Quincy Miller: The Essentials

• Class: Freshman
• Position: Forward
• Height: 6’9″
• Weight: 210 pounds
• Hometown: North Chicago, Ill./High Point, North Carolina
• Rivals.com Accolades: #7 overall, Class of 2011 (5-star)
• High school statistics: 25.5 PPG, 12.0 RPG, 5.0 APG (2009-10)

Quincy Miller Can Do Almost Anything on a Basketball Court

What They’re Saying

“He is a great, explosive finisher and has a very high basketball IQ as well. Miller can play with his back to the basket or facing it and can knock down shots from behind the arc too. His rebounding and shot-blocking also makes him a playmaker but only when he puts his full effort into it.”

–National Recruiting Spotlight

“Miller, who is from North Chicago, Ill., is an elite player who will be a top NBA pick with development. He has a unique skill set as a versatile 6-foot-10 forward with the ability to dominate a game both inside with his shot blocking and rebounding and on the perimeter with his shooting touch. Right now he is a power forward with the potential to be a small forward and could even play center in a pinch.”

–Paul Biancardi, ESPN

The Breakdown

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1. BYU athletic director Tom Helmoe publicly discussed his school’s involvement with the Big 12 in the conference realignment saga in an interview before the BYU-Oregon State football game. Like pretty much every AD involved in conference realignment, Helmoe played it very safe, stating nothing but the facts. He discussed how BYU did not have an invitation but would not comment further on what BYU’s desired result might be during the conference realignment era. He did admit, however, that discussions with the Big 12 have occurred, and that BYU has been “monitoring the landscape of conference realignment for some time.”
2. The Columbia Tribune recently posted a story debating whether or not the alleged financial benefits of Missouri joining the SEC were true. The AP recently broke the news of a study conducted by the Missouri Board of Curators determining that Missouri could earn up to $12 million more annually if it joined the SEC. Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas stated, “I don’t think that’s accurate… I’d like to see the report. I’d like to know who wrote it.”
3. The Wichita Eagle has a story up about Kansas State and how the integration of newcomers and veterans is going. Frank Martin stated, “We’ve got a group of guys who are extremely experienced and then we’ve got a group of guys who have absolutely no experience”. One thing is for certain, the Wildcats will have a different look about them this season than they have in recent years.
4. Also in K-State news, coach Frank Martin said that the addition of TCU to the Big 12 will greatly help Kansas State recruiting. “I’m ecstatic about it. We recruit Dallas a lot,” said Martin, who expresses his pleasure in being able to tell the parents of Dallas-area recruits that they will be able to see their sons play in an arena much closer in proximity to their homes when compared to Waco, College Station, Lubbock and Austin.
5. The KC Star analyzed the regional differences between various parts of The Show-Me State, from it’s corn fields in the north to the urban sprawl in St. Louis to the mountains in the southwest portion and the southern feel in the bootheel.  Depending on where someone lives in the state of Missouri, it’s likely that geography and culture in that locale influences the prevailing opinion on whether Mizzou should jump ship to the SEC, Big Ten or stick with the Big 12.  It’s an interesting analysis for a state that often has trouble describing its own character as a result of its central location stuck between the Midwest, Southeast and Great Plains.

1. And so begins the shortest ‘preseason’ in all of sports, the 24 days between the start of official practice — as celebrated by Midnight Madness all across the country on Friday night — and the opening games of the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, on November 7.  It’s an astonishingly short window, but all that means is that we’re that much closer to seeing bona fide college basketball on our televisions and in our local arenas very soon.  Let’s get you caught up.  On Friday night we put together a Storytelling piece capturing some of the excitement around the land as MM tipped off everywhere.  Yesterday we put together a list of the 13 best dunks from this year’s proceedings, several of which will have you drooling in anticipation for more.  Immediately following this post, we’ll publish the most interesting Friday night clips from several of the blue-blooded programs like Duke, Kentucky, Connecticut, Kansas, North Carolina and several others.  Midnight Madness weekend is great because it represents a new beginning — every team is still unblemished and ostensibly has an equal shot at doing something special.  Welcome to next year.
2. During ESPNU’s Midnight Madness coverage Friday night, Andy Katz spent as much time talking football through the lens of conference realignment scenarios as he did discussing his favored sport.  Word leaked during the broadcast that the Big East had reportedly offered five schools membership to the conference — Houston, SMU and Central Florida in all sports, and Boise State and Air Force in football only.  The goal, of course, is to keep the conference’s automatic BCS bid, but each step ‘forward’ appears increasingly desperate for a league that built its reputation on basketball three decades ago and has never really been that significant on the gridiron.  As Lenn Robbins writes in the NY Post, the conference doesn’t expect to announce any movement until after the Big East’s basketball media day this week, but we truly feel that grabbing schools without regard for regional ties and rivalries is a shortsighted strategy doomed to ultimately fail.  The non-BCS Big East schools very seriously considered walking away from the rest of this madness, and who would blame them at this point?
3. Aaron Torres writes that this will be a “golden season” in college basketball, and he makes a compelling case for his argument.  As everyone here already knows, the number of elite players who returned to college rather than face an NBA lockout, when combined with an exceptional class of incoming freshmen, could produce a quality of depth in the sport that we haven’t seen in a number of years.  Torres contends that the last time college basketball was this talented was in 1995-96, at the cusp of the preps-to-pros trend (Kevin Garnett skipped college that year) and featuring upperclassman stars such as Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, among others.  Let’s hope that the NBA’s eventual collective bargaining agreement makes seasons like this the future norm with a two-and-done rule allowing us to enjoy players for a couple of years prior to moving on to the professional ranks.
4. Seth Davis gives us answers to his ten burning questions as we head into the 2011-12 season.  Starting today, we plan on rolling out our own list of 20 questions over the next several weeks, but we can guarantee you that none of ours will involve Utah State senior superfan, Bill Sproat.  We’re honestly not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but the one answer he gives that we can completely get on board with is #7 — which underachieving big man will make a giant leap?  The answer to that question is legitimately the difference between his team being a borderline Top 10 to 15 squad and the overall best team in America.  Tell us what you think.
5. Kansas released some disappointing news on Friday afternoon just before its Late Night in the Phog celebration.  Two more members of its freshman class, Ben McLemore and Jamari Traylor, will join Braeden Anderson as ineligible to play this season because of high school transcript issues (all three attended three different high schools).  For a team suffering considerable losses of key personnel from last season’s Elite Eight squad, this is another blow to Bill Self’s aspiration to win an eighth straight Big 12 regular season title in 2011-12.  He worked to temper expectations on Friday, especially now that his Jayhawks are down to eight legitimate players and in need of significant improvements from returnees such as Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson.  If Self can outlast Baylor, Missouri and Texas A&M again this year in the Big 12 race, he’ll certainly deserve any postseason COY accolades he gets.

Midnight Madness is valuable to students and fans who cherish the opportunity to ring in the college basketball season. It’s fun for players who typically get to do goofy little skits, hear real cheers again, and get their first chance to show the folks at home what they can do. It is most valuable, however, to coaches trying to nail down top recruits. Midnight Madness is many things, but for better or worse, it’s an over the top kabuki pageant designed to show high schoolers that this school is the one for them, that nobody anywhere else will love the players as much as that school’s fans, that the player belongs here.

Midnight Madness is Relaxed Fun Before the Work Begins

Since this is just the way it is, we can’t help but read more significance on which recruit attends which Midnight Madness. We’re always happy to look at the hints of who will end up where, so without further ado, here are some of the highlights of Madness recruiting intrigue in the ACC.  Only four ACC schools celebrate Midnight Madness today: Maryland, which invented the damn thing; Florida State, which has the best name for it’s event no matter what anyone else says (It doesn’t get better than “The Jam With Ham.”); and Duke and North Carolina, both of whom typically host a raft of prospects.

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1. More proof the season has almost arrived: the Big 12 announced its preseason awards last week, and at first glance, there are only a few points of controversy. Keeping in mind that preseason speculation means essentially nothing, it’s worth debating whether or not Texas guard J’Covan Brown should make the All-Big 12 team after starting zero games for the Longhorns in 2010-11. Also, Baylor’s Pierre Jackson and KU forward Kevin Young have decent arguments for Newcomer of the Year over Royce White, and Texas guard Myck Kabongo could push LeBryan Nash for Freshman of the Year honors. In the end, though, it’s all meaningless. Wake us up when the real awards come out in March.
2. In your Surprising Realignment News of the Day, it appears Air Force actually told the Big 12 it was not interested in joining the league. In one of the more candid quotes of the week, AFA athletic director Hans Mueh said he simply “can’t recruit against Texas, Oklahoma [and] Oklahoma State.” Mueh’s programs would probably have trouble recruiting in any power conference, but the Big 12 likely won’t shed any tears after losing out on Air Force. That is, unless the rest of the Big East leftovers turn it down.
3. For now, it doesn’t look like the Miami firestorm surrounding Missouri coach Frank Haith has affected his staff’s recruiting efforts much. Haith’s Tigers picked up a verbal over the weekend from Negus Webster-Chan, a 6’7″ forward from Huntington, W.V., and most of the credit for this commitment goes to assistant coach Tim Fuller. Webster-Chan pledged to Louisville originally, but when Fuller left the Cardinals for Columbia, he backed out of his commitment. Webster-Chan is the fifth recruit to verbal to MU for the Class of 2012, and while none are traditional blue-chip recruits, it’s at least a sign that players aren’t terrified of Haith’s job status. By the way, may as well throw this out there: Webster-Chan attended the same high school as former USC superstar O.J. Mayo. Counts for something, right?
4. SLAM magazine published an article on Friday about Baylor’s Perry Jones, and the sophomore stud made some interesting comments to the magazine. He addressed last season’s suspension from the NCAA and also discussed his future plans for the NBA, saying he wants to be a “superstar.” As the preseason Big 12 Player of the Year, he certainly has a chance to nab that title.
5. All anyone ever wants to talk about with realignment is who may be joining; but what about how many should join? Tom Keegan at the Lawrence Journal-World has some advice: and that’s for the Big 12 to stay at 10 teams. After 15 years of having 12 schools, Keegan argues further expansion would disrupt the balance of the league and cause many of the same problems that have plagued the Big 12 since its inception: losing out on BCS bowls because of a league championship game (see: Missouri, 2007) and unbalanced basketball scheduling.  Interesting argument.

1. Is UCLA on the verge of being back?  Ben Howland rebuilt the west coast’s premier program in the mid-2000s with strong recruiting in his home state, culminating in three straight Final Four appearances from 2006-08.  But in the last few years, the talent pool in the Golden State has dropped a bit and Sean Miller at Arizona has aggressively entered the picture for the best of the rest, leaving Howland to look elsewhere to fill his roster.  With Kyle Anderson’s decision to leave New Jersey for the fairer weather of SoCal combined with the distinct possibility that UCLA will also pull #1 prospect Shabazz Muhammad out of Las Vegas, the Bruins program may be on the verge of re-joining the elite and doing it by recruiting as a nationally relevant program should — nationally.  Luke Winn examines this recent phenomenon in addition to NC State, Kentucky, Houston, and Providence’s recruiting prowess in a compelling analysis this week.
2. Speaking of Anderson, the overall #4 player in the Class of 2012 according to RSCI, his high school coach, Bob Hurley, Sr., told Adam Zagoria recently that the 6’8″ guard might be the best player he’s ever had at powerhouse St. Anthony’s.  Hurley’s alumni include a number of high-profile prep players dating back to the 80s, so this is very high praise indeed.  He even goes so far to call Anderson a “modern-day Magic Johnson” with his ability to see the floor and direct his team from the perimeter with the size of a big man.  These sorts of comparisons almost always seem lacking in some way, but if Anderson can bring even a smidge of Showtime back to LA over at the new and improved Pauley Pavilion next season, Bruins fans will certainly let us know.
3. In conference realignment’s worst kept secret, Missouri is prepared to accept an offer from an unstated conference to the south and east of its geographic base that may or may not start with the letter “S” and end with the letter “C.”  Like a jilted bridesmaid, Mizzou brass would have much rather received an offer from a certain midwestern conference (last year, this year, or any year), but such an offer does not appear to be forthcoming, so as a Missouri official put it on Wednesday, the S[…]C is “what’s left.”  Mike DeCourcy points out that even if Missouri ultimately joins that league, the conference could face a dilemma where its lack of a buyout could end up biting it if that other league comes calling.  Quite the chess game that is going on behind the scenes here, we imagine.
4. As for the practical effects on Missouri’s presumed move, Kansas head coach Bill Self had quite a bit to say on the matter Wednesday.  He told the KC Star that he, and by proxy, Kansas fans, would hate to see the Border War basketball games between Missouri and KU come to an end.  “I don’t want them to leave. I think it’s too good. What we have, what we have going is one of the best five basketball rivalries in all of America, and I’d hate to see that go away.”  He went on to implicitly suggest that if Mizzou in fact leaves the Big 12, the resulting frayed relationship may in effect make it impossible for the schools to play each other again for a while.  It’s a well-taken point, actually, but unfortunately not one that schools seem to be giving much thought to these days.  Syracuse-Georgetown, Texas A&M-Texas, Syracuse-Connecticut… all traditional rivalries that arguably are finished for some time unless school administrators are more forgiving than we think they are.
5. Hall of Famer Bill Russell filed a lawsuit in Oakland on Wednesday accusing the NCAA and EA of using his likeness without his consent or compensation.  Russell’s case joins former NPOY Ed O’Bannon’s in claiming that both parties violate antitrust laws by selling game footage and video games with players’ images as a material component of the content while getting nothing in return.  For a greater discussion of the legal doctrines and likely positions from both sides, click here, but numerous legal experts have stated that the NCAA and EA could face a disastrous financial burden here (possibly a ten figure judgment).  Russell provides another powerful name to add to this lawsuit as it winds its way through the courts.

1. We’ll have a more detailed analysis of this later today, but the 2011-12 Wooden Award list was released on Monday, and there were more than a few interesting  trends with this preseason’s offering.  Keeping in mind that freshmen and transfers are not eligible for the opening list, the 50 players broke out in the following ways.  The Big East has ten players on the list; there were nine from the Big Ten; the SEC merited seven.  The Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC represented with only four players each, and all four of the ACCers came from the nation’s consensus #1 team, North Carolina.  That left 12 players from the non-power conferences, with the Atlantic 10, Conference USA, and Big West each earning two spots.  There are 26 seniors on the list, nine juniors and 16 sophomores, while positions were split between 23 guards, 23 forwards and only four centers.  Stay tuned later today as we’ll present a more thoughtful analysis of the preseason Wooden Award selections.
2. The Big 12 Monday appeared to take a significant step toward self-preservation for at least the next several years by announcing that its conference board of directors unanimously approved a measure that will equally share all Tier I and Tier II broadcasting revenue from its football and basketball telecasts.  It would not include Tier III broadcasts such as those planned for Texas’ Longhorn Network, which of course is largely the reason the conference ended up in this situation in the first place.  League interim commissioner Chuck Neinas was careful to say that such an arrangement was by no means a done deal, and that each school would still have to go through its own internal processes to approve such an agreement.  Missouri, still said to be interested in leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, will have its Board of Curators meeting tomorrow where this will certainly be on the agenda.  Assuming Mizzou does not receive its coveted invitation from the SEC, you would have to presume that this revenue sharing agreement will shore up the conference for at least a… season or two.  That is, until Texas figures out some way to leverage the LHN into even greater riches, at which time the conference will once again threaten to implode from within.
3. We mentioned in this space yesterday that the Big East came out of its Sunday meetings in Washington, DC, with a greater resolve to keep its remaining core together and to do whatever it takes (“by any means necessary?”) to find solid replacements for the soon-departed Syracuse and Pittsburgh.  Mike DeCourcy makes the case suggesting that, despite what appears to be a race to the bottom of a new conference for those moving around, the best athletic deal for those existing members is to stand pat.  His key point — that the Big East represents the easiest route to a BCS bowl and multiple NCAA Tournament trips — is a salient one, but we’re not sure that citing Boston College and Miami (FL)’s departures as ‘disasters’ captures the overarching reasons for their subsequent failings.  Miami football, for example, has certainly fallen considerably from its national relevance while a member of the Big East — but did that drop-off have more to do with coaching (Larry Coker to Randy Shannon) or conference affiliation?  With Hurricane basketball, is the U’s mediocrity as an ACC member more attributable to its conference affiliation or Frank Haith (who began there in 2004 simultaneous with Miami’s jump)?  We think it’s rather tough to make that case, especially when there are so many other confounding factors at play in situations like these.
4. Class of 2012 power forward and overall top five prospect Mitch McGary has reportedly narrowed his college choices to Duke, North Carolina and Michigan.  The 6’10” star originally from the northern Indiana town of Chesterton, announced on his personal blog (via ESPN) that he has taken three visits to those schools and he has no plans to go anywhere else.  If you read the tea leaves, he’s considered a Michigan lean among folks who follow this stuff for a living, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise us to see him in either shade of blue down on Tobacco Road either.  For what it’s worth, #1 Shabazz Muhammad and #3 McGary represent the remaining two uncommitted jewels of this year’s class, according to Rivals’ rankings.
5. Quick, what’s the capital city of Kentucky — Lexington or Louisville?  Or so goes the joke among those who live there, because, as far as we know, the actual seat of government in the Bluegrass State hasn’t yet moved from its central Kentucky town of Frankfort.  UK head coach John Calipari may be in need of a geography lesson himself, as the quotable top Cat took a tongue-in-cheek shot at his biggest state rival in an interview on KSTV recently.  In answering a question as to what makes his program special, he made a comparison to other states that have multiple powerhouse basketball programs: “There’s no other state, none, that’s as connected to their basketball program as this one. Because those other states have other programs. Michigan has Michigan State, California has UCLA, North Carolina has Duke. It’s Kentucky throughout this whole state, and that’s what makes us unique.”  Queue Rick Pitino’s acerbic passive-aggressive response in 3… 2… 1…

NC State‘s Mark Gottfried took a big step towards rebuilding the Wolfpack program in picking up a commitment from Rodney Purvis on Friday. Assistant coach Tim Fuller originally recruited Purvis to play for Rick Pitino at Louisville. However, once Fuller left to take an offer from former Miami coach Frank Haith at Missouri, Purvis reopened his recruitment. Friday Purvis announced his decision to stay home and play for the Wolfpack.  The commitment has huge implications, especially with former point guard Ryan Harrow transferring to Kentucky. Purvis is an incredibly talented combo guard, ranked in the top sixteen prospects of the class of 2012 by Scout.com, Rivals.com (where he is highest at sixth) and ESPNU.

Purvis Gives NCSU Fans Reason For Hope

But Purvis’ commitment means more than the pure talent he brings to the court. He represents a local star staying home–much like his future teammate CJ Leslie did–but he also represents Gottfried’s first step towards restoring NC State’s basketball tradition. Leslie’s former high school teammate John Wall attended Purvis’ announcement and noted the importance of his decision: “There’s a lot of pressure […] He’s the hometown hero now.” Wall was faced with a similar decision, but chose the bright lights of Rupp Arena over the RBC Center.

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1. Welcome to next year.  After six roiling months of will-he/won’t-he interspersed with typical summer drama and another session of non-apocalyptic conference realignment, it’s time to get back to basketball.  In a little over eleven days from now, official practices will commence around the country with Midnight Madness.  Three weeks after that, the first real games will tip off in Queens, Starkville and Tucson as the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer Classic gets under way.  Basketball season is just around the corner, and starting today, we’ll be unveiling our 2011-12 Season Preview with comprehensive breakdowns of each of the 31 auto-bid Division I leagues and a number of other features.  We’re also proud to announced that our first RTC Microsite, featuring the venerable and historic Atlantic Coast Conference, will officially roll out a little later this morning.  The calendar may only say it’s a few days into October, but as far as we here at RTC are concerned, the season starts today.
2. Fifteen Big East presidents met in Washington, DC, on Sunday to discuss the future of that league in the aftermath of Syracuse and Pittsburgh’s sudden departure a couple short weeks ago.  According to this Andy Katz report, the league brass unanimously authorized commissioner John Marinotti to “aggressively pursue discussions” with targeted schools that the league hopes to add to its lineup.  Several of the schools being mentioned as possibilities include Army, Navy, Temple, Central Florida, Air Force and SMU, with two of the service academies rumored as the top targets for membership as football-only institutions.  Connecticut’s future conference status is the biggest wild card right now, as its president Susan Herbst re-affirmed the school’s commitment to the league after the meeting, but it is widely regarded that the Huskies would quickly take an ACC spot if offered one.  In other words, not much has truly changed.
3. One Big East team that is fighting for its legitimacy to remain a major college program in both basketball and football is Louisville.  Despite a $68M sports budget that would rate second only to Texas and Oklahoma in the Big 12 and the most profitable basketball program in America, the Cards are worried about being left out of the superconference picture if the Big East continues its degradation and the Big 12 eventually falls apart.  To put its athletic program in perspective, Eric Crawford at the Courier-Journal created three interesting tables showing the relative specs of the Big East, Big 12 and SEC (budgets, enrollments, expenditures, etc.).  He even adds an academic component (research and development) and each school’s Sears Cup placement from the 2010-11 academic year.  It’s worth a look.
4. This is a somewhat dated story, but we hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it yet.  Last week Gary Parrish wrote about how two of Bruce Pearl‘s former assistants’ lives have been turned upside down in the intervening months since the whole house of cards came down at Tennessee.  We found the tone of the article to be somewhat sympathetic — perhaps too sympathetic — to the plight that the assistants now find themselves in, coaching at Northwest Florida State for salaries far below what they were making in Knoxville.  He makes the case that Steve Forbes and Jason Shay were in no-win situations where they faced punishment one way or another — either by ratting out their boss to the NCAA, or by failing to be forthright and going down with the ship as a collective.  Apparently a number of people took issue with Parrish’s stance, as he addressed it again in his Five For the Weekend column on Friday.  We’re of a similar mind with his critics — just because the assistants found themselves in a tough spot didn’t mean that both choices were equally meritorious, and Bruce Pearl’s own career trajectory should have taught them that.  He dropped dime on Illinois twenty years ago, and yet through his subsequent hard work and on-court success, he was able to become one of the highest-paid coaches in America despite for a long time suffering a reputation as a snitch.  Remember the tried-and-true lesson — the cover-up is always, always, always worse than the actual crime.
5. Speaking of recruiting violations, this report by Pete Thamel at the NYT takes a look at one of the areas of college basketball recruiting that knowledgeable observers suggest is among the most abused: unofficial visits.  According to NCAA rules, an unofficial visit is one where a recruit visits a campus but pays his own way for all expenses related to travel, food, and lodging.  Using a Lane Kiffin allegation of a booster paying for a recruit’s unofficial visit at Tennessee as an example, the report suggests that there is little to no oversight or scrutiny focusing on how high school students are in fact paying for these visits.  Over half of this year’s top 100 seniors have already committed to schools without taking their official visits, so it’s clear that these players are getting to those campuses somehow.  Interesting piece.

1. We’re all well aware that this coming Sunday, September 11, is a notable and infamous anniversary in the historical annals of this country. It’s a day for reflection of the memory of those who were tragically taken from us that unforgettable morning ten years ago, and each and every American will surely do his and her part to commemorate and remember.  The juxtaposition between the harsh and brutal reality of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the fun we have watching, discussing and obsessing over our favorite teams has perhaps never been so poignantly described as ESPN’s Kieran Darcy does in a heartbreaking open letter to his father, Dwight.  Darcy’s dad was a senior attorney at the New York Port Authority, and his office was located on the 66th floor of the north tower of the WTC.  According to the 2,996 Project, a list of biographies of each of the nearly three thousand lives lost, he had recently experienced foot surgery and was still hobbling around in a cast on that fateful day.  There is so much pain and suffering seared into our national consciousness from that Tuesday morning a decade ago, especially among those families like the Darcys who endured such a profound emptiness in the intervening years, but the underlying beauty in what Darcy wrote is that he and his family have been able to pick up the pieces and successfully move on.  Kudos to him and all the other 9/11 families who have survived ten years later.
2. To that end, Dana O’Neil writes about how Rick Pitino and his family have rebuilt their lives after his brother-in-law (wife Joanne’s brother), Billy Minardi, was killed on September 11.  This story of Minardi is much more well-known than Darcy’s but no less touching — ten years ago on Labor Day weekend, Pitino and his brother-in-law had spent an unforgettable weekend at Pebble Beach, enjoying the golf, the natural beauty of the Monterey Peninsula, and each other’s company.  They were the best kind of best friends — the kind where you’re not afraid to tell the hard and honest truth — and it’s taken every bit of the decade since then for his family to move on to the point where Pitino and his three sons re-enacted the same trip this past Labor Day weekend.  Another great story, and we’re sure there are approximately 3,000 of them out there this week.
3. On a lighter note, Luke Winn checks in with his third and final installment this week about the most efficient players of the last decade of college basketball.  Thursday’s piece focused on the best big men of the era, and many of the top seasons are what you might expect — for example, Kevin Love and Michael Beasley’s 1-and-done years in 2007-08.  But how about some love for former Oregon forward, Maarty Leunen in 2007-08 (#4 on the list) and everyone’s favorite floppy-haired Catamount, Taylor Coppenrath in 2004-05 (#3 on the list).  Winn also takes the time to break out players by their 1-and-done status and by national championship teams.  As always, it’s an interesting piece and well worth a few minutes looking through it.
4. Shabazz Muhammed is widely considered the top player in the Class of 2012, but it appears that at least one fanbase is going to exorbitant lengths to get the 6’6″ wing to stay in Las Vegas and play for the hometown UNLV Runnin’ Rebels.  According to this interview with Muhammad on ESPN’s high school basketball blog, he says that one enterprising UNLV fan has offered to name his baby after the rising senior.  We have no clue whether such a thing would qualify as a booster providing undue influence, but we’re fairly certain that there’s some legal intern in Indianapolis right now looking at case precedents.
5. On Thursday evening, LSU unveiled its 900-pound statue of one of the most dominant players in the history of the game, Shaquille O’Neal.  The bronze rendering of Shaq with both knees raised while straining the rim, backboard and stanchion with the force of his massive frame after a dunk is an exact doppelganger of what the mind’s eye sees when remembering O’Neal at LSU.  An absolute freak of nature, there simply hasn’t been another player with his combination of size, strength, athleticism and skill in the last two decades of basketball.  He averaged 22/14 in three seasons as a Tiger, but his legacy as a collegian is somewhat spoiled by a 2-3 NCAA record that didn’t include even a single Sweet Sixteen trip.  Still, his individual dominance in college inspired fear in coaches worried that his team might eventually figure out that he was mostly unstoppable in the post.  Don’t believe us?  Feast your eyes on this highlight package from his time in Baton Rouge.