Over the past few months there has been quite a bit of discussion about the possibility that schools might pay their athletes (legally) in the near future based on reports that the Big Ten was looking into the option. The topic has been discussed ad nauseum by administrators, pundits, and fans weighing in on both sides of the debate with the majority apparently favoring a system where players get paid. Interestingly, one group that has been noticeably silent is the coaches. Outside of a small group of football coaches in the SEC who supported paying players very few coaches have gone on the record about the topic. To our knowledge the few college basketball who have spoken out on the issue like Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari have been supportive of the idea (ok, Calipari’s ideas go a bit beyond supportive). Today, one prominent college basketball coach, Frank Martin, came out against the idea in a pair of tweets (#1 and #2) earlier this afternoon.

Martin, who has long been known for his antics on the court, isn’t as well known for his views on policy issues, but it appears that he feels pretty strongly on the topic of paying players. While his stance may go against popular opinion, he does make a good point that paying athletes creates its own problems notably a more uneven playing field even if the more cynical (or possibly realistic) fans think that the big-money schools are already paying players while the smaller schools are left to work with the players who are happy just to get some money off their college tuition. It also could make the act of paying athletes beyond whatever the set amount is a less significant offense in the eyes of booster and program administrators creating a slippery slope where increasing payments could be seen as insignificant offenses.

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Yesterday, Dick Vitale went on The Dan LeBatard Show to discuss the scandal at Miami and the implications it could have on college sports. After LeBatard started off the interview with a few fairly benign questions about the Miami scandal, to which Vitale gave the expected media-speak answers (other than his assertion that Donna Shalala must step down as president of the University of Miami), LeBatard asked him about John Calipari and the scandals that have followed him at Massachusetts and Memphis. Vitale brushed it aside, saying that the NCAA has never implicated Calipari. LeBatard’s co-host Jon Weiner (aka Stugotz) then chimed in with the statement/question: “Best guess, Dick. Best guess. I know you are friends with him, but best guess. John Calipari has cheated at some point in his life.” Vitale responded first with silence, then said “Alright, let’s go to the next point.” After some discussion where LeBatard cleared up the fact that it was his co-host who had asked the question, Vitale suggests that there should be laws against boosters like Nevin Shapiro.

When Vitale went on to state that none of the major coaches he knows would have tolerated what happened at Miami (citing Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, and Bob Knight as examples), Stugotz suggests that every coach or program has committed at least one NCAA infraction even if only unknowingly. After Vitale got upset at him and brought up the prostitutes, Stugotz clarified by saying that he never implied that other programs were using prostitutes or doing things as big as Miami is accused of doing. Despite this clarification, Vitale becomes increasingly infuriated at the radio hosts and hangs up. Partial clip below:

While Kentucky fans are widely applauding Vitale for defending Calipari, it seems more like Vitale is on a crusade to defend college basketball, or college sports as a whole, instead of a single coach or program. Although Stugotz’s initial question/statement about Calipari was indelicate, his follow-up questions about programs unknowingly violating rules are valid ones. Unfortunately, it seems that Vitale was so incensed by the earlier question or the storm surrounding the NCAA right now that he was unwilling to hear it. Perhaps if Vitale had stayed on the phone long enough to engage in a reasonable conversation, they could have discussed Krzyzewski’s “controversial” phone call to Alex Poythress or Sam Gilbert’s association with John Wooden‘s UCLA dynasty (OK, maybe that would have set him off). In any event, although many college basketball fans (particularly Kentucky fans) will support Vitale in this case, he does come off as petulant and condescending here.

1. So many teams are either on or about to go on international trips, so the question that logically follows is…how much do they really help? Our stance has always been that any benefit is more a result of the broadening of minds and the improved camaraderie that international travel usually entails, and the ten days of extra practice time don’t hurt either. Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy took a look at how much these trips help in terms of the effect on a squad’s record from one season to the next. We think the result might surprise you.
2. Speaking of international trips, incoming Duke freshman Quinn Cook will be making the trip to China with his teammates this weekend, but he won’t be playing in any of the games. Cook played his senior year of high school with strained ligaments in his right knee, and Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t think Cook has had enough time to get himself fully fit for the games in China. He’s expected to be ready for preseason practices, but this delay puts Cook behind in the battle for minutes within that loaded platoon of  Blue Devil guards.
3. Wasn’t it just a couple years ago that people were talking about how Rick Pitino looked like he had aged several years in just a few months, that rumors swirled about his health and, of course, how long it would therefore be before he left his post as Head Cardinal? The new five-year extension he just signed at Louisville ought to quell any remaining speculation on such matters. That white suit will continue to make its appearance during so-called white-out games through the 2017 season, so get used to it if you’re not already. Pitino detractors will be quick to point out that just because he signs doesn’t mean he’ll stay. We’d respond that if you think that’s exclusive to Rick Pitino, you’re nuts.
4. Mr. Basketball in the state of Illinois for 2009-10. McDonald’s All-American. Promising Illini freshman. Former Illinois guard Jereme Richmond probably longs for the days when such terms were used to describe him, and it was only about a year ago. Now, after a freshman season filled with disappointing play, a couple of suspensions, and a bad decision to leave school for the NBA Draft (unsuccessfully) after his single campaign, Richmond currently sits in a Lake County, Illinois jail on a weapons charge, among several others, after threatening a 17-year old girl. The Chicago Tribune has the full details.
5. An official for the town described last year’s regional in Newark as “a catalytic event.” That appears an apt description, since the three East region games there produced $6.3 million for the local economy, and that doesn’t include transportation costs, ticket sales, or parking. That amount wasn’t all due to the RTC correspondent’s food and (mostly) beverage bill, but was rather comprised by $1.5 million in hotel room costs and the remaining $4.8 million covering restaurant bills and merchandise. Not a big surprise, when you think back to it. If you want to provide a jolt to your local economy, you’d want four fanbases that travel well and spend even better, right? Last year’s Newark regional: Ohio State, Kentucky, Marquette, and North Carolina.

1. John Pelphrey’s doing fine, thanks, and he appreciates your asking. The firing from Arkansas still stings a little, but he’s back at Florida as an assistant under Billy Donovan, a position he’s held before to considerable acclaim. While he seems happy to be back in a familiar place doing a job he loves, being a head coach again at a “network conference” school is something he won’t (and shouldn’t) allow to fall off his radar. We like following the career arcs of coaches in situations similar to the one Pelphrey’s in right now, to see how and where they bounce back.
2. Last week, SI.com’s Luke Winn stepped up with yet another tour de force, this time an in-depth examination of the “commitment behaviors” of players listed as top-100 recruits in the recruiting rankings. Winn and his staff put some serious time into this investigation, so we don’t want to give away all of his findings, but his data revealed — and this is just one interesting factoid among many in the article — that kids who transferred high schools were almost twice as likely to eventually back out of a college commitment. Fascinating stuff here in the midst of these days of extreme college basketball “fickleness,” as Winn describes it.
3. It’s only a matter of time until those rudimentary free markets and the walls at, say, People’s Basketball Collective #17 are awash with Duke merchandise and photos of the inestimable Mike Krzyzewski, if they aren’t already. We hope they’ve packed their guidebooks and downloaded those vocal translator apps, because the Blue Devils are off to China next weekend with a little side jaunt to Dubai thrown in there, too. Not only will the 13-day trip help Coach K see how his five new incoming frosh fit in with his returning charges, but, as Krzyzewski says, it also helps forward their “initiative to become a global entity.” Wait, you mean…they weren’t one?
4. Last month, Notre Dame incoming freshman Eric Katenda was in Washington DC playing a pick-up game. He went up for a rebound, came down, and an opposing player went for the ball, but hit Katenda in the left eye…severing his optic nerve. While there’s plenty of research out there aimed at regenerating optic nerve tissue after it’s been cut, medical science isn’t far enough along right now to help Katenda regain his vision in that eye, so his college basketball career is already in question and he hasn’t even fully enrolled yet. We hate hearing things like this and we can’t imagine the disappointment Eric is feeling, but we were happy to read that Notre Dame still plans to honor the young man’s scholarship, whatever happens.
5. Herb Magee has amassed 922 wins in his coaching career, ALL at Philadelphia University, and as of 48 hours ago he assumed his rightful place in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. We’re sure you’ve already heard of Coach Magee and his coaching excellence, and how he’s known as The Shot Doctor. But that’s not just because he’s good at helping others with their form from distance. In his day, Magee could — actually, he still can — make it rain. He scored 2,235 points in his career (that’s 24.0 PPG) and was known as Baby Jesus, a nickname you don’t earn in Philly unless you deserve it. If he’d have had the three-point line, his numbers would have been even more impressive. The Philadelphia Inquirer did a great piece on Magee and his shooting prowess a day ahead of his HOF induction, and we recommend it highly. We love how Magee’s friends rib him about how his #4 jersey that hangs in the gym’s rafters isn’t so much his jersey number as it is his career assist total. Outstanding.

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.

General News

• Jon Hood scheduled for surgery: “Just a quick note on the recovery process of Jon Hood, who tore his ACL a couple of weeks ago and will most likely miss the season. Hood was on Twitter commiserating with North Carolina guard Leslie McDonald, who suffered the same injury recently, when he noted that he will be undergoing knee surgery on August 12th.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)
• McDonald Has Knee Surgery: An update on Leslie McDonald, who underwent durgery on Wednesday morning. (Tar Heel Fan)
• Coach Cal Makes Twitter Waves: “During an appearance on a Memphis program this morning, Coach Cal talked about college athletics and his ideas to change it and all of the other good nonsense that usually comes with those appearances. During the course of it, he touched on restrictions regarding phone calls and issued a line that launched a blog post at CBS and a million (that’s an estimate) re-Tweets about his ”shot” at Coach K.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)

Earlier today, John Calipari was reported to have made the following comment on a Memphis radio show:

Police each other, give it to league commissioners and schools to deal with. If it goes beyond that, there’s a board there that’s ready to deal with it. (…) You’ve got coaches being fired over phone calls and text messages. Some. Other guys can make phone calls and it’s not that big a deal.

Now, we admit we didn’t hear the interview, let alone the segment that produced the above quote. We heard it first in the audio that’s embedded in the original story at CBS’ college basketball blog. We can’t tell you what the interviewer asked Calipari that prompted that answer. The audio also has the rest of Calipari’s response (there’s a little bit more after the quoted section), which is more on how he’d change how college basketball is policed. Taken by itself, the quote above could easily be construed as a little jab at Mike Krzyzewski, given the alleged minor violation Coach K may have committed during the July recruiting period wherein he supposedly communicated with a recruit and shouldn’t have. That’s a typical reaction, since that incident is fresh in the collective hoophead mind.

Even If It Was a Jab, What's More Important Is...Was What He Said True?

If you listen to the rest of the audio, however, in the full context it sounds like Calipari is referring to a larger problem in the profession — wouldn’t it be a safe assumption that if the world knows about Krzyzewski’s possible mistake that John Calipari knows other coaches who have done the same thing but haven’t been fired for it? — as opposed to intentionally getting in a dig against one guy. At worst, if it’s a dig, it’s an unintentional one. We’re not saying Calipari or any coach is above such a thing, but frankly it just doesn’t sound like he’s trying to zing one person when you listen to the available audio.

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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.

General News

• Coach K Recruiting Scandal: A variety of updates on the investigation into Coach K. (A Sea of Blue and Kentucky Sports Radio)
• Kenner League Day 10 in Review: An update from the Georgetown summer league. (Casual Hoya)

1. The big story of the weekend was Duke announcing that they would be looking into a potential recruiting violation by Mike Krzyzewski. According to reports, Coach K offered Alex Poythress, a 6’7″ forward in the class of 2012, a scholarship last Tuesday night which fell between his team being eliminated from an AAU Super Showcase  and when they started playing in AAU Nationals the following day. Duke has asked the NCAA for clarification on the rule and stated that it will accept whatever punishment that NCAA deems necessary.  We already stated our opinion on Twitter that this is a non-story as long as the NCAA doesn’t enforce its own rules. If Duke gets any punishment, we would expect it to be very light (and not just because they are Duke, but because the NCAA goes light on far worse infractions).
2. Back in June, Rodney Purvis, one of the top recruits in the class of 2012, backed out of his commitment to Louisville after assistant coach Tim Fuller left to go to Missouri. At the time, Purvis stated that he was only considering three schools and Louisville wasn’t one of them. Now it appears that Purvis might be considering the Cardinals again after Duke, one of the three schools he was considering (Missouri and North Carolina State are the others), stopped recruiting him. The basic lesson here is that you shouldn’t pay too much attention to recruiting until the players actually sign. Recruiting updates are great for page views and soliciting alumni donations, but in the end we are dealing with teenagers, who as we all know can change their minds at any time.
3. Yesterday, USA Basketball announced its 14 finalists for the Men’s World University Games team. The final cuts for the 12-man roster will be made prior to August 8th, the date that the team leaves for China. While the names aren’t exactly a list of the biggest stars in college, it appears to be surprisingly well-rounded. This doesn’t mean that they are necessarily going to take home the gold, but with a solid coaching staff (Matt Painter at the helm backed by Brad Stevens and Shaka Smart — nice that three Final Four appearances are backing up the guy with no Final Four appearances) they could do a lot better than people expect. Of course, they could also blow up and lead to about 1,000 columns about what is wrong with basketball in the US.
4. Incoming Toledo freshman Justin Moss had his basketball career cut short last week when he was found to have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy after failing a routine physical at the end of June. Fortunately, Justin was found to have the condition on screening rather than after an event like the ones that killed Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis. We discussed the issue in depth several months ago after a piece in a medical journal noted an increased risk of sudden cardiac death in Division 1 men’s basketball players. While there are many more causes of sudden cardiac death (various arrhythmias being a notable one) hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the most well-known. Although we feel bad that Justin’s career had to end before he ever got to step on a college basketball floor we are much happier that it was diagnosed before we had another tragedy on our hands.
5. We can’t keep track of how many columns we have read about major AAU recruits over the past month, but if you were either overwhelmed by the amount of data being tossed at you on Twitter or you didn’t have enough time to follow all of the recruits, we have a couple of solid round-up pieces on the action for the class of 2012. Seth Davis takes a look at the top rising seniors (and two juniors) and analyzes their games along with how they will fit into their reported college choices. Over at ESPN, Eamonn Brennan and Dave Telep recap the recruiting prospects for the top uncommitted rising seniors with some thoughts on where they might end up. Honestly, if you read those two pieces you will probably know about as much about the rising senior class as anybody who didn’t spend the past month living out of a suitcase watching games that vaguely resemble organized basketball.

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.

General News

• 2011 Cougar Hardwood Classic: Washington State, Pepperdine To Play At Key Arena: “Another year, another mid-major conference opponent.” (Coug Center)
• Michigan Expected to Face Arkansas During 2011-12 Season: “ESPN’s Andy Katz is reporting that Michigan is likely to add Arkansas to its 2011-12 schedule. Katz notes that the Arkansas game is expected to be lined up sometime during the Big Ten season.” (UM Hoops)
• The latest on LSU transfer Garrett Green: An update on Indiana’s attempt to land the 6’11” center. (Inside the Hall)
• Turgeon Will Play Four Guards “on a Consistent Basis”: “A four-guard look, ala old-school Villanova, is pretty much the only way Maryland can get five ACC-starter-level players on the floor at the same time. They’ll obviously be left with a pretty massive size deficiency, but it’s nothing Maryland fans aren’t familiar with: remember, this is the team that made the NCAA tournament with a 6-6 center. I’m assuming they’ll try to run-and-gun to make up for the overall lack of size, pushing the tempo in an attempt to tire out the bigger players.” (Testudo Times)

1. Yesterday, Oklahoma released a 430-page report (full report here) regarding its investigation into wrongdoing by former assistant basketball coach Oronde Taliaferro, who is accused of committing two major violations while he coached under Jeff Capel (yes, this happened after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco). The first violation was failing to report impermissible benefits to an unnamed player (Tiny Gallon), who received $3,000 from a financial adviser linked to Taliaferro to pay for his high school transcripts and enable him to enter college. The second violation was the standard lying to the NCAA about the first violation. The most important part about this report is that the school concedes that, by definition, it is a “repeat violator” and thus subject to a minimum penalty of having the sport dropped for one or two years with no scholarships provided during those seasons. Of course, the NCAA can override that minimum and impose less harsh sanctions, which is what Oklahoma is hoping for as it claims that Taliaferro acted alone with Capel and the rest of the staff had no knowledge of the wrongdoing. Oklahoma has asked the NCAA to put its basketball program on two years of probation, vacate its 2009-10 season, and take away one scholarship, two official visits, and 10 in-person recruiting days during the upcoming academic year. With the NCAA’s apparent indifference to schools breaking its rules (it’s OK for the schools run by grown men, but not for teenagers) there will be a sizable group calling for the NCAA to take a stand here, but we wouldn’t count on it.
2. The big winner out of the Oklahoma scandal? It might be Butler, who is the other reported finalist for the services of Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke. With just one year of eligibility remaining the Oklahoma native and all-time leading scorer in Oklahoma high school basketball history may have to think twice about transferring to a program that has asked the NCAA to put it on probation for two years. Clarke was supposed to make his decision by the end of the week and many expected him to select Oklahoma, but with the new report he may wind up at Butler or at the very least will spend some more time before deciding where to transfer.
3. Speaking of scandals and programs in trouble, UNC athletic director Dick Baddour stepped down yesterday, a day after the school fired its football coach. Although the scandal appears to be just within the football program, Baddour’s decision to leave, which was thought to be inevitable after Davis was fired, may have a significant ripple effect in the college sports community as many athletic administrators will be angling for a move up the ladder when the dominoes start falling as the first athletic director moves from his or her current position to take over at UNC. We doubt that this will have much of an effect on the well-oiled UNC basketball machine, but it may have a much larger effect on many other schools.
4. With the NBA lockout in place, many former college stars are having to find ways to keep themselves occupied. Nolan Smith is one such player who has chosen to do so by coaching a DC-based AAU team. On Wednesday night, Smith, who had never been ejected from a game as a player, was tossed out of the game with his team down by 19. Smith claims that the “refs were missing some obvious calls.” (Duke haters can make their own jokes here.) Smith’s team ended up losing the game by two (perhaps from the two technical free throws that the other team shot?) and ended up going 8-2 in the tournament. While some might criticize Smith as another arrogant Duke player, it is nice to see that he learned something from Mike Krzyzewski during his four years in Durham.
5. The top 100 players in Division 1 list by Basketball Prospectus generated a lot of debate (mainly on where individual players were ranked). It appears that there may not have even been a consensus within the Basketball Prospectus office as Drew Cannon, the person who came up with the list, and several other members of the staff engaged in a friendly debate about how to rank players. There isn’t really anything ground-breaking in it, but it is interesting to see how these basketball analysts evaluate players and make their predictions at least on a theoretical level.