What are you going as for Halloween this year?  We hear the Kelvin Sampson costumes are boss in Bloomington…

• You heard about Hansbrough… Tennessee’s JP Prince will also miss the next 3-5 weeks with a shoulder injury. 
• Nevada’s leading returning player Brandon Fields was cleared of any wrongdoing in his shoplifting case – still no word on his suspension, though.
• And the Billy Gillispie Rule is instituted…
• Billy Donovan got a huge pickup with Kenny Boynton’s commitment today.
• Andy Katz gives a fantastic analysis of the Arizona mess on his blog – looks like Mike Dunlap made a stupid mistake in not accepting the head coaching job.  Oh, and former recruit Abdul Gaddy is going to Washington.
• Goodman’s Top 20 freshmen.  Here are CHN’s all-american frosh teams and their mid-major all-americans.  Parrish gives his Top 20 Games to watch before Jan. 8th.
• “The most egregious lack of institutional control ever seen.” 
• In the wake of Lute Olson’s retirement, Arizona loses another player, Jeff Withey, from the freshman class.
• Creighton is the preseason pick by the media and SIDs in the Valley.
• With Demar DeRozan in tow and a weaker Pac-10, we might not want to write off USC just yet.

* not a direct quote

Did you know that Tark the Shark now has a blog called SharkBytes with the Las Vegas Sun?  We mentioned this earlier today in Fast Breaks, and a couple of other blogs (notably, Fanhouse and The Dagger) talked about how interesting this development not only is, but could be will be over the course of a season, especially given Tark’s penchant for outspokenness and rabble-rousing. 

Tark Is Not Friendly With Arizona (photo credit: AP)

But both of those blogs focused on what Tark wrote about recruiting against Kentucky in the good old days, regaling readers with a tale involving all-world prep prospect Sam Bowie and a Rodeway Inn in Pennsylvania.  A funny and interesting story, no doubt, but not nearly as compelling as what we found when we dug a little deeper into the post.  Consider, Tark wrote:

Other programs, like Arizona, would rip us behind our backs, telling recruits’ mothers that hookers would get her son or the mob would get them.  Mothers would call me and I’d have to fly back a second time to talk with her.  I’d tell parents, if a coach comes in and bad-mouths another program, I’d eliminate that coach right away. If your son gets hurt, you and your son will be bad-mouthed.  Once, the father of a kid in San Diego asked me what I thought of Arizona. I said, they have a good program. The dad pounds a folder on his coffee table. Coach, let me show you what they said.  The folder was filled with every bad article ever written about UNLV. Arizona had sent it to the father.

Now, Tark’s been around the west coast a long time – starting as head coach with Long Beach St. in 1968, and continuing at UNLV from 1973-92, but Arizona only became a real force in college basketball upon Lute Olson’s arrival in 1984.  UNLV and Arizona would have probably been recruiting the same caliber of player only after his landing in the desert.  So, who else other than Lute Olson could Tark be referring to here? 

We find it really interesting that, considering how long Tark’s been around, and all the things he’s seen in the game, that he decided to focus on and throw Lute Olson under the bus for playing dirty.  And yes, we realize the irony of Tark calling anyone, anyone at all, dirty.  Still, this is just another feather in the cap of Lute Olson’s 2008 Award Tour.   

Keep it coming, Shark!

Yep, Midnight Madness is upon us.  Well, at least at the few schools who have flouted conventional wisdom and are using their 2-hr window of practice time this week to get Midnight Madness out of the way earlier than everyone else.  It’ll be interesting to monitor whether this recruiting “advantage,” according to the NABC, will actually translate into anything substantial.  Here’s the weekend schedule. 

• Mountaineer Madness – West Virginia – Friday 9:30pm EDT
• Big Blue Madness – Kentucky – Friday 10:30pm EDT
• Football Game Madness – Illinois – Saturday ~3:30pm CDT
• Marshall Madness – Marshall – Saturday 9:00pm EDT

We’re interested to see in particular how this Illinois practice in the end zone of their football stadium turns out. 

In Champaign, Ill., the men’s and women’s basketball teams will head onto a court set up behind one of the end zones Saturday at Memorial Stadium after the conclusion of Illinois’ game with Minnesota. The basketball practice, to be held on a donated court, will be canceled if it rains.  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our players to be on this type of stage,” Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber said.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t get used to this early start.  Word is that the NCAA will enact emergency legislation later this month to put an end to the practice of early practice.  We’ll try to get some photos up as these things happen over the weekend.   

We’re less than 48 hrs from the quasi-official start of practice (at least at Kentucky, Illinois and a few others)… 

• The Class of 2009 will definitely be keeping an eye on Brandon Jennings’ experience in Europe this year.
• So we can have D2 games on tv, but getting some good mid-majors on the ESPN Full Court package is damn near impossible?
• The Big West signed a new deal with ESPN, but unless you get the U, you’re pretty much out of luck.  Note to ESPN – put ESPNU games on the Full Court Package this year!  Find a way to watch Fullerton’s Josh Akognon anyway this year – trust us.
• STF pegs Purdue and Oklahoma as its breakthrough teams in 2008-09, and Baylor and Tennessee as its tipping-point teams.
• Talent = Title Contender.  Thanks, Gary.  This was a fun idea, but we don’t really trust DraftExpress for evaluating NBA talent that far out, do you?
• The Big 12 coaches like Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas/Baylor in that order.  Over in the Horizon League, Butler is picked fifh?!?!
• Tom Crean to NCAA on further penalties:  Enough is Enough!  Meanwhile, Kyle Taber goes on record stating that Indiana will no-way, no-how, finish last in the B10 this year.
• One jewel from Goodman’s blog – wait, Georgetown recruited a white kid?
• Insert Rick Pitino isn’t walking through that door joke here. 
• Speculation on where the top prospects in the Class of 2009 will end up.
• Dickie V. should stay away from MLB Playoffs predictions.   
• We must say, as an unabashed fan of God Shammgod, this is completely awesome.
• One man’s take on the top NCAA program of all-time.

Folks, we’re only five weeks from the first games… just sayin…

• Sixteen months after agreeing to return to Florida after about-facing on the Orlando Magic job, Billy Donovan finally signed his contract. 
• Fooling with the Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun setup of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament because of gas prices is pure folly – surely the NCAA isn’t that stupid, is it?
• This is a pretty interesting NY Times article on how YouTube is changing the world of prospect identification and recruiting. 
• More foolishness involving the Gazelle Group – they’re apparently trying to move UMass to a different subregional in the CvC at the last minute.
• The difficulty of playing in the Big East, where 9 teams could be top-25 worthy this year.  Although Jameson at B/R makes a compelling argument that Georgetown is wildly overrated this year.
• Ok, so it turns out that the George Mason F4 rings on Ebay were stolen and will be returned to the rightful owner, Dr. Scherrens.  Nice investigative work by Chris Brooks over at B/R. 
• Gary Parrish continues with his ‘seedy underbelly’ offseason theme.
• So what you’re saying is that the SEC will get seven teams in the NCAA Tournament next year (and deserve four)?
• So who wants to bet on which coach will have the better 08-09 campaign – Marquette’s Buzz Williams or Indiana’s Tom Crean?

For the second time since last spring’s Mario Miracle, the NABC has put out a statement that squarely fixes its crosshairs on Kentucky’s second-year coach, Billy Gillispie.  Certainly you remember the June directive the NABC made to stop recruiting junior high players in the wake of the media firestorm over Gillispie’s recruiting of 8th grader Michael Avery.  We wrote at the time:

Luckily, this may be a situation where coaches were doing it because they felt they needed to avoid a competitive disadvantage.  Now that the NABC has effectively disavowed this as a strategy (although it is still legal), coaches [including Gillispie] appear to be supportive of the line-drawing.

(Ed Note:  apparently another Billy, as in Billy Donovan, didn’t get that memo from the NABC.)Andy Katz now reports on his blog today that the NABC put forth a new statement yesterday that admonishes coaches for using their early autumn ‘skill development’ time (2 hours/week) prior to full practices for recruiting purposes.  More specifically, they don’t want schools to bump up their Midnight Madness festivities to a preceding weekend so as to take advantage of a more favorable recruiting scenario (i.e., big football game on campus, local stripper convention, the fact that nobody else is having Midnight Madness that weekend).  Why is this important now?  Because Kentucky and Illinois (with its gimmicky outdoor practice) are planning on having their Midnight Madnesses a week prior to the ‘official’ start of practice.  The NABC statement (via Katz):

The NABC board of directors said that “skill development events should not be open to the public.” The NABC said the initial intent was for coaches to assist their players in skill development and create stronger relationships. But by “making such skill development sessions public events, they appear to be geared more for recruiting than skill development sessions.”

Coach Gillispie, godlovehim, just cannot resist pushing the envelope when it comes to the NCAA rulebook.  We’re not saying that he’s breaking any rules – hell, we’re not even saying that he’s bending them – but like any fastidious attorney, he manages to consistently find the gray nether-regions where legislative intent meets bright-line rule, and he forces those in charge to make decisions.

Bring It On, NABC!  (photo credit: AP/Ed Reinke)

Our take on these early Midnight Madness celebrations is such: we tend to like orderliness when it comes to college hoops, as in…  we’d like to know with assurance when Opening Night will be or when the Final Four will be.  So we’re 100% in agreement with the NABC on this one – can’t we just all agree to have Midnight Madness on the same night, and preferably, AT MIDNIGHT?  If the NCAA has to mandate this, so be it – add another page to the 17-lb rulebook.   

Update (10/1): Jeff Goodman weighs in with this background information about the NABC:

Word is that there were numerous coaches on a conference call who were less than thrilled with Gillispie’s decision. They feel that the NCAA allows the coaches the two hours per week for skill development and Gillispie is taking advantage of the rule.  It was the unanimous decision of the Board that skill development events should not be open to the public.

Are the leaves changing colors in your town?  We’re less than three weeks until Midnight Madness…

• Santa Clara center John Bryant, the WCC’s leading returner in rebounds and blocks (and second in scoring), was literally stabbed in the back this weekend.  He is expected to make a full recovery.   
• Andy Katz takes a look at three teams he expects are ready to rise again this season – Ohio St., Nevada, Wake Forest.
• The NYT reports that Tommy Amaker is continuing to make friends at Harvard.
• Pitt’s Jamie Dixon proves that unproven commodities who are bright and work hard can be just as (if not more) successful than the old retreads.  Why does that sound strangely familiar?  Another one of those unknown coaches, Wright St.’s Brad Brownell, was profiled by HoopWise as well.
• UCLA’s stalwart Darren Collison says he’s back in Westwood to win that elusive national title.
• Jeff Goodman puts a gun to the head of two top recruiting gurus and forces them to predict where the 2009 Top 10 prospects will end up.  If true, Memphis will be scary good in 2010.
• Siena is seeking to become the new Gonzaga, er, Davidson. 

It’s no secret around these parts that Lute Olson has experienced a volatile year since he decided to take a leave of absence from his Arizona Wildcats last November.  There were already the rampant rumors that Olson was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, or at minimum, some other undisclosed health issue, accompanied by the not-so-private saga involving a divorce from his second wife, Christine.  Throw in the embarassingly open secret that Olson was unhappy with his replacement, Kevin O’Neill, in addition to the loss of several key players either in or coming into the program (Jerryd Bayless, Brandon Jennings, Emmanuel Negedu) and it’s safe to say that the Silver Fox had a stressful year.  All that said, Olson has gone on record to exuberantly state that he expects to remain the coach at Arizona at least through his current contract, ending in 2011. 

Happier Times for Lute and Christine Olson  (photo credit:  azstarnet.com)

Well why not? – so long as you intend to wilfully flout the NCAA rulebook in an attempt to get recruits to Tucson.  From the AP report: 

The University of Arizona has reported a possible NCAA recruiting violation by men’s basketball coach Lute Olson, who called it “an unfortunate and regrettable error.”  Athletic director Jim Livengood said Monday that Olson had sent a letter to basketball boosters asking for a donation to Jim Storey’s Arizona Cactus Classic basketball tournament, held last May at Arizona’s McKale Center. NCAA rules prohibit institutional representatives or boosters from arranging financial assistance for potential recruits.  “A ‘personal and confidential’ letter was sent to Rebounders Club board of directors over the electronic signature of Lute Olson, requesting that they provide financial assistance to Jim Storey’s Cactus Classic AAU Tournament,” Livengood said in a July 2 letter to Ron Barker, Pac-10 associate commissioner in charge of governance and enforcement. “The letter expressed how important this tournament is to the Arizona basketball program’s recruiting. The letter also stated (correctly) that ‘The athletics department can’t assist in any way.’ Which would include requesting that donors make financial contributions.”

Forget the one-and-dones, Olson has apparently decided that he will simply have his boosters finance players into Tucson.  (sidenote: the #2 PG in the class of 2009, Abdul Gaddy, also commited to the Wildcat program today – was he at this camp?).   

To be fair, Olson disabused reporters of the notion that he knew anything about this letter, which had an electronic signature on it.  Yet numerous poeople within in the program have gone on the record to state that Olson wanted this letter sent out.  Some Arizona fans are suggesting this is a setup propagated by the AD, Jim Livengood, who (the assumption goes) wants the powerful Olson out of the picture.

There’s one thing we can remain certain about – the Lute Olson stories are getting exponentially more interesting the older he gets.  Stay tuned for more out of the desert.   

Still trying to get caught up on newsworthy items from the last few weeks…

• Coach K, fresh off his gold medal coaching victory with Team USA, says that from now on, he’s going to enjoy wins at Duke more.
• Kansas’ best returning player, Sherron Collins, apparently showed up for KU’s Labor Day trip to Canada fat and out of shape.  Bill Self was not pleased, benching the point guard for the trip.  The good news for Self and KU is that their highly-regarded twin recruits, Marcus and Markieff Morris, were declared eligible to play this season.
• Smart, fellas.  KU national champions  Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur got some greenery and some females up in their rooms at the NBA Rookie Transition Program (where the dangers of such issues as greenery and females are ostensibly discussed), leading to a $20k fine for each of them.
• Oklahoma freshman Willie Warren has already made an impression with his mouth, apparently.
• New Mexico State’s itinerant forward, Herb Pope, will transfer to Seton Hall.  He is asking for a medical waiver (the “Tyler Smith Rule”) so that he can play this season.  Mizzou’s Keon Lawrence is also transferring to Seton Hall. 
• Well, that’s disappointing.  UNC-Asheville’s 7’7 behemoth Kenny George will likely miss the season after another foot surgery.
• Jeff Goodman checks in on Pat Knight as he begins his first full season as the head man at Texas Tech.
• Gary Parrish has a nice insight piece on how mid-major programs strategize recruiting against the big boys on the summer circuit. 
• Not quite the SEC deal, but get ready to see more WAC basketball on ESPN beginning next year

This bit of news came across our wire earlier this week, and we’re still shaking off the shivers it initially gave us. 

Mike Broghammer, a 6-foot-8, 220 pound senior forward from Minnetonka (MN) Hopkins, has committed to Notre Dame during his official visit this weekend. Broghammer is the nephew through marriage of Christian Laettner. Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey had recruited Laettner when he was an assistant at Duke.

WHEW.  Nephew through marriage.  THANK.  GOD.  That means there’s no shared plasma between them, so maybe we have a fighting chance that this kid won’t be another arrogant prick of a bastard like his uncle (although the above smirk has us a little concerned).  In fact, if we had to endure that bozo through fifteen years of Thanksgivings and family get-togethers, he might hate the SOB as much as the rest of us does.

And, no, we’re not letting it go.