1. Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari are still the top two names in recruiting, but Penny Hardaway is quickly moving up the list as one of the best recruiters in the country. On Saturday morning, Hardaway landed a commitment from D.J. Jeffries, a top-25 recruit in the class of 2020. Jeffries, who previously played for Hardaway’s AAU team, had committed to Kentucky in March, but reopened his commitment after Hardaway was named as the new coach at Memphis. Jeffries also played alongside James Wiseman, the #1 recruit in the class of 2020, this summer so there is a chance he might be able to sway Wiseman, which would be an enormous get for the Tigers. Hardaway has done a great job in turning around the issues Memphis had in recruiting under Tubby Smith, but we will be interested to see if he continues to be as successful as he gets further away from the AAU scene that he was so closely involved in before taking the job at Memphis.
2. We had almost forgotten about Mark Schlabach as he seemed to disappear after accusing Sean Miller of paying DeAndre Ayton to play at Arizona, but late on Sunday night he released a piece (along with Paula Lavigne) accusing Miller as well as Creighton‘s Greg McDermott of having multiple phone calls with Christian Dawkins, who was acting as Brian Bowen II‘s handler. A player’s handler speaking with assistant coaches isn’t particularly shocking–we aren’t as dumb as Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, and Bill Self think we are–but we are surprised that coaches of the level of Miller and McDermott would have any kind of direct conservation with a handler.
3. With the start of the season drawing near we have been expecting to hear about teams losing players to injuries or eligibility concerns, but we did not expect a team to lose a player for punching a coach as appears to have happened with Iona‘s Roland Griffin. According to Griffin, a senior forward who averaged 11.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game last season, he punched an assistant coach after the coach tried to wrestle him to the ground after a verbal altercation over whether or not Griffin had to go to study hall. The assistant coach, Garfield “Ricky” Johns,  reportedly spent eight hours in the hospital [Ed. Note: Probably four hours in registration, two hours waiting to be seen, and a little over one and a half hours waiting to be discharged.] Griffin was later informed that he is not allowed on school property through May 31, 2020, which means his time as a Gael is done.
4. Texas will be without senior guard Kerwin Roach II for its season opener against Eastern Illinois on November 6 after Roach was suspended for a violation of team rules. The violation, which reportedly happened last year, means that Roach, who averaged 12.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game last season, will miss the Longhorns’ two scrimmages along with the aforementioned opener. Fortunately for the Longhorns, he will be back in time for their game on November 9 against Arkansas in the Armed Forces Classic, which should really be the first real test they face.
5. We don’t usually talk about potential NBA personnel hires, but when Rick Pitino throws his name out there looking for any NBA offers it catches our attention. The fact that Pitino would go to Adrian Wojnarowski seems pretty desperate, but then again so does running a Twitter account that we are still having a hard time believing is real. We can’t imagine that an NBA team would give Pitino a high-level job given his ego and the likelihood that he would try to make a move to take over the team, but we could see someone giving him a G League position particularly with the reports that they will be offering players $125,000/year contracts.

We now know one thing that 2010-11 National Player of the Year Jimmer Fredette won’t be doing to supplement his income while locked out by his Sacramento employers this coming year: Hitting the links.  The phrase Jimmer for three took on a whole new meaning over the weekend in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, as the tenth pick in the NBA Draft spent more time hacking around in the rough and serpentining around the greens of the American Century Championship than finding the sweet spot at the bottom of the cup.  How bad was the nation’s best college basketball player?  Gulp… even worse than Barkley.  From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Make Sure to Duck if You See These Two Behind You

Fredette finished dead last (83rd place) at the American Century Championship golf tournament on Sunday afternoon, ending up with minus-88 points. Fredette had minus-30 on Friday, minus-28 on Saturday and minus-30 on Sunday. The worst he could have gotten each day was minus-36. Jay DeMarcus of the country music group Rascal Flatts finished second-to-last at minus-83, and Charles Barkley was third-to-last at minus-68.

Basketball players with their lanky frames and inability to stand still as a general rule didn’t perform well in this tournament, with Shane Battier (#77), Digger Phelps (#72), Jason Kidd (#56), Deron Williams (#46) and Penny Hardaway (#41) joining Chuck and Jimmer in lighting up the Edgewood Golf Club with high degree of difficulty shots from every nook and cranny in the Tahoe basin.  The highest placing hoopster was former NC State star and current LA Clippers head coach, Vinny del Negro (#11), with His Airness and Jesus Shuttlesworth also placing modestly (tied at #23).

In typical good-natured Jimmer fashion, he tweeted out after his final round that he’ll be “much improved” next year.  Given the look and feel of an NBA work stoppage that will likely leak well into next calendar year, The Jimmer will certainly have plenty of time to work on his golf game.  Whether anyone will remember who he is depends on a bunch of other factors, but for at least this one year, he gave Sir Charles a reason to feel good about himself.   

Although we have been mentioning that some of the recruiting buzz might start slowing down we still saw one big-time recruit commit this week and another back out of his prior commitment.

• First we will go with the big commitment as Memphis picked up its first commitment of the recruiting season (shocking, right?) when local product and reality TV star Adonis Thomas committed to play for the Tigers. Josh Pastner utilized former Memphis star Penny Hardaway to appeal to Thomas during a video segment aired during their version of Midnight Madness. Thomas announced his decision on ESPNU, which is quite frankly less dramatic than we imagined for a player who went on ESPNU to announce his finalists.
• Now for the less joyous news (if you’re a fan of the team that previously had a commitment) we will head to Texas where Rick Barnes lost a commitment from highly coveted Canadian (via Findlay Prep) point guard recruit Myck Kabongo who has not provided a definitive answer as to why he has reneged on his earlier promise. As of now he says that he is still considering Texas along with Syracuse, Duke, Kentucky, and North Carolina. There has been some talk about Austin Rivers and Kabongo wanting to team up (anybody getting visions of college poor man’s LeBron-Wade in Cameron?), but we will probably have to wait until Spring to find out as Kabongo says he is 60% certain that he’ll sign in the late period. [Ed. Note: Where do these guys come up with these percentages?]
  

  Kabongo is on the market again

• Stanford picked up a huge commitment this week when the received a verbal commitment from top 10 point guard prospect Chasson Randle, who decided to head to Palo Alto after considering Illinois and Purdue citing the combination of academics (4.0 high school GPA) and athletics.
• Indiana might still be waiting on Cody Zeller to decide on where he wants to go, but they were able to pick up a commitment from Hanner Perea, a power forward in the class of 2012 that many recruiting experts consider the most explosive big man in the class. Some of you may remember Perea as being the focal point of Baylor‘s current cell phone/text message scandal, but we have a feeling you might forget that when you see how athletic he is (additional video after the jump).

[Ed. Note: Both videos–this and the one after the jump–are of Perea as a sophomore.]

• Bruce Weber may have missed out on Randle and Anthony Davis, two of the top players in the state of Illinois, but he was able to get a commitment from Mike Shaw, a 6’8″ forward who many expect to improve significantly in college.
• Last week we noted the apparent hesitance of Jahii Carson to officially sign with Arizona State, but now it appears like he will sign with the Sun Devils during November.
• Duke lost a commitment from Tyler Adams, a 6’9″ center who the Blue Devils had been interested in to help them add depth on the inside. The decision might surprise some, but not those who have followed the process closely. As RTC interview subject Dave Telep notes the two sides had grown apart to the point that Adams attended Midnight Madness at Georgetown, which is never a good sign for a Duke commit. According to Telep, the two current leaders for Adams are Georgetown and Mississippi State.
• Speaking of Mississippi State they picked up a big commitment from Rodney Hood, one of the top small forwards in this year’s class, who opted to stay in his home state instead of going to a long list of potential suitors. With Arkansas picking up an outstanding class, Georgia starting to corner the market on in-state recruits, Kentucky being Kentucky, and other schools landing several solid recruits could the SEC be turning the corner and becoming a solid conference again? Read the rest of this entry »