1. The Big Lead scored an interview with Dick Vitale recently, and the elder statesman (he’s 70!) of college basketball announcers riffed on Calipari/Pitino, UNC/Duke and one-and-dones.  Worth the few-minutes read, and we hope to meet him again next week in NYC.
2. It appears that John Feinstein only recently figured out that the 2kSports Classic and others have already slotted the elite teams into their showcase events for the semifinal and final rounds.  He should read RTC more often.
3. Virginia’s Jamil Tucker is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team to deal with some personal issues — he averaged 7/4 last year in a reserve forward role, and Northwestern star forward Kevin Coble injured his foot in practice and could possibly miss time because of it.  It’s currently unclear the extent of the injury, but he will be examined Friday and a determination will be made at that time.  This could be devastating for Northwestern’s high hopes for this season.  Moving away from injuries, there were some more suspensions yesterday, including Charlotte PF Shamari Spears, who will miss the 49ers’ first game on Friday against UNC Asheville, and Hawaii’s Douglas Kurtz, whose heart of darkness begins the season with a six-game suspension for playing three games in a Brazilian professional league in 2007.
4. Things aren’t going very well for Tubby Smith at Minnesota lately.  One of his prized recruits, Royce White, who was already suspended for a violation of team rules and has recently caused trouble (shoplifting and assault) at the Mall of America, is now under suspicion for the theft of a laptop computer.  We’re not exactly experts in this sort of thing, but is it safe to say that White will be at a junior college very soon?
5. Yesterday was the beginning of the early signing period, and John Stevens wrote a nice breakdown of some of the interesting recruiting gets.  Scout also blogged all day about it and broke down some of the big winners from yesterday — it appears that Ohio State and Memphis both have big smiles on their faces this week in light of their recruiting hauls.  There are seventeen of the top 100 players still undecided, and it appears most of them will wait until spring to make their final decisions.

* for recaps of last night’s games and RTC Live from Cal vs. Detroit, visit After the Buzzer.

1. Wednesday is the start of the week-long Early National Signing Period for the Class of 2010.  UCLA just got a commitment yesterday from five-star 6’9 F/C Josh Smith from Covington, Washington, and the best big man in Westwood since Kevin Love was throwing in 94-footers at the Final Four.  Six of the top ten are already committed, but two of the jewels — Harrison Barnes and Brandon Knight — are still on the board. 
2. Villanova freshman center Mouphtaou Yarou was declared eligible by head coach Jay Wright yesterday after information from an international basketball site came to light purporting that he may have been much older (25) than his reported 19 years of age.   Jeff Goodman reported later yesterday that the NCAA had previously cleared him and that the school has his immigration papers and passport showing that he is indeed still a teenager.  Maybe Villanova compliance should enlist the assistance of Orly Taitz to track down Yarou’s birth certificate?
3. Let’s call this officiating rule of emphasis by its real name, shall we?  The Shane Battier Rule.
4. Illinois guard Jeff Jordan will miss the Illini’s first two games for playing in an unsanctioned 3-on-3 event over the summer (while he was off the team).
5. Revisiting Jim Boeheim’s 800th victory with some of his former players (a Matt Roe sighting!).  Also, a funny anecdote from Albany head coach Will Brown talking to his point guard during the game with SU:  “I said to Mike Black, `Mike, you’ve got to get the ball to the high post,’ ” Brown recalled. “He said, ‘Coach, I can’t see the high post.’ ”  Yes, that Syracuse zone is long this year.

Andy Katz is reporting this afternoon that the Renardo Sidney saga could — emphasis, ours — be reaching its natural conclusion.  After meetings held at the Sidney family attorney’s office in Montgomery, Alabama, this morning, Donald Jackson stated that the Sidneys revealed bank statements to the NCAA and Mississippi State representatives, which was one of the key pieces of evidence that investigators had requested.  From the report by Katz:

The meeting with MSU compliance director Bracky Brett, MSU-hired attorney Michael Glazier and Alex Hammond from the Eligibility Center lasted for four hours Friday morning in Sidney attorney Donald Jackson’s Montgomery, Ala., office.  “We showed them bank deposits and bank statements for the two years the family was living in Los Angeles,” Jackson told ESPN.com.

Obviously, we have no idea whether these bank statements completely answer the questions that the NCAA has regarding Sidney’s eligibility — namely, whether the Sidneys could prove that their rentals of million-dollar properties in the Los Angeles area over three years was justifiable on the income of a Reebok representative (Renardo, Sr.) and a personal assistant (his wife).  But it certainly is a strong step in the right direction for the Sidneys.  One would have to make an assumption that the Sidneys wouldn’t show the NCAA these bank records unless there was cause to believe that they had the (legal) income stream to support it.  Alternatively, if the bank statements do not show what the Sidneys hope (or purport) to show, then we’re not sure that Sidney will have another serious argument to become eligible this season.  This may be their last stand. 

Mississippi State’s first regular season game is two weeks from today on Nov. 13 against Rider, so time is running short.  The NCAA said that it will take a look at the evidence presented to them early next week and will make a ruling soon thereafter. 

Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog is reporting tonight that Kyrie Irving, the #9 rated player in the class of 2010 and considered a player with huge upside in the mold of Chris Paul or Deron Williams, has committed to Duke.  The 6’2, 175-lb scoring point guard from Elizabeth (NJ) St. Patrick just returned from a recent weekend at Kentucky for its Big Blue Madness event, but he has reportedly been leaning toward Duke for some time.

Irving tonight denied this report, as he stated below on Twitter:

We know Zagoria doesn’t go around making things up, though, and he cited three separate confirmations from assistant coaches at rival schools who claim that Irving’s recruitment is over because Duke has locked him up.  We’ll go with Zagoria on this one, as it’s more fun to speculate anyway, but we’ve been saying for a while that if Duke has plans on becoming Duke again, players like Irving and forward Harrison Barnes are must-gets.

Since Luol Deng arrived on campus as the #2 player (Rivals.com) in the class of 2003, the top ten players that Duke has signed are Kyle Singler (#5 in 2007), Josh McRoberts (#2 in 2005) and Shaun Livingston (#2 in 2004, but went NBA), while Greg Paulus (#11 in 2005) and Gerald Henderson (#11 in 2006) were near-misses.  Of that group, none have had the game-changing NBA-quality ability that earlier-era Dookies such as Grant Hill, Elton Brand, Shane Battier and Jason Williams shared, and not coincidentally, Duke hasn’t sniffed the Final Four since Deng left campus.

Assuming Irving has already committed to Coach K and he manages to lure Barnes to Durham as well (Barnes is expected there this weekend), the 2010-11 Blue Devils could be shaping up as a nasty team, with the following starting lineup:

• PG – Kyrie Irving, Fr.
• SG – Seth Curry, So.
• SF – Kyle Singler, Sr.
• PF – Harrison Barnes, Fr.
  
• C – Ryan Kelly, So./Mason or Miles Plumlee, So./Jr.

The weak spot is at the center position, but we’re assuming one of the three-headed monster of Kelly/Plumlee/Plumlee will have stepped up by then.  Still, that’s a very powerful projected lineup, and one that with tonight’s news should be sending shivers up and down the Atlantic seaboard for fear that Duke is one step closer to becoming a powerhouse again.

The countdown clock is under 12 hours, and we’re all absolutely dripping with giddiness for real games in the next month…

• Memphis Responds to the NCAA.  This didn’t get a lot of pub because it was released during college football Saturday last weekend, but Memphis sent its response to the NCAA regarding the Derrick Rose scandal.  Their argument is based on how the NCAA used the legal doctrine of “strict liability” to effectively punish the Tiger program without direct evidence as to their culpability.  In plain English, the NCAA is saying that Memphis is responsible for sanctions due to playing the ineligible player (Rose), whether they knew about his ineligibility or not.  The brief is strongly argued by Memphis.  They point out that strict liability as a governing doctrine seems to have only been used one time before, and in a different context (Kelvin Sampson at Indiana in 2008).  Furthermore, they show that at least four other schools have had similar situations as the one Memphis faced, and in none of those four situations did the NCAA retroactively vacate the entire season as it did to Memphis.  We have to believe that Corey Maggette’s name found its way somewhere in that appeal.  So what will all of this mean?  Probably not much.  The NCAA isn’t a court of law, and they can pretty much make up their rules of enforcement as they go along (within reason).  We have to wonder, though, if this wasn’t a punishment based on who the coach/player involved were versus a more objective analysis of the facts in light of previous similar situations.  Stay tuned – the NCAA has thirty days to respond.
• Midnight Madness.  Of course, RTC will be doing our BGTD comprehensive coverage tonight, so if you’re not out at the bars, join us.   For some other preview material to get you in the appropriate mood, check out Luke Winn’s preseason Power Sixteen, Gary Parrish’s take on tonight’s festivities, Jeff Goodman’s schedule for the next few days, and Seth Davis’ 20 questions, Midnight Madness edition. 
• More Previews.  Goodman does the Pac-10, names his top 50 shooters, finalizes his preseason top 25 and lets us in on his preseason Naismith Award ballot, while Parrish names his top 20 impact freshmen and five programs on the rise and decline, and there are a bunch more random previews of teams and players coming out (San Diego, Rotnei Clarke, Michigan State, Tennessee, UCLA, UConn, Kansas, Notre Dame, Indiana, Kentucky and NC State.
• Quick Hits.  John Calipari: interviewed at TBL.  Dino Gaudio: 2-year extension at Wake Forest.  Kevin Broadus: Binghamton coach on his last legs (indefinite leave).  Dallas Lauderdale: OSU center broke his hand.  Billy Donovan: Legend of Coaching?  Not Yet, Nimrod.  Florida frosh still not cleared to play.  Marcus Jordan: reflects on his dad’s speech and other things.  John Wooden’s 99th: Quotes from various people he’s touched in life and a visit to his birthplace in Indiana.  Harrison Barnes: clearing up the UNC/Duke recruiting rumors.  Mike DeCourcy: defining moments from the 2000s.

Like the first trickles of a flash flood, the verbal barrage about our beloved sport really started picking up this week.  There’s a lot more previewing, interviewing, writing, talking and salivating going on around the college hoops blogosphere.  Let’s take a look at some of the items that are catching our interest…

• Dissecting Duke’s Recruiting.  Gary Parrish wrote an interesting article last week about Duke’s recruiting over the past five seasons and we had to comment on it because it fairly accurately depicts what the substantive problem with Duke has been in the postseason (i.e., away from CIS).  We’re on record as saying that Duke hasn’t had a true game-changing stud since Luol Deng graced the gothic campus with his presence for one season in 2003-04.  This is not to say that Duke has been without very good players during that time.  Shelden Williams, JJ Redick and Gerald Henderson all come to mind as great collegians.  But none of those players, and certainly none of the laundry list that Parrish mentions as some of K’s other ‘top’ recruits (McBob, Singler, etc.), are the kinds of elite NBA-level talent that gets teams through the regionals and into the Final Four.  There are of course notable exceptions (George Mason in 2006 is the most obvious), but this is Duke, and Duke is always taking a team’s best shot.  They’re going to be very well coached, but Coach K and his staff know that well-coached moderate talent will lose out to elite talent more often than not.  This is why when Parrish says that Duke needs to secure commitments from Harrison Barnes and Kyrie Irving in order to compete with UNC, Kansas and now Kentucky on the national stage again, he’s right.  The Jon Scheyers of the world are great to have on your team, and will win you a lot of games over four years; but they’re not the players who can carry a team through rough spots en route to the Final Four.  If you don’t believe us, check out who was the MOP of the 2004 Atlanta Regional, leading the team in scoring in both regional games and literally saving the team on more than one occasion with clutch buckets (hint: it wasn’t the more celebrated upperclassmen).    Box scores here and here.  If Duke is serious about getting back to the big stage again before Coach K retires, he needs players like Barnes and Irving to get it done.  Fundamentally, Duke fans probably realize this, which is why each of these visits makes for tense moments in Durham.
• Midnight Madness.  So we’re only eight days away from the start of basketball practice, and thankfully the NCAA closed the loophole that meant we were having these things all month of October, like last year.  But ESPNU will be back with coverage from 9pm to 1am EDT next Friday, with a simulcast from 8:30-9pm EST on ESPN.  There will be coverage from nine schools this year, including Kansas’ Late Night in the Phog, Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness, UNC’s Late Night With Roy, and several others (Michigan St., Duke, Washington, Georgetown, UConn and North Dakota St.).  RTC will hopefully provide live coverage in some fashion, but we’re still working out what that will be.  Make sure to check back early next week for more details. 
• Prodigious Previews, Batman.  From Goodman, the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC and Big East.  From Parrish, his final Top 25 (and 1) and his preseason all-americans.  Some players getting early-season pub are Gani Lawal, Isaiah Thomas, Alex Stepheson, Lance Stephenson, and the entire Mississippi St. frontline.  Mike DeCourcy answers five questions about his season preview.   
• Quick Hits.  Patrick Patterson: his junior year at UK will be his last.  Kevin Laue:  great to see things working out for him at Manhattan (RTC flashback).  Contract Extensions: Ed DeChellis at Penn St. and Louis Orr at Bowling Green (Parrish calls BS on these).  Zach Spiker: the new head Cadet at Army.  James Keefe: UCLA F injured shoulder, out 4-6 weeks.  Len Elmore: has UNC, Michigan St., Kansas and Michigan in his F4.  Binghamton: Nancy Zimpher was listening to us after all.  CAA: silver anniversary team.  Seth Davis: an interesting read on overworked college officials.  Chris Taft: remember him?  Rivals Team Recruiting Rankings: early list for 2010 is out. 

On the eve of college football’s start…  let’s get caught up on the news and notes from the last week in roundball.

• Preaching to the Choir.  Gary Parrish wrote an article that was ostensibly about the A10’s financially-motivated decision to move from its ancestral home of Philadelphia to its Sun Belt environs of Newport News, Virginia, but morphed into a scathing critique of the rapidly increasing revenue gap between the power conferences and the mid-majors.  We liken this a little bit to what has happened in major league baseball over the past twenty years or so.  It’s not an issue of there once being equality where now there is none; it’s more an issue of relative inequality being much larger than it ever has been (and only increasing).  The Yankees and other major market franchises in MLB always had more money to spend on players, marketing, etc., and were summarily rewarded with larger media deals and ticket prices.  This is similarly true for the power conferences in football and basketball.  But in the modern era of 100-million dollar contracts for baseball players and billion-dollar contracts for media rights, what we’re witnessing is an acceleration of the revenue gap between large and small to a future point that is completely unsustainable.  As an example of the disparity, the $2.2B television contract that the SEC has with ESPN is probably worth more than the contracts of every mid-major league in existence has ever had, combined.  Seriously.  As Parrish points out, this sort of exposure leads to recruits, and the cycle starts all over again.  We’re really uncertain as to how the NCAA plans to deal with this over the next decade, but if we know anything about the entity at all, we’re betting that they’ll be completely behind the curve when something happens.        
• Vegas Watch: Big 12 Preview.  We mentioned this in a previous FBs, but Vegas Watch is leading an exercise previewing each of the six BCS conferences using last year’s Pomeroy rankings, this year’s incoming recruits, and the sharp eye of his respected cronies (Money Line Journal and Sports Investments).  He invited RTC along for the ride this time around, and we tried to provide some value where we could.  Keep an eye out for the remaining installments over the next several weeks.  (note: not even a regression analysis is needed to determine KU is #1 in the Big 12)
• Get Creative, SEC Schools.  Look, it’s not every year that a player named Nimrod Tishman comes into your league as a freshman, assuming that the NCAA clears his amateur status in the next few weeks.  But Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators picked up the 6’6 Israeli to replace Nick Calathes and you should expect to see his curious name all over the place next season.   So here’s our request of the other 11 SEC schools – get creative.  Come up with some really clever signs and chants for when Florida visits your house this winter.  If we hear a school derisively chanting his first name with no further thought or effort put into it, we’re going to be extremely disappointed.  Come on, UK and UT fans, we know you’ve got something up your sleeves – an opportunity like this only comes around once a decade. 
• SI’s 25 Things We Miss in Basketball.  This wasn’t exclusively a list of college basketball memories, but the ones chosen by Grant Wahl, Seth Davis and others were exceptional.  It’s not every day we can honestly say we learned something completely new about the modern era of CBB, but the piece about Bo Ellis designing Marquette’s national title year “untucked” jerseys indeed was (image here).  It was so ugly that the NCAA banned it a few years later.  We also enjoyed the pieces on great team nicknames, Len Bias and the SEC in the 80s.  Give it a read.  You won’t regret it.
• Closing Out Pitino/Sypher.    An awful lot of bandwidth was used writing about the Pitino/Sypher Scandal, and presumably there’s more to this story coming down the road.  But the best piece we read last week was this one on CNNSI by Pablo Torre, who attempts to describe Pitino’s inner circle and how intertwined they all are.  The worst one was this abomination by Jason Whitlock.  Then there was this hard-hitting interview from WLKY in Louisville… 
• Comings and Goings.  J’Covan Brown was cleared to play at Texas this season.  Ditto with Mississippi St.’s John Riek, who will sit out the first nine games of the season over extra benefits.  Pitt’s Gilbert Brown, on the other hand, will be sitting out the fall semester due to academic troubles.  South Carolina picked up a heckuva transfer in walk-on Malik Cooke, who averaged 9/5 for Nevada last season.  Darryl “Truck” Bryant’s legal troubles don’t appear to be too burdensome – he’ll face no jail time after leaving the scene of an accident and striking a WVU student with his vehicle in separate incidents this summer.  What’s that get you under Huggins?  A one-game suspension?  Finally, in the let’s-keep-our-fingers-crossed dept., BYU’s Dave Rose got a clean bill of health after his pancreatic cancer surgery earlier this summer.  He’s hopeful that he’ll be back on the court this season (his next scan is in two weeks).
• Quick Hits.  John Wooden: On death, penises and politics.  Calipari: disappointed in Memphis penalties.  NCAA Selective Enforcement: we need as many people writing as many articles about these inconsistencies as possible.  Tom Crean: Marquette HOFer.  Kevin Stallings: forgoes $100k raise for team trip Down Under.  Greg Paulus:  starting QB at Cuse.  Goodman: impact transfers for 09-10.  Patrick Christopher: the new JJ Redick.  Eric Bledsoe: better than Wall?  Scout: summer all-americans and class of 2011 rankings.   Delaware: looks like NFL parlays or nothing at all, folks.  Arizona: can the Cats scratch their way to 26 in a row?  Billy Clyde: the least hirable coach in America?  FIU: caves, will play UNC after all.  Jarvis Varnado: heading home, but what caused his sudden illness?  Ed Davender: ticket scammer.  BBall Prospectus: careful slurping that class of 09 just yet…  Nebraska: inventing new ways to hold scholarship players.  Teddy Dupay: 30 days in jail.  NCAA Ethics: John Beilein is the head man, and here’s what coaches want to see.  Bank Robber Recruit: Anthony DiLoreto signs with Utah St. 

Yes, we know that our headline brought you here expecting to see prurient details of Rick Pitino’s latest escapades on shag carpet, but we (and presumably, he) are trying to get back to basketball.  According to Zagsblog today, Louisville has hired Indianapolis Pike head coach Shabaka Lands as its new “Special Assistant to the Coach.”  [insert special assistant to Pitino joke here]  Why is this important?  Well, much in the same way that Michael Beasley followed AAU coach Dalonte Hill to K-State, Marquis Teague, the #1 PG in the class of 2011, goes to Pike and Louisville is rather high on his list.  This isn’t an illegal maneuver (although it should be), but it’s awfully coincidental.  As TBL wrote today, with John Calipari at UK gaining inroads with any and every recruit he wants, Pitino can’t afford another whiff on a major recruit like Teague.  Expect to see Marquis heading to the River City two years from now (unless more of Pitino’s abandoned fetuses start washing up on the shores of the Ohio River).

Oh, my!  Jerry Stackhouse, meet John Wall…

Florida International sent shockwaves through the recruiting world today when the #16 ranked player in the Class of 2010, Dominique Ferguson, announced that he will attend Isiah Thomas’ fledgling program over the likes of Duke, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana and UCLA.  The Thomas name and charisma still carries weight among HS kids because this is the second major recruit that Isiah has landed in his first summer of recruiting – highly-rated center Chris Coleman is committed to the school for 2011 as well.  At this rate, our post in 2007 will prove more prescient that we could have ever imagined.