1. Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun seemingly can’t catch a break when it comes to his health lately. After suffering through a number of debilitating physical ailments the past few years, the 70-year old wrecked his bicycle while on a ride Saturday and fractured his left hip during the fall. He had surgery to repair the break over the weekend and is expected to make a full recovery. Still, tack this on to Calhoun’s laundry list of health issues — prostate cancer, skin cancer, spinal stenosis, even five broken ribs from another cycling accident in 2009. We certainly wish nothing but the best for Calhoun’s recovery and eventual migration back to the sideline in Storrs, but goodness, it’s getting to the point where we’re not sure he should go anywhere without wrapping himself in bubble wrap first.
2. We’ve known for a couple of weeks that Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith received a contract extension through the 2016-17 season, but the details of that deal were not released until Friday. Under the terms of this extension, Smith will average a salary of roughly $2 million annually with an extremely generous incentive structure that not only increases his compensation by as much as a quarter-million dollars for a Big Ten championship (regular season or tournament), but also extends the duration of his contract for reaching those same goals. While it’s no doubt true that Minnesota has suffered a number of crucial injuries and bad luck in the last few seasons, it’s still a harsh fact that the Gophers have never — not once — earned a winning record in the Big Ten (6-12, 6-12, 9-9, 9-9, 8-10), nor won a game in the NCAA Tournament (0-2).
3. Is Class of 2013 super-recruit Jabari Parker down to three schools? His official list still contains 10 suitors, but an article by the Chicago Tribune suggests that BYU, DePaul, Florida, Georgetown, Kentucky, North Carolina and Stanford may already be out of the running. Mike Helfgot covers Chicago-area high school sports, and his sources around Parker are telling him that Duke, Michigan State and Kansas are the clubhouse leaders. The same piece repeated the earlier news that it is increasingly likely that Parker will wait until next spring to make his decision, allowing the family to have full information about the talent surrounding him wherever he chooses.
4. Recruits are meaningless if they’re not eligible to play and two of the most notable players entering college basketball next season received recent news about that very thing recently. According to his head coach, Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel has finished up his summer coursework and will be on campus next month as a fully eligible player. On the other side of the issue, NC State’s Rodney Purvis has not yet been cleared by the NCAA because his high schools requires an “extended review” by the governing body. His team left for a five-game tour of Spain and the Canary Islands on Sunday without him. The issue with his high school is that Purvis was part of the first graduating class at Upper Room Christian Academy, and therefore the NCAA takes a more thorough approach in vetting the institution. It’s unlikely that his eventual eligibility will be anything other than a mere formality.
5. The adidas Nations high school basketball event has been going on in Long Beach, California, the last several days, and many of the nation’s top entering and returning collegians are on site acting as camp counselors. NBADraft.net has put together some thoughts from two days of action — the counselors play pick-up games against each other — and perhaps the biggest lesson learned so far is that Nerlens Noel is a long, long way from a finished product. Aran Smith writes about the shot-blocking fiend: “The #1 overall hype needs to be tempered some. He still obviously has top 5 potential but that’s just because of how weak this year’s draft is. Anyone expecting Anthony Davis 2.0 should just stop.” He also breaks down a number of other players, including Ray McCallum, Gorgui Dieng, Nate Wolters and Deshaun Thomas. Here’s the link to day one‘s thoughts followed by the link to day two.

1. Louisville has made headlines recently with their abundance of scholarship players and the need to cut down and they managed to do so yesterday for one player as incoming freshman Terry Rozier will be spending next season in prep school at Hargrave Military Academy with the apparent reason being to straighten out his academic standing. Rozier will also get to know Anton Gill, another Louisville commit, who will be spending next season at the same prep school. While this may seem like bad news for Louisville fans it is good news for the rest of us in that Peyton Siva’s backup at point guard will be Russ Smith and we all could use a little more Russ Smith in our lives.
2. North Carolina State fans who have been waiting to see what has been expected to be a loaded Wolfpack team may have to wait until after the team’s summer trip to Europe to see their full arsenal as Mark Gottfried has indicated that injured point guard Lorenzo Brown may not play during the team’s trip to Spain as he continues to recover from offseason knee surgery. The decision is not surprising as Gottfried says Brown is still only “between 75 and 80 percent healthy”. Given the goals of this Wolfpack team, which is a legitimate Final Four threat, this seems entirely reasonable although we are sure that Brown would love to take the court with his new teammates.
3. A little over a month ago we mentioned the attempt by Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis to get Mississippi State and Loyola (IL) to play a rematch of their 1963 Regional semifinals in Jenison Field House to commemorate the game, which the Bulldogs played despite a court order forbidding them from playing a team containing African-Americans. Unfortunately for Hollis, the schools were unwilling to commit to playing at an off-campus site, but they were willing to schedule a home-and-home series with the first match-up occurring on December 13 in Chicago. While the games probably won’t mean much in the context of the two seasons they could serve as an important way to educate many people about a significant event and highlight the ability of sports to stand for something more than just the outcome of a game.
4. The first game will be without the services of Mississippi State freshman Jacoby Davis, a 6’1″, 185-lb point guard who was new head coach Rick Ray’s first signee. Davis tore his ACL on Monday during individual workouts and will most likely miss the entire 2012-13 season. Ray was already facing a precarious backcourt situation with only Davis and juco transfer Divonte Bloodman projected as point guards next season — now with Davis out of the lineup, the Bulldogs will have to depend on Bloodman and hope for the best unless Ray can find another point guard in the bushes somewhere. Mississippi State was for a while one of the most reliable SEC programs under Rick Stansbury, but it appears like it’s going to be some time before the Bulldogs get back to that level of success.
5. SEC basketball coaches often feel like they’re the stepchildren of the conference in a region and among local cultures that value college football exponentially more than their sport on the hardwood. So imagine how they felt this week when they received an email from the league offices telling them that their conference schedules — the ones that they had all agreed to in June — were changed. According to this report from Gary Parrish, the conference’s 14 coaches weren’t even informed that changes were afoot — their first notification on the matter came in the email. So what does it mean? Last month the coaches agreed to an 18-game schedule where each school would play a permanent rival twice, four other schools in home-and-homes, and the other eight teams once. This report says that the home-and-homes have changed, meaning that some schools’ schedules have gotten considerably harder (oh, we play Kentucky twice now?), while others have gotten easier. For a league that likes to tell anyone who will listen that they have the most money, the most success, the most everything… it sounds like Mike Slive’s group might want to invest in a communications liaison. Folks aren’t happy.

1. Kentucky head coach John Calipari will not be adding an Olympic medal to his trophy case in London this year after his Dominican Republic team lost to Nigeria at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, over the weekend. Interestingly enough, it was former Arizona State All-American Ike Diogu who pushed the Nigerians past the Dominicans, scoring 25 points including some key threes to earn the most valuable player award in the tournament. Although we can’t envision a scenario where Calipari could actually improve his recruiting pitch, UK fans are no doubt privately happy that Coach Cal will now have the next month available to get out on the road and evaluate future prospects. Louisville an former Puerto Rico head coach Rick Pitino, on the other hand, is quite clearly enjoying his summer vacation.
2. While on the subject of the Louisville coach, WDRB’s Eric Crawford and Rick Bozich recently published a March interview transcript with the Cardinals’ talented-and-getting-better center Gorgui Dieng. The article — a notebook style commentary on area schools — also revealed that Indiana NPOY candidate Cody Zeller doesn’t think it’s a “big deal” that the UK-IU series has ended, and some discussion about the most indispensable players in college basketball next season. Worth a read if you have a few minutes.
3. Missouri is a team that seemingly lost several indispensables in the forms of Marcus Denmon, Kim English and Ricardo Ratliffe. But with a number of key contributors returning, several elite transfers, and the return of Laurence Bowers from injury, Missouri insiders think that next year’s squad might be in even better position to make a run at the Final Four. Prior to last October’s injury, Bowers was widely considered the Tigers’ best returning player — if he returns his confidence and game from the latter part of 2010-11 and all the newcomers mesh with waterbug Phil Pressey and Michael Dixon, the SEC might get taken by storm in much the same way Arkansas entered the league some 20 years ago.
4. It didn’t take long for South Florida head coach Stan Heath to cash in on his program’s success last season, where the Bulls won 22 games including the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament wins (over California and Temple). Heath’s contract was extended by the school for three more years to 2017-18, and he now takes home a crisp $1.19 million annually (representing a 32% raise). Without question, Heath entered last season at USF on the hot seat, but with a number of returnees expected from one of the most efficient lockdown defensive teams in America, the Bulls could be on the verge of a sustained multi-year run of success. This is especially true with the overall downgrade in basketball talent that the Big East losses of West Virginia, Syracuse and Pittsburgh will enable — some program will happily fill that void.
5. Old Dominion received some good news late last week when NC State transfer DeShawn Painter was ruled eligible by the NCAA to compete for the Monarchs next season. The rising senior moved back to the Hampton Roads area to be closer to his family and ailing great-grandmother, the woman who essentially raised him. ODU is in a tough spot next year as it has been banned from competing in the CAA Tournament, meaning that it will have to perform exceptionally well throughout the regular season to ensure a spot in the NCAA Tournament. The Monarchs have been involved in the NCAAs in four of the last seven seasons, and the addition of Painter as a beast on the low blocks will help toward that end. Last season on NC State’s Sweet Sixteen team, he averaged 6/4 in about 20 minutes per game, and his size and maturity will be a tremendous boon for Blaine Taylor’s team on the inside next year.

1. Here’s hoping everyone had a safe and fun Independence Day yesterday. As we mentioned earlier in the week, holiday or not, this is a landmark week in the history of a number of schools that officially jumped conferences last weekend. Texas A&M in particular celebrated its admission to the SEC with a borderline embarrassing flag-raising ceremony, while Missouri, West Virginia, TCU, Butler, VCU and a few others joined with more modest showings. Much of the talk of course centers on the impact of conference realignment on the college football landscape, but Athlon Sports recently published a look at the winners and losers of all the moves from a basketball perspective. It’s not terribly in-depth but it gives a good overview of the situation as of today.
2. Marshall received some excellent news this week as senior forward Dennis Tinnon was granted another year of eligibility with the Thundering Herd. Tinnon, a player who had multiple run-ins with the law before turning his life around at junior college, averaged a double-double (10/10) and was also selected to the CUSA All-Defensive team in his only season at Marshall. He’s already one of the best offensive rebounders in the country (4.0 per game), and his return along with DeAndre Kane’s to an NIT team gives head coach Tom Herrion high hopes for another successful year in Huntington.
3. Tinnon successfully went from the junior college route to Division I, but it appears that Michael Bradley (formerly of Connecticut) will take the reverse course even if it’s only for a short period. Bradley, you certainly recall, never played in his two seasons in Storrs (due to a redshirt year and subsequent injuries) but the NCAA would not allow him to play immediately at his favored transfer school, Western Kentucky, so he has decided to attend a junior college rather than sitting out a third consecutive year. Assuming all goes well, his transfer to Vincennes (IN) University will allow him to play one year of competitive basketball before then seeking to move back into Division I with two years of eligibility still intact. For a player who has certainly had to deal with more than his fair share of turmoil in his personal and basketball life, we certainly wish him the best with this plan of action and hope to see him again about a year from now.
4. The Fayetteville Observer caught up with Kentucky point guard Ryan Harrow, the NC State transfer whom John Calipari will entrust with his dribble-drive offense next season. Harrow’s parents still live in the Raleigh area, and the shadow of his single season as a member of the Wolfpack still hovers over them. Calipari certainly has an illustrious history of getting the most from his point guards, but Harrow is a little older than his freshman counterparts and he had an up-and-down season in his only year of basketball at the D-I level (9/3 on 39% shooting). That top five rating Kentucky has in the preseason polls will be largely dependent on Harrow’s improvement on those numbers.
5. In five full seasons at Michigan, John Beilein has won a share of a Big Ten championship, taken the Wolverines to three NCAA Tournaments, and even beaten out none other than Duke and Florida for the services of an elite recruit. As the school’s basketball profile has risen, Beilein is finding that he has considerably more cachet to walk into the living rooms of top prep players across the country with a realistic chance of getting their attention and signing them. This is a somewhat newfound situation for Beilein to find himself in, as this AnnArbor.com profile explains, for a head coach who had previously made most of his career through finding recruiting diamonds in the rough (one word: Pittsnogle). With an elite class already committed for 2013 and a brand-new practice facility to sell on recruits,  there’s no reason to believe Michigan basketball is headed anywhere but up.

1. ESPN: Rodney Hood, the impressive freshman guard from Mississippi State, has made his decision. Hood is going to be a Blue Devil, helping to ensure that the reliably-loaded Duke backcourt remains one of the conference’s best for years to come. As a transfer, Hood will sit out the coming year, but he will have three years of eligibility after that. It’s a great pick up and the latest salvo that shows that Duke will continue to be a potential destination for discontented guards across the country (cf. Seth Curry).
2. News & Observer: North Carolina State has named its first Hall of Fame class. While the  Hall is designed to honor collegiate athletes and coaches from many different programs at NC State, basketball is certainly given its due in this inaugural class. Legendary coaches Everett Case and Jim Valvano are to be honored along with the greatest ACC basketball player of all time, David Thompson. NC State’s women’s basketball program will also have two inductees, longtime coach Kay Yow and the program’s all-time leader in points and rebounds, Genia Beasley. It’s a good start to enshrining the traditions of one of the most storied basketball programs in college basketball.
3. CBS Sports: The Virginia Cavaliers struck decisively to win a recruiting battle early. Devon Hall, a four-star point guard in the 2014 high school class, has not only committed to Virginia but he has also reclassified to the class of 2013. The Cavaliers could certainly use some help at this position and Hall looks like the kind of player who could potentially contribute as soon as he sets foot on campus.
4. Charlotte Observer: Former ACC players did well in the NBA draft last Thursday, with eight players selected across the two rounds. North Carolina had four first round picks led by Harrison Barnes, while Duke’s Austin Rivers and Miles Plumlee were also selected in the first round. One of the finest moments in the draft came with the rousing applause and standing ovation when Florida State’s Bernard James was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers (though a trade with Dallas actually will see James with the Mavericks in exchange for Tyler Zeller going to Cleveland). Meanwhile, Mike Scott’s selection by the Atlanta Hawks may go down as one of the savviest value picks of the draft. Of the notable ACC players who went undrafted, the conference’s leading scorer, Terrell Stoglin from Maryland, didn’t hear his name called on Thursday night. Stoglin had a number of pre-draft workouts with NBA teams and it seems likely he will get invited to one or more training camps, though that likely doesn’t lessen the sting.
5. News & Observer: Lorenzo Brown‘s knee surgery apparently went well. His medical team repaired a partially torn right meniscus and Brown is only expected to miss between two to four weeks, though head coach Mark Gottfried stressed that they are in no hurry to get Brown back on the court before he has had a chance to fully heal. Considering how scary the phrase “knee surgery” can be in college basketball, this is nothing but good news for Brown and North Carolina State.

1. Raleigh News & Observer: Lorenzo Brown, arguably one of the top three point guards in the ACC last year, will be undergoing exploratory knee surgery Tuesday. Brown is one of the key cogs of a North Carolina State team that figures to be a major contender for the top spot in the conference next season. While coach Mark Gottfried’s worries are probably somewhat ameliorated by incoming freshman point guard, Tyler Lewis, losing an experienced point guard for even a few games can be fairly tough in the ACC.
2. Durham Herald Sun: In news that is surprising no one, Mike Krzyzewski confirmed that Duke guardAndre Dawkins will be taking a redshirt in the coming season. Dawkins has been struggling with grief ever since his sister died in a tragic car accident in 2009.  I think that taking some time can only help Dawkins, and basketball can certainly wait.
3. ZagsBlog: The Blue Devils in coming seasons certainly won’t be hurting for talent. Mississippi State transfer Rodney Hood has winnowed his transfer decision to either Duke or Ohio State. Hood has great size at 6’7″ and talent in spades. In his one year as a Bulldog he made the Freshman All-SEC team. His great combination of size and skill would be very valuable to a Duke team that has been small on the wing for the past few seasons.
4. Tetsudo Times: Listen, Maryland has a really cool flag. There’s no questioning that. It’s stylish, bold, and arresting whereas most state flags are really boring. I also understand that Under Armour wants to have the same relationship with the University of Maryland that Nike has with Oregon. I just don’t know about these uniforms though.
5. CBS Sports: APR is going to be a hot topic in college basketball as long as postseason bans based on program academic performance are a potential punishment. If a rash of transfers and drop-outs can get a team banned from a shot at the NCAA Tournament in successive years, this odd number is one that’s worth following. The good news is that the ACC, as a conference, does really well in terms of APR.

It’s been well documented that the point guard position was not a strong suit of Division I basketball last year, and the same applies for the incoming class of freshmen players. The last thing we need is for some of the country’s elite lead guards to suffer setbacks this offseason heading into 2012-13, but it appears that’s exactly what has happened over the past week. NC State’s rising junior Lorenzo Brown is set to undergo knee surgery this week, and incoming Providence stud Kris Dunn suffered a recent shoulder injury that could require surgery as well. Brown’s procedure is notable as only ‘exploratory’ and should not leave him sidelined for more than several weeks, but knee surgeries are never good news for quick guards. It often takes far longer than the required rehab time before a player returns to 100% health and regains the trust to rely on his knee for all the cuts required during games. Dunn’s status, meanwhile, remains unknown but could become a far more serious issue that requires several months of rehabilitation. Both players could also end up fine for the upcoming season — still over four months away — but their teams could also become affected during parts or all of the year.

Lorenzo Brown is a versatile guard for NC State and hopes to avoid a serious knee injury after exploratory surgery this week (AP Photo/C. Burton)

Brown averaged 12.7 points, 6.3 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game as a sophomore last season for a late-surging Wolfpack team that made a strong run to the Sweet Sixteen. The heady guard has terrific size at 6’5″ that enables him to see the floor well and defend at a high level; he even averaged half a block per game last year. He’s the leader of a preseason top 15 team who led the squad in minutes played last season. Luckily, Mark Gottfried’s team also has incoming McDonald’s All-American freshman Tyler Lewis as its backup point guard, but he is not ready or able to handle all the responsibilities that Brown does — Lewis would fit much better as a rotating reserve to start his career. Hopefully, Brown’s surgery doesn’t reveal anything particularly damaging and the veteran can re-join the team long before the season starts, but having a procedure to “discover the source of pain” leaves reason for temporary concern.

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1. We’ve spent too much time on this site in the last five years lamenting a number of initiatives perpetrated against the game of college basketball in the name of dollar-chasing. The shamelessness of college administrators in discussing the welfare of student-athletes in one breath while simultaneously making decisions to further enrich themselves without regard for players and fans who put these folks in their positions of power continues to appall us. Interestingly, others outside our game (and our first cousin, college football) are starting to notice. Two articles published independently over the weekend get at the same point — that those who run college basketball have forgotten what made it so popular in the first place. John Supinie writes that “the integrity and traditions that made the game so great were lost in the money,” while Dick Jerardi says that “when your fans can’t follow what it is you are doing, you are in danger of losing those fans.” Both articles take different tacks but end up in the same place — college hoops cannot thrive if it remains the red-headed stepchild to college football and the NBA, a mere pawn to be tossed around in their pursuit of increasingly greater shares of the pie.
2. While we’re in the mood for piling on this morning, a recent article about transfers by USA Today informed us that four of every 10 D-I recruits who enter as a freshman will have left that program by the end of his second year. That 40% attrition rate includes only two percent of players who leave halfway through their college careers to the NBA, meaning that fully 38% of incoming players are transferring or simply quitting school altogether by that time. Transfers have been a hot topic this offseason, with over 400 players already moving on to presumably sunnier situations and a couple of public (and thorny) battles between coaches and players over their right to head elsewhere. NCAA president Mark Emmert says that he plans on initiating a task force to study the issue, a step in the right direction, but we’re almost certain that any recommendations will benefit the coaches more than the players.
3. One of those 400+ transfers is Connecticut’s Michael Bradley, as hard luck a player as you will find. A young man who grew up in an orphanage in Tennessee because he was estranged from his mother never saw action in his two years at UConn. He redshirted his freshman year and suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of Jim Calhoun’s rotation last year. After his grandmother in Chattanooga was recently diagnosed with cancer, Bradley decided to transfer to Western Kentucky to be closer to her, but over the weekend the NCAA denied Bradley’s waiver request to play immediately at WKU. This decision proves once again that the criteria for justified waivers does not appear to be consistently articulable, which would probably cut down on these requests if the NCAA would simply provide clearer guidelines.
4. Prepare yourselves for three years of Pitino Bowl, as Louisville has agreed to play FIU for the next three seasons (two in Louisville; one in South Florida) now that Richard Pitino has settled in as the new head coach of the Panthers. Father/son matchups are often lopsided because of the superior position within the industry that the elder has over the younger, and this situation should be no different. But it’ll be interesting to see if Richard is more like a Pat Knight (Bob) or Tony Bennett (Dick) in his career, especially given that he’s starting out at a school that not even the coaching phenom Isiah Thomas could make work.
5. A couple of key ACC players may not lace them up next season, depending on how the rest of the summer shakes out for each. NC State’s Lorenzo Brown, a rising junior who averaged a superb 13/6/5 RPG manning the point guard spot for Mark Gottfried’s surprising Wolfpack team, will have surgery on his right knee this week to determine what is causing him some discomfort. An early report suggested that he had a meniscus problem there, but that has not been confirmed, and there is no timetable for his return to action. On the other side of the Triangle, Duke’s Andre Dawkins appears to be redshirting next year, his senior season as a Blue Devil. Coach K announced that the redshirt was an official decision as of last Friday, but he also added that Dawkins needs time “to step away,” which might leave open the possibility that things could change if he chooses not to take that step. Dawkins contributed 8.4 PPG last season as a key member of Duke’s backcourt, but he disappeared down the stretch as Duke did likewise in the last several games of the season.

1. There are many coaching hires where the logical process makes normal and complete sense to everyone – a longtime assistant is promoted to the top job; a big personality moves on to a school to match his ego; a mid-major guy is looking for more resources and talent. Occasionally, though, a random hire has everyone around the industry scratching his head wondering what they missed. It’s not very often that you’ll see a career assistant coach — mostly at the collegiate level, at that — make the jump to NBA head coach, but that’s exactly what St. John’s assistant Mike Dunlap did this week. Other than a handful of games when head coach Steve Lavin was out with prostate cancer last season, Dunlap has spent the last six seasons as an assistant, and the extent of his head coaching experience came at Division II Metro State from 1997-2006. Dunlap reportedly beat out more prominent names such as Jerry Sloan, Brian Shaw, and Quin Snyder for the position, and although according to Jeff Goodman everyone knows he can coach, this is a real gamble on the part of the GOAT as part owner of the Charlotte Bobcats.
2. If a player only sets foot on your campus for the better part of eight months, is it OK for an alumnus to claim that star as one of his own? That’s the question posed by Grantland’s Bryan Curtis as a Longhorn considering the provenance of one Kevin Durant, one of the NBA’s brightest stars but a player who probably wasn’t around Austin long enough to even witness the bats on Congress Avenue Bridge. Curtis ultimately settles on the answer “yes,” – shocking, we know – but he actually digs up some thoughtful and relevant examples of other prominent Texas grads who were early entries into the work force well before it was fashionable. A couple of those names? Walter Cronkite and Michael Dell.
3. Stop the presses, but Fab Melo has decided to speak about his suspensions last season at Syracuse. If you recall, the Big East DPOY was suspended twice during the season, including a devastating NCAA Tournament suspension that essentially killed the Orange’s realistic chances at a national title. The reason: (drum roll) academics. Melo is touring around the country in an effort to improve his draft stock, and he decided to talk about his time away from Jim Boeheim’s team during his sophomore year this week. To wit, “They ask, I explain (what) happened — that I came from another country and until four years ago didn’t even speak English.” This is all fine and well, but if we were an NBA scout, we might be willing to look past one indiscretion — but dropping the ball during the most important month of his collegiate career is an altogether different story. Did he forget how to stay eligible between the first part of his sophomore year and his second? Or did he realize he was going to be a millionaire soon and decided to stop caring about classes? That’s the question that should be asked — whether the answer is relevant to his future prospects as a ball player isn’t for us to decide.
4. With all the bad blood surrounding conference realignment, we’re actually surprised that we haven’t seen what the CAA has decided to do more often. The league announced on Tuesday that departing members Old Dominion and Georgia State – both of which will remain in the league in 2012-13 – will not be eligible to compete for conference championships next year. The CAA’s Council of Presidents voted unanimously to uphold a longstanding rule meant to dissuade schools from jumping ship. VCU, which will join the Atlantic 10 next month, will obviously not be impacted, but this goes to show that conference realignment at its core is something of a bloodsport, and memories of such influential people at the highest levels tend to not easily erase.
5. We sorta love it when in-state rivalries are exacerbated through the local media, and NC State is only the latest and greatest to use the old standbys — billboards and television ads — to make declarations of grandeur based on nothing more than marketing, spit, and perhaps a little duct tape. Whether you measure it by success or fans, there’s virtually no possible way to justify an assertion that the great state of North Carolina belongs to NC State, but hey, whatever gets the juices running (and it’s still funny). Of course, even if NC State has won the last 10,000 football games against UNC, Duke, and Wake Forest combined, that’s still not what matters in the Tar Heel State any more than Auburn beating Alabama in basketball matters a lick. Kudos to NC State for giving it a shot, but nobody is fooled.

It’s that quiet time for the ACC, but a number of folks are making noise even in the dead of late spring.

1. IMG Academy: In an interview given last week, Kendall Marshall revealed that he had also fractured his elbow at the same time that he suffered his season-ending scaphoid injury. There was no way that Marshall was going to play any more games for North Carolina after the injury, but it makes the Marshall’s-injury-is-fake crowd seem even more insane and conspiratorial.
2. Sports Illustrated: Virginia Tech has landed an intriguing transfer in UNC Wilmington freshman Adam Smith. The rising sophomore will be forced to sit out a year, of course, but he could provide some real scoring punch for the Hokies.  After all, despite being a 5’11” freshman, Smith wasn’t shy during his time in Wilmington, taking a team high 30.1% of the shots when he was on the floor.  Smith is the first player that new coach James Johnson has landed, a solid get, if not an absolute blockbuster.
3. Washington Post: In slightly weirder transfer news, former starting Albany guard Logan Aronhalt will be joining the Maryland Terrapins, great news for a team whose backcourt seemed thin since the departure of Terrell Stoglin. The weird part about the news is that Aronhalt was part of an Albany team that actually played against Maryland last season at the Comcast Center. Aronhalt’s mention of appreciating the fine facilities there as a contributing factor in his decision to transfer will likely give some coaches pause come scheduling time. Still, the veteran guard looks to contribute immediately to the young team in College Park; already equipped with his undergraduate degree, he’ll be taking advantage of the graduate school exception for transfers to play this coming season.
4.  Herald-Sun: Kentucky coach John Calipari recently made waves with his announcement about his vision for Kentucky’s non-conference schedule. Buried under a lot of overdone outrage about his insistence on playing mostly if not only neutral site non-conference games, ACC fans got the welcome news that Calipari remains committed to the renewal of the series with North Carolina and has been working to get a series going with Duke. Considering that Duke and Kentucky are two of the best non-conference rivals in all of college basketball, it’s hard not to applaud a regular squaring-off of blue bloods.
5. Fayetteville Observer: North Carolina State coach Mark Gottfried caught a really big fish but ended up in the water. This is not a metaphor, but everyone keep this anecdote in mind in case it feels like one as next season progresses with some of the biggest recruits in the country all showing up on campus in Raleigh.