Indiana’s Christian Watford broke his hand over the weekend against Michigan State and had surgery on it yesterday; he will be out indefinitely. This is just another gut-punch to the stomachs of Indiana fans everywhere, as Watford, IU’s leading scorer, represents the third Hoosier starter to miss significant time (Maurice Creek and Verdell Jones III are the others). This comes on the heels of what was the most promising week for Indiana basketball in quite some time — a win over Illinois and an overtime loss to Michigan State. Say what you want about Tom Crean as a head coach (and we’ve said a lot), but it’s especially difficult to get wins in the Big Ten when you don’t have your full hand to play with.
A couple of other significant players suffered injuries recently. Tennessee’s Scotty Hopson sprained his ankle at practice on Tuesday and is considered uncertain for Thursday night’s game at Auburn. According to this story, it was bad enough that he had a protective boot on and he left the arena after practice in crutches. UT has won its last four games and part of the reason for their improved play has been Hopson, so if he isn’t at 100%, even a trip to Auburn could be troublesome. Meanwhile, St. John’s announced that forward Justin Brownlee had suffered a fracture of his left thumb during Sunday’s huge Red Storm win over Duke, a game in which he had 20/9/6 assts. He will wear a splint on the thumb, though, and is not expected to miss any time from practice nor games.
Mike DeCourcy writes that Auburn’s Tony Barbee believes that the NBA will go back to the preps-to-pros route as a result of next summer’s collective bargaining agreement between the NBA Players Association and the owners. He says that he’s been talking to “people” who seem to be in the know, but we question if those people are tied into the owners, management and David Stern — the group that will ultimately drive this decision. We’re on record stating that both the preps-to-pros and the so-called “baseball rule” are bad for the game of college basketball, but the NBA’s self-interest will rule the day and ensure that names like John Wall, Kyrie Irving and Jared Sullinger have value and cachet behind them prior to entering the league as rookies.
We thought this was an interesting article from the Cleveland State Cauldron lamenting that CSU basketball is a consistent winner in a town that traditionally has not had many of those, yet it still has significant trouble getting any kind of attention from anyone in the community at-large. The Vikings are currently 20-3 overall and 9-2 in the Horizon League with second-place Valpo and traditional power Butler coming to town this weekend. We agree, Cleveland… get out there and support this team. They just might end up being one of the best mid-major stories of the year in all of college basketball again.
In the inaugural year of this blog, we took SI writer Grant Wahl (who has since moved on to cover soccer) to task over his Magic Eight selections for leaving UNC off his list of teams that would win the title. That season was 2007-08 and, if you recall, he was right. Both Kansas and Memphis were on his list, but the Jayhawk obliteration of North Carolina in the national semifinals validated his concerns. Consider our crow eaten. After what sounds to be significant negotiations, Luke Winn has revitalized the Magic Eight this season, and his choices are a combination of obvious and bold, as such: BYU, Duke, Georgetown, Kentucky, Ohio State, Texas, Tennessee and Washington. As he acknowledges, leaving Kansas, Pittsburgh, UConn and SDSU out are rather huge gambles, but we’ll see how he does as things develop over the next month.
That’s Debatable is back for another year of expert opinions, ridiculous assertions and general know-it-all-itude. Remember, kids, there are no stupid answers, just stupid people. We’ll try to do one of these each week during the season. We’re fairly discerning around here, but if you want to be included, send us an email with your take telling us why at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.
This Week’s Topic: You have one New Year’s resolution to make and you can choose it on behalf of any figure in the world of college basketball. What is that resolution and who is it for?
John Stevens, RTC editor/contributor
I’m going to take the low road and use this space to tell everyone what I they think they should do, because I know people love hearing that, especially when it’s unsolicited. But as I visit various gyms and arenas in my travels around this part of the country doing RTC Lives or whatever, I will beg as many college basketball fans as I can to resolve to come up with a NEW AIR BALL chant, if there really has to be one, and to abolish the “overrated” chant. Everyone knows why “overrated” is ludicrous. But the air ball chant is about 30 years old, and it’s time to upgrade. I tweeted about this a few nights ago and got GREAT responses, so I’m confident that a better idea exists out there. There are a few student sections who tout themselves as the best in the nation — Duke, Xavier, Utah State, Kentucky, this means you — and I specifically challenge you to rise to your claims and come up with something new and humorous, but doesn’t involve insulting the shooter’s mother or use a “clap, clap, clap-clap-clap” at the end (liked those responses, but there are too many of those). Send your proposals (or insults) to me at JStevRTC@gmail.com, or just use them during games. I’ll be listening. Happy New Year.
Danny Spewak, RTC contributor
Here’s a New Year’s resolution for Randy Bennett: get over the hump in 2011 and knock Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference throne. The Bulldogs’ streak of 10 straight league titles is the second longest in the history of college basketball. In six of those seasons, Gonzaga finished either undefeated or 13-1 in the WCC, and it hasn’t lost more than three conference games since 1998. St. Mary’s has established itself as the Zags’ main rival, though, with three straight second-place finishes. If they can ignore the scary numbers mentioned above, the Gaels may have a shot to win this league. They’ve got great guards to lead their efficient, unselfish offense, and former San Diego forward Rob Jones is a valuable frontcourt contributor with NCAA Tournament experience. St. Mary’s may not have many quality wins, but its only losses came at San Diego State and in the final seconds to BYU. Despite an 8-5 record, Gonzaga’s probably still the favorite to capture an 11th straight regular season championship, especially now that Elias Harris appears healthy and more comfortable on the court. But it’s a brand new year in 2011. The gap in the West Coast Conference is quickly closing– and St. Mary’s will need to take advantage of the opportunity.
Tom Wolfmeyer, RTC contributor
This year’s New Year’s resolution is reserved for Kyrie Irving, Jared Sullinger, Perry Jones, Harrison Barnes, Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones. Be smart about your future. There’s about a 99.9% chance that the NBA is headed for a long impasse beginning next summer, and if you decide to take your chances with the June draft, you’ll certainly be rewarded with a high selection. But you won’t play (nor will you get paid a dime) until well into 2011 in what would have been your sophomore years. Please don’t listen to the agents who will tell you that they’ll float you financially until the lockout ends or that two months of a season is better than no season at all. The last time things looked this ugly between ownership and labor, nobody played a professional game until February, and there’s no guarantee that this dispute will be shorter this time around. Do your due diligence, of course, but if it looks as if both sides are settled in for a long negotiation, head back to college and continue to develop your games in a college hoops season that would boast the most talent among its players in the last fifteen years.
That’s Debatable is back for another year of expert opinions, ridiculous assertions and general know-it-all-itude. Remember, kids, there are no stupid answers, just stupid people. We’ll try to do one of these each week during the season. We’re fairly discerning around here, but if you want to be included, send us an email with your take telling us why at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.
This Week’s Topic: Santa is stopping by your house this week, and he’s bringing you one thing that you really want this college basketball season and he’ll take one thing away when he leaves. What are those two things?
Ned Reddick, RTC contributor
My wishes for Christmas are pretty simple. I would ask Santa to bring Kyrie Irving back. No matter what you think of Duke it would be difficult to find a part of his game that a basketball fan would not enjoy. He’s fundamentally sound, athletic, and he plays hard. Although his absence makes the season more interesting in the sense that it makes the championship picture less defined, with Irving suiting up for the Blue Devils they would be the heavy favorites to win the title. With him on the sidelines in street clothes they are just one of about four or five teams that have a legitimate shot at the title. As for taking something away I would ask Santa to make players stop putting themselves in bad situations. I know they are just college students who as a group tend to do dumb stuff, but I wish they could stop taking things that the NCAA deems as impermissible benefits (like clothing or money) or just breaking the law (like a DUI or stealing other people’s stuff). It’s unfortunate that they are willing to risk a potentially lucrative career for a short-term pleasure so I hope Santa can take that away.
Brian Otskey, RTC contributor
This is a bit out of left field, plus it will never happen, but I’d want to see live video of the debate inside the committee room in the days leading up to and on Selection Sunday. I think it would be fascinating to see what they focus on rather than what we fans and the media lurch onto as the most important criteria. I’m glad the NCAA allows the media to participate in a mock bracket for a few days because it’s fun to read about the process and how they went about it, but nothing compares to seeing the real thing. Also, last year’s bracket was riddled with procedural errors and I’d be interested to see if they really focus on that or not. As for what I’d get rid of, that’s easy. All the agents, handlers, AAU coaches, etc. that make up the nasty part of recruiting. Seriously, why does a high school kid have to have his “people” decide where to go or what to do? What person that age has to have an entourage? It is terrific that the NCAA appears to be cracking down but they have a long, long way to go.
Andrew Murawa, RTC contributor
Well, I asked Santa to bring me the title of the commissioner of all sports, but he just mumbled something under his breath. “But Santa, all I want to do is ban the use of domed stadiums in sports that are meant to be played outside,” I said, but he saw right through that, knowing that a college football playoff would be coming along right after that. And you know Santa, he’s a big fan of those bowl games. Anyway, after some haggling, Santa has promised me a couple of four-day national holiday weekends in March. He’s got an in with the holiday creation board for some reason – I’m guessing blackmail, but you never can tell with Mr. Claus. He’s a mysterious one. And, just as a personal favor to me (we go back quite a ways), when he leaves on Christmas morning, he’s taking away four NCAA Tournament at-large bids, although I suspect he’s just going to dump them somewhere near the site of the Great Alaska Shootout on his way back home.
Mike DeCourcy spoke with Kentucky freshman Enes Kanter’s father recently, finding that Dr. Mehmet Kanter believes that Turkish basketball officials stating that his son took a salary in cash and benefits while playing for club team Fenerbahce is a smear campaign meant to chill future generations of young Turkish players from bolting overseas to play American college basketball instead of remaining at home. He speaks extensively about the importance of his son obtaining an American collegiate education and points to the family turning down multi-million dollar offers in Turkey as evidence of their sincerity, but what was notably absent from Dr. Kanter’s comments was whether his son is looking to play at Kentucky for one year or long enough to get that all-important degree. After all, if we are to believe his assertions about education from the interview, we should expect Enes to stay in Lexington for longer than the next six months, right?
We appreciate teams that will schedule tough non-conference schedules, especially if they’re willing to go on the road to do so. Luke Winn gives us his top ten such schedules, and according to his analysis, John Thompson, III, John Calipari, Rick Barnes, Bruce Pearl and Tom Izzo should be proud of themselves. We’re looking forward to quite a few games on those schedules.
Louisville associate coach director of basketball operations and former WKU/Pitt/Holy Cross head coach Ralph Willardhas a pretty sweet new gig if you can get it. He’ll be paid $375,000 this season in the first year of a three-year deal where he’ll be required to “coach the coaches.” One of the coaches he’ll be coaching is new Louisville assistant Mark Lieberman, a defensive specialist from Miami who will make about one-seventh the salary as Willard with approximately seventy times as much stress.
As of this week, new NCAA head honcho Mark Emmertis on the job in Indianapolis, and several of his initial areas of interest relate to academics and how to ensure student-athletes are getting an education as part of their collegiate experience. We have no problem with that in principle, nor do we have any problem with his supposed interest in coming down hard on the rule-breakers in the sport; but we have written in this space before that trying to work a deal with David Stern to turn the NBA Draft into something akin to the MLB model (where a prep player has the option to go to the NBA out of high school, but then has to stay for three years if he goes to college) is an absolute mistake. Get off this, man — there is nothing good that will come from this.
Here’s another first for Frank Martin’s Kansas State program — the Big 12 coaches yesterday overwhelmingly put the pressure squarely on his team to win the conference title, earning ten of the twelve first-place votes (coaches cannot vote for their own team). Kansas followed up in second with two first-place votes and Texas came in third. It’s interesting to see Colorado come in at ninth — even though head coach Jeff Bzdelik took off for points east, the Buffs still return two of the best players in the conference in Alec Burks and Cory Higgins. The full list is below, and my how Jeff Capel’s program has fallen…
Last week we wrote a piece outlining the reasons behind our opinion that NCAA President-Elect Mark Emmert had made a mistake in publicly supporting the MLB model of amateur player draft eligibility. Emmert stated on a local radio show in Seattle that he believes that the NCAA should work with the NBA to enact a model mimicking baseball whereby high school players could choose to go pro immediately after their senior year, but those who went to college would have to remain there for three years. As we clearly stated at the time, all of this discussion from the perspective of the NCAA is merely for the sake of argument because the NBA is going to do what the NBA thinks is best for itself, and if that means requiring one, two or fifteen years of “experience” out of high school before player entry, so be it. The NCAA is virtually powerless in this regard.
Emmert's Top Job is to Protect This Brand
Nevertheless, taking the position that it is the mandate and duty of the NCAA President to act in the best interests of his organization, we outlined a number of reasons why Emmert is mistaken with the baseball solution. Without delving into all of them again, the basic gist is that NCAA basketball needs marketable stars to support and enhance its product, recruiting will become even more difficult than it already is for coaches and schools, and players need the extra time to develop their games because so very few are actually ready to perform at a professional level immediately out of high school. Response to this piece has beenmixed. Eamonn Brennan at ESPN.com seemed to understand the point we were making about Emmert and his role, but he expanded it to a more philosophical argument about whether forcing prospective NBAers into NCAA apprenticeships is “right.”
Rush The Court is right to say that’s not in the best interest of college basketball fans, or coaches, or universities, all of whom benefit from the compulsory one-year apprenticeship currently being served by even the game’s most League-worthy talent. It’d be much better if all players had to stay for three years; we’d get John Wall for two more years! Awesome! Where do I sign? But that’s wrong. John Wall should be free to pursue his NBA career. He should have been free before he ever stepped foot on Kentucky’s campus. College, as they say, isn’t for everybody. In proposing a baseball-esque system for college hoops, Dr. Emmert did two things, both of them inadvertent: He made an argument against the well-being of college basketball, and for the professional freedom of college basketball’s prospective athletes. What it comes down to is: Which is more important?
We’ll answer. From the perspective of Dr. Emmert as (soon-to-be) President of the NCAA and Supreme ChiefProtector of the Game, the overall interests of the sport and its continued success trump the “right to work” component of a handful of high school basketball players each year. His new job is to advocate for the NCAA as an entity, carefully weighing options to ultimately move the enterprise forward. Since 96% of the NCAA’s operating budget comes from the NCAA Tournament (media rights + revenue), he needs to remember where his bread is buttered. If he pushes for a baseball model that ultimately makes college basketball less interesting to casual fans and, therefore, the media, he’s not successfully performing his job. This is a classic example of where academic arguments about what is right/wrong fail to properly mix with advocacy, and once again gives us pause about Emmert’s ivory tower worldview.
Webber Was Right: Elite College Athletes are Exploited
All that said, and as Kentucky blog A Sea of Blue expands upon, we certainly agree that the entire house of cards is exploitative from the player perspective. Mitch Albom’s book Fab Five (People You Meet in Heaven)recounts a much-repeated incident where Michigan star Chris Webber found himself without enough money at the mall one day to purchase food. As he walked by a sporting goods store and saw his own #4 UM jersey hanging in the window for sale, he became frustrated by the fact that seemingly everyone (Michigan, Steve Fisher, NCAA, Nike, etc.) other than himself was earning money as a result of his prodigious talents. This anecdote seems humorous now in light of later findings that Webber took hundreds of thousands of dollars from agent Ed Martin during those years, but the story illustrates how one-sided the system remains, even nearly twenty years later. Elite players are still generally no more than serfs for the one or two years they’re under the auspices of the NCAA (three years for football), contributing mightily to the billions of dollars of revenue they’re enabling while seeing very little in return. This is unlikely to change.
The larger point we’re trying to make here with respect to President-Elect Emmert is that it is not his job to suddenly make NCAA sports just, equitable and fair to the players whose talents are being exploited. He will not be called upon to advocate for the Chris Webbers of the world because the Chris Webbers of the world didn’t put him in that position — rather, the college presidents did. Therfore, his duty, much like the CEO of a major company, will be to protect the organization’s assets and push the enterprise forward so that in 2020, the NCAA can ask for two or three times as many billions of dollars in media licensing fees. We’ve explained to him how he should go about getting there (hint: making things more like college baseball isn’t the answer); it’s up to him to decide whether to listen.
Yesterday on Seattle radio station KJR, NCAA president-elect Mark Emmert gave an interview with host Mitch Levy where he discussed his thoughts on some of the hot-button topics impacting collegiate sports. Dr. Emmert, who will assume his post on November 1 of this year, is currently the president of the University of Washington and the former Fulbright winner is widely recognized as one of the savviest up-and-comers in the world of academic administration. His rise up the ranks from an assistant professor (Northern Illinois) to Vice-Chancellor (Colorado) to Provost (Montana State) to Chancellor (UConn and LSU) to President at UW is impressive on its face, and his skill at political maneuvering and fund-raising should be obvious. The concern we have, however, in all situations where administrators move from an academic to an athletic environment is whether such a transition will be seamless — in other words, will that person “get it?” The danger in the application of ivory tower customs and norms to the world of athletics is that you can find yourself in troublesome spots if you haven’t gauged the environment correctly, such as when Emmert badly overreached in asking for public funding for a new Husky Stadium in the midst of a massive nationwide recession. While that example represents a single misstep in a career full of home runs, it gives us pause when taken in concert with the following quote he made on the KJR radio broadcast. In discussing the much-maligned one-and-done rule in college basketball, Emmert said:
I much prefer the baseball model, for example, that allows a young person if they want to go play professional baseball, they can do it right out of high school, but once they start college they’ve got to play for three years or until they’re 21. I like that a good deal. But what you have to also recognize is that rule isn’t an NCAA rule. That’s a rule of the NBA. And it’s not the NBA itself, but the NBA Players Association. So to change that rule will require me and others working with the NBA, working with the players association. We’ll be having those conversations, because I think it would be good for young people and good for basketball.
Emmert Seems a Smart Fellow, But the MLB Model is a Mistake
Before we get to our argument against this idea, let’s briefly touch on the reality of this proposition. You hear this frequently stated among coaches, fans and pundits, but what all of these folks fail to recognize is that the NBA wants nothing to do with this on either the management or the players’ side. Commissioner David Stern and his owners do not want untested teenagers who are virtually complete unknowns coming into their league because they are unmarketable, while players do not want untested teenagers who are virtually complete unknowns coming into their league because they take away veterans’ jobs. The NCAA acts as a veritable minor league for the NBA, providing a competitive environment to fully vet and scout players for at least a year before some 80-year old owner throws sixteen million dollars and the viable future of a franchise at them. Think of it this way — were Washington Wizards fans more excited about #1 pick Kwame Brown (who nobody outside of rural Georgia had ever seen play) or #1 pick John Wall (who was on national television about 4,000 times last year)? As a point of fact, the NBA powers-that-be seem more interested in extending the one-and-done rule by another year than rolling it back in any way. And why not? — it’s better for business.
Now, as to Emmert’s proposal itself, we’re going to explain why this is not a preferred option without regard for what the NBA wants or will agree to. The remainder of this post represents pure advocacy for the college game and the college game only. We see three compelling reasons that the NCAA should not bother to explore this MLB model possibility, as tempting as it sounds to an educator/administrator such as Emmert.
What Say You, UK Fans? One Year of Wall or None of McGrady?
The NCAA Needs Marketable Stars Nearly as Much as the NBA Does. This is the dirty little secret of college basketball in the 21st century. The hardcore fans of the elite programs at Duke, Kansas, UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, et al, aren’t going anywhere. These folks would watch their teams play if they suited up four skinny 12-year olds and a rented donkey. But the casual fan won’t. The casual fan wants to see star power, and he wants to learn who the next big basketball talents will be through the crucible of the best postseason in all of sports, the NCAA Tournament. When players like Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, John Wall and many others are on college campuses building considerable buzz throughout the season and heading into March, this collective must-see component to the game takes on a much different meaning than when the player names are instead Jameer Nelson, JJ Redick, Adam Morrison and Tayshaun Prince. All great collegians, but do you see the difference? Who does Mr. Office Drone/Bracketeer tune in to watch more readily? Furthermore, CBS/Turner Sports just signed a fourteen-year, $10.8B deal to broadcast the rights to the NCAA Tournament, in case you’d already forgotten, and there will be none-too-subtle pressure on the puppet-masters of the sport to ensure that the best possible product is placed on the floor. For the maximum amount of interest to take hold, that product without question must include the top 18- and 19-year old basketball players in the world.
WhenHigh School Seniors Make Their Decisions, Coaches Bear the Brunt of It. We talked about this back in June, and nothing has changed in the interim. We saw what happened to recruiting from 1995-2005 when coaches had to compete not only against rival schools for the talents of a player, but also the siren call of the NBA. Whether it was Kentucky and Tracy McGrady, Florida and Kwame Brown, Duke and Shaun Livingston, or North Carolina and JR Smith, the fans and (more directly) coaches of those programs where agonizingly forced to endure a late spring phone call to learn that, after many hours spent recruiting the player to their campuses, it was all for naught. And those were the elite players! Imagine the situations where the player was fully expected to go to college but still was lured away — Jackie Butler (Mississippi State), Ndubi Ebi (Arizona) and Louis Williams (Georgia) all come to mind. How does a coach go about finding a suitable replacement for a star recruit so late into the signing period? Short answer: he can’t. We certainly understand that it’s frustrating to a lot of people (coaches included) to have to lose a star player as a one-and-done, but to have spent the same amount of time recruiting him and not receive even a single season of his talents is far worse, isn’t it? That’s what would happen if the MLB model were implemented — recruiting would once again become a two-phase process.
For Better or Worse, NCAA Basketball is the NBA’s Minor League. It’s not the NBDL (although it has found a nice niche as a training ground for older players), and it’s not Europe (similarly). Rather, college basketball remains the NBA’s minor league, and where the MLB example fails is that college baseball is not. Each professional baseball franchise has several levels of minor league teams beneath it by which to develop its prospects, whether they come directly from high school or after three seasons of college. This is a HUGE difference. The reason is that, as Mark Stein notes in this article, the vast majority of prep-to-pros players during that ten-year period were nowhere near ready to impact the professional game on a regular basis, and there remains no true professional minor league in basketball available by which to develop them. NCAA hoops is it. The list of players who came right into the NBA and contributed immediately is much shorter (Dwight Howard, LeBron James) than the list of those who took a few years to develop (nearly everyone else, including superstars Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal and Amare’ Stoudemire). If Mark Emmert is worried about the players (and his quote above seems to imply that he is), then he needs to push for an environment that will foster player development for the next level, in much the same way as he would inspire any student with soaring dreams. This tact dovetails nicely with what we described above that college basketball should be selling — Watch the greatest sporting spectacle on earth — the NCAA Tournament — where the stars of tomorrow are on stage today.
We obviously recognize that there are no easy answers here. Any model implemented will have someone complaining. But beginning in November, it will be the obligation of Emmert to push the game of college basketball forward in popularity and interest. After all, NCAA Tournament dollars fund nearly the entire operation there in Indianapolis. The way to do this is not to push college hoops down a path that makes it even more like college baseball, a sport that nobody cares about in large part because there is no direct connection between those players and the pros; but instead, Emmert should work with the NBA to pursue a model more like college football, an incredibly popular sport where everyone knows that today’s Heisman Trophy candidates are tomorrow’s NFL all-Pros.
We mentioned this on Twitter over the weekend, but this is scheduled to be a huge week for the future of the NCAA Tourney. How to deal with the four play-in games is on the agenda at this week’s meeting of the NCAA men’s basketball committee, and any hope that this would be a relatively simple decision has been thrown out the window with the realization that despite additional dollars available, nobody wants to play in these games. The small conference teams from weaker leagues do not want to be pigeonholed in those games on an annual basis, and the BCS league teams don’t feel like they should have to play the extra games. Well, if anyone over at the NCAA is reading this, we certainly have our opinion.
This had been rumored for some time, but MJ’s progeny will be playing together beginning in 2011-12 as Illinois transfer Jeff Jordanwill join little bro Marcus Jordan at Central Florida. Marcus was a standout freshman at UCF last year, averaging 8/3/3 assts and making the all-CUSA freshman team, while Jeffrey has made a name for himself during spot minutes as a hustling, defensive-oriented type of player. The two last played together four years ago in high school.
And you thought that conference realignment was finished this summer? Pfshaw! The Summit League is considering adding North Dakota to its nine-team conference, which would help bring the two Peace Garden State schools into the same fold (North Dakota State is already a member). There’s no timetable on this possibility, but a reasonable expectation would be two or three years. UND is currently a member of the Great West Conference, which does not have an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Mike DeCourcy asks if Oregon is ready to take control of the Pac-10 with Dana Altman on board and a strong commitment from the UO administration. It’s really not far-fetched. It’s no secret that the league has been way, way down the last two seasons, and UCLA and Arizona are struggling to get back to where they were. The additions of Colorado and Utah are not threatening in the short term on the hardwood, and as DeCourcy states, there is a good amount of talent coming out of that area seemingly every year.
Gary Parrish takes a look at his top thirty prospects for the 2011 NBA Draft here. His top six players are projected 1-and-doners next year. We really can’t wait until the NBA institutes a two-year minimum on its draft eligible players.
Last night’s NBA Draft was pretty boring from start to finish (Wes Johnson’s pants generously excepted), but there was one moment that resulted in our jaws on the floor at the RTC West Coast Compound, and it didn’t even involve one of the players (or random “USA” chants from drunken New Yorkers). We’ve been unable to find the video of this yet (let us know if you have), but at some point during the middle of five Kentucky players being selected in the 1st Round, ESPN interviewed John Calipari, who had this to say about the grand evening:
This is the greatest night in the history of Kentucky basketball.
Seven Better Nights Than Last Night
Now, we’ll excuse Coach Cal’s uber-salesmanship and a bit of hyperbole while getting caught up in the moment, but c’mon Coach… we can think of at least seven nights that were probably a tad better for the Big Blue faithful than June 24, 2010 (see above). And if we’re being honest with ourselves, many more than that. In fact, while UK fans as a whole seem genuinely happy for Wall, Cousins, Patterson, Bledsoe and Orton as individuals for fulfilling their lifelong dreams, there is still a lingering sense of what could or should have been for the team, especially if some of the players stuck around. This sentiment is heavily anesthesized by the fact that another truckload of blue-chippers are already en route to Lexington for 2010-11, but rival blog Card Chronicle nails the reality underlying this situation:
If in the next two years Cal continues to dominate recruiting and continues to produce first round NBA Draft picks but doesn’t lead the Cats into the final week of the season, watch how drastically the tide will turn. Success for Kentucky fans means national championships. This current wave of insanity excitement might seem to be the product of last year’s success or all the top-rated recruits or all the national attention, but really it’s all driven by the feeling that national title No. 8 is right around the corner. […] On the flip side, you get the feeling that Calipari feels like this is succeeding. Kentucky basketball is back to being a mainstay in the top ten, they’re being talked about on the news on a regular basis, he’s got celebrities showing up at Rupp Arena, he’s getting the top prep talent in the country to come to Lexington and then he’s getting them in a position to make millions before they can drink legally. […] But if Calipari isn’t able to turn status into championships within a reasonable (to Big Blue Nation) amount of time, watch the relationship disintegrate. Kentucky fans will start to debate whether or not all this glam is good for the program and Cal will become (understandably) bitter.
Which makes Calipari’s comments today on the Dan Patrick Show (audio link) all the more intriguing. According to Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Herald-Leader, when Patrick pointedly asked Calipari how last night’s draft could be the best moment in such a proud program’s history, Calipari answered that it “depends on your frame of reference” before explaining how UK is a players-first program. When asked again whether a national title or a night like last evening was better, he similarly dodged the question by saying that you need the latter to win the former. Fair enough, but these feints in the light of day certainly give credence to what CC was saying above. No matter how much he may want it to be true, Calipari’s success at UK will ultimately not be measured by the number of draft picks he puts into the first round — it’ll be measured by the number of banners he puts in the rafters. Surely he knows this. Right?
Did you catch that NBA Draft last night? We’ll have much more up about the 2010 version in a post later today, but for now we’ll just say that even though we know that college stars cannot always translate to the professional level, it still bothers us to see tremendous collegians like Scottie Reynolds, Omar Samhan, Jon Scheyer and many others left on the outside looking in. Best of luck in wherever your careers take you, fellas; we really enjoyed watching you play.
Why wait to start projecting for the 2011 NBA Draft, though? DraftExpress’ Jonathan Givonylists his top thirty prospects for next year’s draft and it has a particularly Duke and Carolina flavor in it. And Georgia? Yes, Georgia.
This is intriguing. The NCAA is proposing to make a rule that high school players cannot be offered scholarships until the summer between their junior and senior years. It’s not a bad thought. Coaches could still get wink/nod/secret handshake agreements with players well before that time, but at least from a public standpoint, it would take away some of the insanity with the recruitment of players who are barely old enough to drive (or younger if you’re Billy Gillispie).
ESPY nominees relating to college hoops: 1) Best game – Duke vs. Butler (odds: 35%); 2) Best Breakthrough Athlete – John Wall, Kentucky (odds: 40%); 3) Best Championship Performance – Anthony Johnson, Montana (odds: 5%); 4) Best Upset: Northern Iowa over Kansas (odds: 75%); 5) Best Coach/Manager: Coach K (odds: 15%); 6) Best Male College Athlete: Evan Turner (odds: 25%) & John Wall (odds: 40%). Get over there and vote.
The NCAA’s Basketball Focus Group: an interesting idea. Just give it some teeth, gumshoes.
Just to ensure that Texas the remaining Big 12 doesn’t get too big for its britches, Oklahoma president David Boren confirmed yesterday that the Sooners had an invitation on the table to join Texas A&M as members of an expanded SEC. Boren said that the school wanted to stay with its group and keep its traditional rivals Oklahoma State and Texas nearby (keep your enemies closer, perhaps?), though, so they turned down the offer.
This is a pretty strong article from New York magazine that just came to our attention recently about the last great basketball scout, Tom Konchalski. For some reason, in the real-time twitter/blogger/facebook era, the fact that his scouting only comes via US Mail on paper is cool, in a retro sorta way.
YABB’s the State of Coaching post is out, and very well done as always. Seriously, spend fifteen minutes with this thing and understand what he’s doing there. It’s very good stuff.
