1. Some weekend comings and goings…  the latest big name to declare for the NBA Draft is Georgetown’s Greg Monroe, who has indicated that he will sign with an agent and will not return to college.  Monroe is projected as a high lottery pick in June.  Arkansas guard Courtney Fortson has also declared, but he will not sign with an agent.  The diminutive point is not projected to go in either round, so this is probably just a fact-finding expedition for Fortson at this point.  In coaching news, UNC-Wilmington hired former App State coach Buzz Peterson, who left his second go-round in Boone after just one season.  This will be Peterson’s sixth head coaching gig in the last ten years (App State (twice), Tulsa, Tennessee, Coastal Carolina and UNC-Wilmington).  With a great recruiting class coming in and a program on the rise, Missouri’s Mike Anderson formally refuted interest in the Oregon job after listening to their offer over the weekend.  This Oregon thing is getting a little ridiculous.  Give Eric Reveno or Randy Bennett a call and be done with it already.
2. It seems as if the Big Ten is about to expand and it could happen very soon, ushering in a new round of conference switcheroos.  Frankly, we’re a little tired of all of this conference realignment in the name of the almighty benjamin, but the reality is that nobody cares what we think and what we end up with in a few years after all the dust settles may look very different from what we currently enjoy.
3. Did you recall that Arizona was actually still waiting to hear from the NCAA as to its self-imposed sanctions regarding the Lute Olson recruiting camps?  Yeah, we didn’t either.  Nevertheless, the school went in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee on Saturday and argued its case.  They expect to hear in 8-10 weeks whether the sanctions they imposed on themselves were enough (loss of a scholarship in 2011-12 and limited recruiting).
4. Siena starting guard Ronald Moore was arrested near campus early Sunday morning on suspicion of DWI.  As a senior, Moore’s eligibility has expired but you still hate to see a young man putting his life and career in jeopardy in that regard.
5. Superstar point guard prospect Josh Selby committed to Kansas on Sunday, ending his long recruitment with a situation that will allow him to walk into Sherron Collins’ starting position next season.  Selby expects to be a 1-and-done player for Bill Self, and with his #4 Rivals.com ranking in tow, he has a good shot at fulfilling that dream.

(special h/t to Luke Winn for inspiring this analysis with his article here)

You may have heard  in recent days that Kentucky’s John Calipari has been filling up on the tasty nougat that has risen to the top of the Class of 2010 high school basketball recruiting lists.  Five-star prospect Brandon Knight followed an impressive chorus line of 1-and-done Calipari point guards (D. Rose, T. Evans, J. Wall) by committing to the Wildcats on Wednesday, and Doron Lamb,  another five-star combo guard ranked in the top 25, committed today.  Turkish stud Enes Kanter committed last week, and there are rumors that others, including versatile top 15 forwards Terrance Jones and CJ Leslie, could be next.  All this, and we haven’t even mentioned yet that Michael Gilchrist, the consensus top player in the Class of 2011, has already verballed to go to Kentucky after next season.

Knight is a Great Talent, But Will He Take UK to the Final Four?

The point here is as clear as Ben Roethlisberger’s analgesic salves — high school prospects with dreams of NBA riches a year from now view John Calipari as the pied piper of the NBA Draft.  Follow him down the primrose path, and you will end up playing in the League one year later.  John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton are the trailblazers here.  With all four projected as first rounders in June, the hype of Calipari’s flute-playing squares nicely with reality.  And Kentucky’s regal basketball program is the beneficiary.

Or is it?

We’re big believers that there are external benefits to programs who recruit and enroll 1-and-done players beyond wins, losses and NCAA Tournament success.  In fact, every year we do exactly such an evaluation that includes criteria beyond that scope.  For example, it is our view that the Texas program is still benefitting today from its one year of Kevin Durant on campus in 2007 even though UT only made the second round of the Tournament that season.  The same goes with Michael Beasley at Kansas State in 2008.  Call it the Jordan Effect.  Even if the players who are later inspired to follow Durant and Beasley to those campuses aren’t as good as those two were, there is a significant residual ‘coolness’ effect in recruiting those younger players who can help sustain the quality of the program over time.  To put it in terms of Kentucky, a 12-year old right now may spend the next few years idolizing John Wall in the NBA, and when it comes time for him to make his school choice in five years, the Wildcats and Calipari would have already have an inherent advantage over other schools.

With that said, we know what Kentucky fans hope to get from all of these 1-and-done types, and it’s not just a bunch of springtime recruiting victories.  Eventually it needs to translate to wins, most specifically those in March and April as Winn alludes to in his article.  The question then that we analyze here is whether a focus on recruiting 1-and-doners will get a team to that goal.  The available evidence we have, using admittedly a very small sample size, says that it will not.

Take a look at the table below, which lists all sixteen Final Four teams from the 1-and-done era (2007-10).

Read the rest of this entry »

1. After a big day of comings and goings Wednesday, not as much action yesterday so we’ll handle it here.  BC junior forward Rakim Sanders will transfer from the school, most likely to Fairfield, for his senior season.  This is a bit of a coup for the Stags, as Sanders is the type of inside player (11/4 last year) who will excel in the MAAC.  Meanwhile, across the country, Washington guard Elston Turner also announced his transfer to a school closer to his hometown of Houston, Texas.  Turner had an inconsistent year for the Huskies (6 PPG in 15 MPG), but he came on during the NCAAs and scored 14 against Marquette and 10 versus New Mexico in consecutive games to help UW get to the Sweet Sixteen.  Finally, some good news as Baylor’s LaceDarius Dunn announced that he will return to the Bears for his senior season.  This will be a huge boost for Scott Drew’s team, as Dunn will join Quincy Acy and newcomer Perry Jones to produce another formidable team in Waco.  And in late breaking news on Thursday night, Georgia’s Trey Thompkins also stated in an impromptu manner at the season-end basketball banquet that he is returning to the Bulldogs for his junior year.  Thompkins is an unheralded player nationally, but he was among the leaders of the SEC in scoring and rebounding (18/8) and with the return of uber-athletic Travis Leslie, Georgia should be positioned to make a leap forward in the SEC East next year.
2. KenPom: last effing laugh.
3. This was written prior to the Final Four, but we’re just now finding it.  The author makes some interesting observations about (mostly male) college hoops fans and the way in which they (we) get all teary-eyed over One Shining Moment.  She even called it “cheesy” before finally succumbing to its magic.  Guess you have to have grown up on it.
4. Luke Winn writes that John Calipari’s recruiting prowess is a bit overstated when it comes to actually making the Final Four and winning national championships.  If we’re lucky, we’ll have a post up analyzing this sentiment later today.
5. It’s a good thing Rick Stansbury got that recent contract extension to stay at Mississippi State or he wouldn’t have been able to afford the $30K that the SEC is fining him for criticizing officials on a lane violation no-call that he said they missed by “eight feet.”  Here’s the video from under the basket — what do you think?

1. Yesterday was the first day of the national spring signing period, and there were a couple of mid-major surprises (Butler Effect or just pater familias?) in addition to everyone else in America signing with John Calipari.  Ok, we’re (partially) kidding on the last part, but Cat fans should get used to a revolving door in Lexington for as long as the 1-and-done rule is still in effect.  Here are the updated Scout.com class rankings — UNC and Memphis both have three 3-star players coming in next season.
2. Andy Katz introduces us to the 2011 NCAA Tournament Committee chairman, Ohio State AD Gene Smith.  The most interesting part — like seemingly everyone else outside NCAA HQ, he’d prefer that the Tourney stay at 65 teams as well.
3. A couple of interesting lists here.  First, five players who helped and five players who hurt their stock during the NCAA Tournament, as described by an NBA scout.  This one is five players who should be sticking around for another year, although none of them will be.
4. Zagsblog is reporting that Rutgers transfer candidate Mike Rosario will visit Florida on Friday.  This would be a solid get for Billy Donovan’s club for the 2011-12 season.
5. Joe Lunardi has his new 2010-11 Bracketology out, and you’ll note that it assumes a 96-team field.  Enjoy those #12-#21 matchups.

1. You already know about Wright State’s Brad Brownell going to Clemson; here are some other comings and goings from yesterday.  Thirty-three year old associate head coach Billy Donlon will be promoted to the top spot at Wright State, making him one of the youngest head coaches in America.  In other coaching news, Dan Hurley has hired his brother, Bobby, to act as an assistant on his bench at Wagner.  On the player side, Baylor’s Ekpe Udoh announced that he will test the waters but he will not sign with an agent, therefore leaving open the (small) possibility of returning to what could be another nasty team in Waco next year.  Udoh is (14/10/4 blks) is projected as a lottery pick.  Duquesne’s Melquan Bolding is leaving the Duke program, whereabouts unknown, while New Mexico State’s Jahmar Young, recently accused of involvement in an attack on an officer in Las Cruces, will sign with an agent and not return to NMSU next season.  In some good news for college basketball, Tennessee’s Scotty Hopson will return to Knoxville next season rather than joining the hordes leaving for the NBA Draft.
2. Today is a huge day for recruiting, as the first day of the spring signing period begins.  Of particular note are the announcements of the top remaining player in the Class of 2010, Brandon Knight, and the top player in the Class of 2011, Michael Gilchrist, both planning to announce their college choices at 4pm on ESPNU.  Kentucky is rumored to be the leader for both.  Door, revolveth.
3. The NCAA Legislative Council relaxed a recruiting rule that will now allow coaches to have “recruiting discussions” while players are attending summer camps and clinics on their campuses.  This rule was nearly impossible to enforce in its previous iteration, so this is a natural consequence of what amounted to a worthless measure.  There are still limitations to what coaches can do, but this just validates the conversations that were already happening.
4. John Wall is joining the Lebron James-backed LRMR Marketing Firm to help build his brand at the next level of basketball.  Considering that James himself is on the fast track to Ali/MJ/Tiger-dom, this is probably a good idea for Wall’s future marketability.  It says here that he’s got the chops (and game) to make himself into quite a conglomerate himself.
5. This is sick, but totally justifies why police cameras are installed to watch the cops as much as the citizenry.  Dating back to Maryland’s win over Duke in late February, video was released yesterday that supports a student’s claim that he was attacked and beaten by several Prince George’s County police officers for simply skipping down the street in celebration.  This evidence directly contradicts the involved officers’ formal statements about the incident.  No sympathy here.  Strip these animals of their badges, lock them up and throw away the key.  There’s no place for this behavior from those who are supposed to be protecting us.

1. GROAN…  our post on this will be forthcoming immediately following this M5, but if your attention span is much shorter than our longwindedness requires, suffice it to say that the possibility of the NCAA Tournament expanding to 96 teams is a complete, unmitigated abomination.  If you can find anyone in support of this  idea other than coaches at mediocre programs and network executive types who are greedily trying to destroy the best event in all of sports, please send them our way for drawing, quartering and compulsory re-education.
2. This great piece by Luke Winn comparing offensive production as freshmen with recruiting rankings confirms what we’ve been saying for a long time — that the relative dropoff in talent between top 10 recruits and top 50 recruits is much larger than the drop between top 50 and top 100 recruits.  The next step is to crosstabulate that data with team success to see just how impactful those numbers are with respect to wins and losses.  Great stuff.
3. William & Mary, the nation’s surprise middie this year?  According to Basketball Prospectus, TSN and Andy Katz… possibly.
4. Jeff Goodman takes a look back at the last week with his Weekly Wrap.  Mike DeCourcy takes a look at the week ahead.  Seth Davis gives us his weekly Hoop Thoughts.
5. Former UCLA forward Drew Gordon did an interview with Fanhouse, and although much of this interview is whimsical, he did mention that “pigs will fly” before UCLA would keep the star player over the coach (Ben Howland) – an absurd question in its own right.  Still, Gordon did confirm that he and Howland had serious differences which led him to leaving the program, and he didn’t let on where he might be headed next.

1. So instead of fighting the mobs of penny-pinchers today angling for that last 1080p LCD on the shelves, we recommend a relaxing day watching more live hoops than you can possibly handle.  During the commercials, fire up the Youtubes for each and every one of the games listed here (and yes, we’re extremely bitter we didn’t think of this…).  With respect to the #1 game, we’d recommend throwing in two other games from the best E8 weekend of all time: 2005 Michigan State vs. Kentucky and West Virginia vs. Louisville.  Each game was seemingly better than the last that weekend (UNC-Wisconsin was the only stinker).
2. In case you were busy filling your face with non-avian bird flesh yesterday, you might have missed that West Virginia’s Devin Ebanks suited up but did not play for Bob Huggins’ team in their blowout win over Long Beach State.  Gary Parrish came right out and said what this actually is — not a problem of “personal issues,” but a suspension for some undisclosed reason.  So depending on how close today’s game against Texas A&M is, we may or may not see the preseason all-american in the lineup.
3. How bad was the ballroom setup at the Cancun Challenge?  According to John Calipari, pretty terrible.  Gaps in the floor big enough to lodge a foot in, warped areas of the hardwood, chandeliers hanging a mere 29 feet above the floor…  just wait until the year some star player blows out an ankle or a knee because this venue can’t or won’t upgrade its facilities.
4. Misleading Headline Theater.  This article by Scout.com explains that Memphis head coach Josh Pastner has done something that not even John Calipari could do, which is ink the #1 class in their recruiting rankings at Memphis.  Well, sure.  Technically.  But if Calipari had stayed at Memphis, he would have had John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Xavier Henry — assuredly the #1 class in America.  The only reason he didn’t get one at Memphis was because he left there; not that he couldn’t do it.  The other thing that bothered us about this article was a quote by Josh Pastner: “You look at the last four years, and it’s the greatest run in the history of college basketball and may never be done again.” Josh, Coach Wooden and his seven national titles in a row is on line three for you…  Greatest run in the history of CUSA?  Yes.  College basketball?  UCLA, Duke, Kentucky, and many, many others say hello.  Spare us with the hyperbole already.
5. Finally, since we were all giving thanks yesterday, Jeff Goodman gave us the ten things that he’s thankful for this year.  Right there with ya on #1, Jeff.  Right there with ya…

1. UCLA’s Nikola Dragovic plans to plead not guilty to his recent charge of assault stemming from an incident at a Hollywood concert in October.  According to his attorney, Dragovic was only defending himself against a drunken aggressor who had slapped his friend, and when he tried to leave, the lout followed him.  There’s no way to know what to believe here, other than what eyewitness (video) evidence brings to bear.
2. USC’s depth problems continue as junior forward Kasey Cunningham fell awkwardly during a weekend game and tore his ACL and medial meniscus for the fourth time in his career.  Talk about snakebit.  Kevin O’Neill is down to six serviceable players including Marcus Johnson, a UConn transfer who sat out two games serving an NCAA suspension.  Any additional injuries for USC and the Trojans may need to have tryouts or draft some of Pete Carroll’s bunch over to the hardwood.
3. Ohio State guard Walter Offutt announced that he will transfer at the end of this quarter, with his destination presently unknown.  The sophomore guard was expected to provide defensive minutes for Thad Matta’s short bench this year, but he didn’t see time in two games in New York last week, and could probably see the writing on the wall with most starters expected to return next year in addition to a strong recruiting class coming in.
4. An interesting development that Mike DeCourcy discussed yesterday involves the curious recruitment of Enes Kanter, a 6’10 Turkish player who has signed with Washington for 2010.  A proposed NCAA rule (2009-22) would allow players such as those in Kanter’s position (having played in a professional league without taking payment) to play immediately, rather than taking a game-for-game penalty, as in the case of WVU’s Deniz Kinicli, who must sit the first twenty games of the season this year before becoming eligible.
5. Did you ever wonder how we got to the current situation where Thanksgiving week has become wall-to-wall basketball with all these preseason tournaments (not a bad thing)?  Luke Winn has your answer in his usual well-written style.  Four letters come to mind — E.  S.  P.  N.

1. UCLA’s Nikola Dragovic was arrested and subsequently suspended by head coach Ben Howland for felony assault stemming from an incident at a Hollywood concert last month.  This is the second physical-force-related arrest for Dragovic in the past two seasons, as he was also arrested on suspicion of shoving his girlfriend during an argument last year.  He was not prosecuted for that allegation, but we’re starting to have serious reservations about the talented Serb’s anger management.  UCLA is not off to a good start at all this season, including numerous injuries, a loss to Cal State Fullerton, and now an arrest to one of their top returnees all within the first five weeks.
2. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird headlined this year’s inductees to the National Collegiate Hall of Fame, along with several other luminaries of the game, including former Michigan State head coach Jud Heathcote, Oklahoma star Wayman Tisdale, all-time NCAA leading scorer Travis Grant, former UCLA/UAB coach Gene Bartow, USA Basketball leader Bill Wall, and Walter Byers, the first executive director of the NCAA.
3. To that end, here’s a Bird/Magic story you probably don’t already know.  From the KC Star, the two players were invited to compete on a World Invitational Tournament team coached by then-national championship Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall.  Astonishingly, both players were put on the second string by Hall, and shockers, neither of them particularly liked that.  Read about the whole story at the above link.
4. A lot was written after the Syracuse second-half bombardment of North Carolina on Friday night, including here.  Some of the better pieces were from Jeff Goodman, Seth Davis, and Adam Zagoria.
5. In case you missed it, the #1-rated power forward in the class of 2010, Tobias Harris, committed to Tennessee at the end of last week.  The 6’8 player who likes what Tyler Smith has been able to accomplish in Knoxville is the highest-rated player UT has ever signed.  He also considered Maryland, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Louisville and West Virginia.

1. Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said today that his star Kevin Coble’s foot bones are “out of alignment” due to an awkward landing last week and, barring an unforeseen diagnosis today, he will need surgery and have to miss the 2009-10 season.  When it rains it pours, we guess, as Carmody also confirmed that senior guard Jeff Ryan was also done for the season after tearing his ACL in the Wildcats’ home opener on Friday night.  Although Ryan isn’t a scorer, he provides necessary depth in the backcourt.  Carmody isn’t taking the ‘blessing in disguise’ approach even though Northwestern will presumably bring back all but two players in 2010-11, stating that this year’s team will keep the same goals and move forward.
2. Mike DeCourcy wonders if UNC really needed to sign Harrison Barnes given the glut of talent Roy Williams will have on his perimeter the next few years.  Is there something to the idea that Roy went after him in order to keep him out of rival Duke’s clutches?
3. There will be no criminal charges filed stemming from the brawls between the Kansas football and basketball teams on September 22 and 23 of this year, but it would have been nice if Bill Self had shown the public a peek inside the looking glass in punishing those responsible.
4. Gary Parrish makes a reasonable argument that blue-chippers should wait until the late signing period (next April) to decide where to sign.  Of course, the official RTC stance is that they shouldn’t sign a binding LOI with the schools at all.  The scholarships for the top players will be there regardless, and by signing a LOI, the player gives up some of his rights (e.g., to transfer to another school w/o losing eligibility if the coach leaves) while the school gives up very little in return.
5. We had to give this a mention in this space.  Brandon Jennings’ double-nickel performance on Saturday night was phenomenal to see, especially when you consider that he’s the youngest player and only the seventh rookie to ever drop 50+ in a game.  But the question is how is this possible?  Jennings was a surefire top five pick coming out of high school, but after his mostly disappointing year playing overseas (averaging 6-7 ppg in two different leagues) instead of Arizona, he dropped to  the #10 pick and there were serious questions about his decisionmaking and jump shot.  So of course, he’s now averaging 26 ppg  against professional defenses and dropping twenty-nine points in a single quarter of an NBA game.  That makes complete sense.  Can anyone explain this?