1. It wouldn’t be the Morning Five without a John Calipari mention, as the sport’s biggest newsmaker spins the media like a top with his almost-daily appearances, interviews, and social media missives. Yesterday on his website the Kentucky head coach wrote that his new scheduling strategy — pushing for more neutral site appearances against marquee opponents — will result in a one-year hiatus in the Kentucky-North Carolina series, but the home-and-home battle between two of the best programs in the country will return in 2013-14. The purpose of this move according to Calipari is to alternate years where the Wildcats will have to travel to Chapel Hill and Louisville, meaning that UK will play at least one tough non-conference road game each year. The Wildcats have also picked up a home/neutral series with Baylor starting next season that will allow them to play in Cowboys Stadium in 2013-14, the site of that year’s Final Four. Perhaps most interestingly, though, is that Calipari says that he’s in negotiations with Duke to begin an annual rotating neutral site game that he says would be on the same weekend each year and become “THE GAME” to watch. We certainly can’t argue with that.
2.  What we can argue with was a curious comment that Calipari made in his post explaining why he’s so gung ho on scheduling future neutral site games in football stadiums: “I’m convinced we would have won the title two seasons ago if we would have played in a dome during the regular season. Our guys weren’t prepared for it.” At first blush, this sounds reasonable on its face. But closer examination suggests that the head coach is tailoring the facts of his argument to justify what he wants. First of all, the Wildcats lost to West Virginia in the Elite Eight in Syracuse in 2010, which means of course that they had to win a Sweet Sixteen game in the Carrier Dome two days prior — on the same floor, in the same dome, only against a different team (Cornell). Did John Wall and company forget what they’d learned about playing in a dome environment just 48 hours before the loss to WVU? Next, the 2012 team that just won the national championship in the Superdome didn’t play in a dome environment at all in this year’s regular season or in the SEC Tournament. Still, without that ‘necessary’ experience, the Wildcats successively rolled through Indiana, Baylor, Louisville and Kansas to win it all. All in domes. If Calipari wants to play the lack of experience card to forgive the failure of the 2010 Wildcats, he probably should be looking at the ridiculously soft schedule that his Wildcats ran through on its way to a 35-3 record that year. When both teams matched up in the Elite Eight, the Mountaineers were by far the best team UK had faced all season. Kentucky’s lack of experience in playing good teams was the problem; it wasn’t that they hadn’t played in a dome. [Ed. Note: It is unclear which team Calipari was referring to, but the 2010 team was a far superior team if he was talking about winning a national championship.]
3. From a coach spewing nonsense to players doing likewise… Deadspin published a really interesting piece on Thursday examining in great detail documents from the cottage industry of companies who are tasked with monitoring college athletes’ social networking accounts. The article describes how it works: First, the schools get access to each player’s account through a special tracking mechanism that scans their pages regularly. Then, “once the computers gather all that data, the firms’ software searches it for trigger words and reports back to coaches and athletic department functionaries. This happens in near real-time.” It wouldn’t be Deadspin-worthy unless the examples were equal parts hilarious and horrifying, so we’d just suggest you set aside a few minutes of your time and get over there to poke around. Of particular interest is one company’s documentation and definition of many of the most common trigger words and phrases that could get players in trouble. Let’s just end this by saying that if you’re over 30 years old, you’re probably going to learn a few new slang words or acronyms to test on your buddies during the long weekend.
4. More conference realignment! And it doesn’t involve yet another rumor about Florida State, Clemson or Miami. No, UT-Arlington, a Southland school who is (we’re not kidding) joining the WAC on July 1, will spend one year in that league before movin’ on up to the Sun Belt, effective next summer. You read that correctly — in a span of 366 days (from June 30, 2012 to July 1, 2013), UT-Arlington will be a member of three different conferences. At the mid-major level, it’s just short of impossible to keep up with who is heading where, but we think that the Sun Belt will also pick up Georgia State and Texas State to replace the losses of FIU, Denver, and North Texas to the WAC and Conference USA. Whether the WAC survives all of this re-shuffling remains to be seen.
5. A couple of head coaching positions at the mid-major level were filled on Thursday, with Rider and Binghamton inextricably connected through the transition. Binghamton hired Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey to take over for Mark Macon, a former star player at Temple who was unable to dig out of the morass left by his predecessor, Kevin Broadus. Rider acted quickly to fill the vacuum, promoting assistant coach Kevin Baggett to the helm for purposes of continuity. Rider has averaged 18.5 wins per season in the six years that Baggett was an assistant for Dempsey, so it makes sense that the administration wants to keep the momentum moving forward.

1. You may have heard that a group (Coalition of Intercollegiate Athletics) issued a statement criticizing John Calipari for his recent actions and statement regarding Kentucky‘s scheduling. The group, which is composed of 59 faculty members from FBS schools, says that Kentucky’s desire to play neutral site games is “the type of warning sign we would expect to see on the path toward a full professional model.” Most writers who have already written about this statement have, in our opinion, correctly ripped the COIA for their self-righteous tone, which is mildly amusing with all of the other bad things going on in college athletics and they decide to focus on this. One thing that we are still having trouble understanding is why those same writers continue to rip Calipari for his decision to essentially put the Kentucky-Indiana series on hold because of his desire for neutral site games. Numerous writers have penned columns saying that Calipari should submit to Indiana’s wishes in order to continue the series to do what is right for college basketball. Calipari’s job isn’t to make college basketball overall better it is do what is best for his players and his program. If he decides to do something that is not “in the best interest” of college basketball and it does not break any rules, we could care less about how he schedules and think that any criticisms of him for doing so come off as self-righteous.
2. If you thought that the conference realignment rumor mill could not get any more ridiculous yesterday may have raised the bar as reports surfaced that Florida State, Clemson, and Miami were exploring a move to the Big 12. Those reports were based on a statement made by TCU‘s athletic director, but were subsequently squelched by the same person who said that he was only making a statement that the rumor mill indicated those schools were interested in moving. Outside of FSU, we had not heard of any potential moves so basically he was the driving force of the majority of that rumor. Of course, with all of the strange moves we have seen during the last few years nothing would surprise us at this point.
3. The report that Reeves Nelson was suing Sports Illustrated for its  story earlier this year about UCLA did not really come as much of a surprise to us given what was reported about him and how litigious our society has become. The story, which was written to show how chaotic the UCLA program had become, featured several stories about Nelson including one where he urinated on a teammate’s bed. The lawsuit states that the reported events were not adequately investigated and is asking for $10 million in damages. We doubt that Nelson will get that much, but Tyler Honeycutt the supposed victim of the aforementioned incident claims that it never happened so the case may be a little more interesting than it appears at first glance.
4. Ohio State plans to give 500 of its student-athletes iPads this coming school year as part of a new digital initiative the school is undertaking with a plan to give all 1,110 athletes the devices within the next two years. The iPads will be pre-loaded with materials already given to the student athletes and will have Wi-Fi capability. We applaud the effort to try to give the student-athletes something educational in addition to their scholarships, which we assume many of these individuals are already getting, but we know that this will become the subject of quite a few jokes for rival schools given the tendency of some old Buckeyes for trading in things for tattoos.
5. Many Kansas State fans are probably interested to see what Bruce Weber can do to replace Frank Martin. There may be some question about Weber’s ability to coach, but there should not be any question of his ability to lure in assistant coaches after the stunt that one of his new assistant coaches pulled this past week. Newly hired assistant Chester Frazier, whom you may remember from his days at Illinois playing under Weber and getting a little too physical with Eric Gordon, was playing for a German professional basketball team until he got a call from Weber inviting him to join the Kansas State staff, which Frazier jumped at. And we literally mean jumped at as he abandoned the team he was playing for in the middle of their league playoffs. While we are sure that some Kansas State fans appreciate the dedication we imagine that he will have a tough time selling his future players on sticking with the team after he has done something like this.

1. ESPN released its most recent class recruiting rankings yesterday. The top three is about what you would except for the fact that it is shocking to see Kentucky and John Calipari ranked anything, but #1 in any recruiting rankings. If Big Blue Nation is looking for an explanation for this blasphemy, the guys at ESPN have offered up an explanation for you. Other than that nothing really jumps out at us other than Duke coming in at #11 with just two commits in this year’s recruiting class.
2. In the latest chapter of the ongoing conference realignment drama, Old Dominion announced that it was leaving the Colonial Athletic Association for Conference USA starting with the 2013-14 season. The article on the school’s site briefly mentions it, but the real issue here is football as the school was looking to make a move to the Division I level and moving to Conference USA was the easiest way. For the CAA this is a huge blow coming on the heels of Virginia Commonwealth‘s defection and they may be forced to poach some teams from another conference to remain viable. However, as is often the case in these situations, the conference also has a way to get back at the school with some punitive measures and can ban Old Dominion from participating in future CAA championship events (like the conference basketball tournament).
3. When Delvon Roe announced before the start of last season that he was retiring due to degenerative knee pain to pursue a career in acting we suspected that he would find a measure of success in that new field, but we did not expect it to come so quickly and to such a high degree. Roe’s feature film debut in “Love and Honor” was shown at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday. Now we are not exactly film connoisseurs, but getting your movie shown at Cannes even if it is not as the leading actor in the film seems like a pretty big role. At least that’s the way it seemed in Entourage.
4. In one of the more bizarre administrative moves we have seen in a while Southern Methodist fired Steve Orcini as its athletic director just weeks after made one of the biggest coaching moves of the offseason by hiring Larry Brown to be its next head coach. The decision was reportedly based on continuing disagreements between Orcini and the school’s president. We are not sure what finally led to the decision being made, but it is not a good sign for Brown or the basketball program even though we doubt it was related to Brown or his hiring. If the program is not stable enough to keep its athletic director through a transition period like this, you have to figure there are some issues within the athletic department and the university itself. Of course, there is also the issue of the three years remaining on Orsini’s contract so the school has some things it needs to work out before it gets to dealing with its 71 year-old coach.
5. If you thought that the media circus surrounding the attempts of several schools the block transfers of players to others schools would lead to a change in the transfer rules, you may be disappointed. While almost all of the individuals associated with the NCAA and schools that were willing to go on record seem to support the idea of letting student-athletes move more freely it seems like making that a reality will be difficult for a number of reasons. Our feeling are basically mirrored by this comments in this article and although it is unfortunate we do not expect to see any movement on this topic in the next few years.

1. The New York Times reports that incoming Kentucky freshman Nerlens Noel is being investigated by the NCAA for relationships among his inner circle. While some point fingers of allegations because of John Calipari and Kentucky’s involvement, CBSSports.com reminds us that this issue will continue to be a problem with many of the top recruits regardless of school affiliation. “Just change the name and you’ve got a new story,” a high-major assistant coach said to Jeff Borzello this week. But coaches like Bob Knight (long-time Calipari critic) and media members like Pete Thamel (author of the NYT story) continue to point to Calipari as what is wrong in college sports. “People want to say Calipari is the problem with the system,” said an SEC assistant coach. “They want to point their finger at him. But he’s no different than any of these other guys.”
2. Despite the buzz of allegations, Noel feels very confident that he will be eligible to play for Kentucky next season. He says that at this point the NCAA has not contacted him or his immediate family, and he feels that he is in a “great position to qualify,” even though he is aware of the investigation. “I don’t want to be too specific, but I’m in a good position to qualify,” Noel said in response to the NYT story. A Kentucky spokesman declined to comment, but Noel’s confidence has to be good news for the Cats.
3. While many of the nation’s top recruits end up in Lexington, Wright State transfer shooting guard Julius Mays may end up rejecting Cal’s Cats. Mays shot an impressive 42.4% from beyond the arc last season, but rather than use those talents for Kentucky he is looking instead at Matt Painter’s Purdue squad. “I would have a chance to score the ball and play guard with a great group of guys,” Mays said. “I feel like I could play for coach (Matt) Painter. I watch a lot of basketball, and any time Purdue is on, I watch them. You never know if this is my last visit. If I’m ready to choose, that’s what I will do.” Kentucky needs depth for next year’s team, and of course, a deadeye shooter wouldn’t hurt either.
4. Big guard Ralston Turner is considering a transfer and has been granted a release from LSU’s new coach Johnny Jones, who was hired to replace Trent Johnson this offseason. Turner indicated that he would like to take some time to think about his decision, but his release does not necessarily mean that he is leaving the Tigers. “I have been given my release and I will be taking a visit (to another school),” Turner said. “That’s all. I didn’t say I was 100 percent leaving (LSU). It’s something I have thought about for a while and Coach Jones is allowing me to do it. I am going to take a visit and when it’s over I will weigh my options.” Turner averaged 9.1 points and 3.0 rebounds per game in his sophomore year with the Tigers, and would be a solid returning player for Jones in his first year on the bench for LSU.
5. A lot of talk has centered around non-traditional schedules and Calipari’s desire to play at neutral sites, and now Indiana coach Tom Crean is defending his position regarding the recently dropped rivalry between the Hoosiers and the Wildcats. “First off, someone asked me do you not want to play neutral sites? We have neutral sites,” Crean told reporters. “When the Crossroads Classic came in, that became something that was going to be locked in every year. Even though it’s in Indianapolis, it’s a neutral site. It’s not a home site. You always want to have the ability to play in exempt tournaments. We’ve done that in the past. We have it this year, playing in New York. So there’s three right there.” It is a shame that Indiana and Kentucky cannot find a way to play considering the history and tradition that goes into that rivalry, but ultimately Calipari and Crean (and obviously the rest of the athletics staff involved) have to do what is perceived to be in the best interest of their program. Both head coaches have done enough recently (Cal with a National Championship and Crean with rebuilding IU from shambles) that trust in terms of whether or not each program is going in the right direction should not be an issue.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: NCAA Investigating Top Big Man Nerlens Noel

Nerlens Noel Is Being Investigated By the NCAA.

Big Blue Nation Has Little To Worry About. According to a New York Times article yesterday, the NCAA sent two members of its enforcement staff to Massachusetts this week to inquire about Class of 2012 star center Nerlens Noel. The members went to Everett High School Tuesday, where Noel spent his first two years of high school before transferring to the Tilton School, to meet with school officials about Noel. According to Everett High School principal Louis Baldi, the meeting lasted an hour and 15 minutes and centered on “concerns we had as adults” for Noel. In case you missed Pete Thamel‘s earlier article on Noel in March, he wrote about all of the influences surrounding Noel, which may or may not have brought on this “inquiry.” Here’s the thing, even though Kentucky haters will latch on to this story as just another scandal linked to head coach John Calipari, this whole story really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s nothing new that the NCAA is investigating a top recruit with many people trying to influence his every decision and honestly, if it wasn’t Kentucky, the New York Times probably wouldn’t have even reported about it. Drawing on all of the information that has been published, neither Noel nor Kentucky has done anything wrong and I doubt anything will result from this. Kentucky fans should just be happy about their National Championship and look forward to making flat top t-shirts next year in honor of the top big man in the Class of 2012.

What They’re Saying

Junior star Troy Williams on a timetable, adding schools to his list and his favorite coaching staff: “We’ll probably let two more schools back in, just to see what else is out there… it will probably be Georgetown and Florida. That’s the deciding factor, which head coach I like more. It (my favorite coaching staff) would be the Kentucky coaches because before the dead period I stayed in touch with [Kentucky assistant] coach Orlando [Antigua] the most.”

Troy Williams Revealed A Lot Of New Information About His Recruitment.

Junior stud Allerik Freeman on his final five schools: “My final five is Kansas, Ohio State, Duke, Villanova and UCLA,” Freeman said. “They’ve been recruiting me the hardest, all of them are good programs, I can see myself fitting in at all of those schools and those are the five schools that I can see myself playing at for all four years.”

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1. Most national college basketball writers are aware of the sensitivity of Kentucky fans so you would think that a local newspaper would be cognizant of the sensibilities of their readers. Apparently The Lexington Herald-Ledger was not aware of that (or didn’t care) as it published an editorial cartoon making fun of John Calipari and some of the accusation that follow him. Outside of being unoriginal it seems like a rather idiotic decision to alienate your subscriber base (if the paper has a substantial one even before this). We would have expected something like this out of The Indianapolis Star, but for the local newspaper to do it to poke at their always irritable fan base seems to be a poor move all around.
2. With the NBA Draft a little over seven weeks away, fans of both NBA and college basketball are beginning to focus in one how their favorite teams and players will get paired. By now we know who the top picks will be regardless of what order teams select them in, but the real intrigue is who the “value picks” will be. For that, NBADraft.net takes a look at this year’s NBA Draft and some recent NBA Drafts to find a poor man’s version of more highly rated players. Of course, as the NBA Draft approaches every year you can count on at least one column bemoaning the current age limit. The latest version of this article comes from Steve Kerr and speaks in favor of a 20-year-old age limit. We agree with Kerr on some of the points he makes, but picking 20, which is an arbitrary number seems a little capricious. Personally we would prefer an age limit of 22 years-old out of personal greed (3 more years of Anthony Davis? Sign us up!), but it will be hard to make the case as long as NBA owners and GMs continue to draft talented freshmen. Even if you disagree with Kerr’s premise it is a worthwhile and relatively short read.
3. As we have seen several times in the barely one month old offseason, coaching changes very often lead to player transfers. The latest such case is Dorian Finney-Smith, who is transferring from Virginia Tech. Finney-Smith did not provide new coach James Johnson with a reason for his decision except to say that it was not due to the firing of Seth Greenberg, which may or may not be the case. Finney-Smith, one of the most highly sought-after recruits that the Hokies ever brought to campus, had a decent if not great freshman year averaging 6.3 points and 7 rebounds per game. The move, which was a shock to Johnson and the Hokie program, is a pretty big blow as they try to regroup under new leadership. Finney-Smith has not announced what schools he is looking at, but there should be no shortage of schools chasing after him.
4. The North Carolina athletic department has no shortage of scandals recently and now it appears that there is a brewing academic scandal involving classes that are made up of largely basketball and football players. The classes being investigated are in African and Afro-American Studies and are said to involve unauthorized grade changes in classes without the instruction of professors. To be fair to the athletes the investigation has not shown that the players were shown any favoritism in the grade changes although the high percentage of athletes from the two sports in the classes (39%) will lead many to infer that they were put there to maintain their eligibility. Obviously, there are quite a few other potential explanation for the high prevalence of these athletes in these classes like the race of the athletes or that they were often held in summer sessions when athletes are a relatively larger percentage of the student body. While some may think this matter needs further investigation the school does not appear to think so as UNC System President Tom Ross stated that he felt it was “an isolated situation” (the famous words of many administrators before the walls came crumbling down).
5. We know what you were probably expecting us to lead with the Nerlens Noel piece in The New York Times, but honestly it isn’t even worth mentioning at this point except to say that it is not a story. The NCAA tends to investigate a lot of situations like this and invariably nothing ever comes of it. This only becomes a story now because it is Kentucky and it is Pete Thamel, which will inevitably spiral into another ridiculous Internet feud given the history between the two with Thamel’s penchant for hunting down stories regarding Kentucky. If something is found, then it would be a big story, but for right now our response is “meh”.

By now, you’ve heard that two of college basketball’s traditional powerhouses have decided to end their annual tradition of playing each other. Kentucky and Indiana have combined for 13 national championships, are two of the strongest and historic programs in basketball history, and could easily both be ranked in the top five to begin next season. Last year they played in two classic games that included some of the best moments of the entire season. Yet, at the height of the rivalry in many years, the schools could not come to an agreement on how to continue their games. While fans on both sides continue to voice their displeasure (synopsis: IU says “convenient”; UK says “trust in Cal”) , the Kentucky coach has now explained his side of the story. Feeling emboldened by his newly-minted national championship, John Calipari wrote an extended blog post over the weekend about his scheduling needs and why they contradict with the purpose of the UK-IU rivalry. While Calipari should be praised for his direct communication with fans and refreshing transparency, his actual argument doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. He states that his primary focus is to best prepare his team for the NCAA Tournament, but in his new “nontraditional” approach he’s stripping his players of valuable competition and fans of exciting matchups to look forward to. Calipari stresses that UK is a players-first program, but the agenda that he’s pushing doesn’t actually seem more beneficial for the players, and it’s not good for college basketball fans, either.

Coach Calipari Directed a Message to UK Fans About Kentucky's Scheduling Tactics (ESPN Photo)

Calipari’s post reinforces the idea that his scheduling desires are motivated by what’s best for his team during each individual season. He says that Kentucky is “going through things that no other program in the history of college basketball has gone through. No other program is losing five or six players a year.” While this is technically true, it’s not logical to give up long-term scheduling deals with other schools just because his team will look different every year. The fact that his team does in fact look different each season (presumably filled with blue-chippers as long as he’s around) would instead lead us to believe that he needs to challenge his teams right away in order to prepare the Wildcats for the rigors of March. Kentucky may still have won the title last season if it hadn’t played a challenging non-conference schedule, but early games against Kansas (neutral), Louisville (home), North Carolina (home), and Indiana (road) seemed to help speed up the learning curve of his precocious freshmen.

No head coach, including Calipari, wants to lose non-conference games. Losing those games can severely impact the RPI, which – as flawed of a measure as we all know it to be – is still the underlying metric that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee uses to compare and contrast teams. For years fans around the country (with UK fans especially vocal) have decried the “Coach K Method” of scheduling, questioning why Duke rarely challenges itself in the non-conference season to play true road games in an opponent’s building. There’s truth to the criticism – outside of the ACC/Big Ten mandate, Duke might play one other “road” game each season, usually confined to the Duke-friendly alumni corridor of the Mid-Atlantic from DC (Georgetown) through Philadelphia (Temple) to New York (St. John’s). These look like hostile road trips on paper, but plenty of Duke fans who live nearby scoop up tickets to support the Blue Devils, making those games more neutral than you might think. Duke then fills the rest of its non-conference schedule with other neutral site games against teams it should beat and home games against solid mid-majors like Belmont and Davidson, earning wins and good RPI juice in the process.

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1. The past season was an interesting one for Xavier‘s Mark Lyons and after a falling out with Chris Mack, reportedly based on Lyons’ tendency to try to take over games and play outside of the team’s system, he decided to transfer making him one of the most coveted transfers on the market. On Sunday his name announced that he would be heading to Arizona (clarified in a subsequent tweet). The mercurial rising senior, who averaged 15.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game last season will likely start for the Wildcats next season as he is set to graduate from Xavier this summer and would be eligible to play next season if he enrolls in a graduate program at Arizona that is not offered at Xavier. One of the more interesting aspects of the transfer is that it reunites Lyons with Sean Miller, the coach who recruited Lyons to Xavier before himself departing to Arizona. The arrival of Lyons in Tucson this summer likely shifts the balance of power in the Pac-12 from Pauley Pavilion to the McKale Center and adds to the conference’s respectability even if we still have doubts about the rest of the conference after the top two teams.
2. On Saturday, Trent Lockett announced that he will transfer from Arizona State to Marquette for his senior season to be closer to his mother who is battling cancer. Lockett, who already completed his undergraduate degree, should be eligible to play for Marquette next season either through enrolling in a graduate program at Marquette that is not offered at Arizona State or through a family hardship waiver. Last season, he averaged 13 points and 5.8 rebounds per game for a dysfunctional Sun Devil team and although he is joining a much better team he should get plenty of court time for a team that lost its two best players to graduation.
3. Lyons and Lockett may have a more immediate impact, but the biggest transfer news of the weekend may be Derrick Gordon who announced on Friday afternoon that he was leaving Western Kentucky to go to Massachusetts. The freshman guard averaged 11.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game while leading the Hilltoppers to the NCAA Tournament and managing to put up some decent numbers against eventual national champion Kentucky (12 points and 5 rebounds) when he got there. Gordon will have to sit out next season, but he does have three more seasons of eligibility left making his impact much more important in the long-term and could serve as a foundation for the program to build around for the future rather than just one year like the two players we already mentioned.
4. Having brought Kentucky its eighth national title a month ago, John Calipari took his team to the White House on Friday. While the White House visit was most likely the most memorable part of Calipari’s day, getting a 8.3% pay raise (or $400,000 extra guaranteed per year) was a nice cherry on top. Although we would like to think that this was just a thank you for bringing title #8 to Lexington, this was more likely a preemptive strike against any other basketball organizations that might try to lure Calipari away from Rupp Arena like a certain organization that could use someone to lead them who can keep their players focused on the opposition and not fire extinguishers. With the President election coming up in November, President Obama is doing more than just inviting the national champion Kentucky Wildcats to the White House. He is also campaigning for reelection and to do that he will be relying in large part on his campaign rallies. While we are not aware of any deals President Obama made with John Calipari, he did enlist the help of another well-known coach: Shaka Smart. The Virginia Commonwealth coach hosted a rally for President Obama on Saturday. It is unlikely that Smart, who was a guest of Obama at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, will help deliver the state of Virginia for Obama, but when you have a popular local figure it seems like Obama picked the right coach in the state of Virginia to bring out to pull in a few extra votes.
5. While some teams go to exotic destinations for their offseason trips they usually stick to fairly frequently visited destinations such as France, China, and the like. That will not be the case for Washington this year as they will also head to Senegal as part of a 15-day trip. In addition to stops in Spain, France, and Monaco, the Huskies will also visit Senegal and play a game in Dakar. The impetus for the trip is senior Aziz N’Diaye, who is from Senegal, and serves as one of the more unique ways to honor a tradition of rewarding seniors with a game in their hometown. The trip will also serve as a way for the Huskies to get used to their new pieces as they will have to adjust to live after underachieving last season before losing their two best players early to the NBA Draft.

1. Illinois head coach John Groce is wasting no time on the recruiting trail as he recently lured Champaign native Rayvonte Rice away from Drake. Rice will sit out one season but will become eligible in the fall of 2013 and have available playing time after senior guards Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson graduate. Rice led Drake by scoring 16.8 points per game last season as a sophomore and put up solid rebounding numbers for a guard by averaging 5.8 boards per game.
2. Most college hoops fans believe that conference expansion will only hurt traditional rivalries in football but not necessarily basketball due to the longer non-conference schedule. But the Indiana – Kentucky rivalry may be in jeopardy as the SEC has expanded with the addition of Missouri for the upcoming season, as Tom Crean and John Calipari have been in discussions about keeping the annual game on their schedules despite all the changes. The key issue seems to be whether the game will continue to be a home-and-home or will revert back to a neutral court situation as it was for many years. Regardless of the venue, college basketball fans should not be deprived of a great regional game every season.
3. One of the most underrated coaches in the nation, Bo Ryan, was recently rewarded with a contract extension at Wisconsin through 2017. The terms were undisclosed but the Badger fans will be happy to see him scowling on the sidelines for another several seasons. Ryan has been in Madison for 11 seasons already and has obviously turned Wisconsin into a perennial Big Ten contender.
4. Michigan basketball fans would love to skip the next six months and get the new season started. Why wouldn’t they? Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway, Jr., are back in Ann Arbor in addition to freshmen studs Mitch McGary and Glen Robinson, III. Robinson and McGary have played together in the past and can’t wait to begin a new chapter of Michigan basketball. With Burke returning, John Beilein has a legitimate contender for another Big Ten title and a Final Four appearance next season.
5. Tom Izzo’s players continue to face legal trouble during the offseason. First it was Derrick Nix and now it is Brandon Wood. Wood faces misdemeanor charges after being arrested recently in Chicago. Izzo will need to replace Wood’s spot because he has already graduated and will look forward to Travis Trice to mature into a consistent guard in addition to Keith Appling. The last couple seasons have been unusual off the court for Michigan State, but Izzo has made it clear that discipline will not be compromised as he suspended Nix and also let go of Korie Lucious for off-court issues.

1. Due to a rash of injuries that has hit four of Team USA men’s basketball Olympic team original 20 finalists, recent Kentucky Wildcat Anthony Davis is reportedly set to be added as a finalist. He will join another former Wildcat, the Kings’ DeMarcus Cousins, plus Piston center Greg Monroe and Jazz center Al Jefferson. “We’ve said that the strength of the team is going to be athleticism, wing players, the backcourt, but we’ll see,” Jerry Colangelo told SI.com on Saturday. “We’re going to have to consider a lot of things. The good news is that so many people wish and desire to play that we will be very deep regardless of what happens here — unless there’s another rash of things happening here. I pray that it’s over.”
2. Davis and the rest of the national champion Wildcats will meet the most powerful college basketball fan in land on Friday as President Barack Obama invited the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team to the White House to celebrate its 2012 NCAA championship.  “The amazing thing is the first thing that was said when the horn sounded in New Orleans was, ‘We’re going to the White House!'” UK Coach John Calipari said in a statement. “I’m excited about the opportunity for them to meet the President of the United States, the leader of the free world and someone who is trying to make a difference in their lives.”
3. In the wake of the growing transfer controversy/discussion, Georgia head coach Mark Fox – who has an “open release policy” that allows players to transfer within the SEC – offered his thoughts. Among the highlights: “I think as coaches, as long as there hasn’t been tampering, I don’t see why you should preclude a kid on going somewhere where they can pursue their lifelong goals.” On the perceived injustice that players must sit out a year while coaches can move freely: “That’s not true. Coaches can’t move around freely. Coaches are bound by buyout agreements and everything else. That’s not accurate. If I wanted to leave Georgia, which I don’t and never want to … there’s a buyout in my contract that discourages that from occurring. For those who say coaches go wherever they want to go, that’s not true.”
4. Among the remaining high-profile transfers is former Xavier guard Mark Lyons. He has three traditional powers on his short list: Kansas, Arizona, and Kentucky. He visited Kentucky on Monday. “I’m looking for a program that wins where I could play a major role,” Lyons said. While Lyons had a tumultuous season last year and Kentucky has no shortage of talented players, picking up a player with the experience and talent of Lyons would be a major boost for another title run in Lexington.
5. According to a study by Ryan Brewer, an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus, that ranked the nation’s college basketball programs by their “intrinsic value” and Kentucky placed only 16th… and more surprisingly, Louisville topped the report. “When you look at the revenue being produced from men’s basketball, the University of Louisville is far outperforming everyone else,” Brewer said. “It’s not just Kentucky. Kentucky spends a lot, too. In my evaluation, that (negatively) impacted their standing.” As you would expect Louisville fans are taking quite a bit of pride in this result. Kentucky fans will have to settle for their national championship trophy.