are benefitting from it. The latest example of this came yesterday from Yahoo!’s Dan Wetzel, who explains why the current system blows, the new superconference system will be even worse, and that it’s not too late to save these conference and school administrators from themselves and try to save college athletics, certainly (our favorite section coming here), “…for the average fan, who just appreciated things like the Big East basketball tournament or Backyard Brawl or the myriad other traditions that seem a lot cooler than protecting the salary of the guy who runs the Great Idaho Potato Bowl.” Enjoy.
2. So, in that vein…Dan Beebe is out as commissioner of the Big 12, and it looks like this conference — which looked extremely wobbly at best just a week ago — will now survive. You probably remember that it was Oklahoma that said it would only stay on board if Beebe was removed AND if Texas‘ brand new Longhorn Network would be restricted in what it could show, especially regarding high school games/athletes. As for the “victory” yesterday and the discussion among the member schools that lasted for just over an hour, OU president David Boren said, “We achieved substantial reforms. We feel extremely good.” We assume now that it’s only a matter of time until the remaining schools gang up on Texas and that TV network to try and hammer out a few more substantial reforms.
3. It’s been just over 18 months since March 3, 2010, a night on which Maryland defeated Duke in a basketball game. It’s also the night that Maryland student John McKenna was beaten with riot batons by a couple of police officers during the celebratory mayhem that followed the game. McKenna and his family hired a private investigator who found a tape of the incident, showing that McKenna was not provoking the officers and was unarmed. The tape didn’t support the officers’ story that McKenna was belligerent to the policemen’s horses and it was the horses that caused McKenna’s injuries. A Prince George’s County, MD grand jury saw that tape recently. The officers are still innocent until proven guilty, but the grand jury indicted them earlier this week, charging them with first- and second-degree assault.
4. On May 13, UNLV senior Chace Stanback was pulled over for suspicion of DUI and ended up testing positive for marijuana. The summary of his punishment is as follows: $585 in fines, 40 hours of community service, attendance at DUI school, and participation in a victim impact panel. Yesterday, the school also suspended Stanback for the Rebels’ season opener on November 11 against Grand Canyon as well as an exhibition ten days earlier. The 6’8” swingman will be UNLV’s leading returning scorer, averaging 13.0 PPG last season (2nd on team), and led the Rebs last year in rebounding (5.9 RPG) as well as efficiency rating (13.5).
5. Speaking of November 11, that’s Veterans’ Day, and the night that Michigan State and North Carolina will face off in the first-ever NCAA game on an aircraft carrier, lovingly called the “Carrier Classic,” specifically aboard the USS Carl Vinson docked in San Diego. The combatants for the 2012 edition now look to be Arizona from the Pac-12 and Connecticut from the Big East ACC…well, whatever. We understand the reasons they’re doing this on the Vinson and why the ship has to be docked, but as we wrote in our original article on the carrier game, at some point in the future this has to be played on an active ship in the middle of missile drills. Talk about preparing a team to play on the road, man. The sight of a bird being launched in the middle of an 18-year old’s one-and-bonus will make a couple of snarky signs or synchronized cheers from some day-drinking poli-sci majors look pretty tame.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

Conference Expansion

• John Marinatto’s Grand Solution Was Navy And Syracuse Fans Feel Better About Themselves: “The truth is, we just didn’t think John Marinatto had a plan. We didn’t trust that, at the end of the day, he could make the right decision and steer the conference in the direction it needed to go in order to survive. We assumed the worst, that he would hitch his wagon to some desperate quick-fix solution that solved nothing long-term and only serve to drive home the perception that the Big East is living in the past and unable to truly move towards the future. In unrelated news, John Marinatto almost invited Navy to the Big East as a football-only member.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• UConn has some unlikely allies: Duke and Maryland: “On it’s surface this is good for UConn because the Huskies desperately want the ACC to expand, but the fact that Duke is pushing for this move says a lot about ACC priorities” (The UConn Blog)
• SEC wants Louisville, Kentucky does not: According to Chuck Oliver the SEC is interested in Louisville, but the move is being blocked by Kentucky. (Card Chronicle)
• Schadenfreude: West Virginia Already Applied to, Turned Down by ACC: “I mentioned West Virginia as a possible candidate for ACC expansion yesterday, but dismissed them as unlikely and not a great match. Being turned down by the SEC did nothing to make them more attractive in my book. Looks like the rest of  the ACC agrees.” (Testudo Times)
• Conference Realignment And Big Ten Expansion: What It Means To Purdue: A look at where Purdue might end up once at the conference realignment issues have been sorted out. (Hammer & Rails)

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

News

• Calhoun on expansion: UConn needs to do what’s best for UConn:  Jim Calhoun offers his thoughts on what UConn should do. (The UConn Blog)
• Jim Boeheim Grinning & Bearing It, Barely…: “Obviously, Jim Boeheim hates the idea of Syracuse going to the ACC. You can give me all the official statements you want. We all know they’re B.S. and the idea of SU playing Clemson & Florida State instead of Georgetown and Villanova makes him vomit.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Jerime Anderson Reinstated: The senior guard was suspended two games for stealing a laptop. (Bruins Nation)
• Maryland (and Duke?) Wants the ACC to Keep Expanding: “Per the Jeff Barker at the Baltimore Sun, the Terrapins’ athletic department is partnering with – get this – Duke, in privately pushing for the addition of two more teams, thereby making the ACC the first conference to go to 16.” (Testudo Times)
• UM Hoops to Host Crisler Arena Open House: “The University of Michigan men’s and women’s basketball programs will host an open house on Friday (Sept. 23) from 5-8 p.m. at Crisler Arena.” (UM Hoops)

In a conference realignment move that can only fairly be described as pre-emptive, expeditious, and quite possibly transcendent, the ACC is reportedly on the verge of adding Big East stalwarts Syracuse and Pittsburgh to its existing 12-team configuration. According to published reports, a vote by the league presidents could come as soon as Sunday, and CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish tweeted earlier today that his source stated that the move is “done.” This is simply a phenomenal turn of events in a realignment summer that has focused almost exclusively on the Big 12 and whether its Texas schools might end up moving west, east, or sticking where they are. The transition will bring two of the top 15 or 20 national college basketball programs into the league while simultaneously forcing the blindsided Big East to scramble for its very existence.

Welcome to the ACC

We wrote last year that the ACC might best situate itself among conference masters of the universe by again connecting with its basketball roots. The league was built on the shoulders of bloody Tobacco Road battles among Frank McGuire at North Carolina, Everett Case at NC State, Vic Bubas at Duke, and Bones McKinney at Wake Forest when the schools were all located within a stone’s throw of each other (Wake has since moved 80 miles west). Roundball was the essence of the ACC long before football television dollars started driving otherwise rational folks to do crazy things.

If you talk to longtime ACC fans, those who were around for the 8-team configuration through most of its history, there’s a general sentiment that the league lost its soul when it expanded for football, first in 1991 with Florida State, later with Miami (FL) and Virginia Tech in 2004, and Boston College in 2005. And although nobody can quite put their finger on it as to why or how, there’s a corresponding feeling that somehow, someway, the expansion also hurt the quality of basketball played in the league. During the 1980s and 1990s, there was no question among basketball faithful nationwide that the ACC consistently played the highest quality basketball of any league in America. Not only were programs like Duke and North Carolina dominant (as they are now), but there was a verifiable depth of quality programs to support the notion.

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Over the past few months there has been a growing sentiment that college players, particularly those in revenue-generating sports, deserve to be paid in addition to the value of their athletic scholarships. The recently released report (full PDF here) by the National College Players Association (NCPA) and Drexel professor Ellen Staurowsky created a lot of buzz and has been used by many proponents of proposals to pay college athletes as a piece of academic evidence to reinforce the notion that the athletes are getting cheated out of millions, if not billions, of dollars. While the report does a good job of making the case that athletes should be more highly compensated than they are at the present time, it is not without its flaws, which come both from the author herself and the people who have already chimed in to use it against the current state of college athletics.

[Ed. note: we created a sorted spreadsheet of the FMV of each basketball program’s players here)

The NCAA Has Come Under Increasing Attacks (Credit: Funcityfinder.com)

Before we go into the actual data, we should clarify that we approached this study with a skeptical eye because it was funded by the NCPA. A study analyzing the under-payment of a group of individuals funded by an entity that represents that group of individuals should always be viewed critically in the same manner that a medical journal article funded by a pharmaceutical company is viewed. This does not necessarily mean that the report is flawed in some way, just like a study funded by a pharmaceutical company may in fact be valid. It is just that you need to dig a little deeper rather than just looking at the figures presented in the executive summary or the lay press. Having said that, let us take a look at what the study says, what it does not say, and what some of the potential implications are for college sports in general along with possible solutions moving forward.

The report is essentially an analysis of the financial state of Division 1 athletes in college football and men’s college basketball (the two “revenue-generating” sports) in contrast to the money made by the schools and the coaches. The major findings of the study can be summarized rather succinctly:

• “Full-ride” athletic scholarships fall short of “full-ride” academic scholarships as the former are restricted by NCAA rules from covering the full cost of attendance (the figure that schools report to the Department of Education). In 2010-11 they fell short by an average of $3,222;
• The dollar value of the room and board portion of an athletic scholarship falls below of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guideline of poverty ($10,890 for a single individual) for 85% of those living on-campus and 86% of those living off-campus with the average athlete on a “full-ride” falling $1874 and $1794 short, respectively;
• Applying the revenue sharing used by the NFL and NBA last season where players get 46.5% and 50% of revenue generated, the average to calculate the “fair market value” of the athletes indicates that football players and basketball players are worth approximately $121,048 and $265,027, respectively, each year;
• For players on teams that were in the top 10 highest estimated fair market value in football, 100% received scholarships that were worth less for room and board than the federal poverty line (average $2,841 below), and in basketball 80% received scholarships that were worth less for room and board than the federal poverty line (average $3,098 below);
• For a set of 21 schools that earn over $30 million in revenue, their players received scholarships with room and board valued on average between $3,070 (on-campus) and $4,967 (off-campus) below the federal poverty line; and
• FBS schools spend on average approximately $350,000 more per each non-revenue-generating sports team than their FCS counterparts do, which, according to the authors, indicates potential cost-saving opportunities that would enable them to maintain the scholarship opportunities for athletes in those sports while still being able to provide enough money for those in revenue-generating sports, as those cost-savings ($6.3 million per year if one assumes an average of 18 non-revenue generating teams per school) would be able to provide approximately $64,000 per player per year in the revenue-generating sports.

1. A report by the National College Players Association and Drexel University professor Ellen J. Staurowsky is set to be released today that claims that the average Division I men’s basketball player is “worth” nearly $265,000 per year and Duke players come in at nearly four times that (approximately $1 million). We had a brief recap of the information that was released yesterday and plenty of pundits and fans weighed in yesterday across the Internet claiming that this as yet unreleased study was clear evidence that the players were being cheated out of small fortunes. We are reserving judgement until we have time to review the data and how the extrapolated the players reported values. As Homer Simpson once said, “People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.”
2. Another story that was all over the place yesterday was John Thompson Jr. revealing that he was scheduled to be on American Airlines Flight 77 that was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 before a producer from The Jim Rome Show persuaded him to take a flight a day later. According to the report, the Georgetown legend was planning on flying to Los Angeles to make an appearance and wanted to fly there on September 11th so he could make it to a friend’s birthday party in Las Vegas on the 13th, but when the schedule for the interview did not work out Danny Swartz, the show’s prodcuer, insisted that he fly to Los Angeles on the 12th and he would make sure that Thompson made it to Las Vegas for the party on the 13th. Thompson noted that at the time he was quite harsh with Swartz, but after learning that he would have been on the doomed flight if not for Swartz’s persistence he now thanks him for saving his life.
3. An earlier proposal name the court at Maryland‘s Comcast Center after Gary Williams appears to have run into some significant roadblocks. While support for the proposal still seems strong there appears to be an influential minority that is against the idea because of their belief that it would be a slight to Lefty Driesell and women’s coach Brenda Frease as well as a potential loss of revenue by passing up on having a commercial entity sponsor the court because apparently having the arena named after a corporate entity isn’t enough. [Ed. Note: Seriously though we think Rush the Court sponsored by Apple has a nice ring to it and we know that Tim Cooke has the money for it.] On some level we can appreciate wanting to honor Driesell, who was an accomplished coach during his run at Maryland, and Frease, who also won a national title, but neither of them is associated with the university’s reputation at this point to the degree that Williams is. We also understand the sentiment to “make amends” with Driesell, whom some feel was wrongly fired after the death of Len Bias, but based on our brief interaction with him we don’t think that Driesell harbors any major grudge against what the university did based on the situation although we do think he might still be upset with how the media reported the situation.
4. It looks like Arizona might be on its way to locking up another major recruit as Kaleb Tarczewski, one of the top high school players in the class of 2012, has narrowed his choices to Arizona and Kansas and scheduled visits to both schools. Tarczewski also still has North Carolina on his list, but did not schedule a visit there so we are guessing at this point crossing off the Tar Heels from his list is just a formality. As for the two remaining schools, Tarczewski is scheduled to visit Kansas this weekend and Arizona next weekend, which will coincide with their football game against Oregon. Although it is possible that the visit to Lawrence could blow him away and he could commit to play for the Jayhawks after some Blue Chips-like scene at Allen Fieldhouse (the scene involving Bob Cousy not the ones involving bags of cash, a tractor, a Lexus, or a new house for mom), but we tend to lean towards the team with the last shot at a player. If that is the case, Sean Miller may be adding another big piece to a class that will be a consensus top 5 class even if he does not add another player after Tarczewski.
5. As we mentioned only half-jokingly yesterday, we are going to be having a conference realignment item pretty much every day here and we are not going to disappoint you today. Ok, maybe the fact that this continues to make news will be disappointing to many of you. In the latest twist, a group from Texas traveled to Oklahoma on Sunday in an attempt to convince the Sooners not to leave the Big 12 for the new Pac-12 in anticipation of their reported formal application to become the Pac-12’s thirteenth member. Chalk it up to schadenfreude, but the fact that officials from Texas are going up to Oklahoma essentially on their hands and knees begging a school to stay in the conference is hilarious after the Longhorn essentially spit in the face of every other school in the conference by signing a 15-year, $300 million contract with ESPN to create the Longhorn Network in what was a power play to separate themselves from the rest of the conference.

An AP report released on Monday provided an interesting insight into the actual fair market value of ‘amateur’ athletes at the Division I football and men’s basketball level. The report, a joint venture between an advocacy group for athletes called the National College Players Association and Drexel University professor Ellen J. Staurowsky called “The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport,” outlines a methodology that results in the assignation of six-figure values for each and every D-I athlete in the two major revenue sports. The average college football player, for example, is worth approximately $121,000 per year while the average men’s hoops player is worth roughly $265,000 annually. At particularly high-exposure schools, those numbers look like chump change:

The report argues that playing big-time football and basketball is a full-time job, and an NCAA study released this year backs that up. It found that players in the Football Bowl Subdivision — the highest level — reported spending 43.3 hours per week during the season in athletic time commitment, while Division I men’s basketball players reported 39 hours a week in season. The report said that players at the most powerful programs are worth far in excess of even the average athlete. The report estimates that Duke’s basketball players are worth the most, at around $1 million each, while Texas’ football players top that sport at $513,000 each.

Is Each Duke Player Worth Over a Million Bucks?

Of course, such an accounting of fair market value in a professional-style format is anathema to the foundation of amateurism that the NCAA relies upon. The governing organization has long argued that it has no interest in paying players a dime above and beyond the value of attending college and its room/board incidentals, but the report argues that this stance leaves most players several thousand dollars short and living “below the [federal] poverty line at around 85 percent of schools.”  Not having enough money around to order a pizza, fill up the car, or worse, make an emergency trip home leaves student-athletes even more susceptible than they already are to taking illicit benefits from boosters. Even if you question how an athlete living large on a pretty campus with food, room, and board can be living below the poverty line makes sense, the logic behind pocket cash is clearly a solid contention.

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