It looks like you’ll have to go the rest of your life without any new rhymes from Tennessee senior forward Renaldo Woolridge, or at least until he decides to make his (inevitable) comeback. Going by Swiperboy as far as his rap, er, career is concerned, Woolridge has decided to pull the plug on his mic because he doesn’t get why other, lesser-talented rappers have achieved record deals while he remains unsigned, a common lament among countless rappers, garage bands, prog rockers, et al. We’ve been asking questions about the rules on this for a long time, by the way, without a satisfactory reply. Woolridge (1.4 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 0.5 APG last season) will be one of only two UT seniors in the upcoming season.
“I look into the hills, whence comes my help,” was a scripture Adolph Rupp once quoted regarding his in-state recruits who eventually became wearers of the Kentucky blue. One former Wildcat who knows something about coming from the hills is Richie Farmer, a sharpshooting high school legend from the middle of nowhere in the 1980s who ended up not just donning the UK uniform, but found himself in the spring of 1992 playing in what most people still feel is the greatest college basketball game ever played. RTC alum Josh Weill takes an enjoyable look back and also has the latest on this man whose name will always be associated with bluegrass basketball legend more than the bumpy political career that followed his time in Lexington.
Andre Drummond. The top recruit in the 2012 high school class. Or is it 2011? Is he staying or going? Or staying in high school but going elsewhere? Drummond says he could enroll in college this year, but has considered staying in prep school another year. His coach says probably not. What’s going on, here? Is Drummond planning to go to prep school for another year and then enter the NBA Draft by the age limit rule? Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy examines the Drummond question and explains why that plan would certainly not be in the best interests of the young man.
Considering the last two seasons, we almost don’t want to say anything out loud or write it anywhere on this site, lest something bad happen and we lose all of our Purdue readers, not to mention the chance to watch the young man play again…but Robbie Hummelis good to go. In case you missed his tweet on Friday, Hummel claims that he “passed all his tests.” If you’re not following him, that link takes you to his account, so now you’re out of excuses. How he comes back will be one of the most intriguing storylines of the early part of the 2011-12 season.
LSU’s Matt Derenbecker would have been a sophomore for the Tigers this year, but, as he explained to NOLA.com, he will be withdrawing from LSU immediately to “address some personal matters.” Derenbecker played in all 32 of the Tigers’ games last season and averaged a pretty healthy 22.6 minutes per contest, putting up 6.5 PPG and 2.1 RPG. He was a two-time high school POY in Louisiana, and despite some growing pains as a freshman, we (and probably many LSU fans) were looking forward to seeing how his game progressed. Whatever he’s going through, we hope he comes out fine on the other end and is back playing basketball somewhere soon.
With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our latest update comes courtesy of our SEC correspondent, Gerald Smith. This season he will be covering the NCAA Basketball with zeal, nerd-culture references and a fistful of silliness at halftimeadjustment.com. You can also follow him on Twitter (@fakegimel).
Reader’s Take
Summer Storylines
One Big, Mostly-Happy Conference: After several years of divisional lopsidedness in conference scheduling and tournament seeding – to the dismay of programs like Alabama — the SEC has merged the West and East divisions for basketball. A 16-game conference schedule, consisting of the same pairings within and across old divisions, remains for the 2011-12 season. Starting with this year’s SEC Tournament, teams will be seeded and awarded first-round byes by their overall conference record. The most vocal dissenter against peace, conference unity and love was Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury. He argued unsuccessfully that divisional championships create excitement for the fans. MSU athletics must have sold some awesome merchandise for Coach Stansbury’s six SEC West Division championships.
Too Much of a Good Thing? – Stansbury also argued that a united 12-team conference won’t produce a true champion unless each team plays a full 22-game home and away conference schedule. In July’s coaches’ conference call, some SEC coaches (South Carolina’s DarrinHorn & LSU’s TrentJohnson) agreed, but wonder if such a schedule is feasible. Other coaches (Kentucky’s John Calipari & Alabama’s Anthony Grant) believe that teams should worry more about strengthening their non-conference scheduling and RPI ratings. Increasing the schedule to at least 18 games would placate athletic directors and the SEC’s broadcast partners, but would add further scheduling imbalance and hysteria.In meetings, the decision to increase the number of conference games was postponed until after the 2011-12 season. The SEC coaches will meet again later in August to debate their options.
Missouri Newbies – Two coaches previously employed in the Show-Me State join the SEC during this period of conference remodeling. As an assistant under former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson, new Arkansas coach Mike Anderson became very familiar with the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (and Coach Richardson’s snakeskin boot collection). After stops with UAB and Missouri, Anderson returned to Fayetteville to replace John Pelphrey.
Caught lying to cover-up his impermissible BBQ — mmmm… impermissible BBQ… *gurgle noise* — Tennessee was forced to fire Bruce Pearl. Missouri State’s CuonzoMartin was hired to fill Pearl’s vacated orange blazer. With his athletic director resigning and additional NCAA penalties applied to his program, Martin may long for his past days in Springfield.
A major growth spurt led to a similar shoot up the 2011 high school rankings for Kentucky's Anthony Davis. (Sam Forencich/USA Basketball)
Chalk this one up as weird, but one of Gonzaga’s returning players, Demetri “Meech” Goodson, is giving up his senior season in Spokane to transfer back home to play… football? You read that correctly. The junior guard from Spring, Texas, and younger brother of Carolina Panther running back Mike Goodson, will have two years of NCAA eligibility remaining upon his arrival on an undetermined campus (likely Texas A&M) next season. Goodson started all of Gonzaga’s 35 games last year, but he’s consistently struggled with shooting the ball and his departure will represent the seventh Zag transferring out of Mark Few’s program in the last two years. Everyone of course remembers Greg Paulus’ one-year stint as the quarterback at Syracuse after a four-year basketball career at Duke, but it’s not often that you see a player transfer to play a different sport midstream through their career (it helps that GU doesn’t have a football team).
As everyone is well aware, the NBA Draft withdrawal deadline is next Sunday, so decisions from players on the fence will be trickling out all week. Two players Tuesday announced that they would be staying in the June draft despite currently facing a second round (if any) projection. Louisville forward Terrence Jennings and Georgia Tech guard Iman Shumpert must have coaches at both schools shaking their heads, as neither appears to be a first round lock even in a weak draft. Shumpert was second team all-ACC last year, going for 17/6/4 APG in a dreadful Yellow Jackets season, but Jennings in particular is an interesting case. His collegiate numbers of 10/5 last season were not exactly dominant in the Big East, but he says that he’s getting good feedback from scouts and thinks that the NBA will have a place for him. This has been a tough week all around for Rick Pitino, as he not only learned that Jennings was officially leaving school, but elite 2012 recruit Rodney Purvisrescinded his verbal commitment to the Cards on Monday.
New Pac-10, er, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott must know how to turn water to wine in light of news breaking on Tuesday that his conference has inked the most lucrative television deal in college sports history with Fox and ESPN for twelve years beginning in 2012-13. The twelve western schools (now including Colorado and Utah) will average approximately a quarter-billion dollar payout every year over the life of the deal, out-distancing the recent Big Ten ($220M), SEC ($205M), ACC ($155M) and Big 12 ($130M) mega-deals. The league will also go the Big Ten route with its own Pac-12 Network, and the rest of the games will be split between the two other national networks — now that ESPN will be showing Pac-12 basketball four days a week in addition to all of its other commitments, we wonder if there are plans for a few more ESPN channels. There simply isn’t enough space on the existing family of networks to cover everything they have in the stable. You might be wondering how Scott pulled this off given that many national viewers never see a Pac-10/12 football or basketball game all season long — the answer is in the numbers. Eight of the top twenty-seven US media markets are within the Pac-12 regional footprint, the best such aggregate total in the nation (we shudder to imagine if Scott had pulled off getting Texas too!).
Taking a page from the “pro day” that some major football programs have held in the past for their professional prospects, Kentuckyheld a similarly-styled event for its three early entries Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones and DeAndre Liggins, in addition to graduating senior Josh Harrellson. All thirty NBA teams were invited to the event to have an opportunity to observe the UK players going through workouts at least once prior to the deadline on Sunday, and a good number of those showed up for at least one of the two sessions this week. Knight told a reporter that he was still at “50/50” on a final decision, but he is expected to leave; Liggins, on the other hand, is expected back next season, while Jones’ decision will no doubt be predictably unpredictable (see: his recruitment).
Tennessee forward/impresario Renaldo Woolridge was feeling particularly patriotic on Sunday night after the news about Osama bin Laden’s capture was released, so the junior who only scored 13 points in eight games last year did what he does best — he wrote and produced a new rap video. “Thank You (USA Troops)” was released Monday afternoon, and as Mike DeCourcy points out, the line packing a punch comes at the 2:20 mark: Almost 10 years/feeling kinda alone/But the fact is/Osama is gone. Full video below.
Jared Quillen is the RTC correspondent for the SEC.
A Look Back
Interestingly, Kentuckycoach John Calipari cursed at Terrence Jones repeatedly during a time-out in Kentucky’s 66-68 loss to Alabama, and ESPN got the whole thing, audio not included. While it was largely a non-issue until Calipari issued an apology, it was later discussed on “Around the Horn,” perhaps the most boring show in sports, and “Pardon the Interruption.” While some have blown it out of proportion, others have regarded the whole situation as silly, saying that Calipari had no need to apologize. That’s just coachspeak.
I have to appreciate what Coach Cal did. His apology was completely unrequested and unforced, but he felt the need to say something and in this day and age of so much coarse language, unrepentant vitriol and media-induced faux-apologies, it is refreshing to see someone who realizes that he did something inappropriate giving a sincere apology without any pressure to do so simply because his conscience told him to do it.
More news from Vols camp involves Tennessee’s Renaldo Woolridge shooting his own music video at a bar and he not paying for the time that he was there filming, an action that could theoretically constitute an NCAA violation. However, Woolridge was cleared of wrongdoing after an internal investigation into the matter. Tennessee isn’t exactly in the good graces of the NCAA right now, so this figures to be one less headache from the higher-ups.
To follow up on Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury’s comment last week that he doesn’t feel there is that much difference between the SEC East and West, the East is now 82-29 to the West’s 64-49 and is winning by an average margin of 9.2 points per game to the West’s 3.5. Furthermore, the East is now 9-3 in head to head matchups against the West.
Power Rankings
Kentucky (15-4, 3-2) Kentucky continues to have trouble on the road. All four of the Wildcats’ losses have come at road or neutral sites, and while the Alabama loss doesn’t look good, they took care of business at South Carolina to get a good win in a tough environment.
Vanderbilt (14-4, 2-2) Vanderbilt went 2-0 this week with an 84-74 win over Mississippi and a good win over West Coast Conference leaderSaint Mary’s. A great week for the Commodores, but not quite enough yet to knock Kentucky off its perch at the top of the power rankings.
Florida (15-4, 4-1) I want to say that Florida is looking good at 4-1 in conference, especially after pasting Arkansas 75-43, but they only shot 28.3 percent from the field including 5-26 from three… against Auburn, and the game was tied with under two minutes to play. Starting guards Erving Walker and Kenny Boynton combined to go just 6-28 from the field. Not a good sign. Auburn is probably the only BCS conference team in the country against whom you can shoot 28.3 percent and still win. Step it up Gators.
Georgia (14-4, 3-2) The Bulldogs posted a two-point loss to the ever-enigmatic Tennessee Volunteers and then pasted the mess that is Mississippi State. 1-1 against the two most disappointing teams in the SEC is nothing to get overly excited about, but nothing to panic over yet either as Joe Lunardi has Georgia in the NCAA Tournament in his latest bracketology.
South Carolina (12-6, 3-2) The Gamecocks continue to be a feisty bunch getting a win over Arkansas and then forcing Kentucky to flinch by closing what was an 18-point second half deficit to just five with 1:16 to play. And can I just say right now, Bruce Ellington is not the next Devan Downey. Bruce is his own man, and though he posts near identical stats to Downey, when all is said and done, he will be the better player. Coach Darrin Horn is putting things together in Columbia and his recruiting Ellington is just one piece of the puzzle.
Alabama (12-7, 4-1) Alabama is certainly moving up after getting a nice win against Kentucky, but that loss to St. Peter’s might be too much for the selection committee to bear and right now, Joe Lunardi agrees. Despite Alabama’s recent winning ways, it’s going to take some kind of a special conference season to make the NCAAs.
Tennessee (12-7, 2-2) The win at Georgia is nice. The loss to Connecticut is acceptable, but a win would have really helped to get the Volunteers’ minds back in the right place now that conference play is heating up. The Volunteers did hold Kemba Walker to a season-low 16 points. There’s something to be said for that I guess when you consider some of the teams Connecticut has played this year.
Arkansas (12-4, 2-3) Conference play started well for the Razorbacks, but then they had to face a couple of SEC East teams. This week, the Hogs posted a seven-point loss to South Carolina and an embarrassing thirty-two point loss to Florida in a game that was not entirely dissimilar to their ugly loss to Texas just prior to conference play. It was tough to watch folks.
Mississippi State (10-8, 2-2) With or without Renardo Sidney and Dee Bost, this team continues to disappoint. There is plenty of talent here between Sidney, Bost, Kodi Augustus and Ravern Johnson, but the Bulldogs still posted an embarrassing 86-64 loss to Georgia in their only game last week.
Mississippi (13-7, 1-4) Hey, look who got a conference win, and on the road, no less. Of course it was at LSU, but if you’re Mississippi, you’re just repeating to yourself, “ A win is a win.”
LSU (10-9, 2-2) The Tigers shot only 32.9 percent and were outrebounded 31-17 at home by Mississippi. That doesn’t bode well for upcoming games against Tennessee and Alabama. Of course both of those teams have shown they can beat or lose to any team in the nation, so maybe LSU goes 2-0 this week.
Auburn (7-10, 0-5) Five straight losses is never fun. Getting close against Florida after playing your best defense all year is a heartbreaker. I’m rooting for the Tigers to get at least one win this week against Arkansas or South Carolina.
A Look Ahead
Florida @ Georgia, January 25. Neither of these two teams shoot well, so this could get ugly, but both of these teams have some good wins, so there is potential for this to be a fun competitive game.
Georgia @ Kentucky, January 29. This is the payback game. I don’t expect to see the Wildcats come out as flat as they did against Georgia in Athens, but the one thing that gives Kentucky trouble more than anything else is a team with a quality big man. Georgia just so happens to have one such big man in Trey Thompkins.
A little over two years ago we mentioned the budding music career of Renaldo Woolridge before he had even played a game for Tennessee. We noted that his constant references to his involvement with the basketball team appeared to be a NCAA violation and we were met with criticism from many Tennessee fans who felt that it was just an innocent hobby and nothing bad would happen from it.
The NCAA will be looking for real answers on this one (Credit: http://www.myspace.com/rwtheanswer)
Remember the Anthony Davisfor sale flap a month ago? Predictably, the threats of lawsuits by the Davis family and Kentucky have died down, but the speculation has not. On a radio program Tuesday, college basketball writer Gregg Doyel said that he believes that the Chicago Sun-Times “deep throat” source for the allegation that Davis was bought for $200k came from Illinois head coach Bruce Weber. Here’s the key quote, at the 19:42 mark: “If anybody is behind this, Weber is behind this, because he doesn’t lose very well. And, he unfortunately loses recruits left and right. Nobody loses more recruits than Bruce Weber. That ought to be on his coat of arms — Bruce Weber: Losing recruits like a son of a gun.” Wow.
It became official yesterday when UConn announced it, but Ater Majok is heading to Australia to begin a professional career, effective immediately. We discussed the likelihood of this earlier in the week, openly wondering if his departure has anything to do with the expected response on Thursday or Friday from the university over eight NCAA allegations. For now, we’ll just have to speculate and read between the lines, but hopefully in the next few days we’ll have more with which to address his departure.
Gary Parrish writes about the BYU move to the WCC (in basketball), and how the little league that could on the Pacific coast may have done more to elevate its profile than any other conference in Realignment Summer. Yahoo’s Jason King and ourselves can’t disagree — as our correspondent Mike Vernetti wrote yesterday, WCC Commish Jamie Zaninovich may have pulled off the biggest coup we’ve seen in this game in quite some time. Meanwhile, the WAC wonders what to do with itself after BYU effectively threw the venerable conference to the wolves.
Mizzou took a huge hit yesterday when it was reported that top fifteen incoming recruit Tony Mitchellwill not be eligible to play for at least the fall semester, although it’s currently unclear what he needs to do to become eligible for the spring. So far Missouri hasn’t yet confirmed the information, but according to several sources, Mitchell has missed the deadline to enroll at Missouri this semester. Jeff Goodman reported yesterday that Mizzou is hopeful that Mitchell will attend a juco for the fall semester in an effort to become eligible.
Tennessee’s SwiperBoy (aka junior forward Renaldo Woolridge) is back with another UT-related rap song, just in time for the “FootVols” kickoff this coming weekend against UT-Martin in Neyland Stadium. Not that they’d be listening anyway, but SEC fans from Columbia to Fayetteville probably envision their own personal hell as an endless loop of this song, which uses “Rocky Top” as its sample in the background. There’s nothing too abrasive in the lyrics (if you can’t bear the audio version, here’s a transcript), but SwiperBoy manages to take a shot at the departed Lane Kiffin (“we drivin in a new Lane… 4get the last 1”) — with his third football-related song in the last two years, at least we can say he knows where the bread is buttered in Knoxville. Here’s the video:
“If anybody is behind this (Anthony Daivs article), Weber is behind this, because he doesn’t lose very well. And, he unfortunately loses recruits left and right.” Doyel said “Nobody loses more recruits than Bruce Weber. That ought to be on his coat of arms — Bruce Weber: Losing recruits like a son of a gun
Gary Parrish had an interesting story today about an incoming Tennessee recruit named Renaldo Woolridge, a 6’8 top 100 power forward from Southern California who has an impressive bloodline – his dad happens to be former Notre Dame All-American (1981) and longtime NBA journeyman, Orlando Woolridge.
The story goes into considerable detail as to the younger Woolridge’s burgeoning rap career, replete with the obligatory MySpace page and stage-friendly moniker, The Answer aka Swiperboy. And yeah, we agree with Parrish when he says that it’s obvious after listening to the tracks that this kid has a little more talent than your average hoopster/rapper wannabe.
What really piqued our interest, though, was when we listened to the song, “Baller Vol,” which quite clearly pays homage to Woolridge’s new school and teammates (listen below). We may not have caught them all, but we heard players Scotty Hopson, Wayne Chism, Tyler Smith, JP Prince and coach Bruce Pearl mentioned.
Not to be a total wet blanket here, because this seems like just a kid having some fun – Woolridge even mentioned that UT may use his track for player introductions this year – but how is this not an NCAA violation? Wouldn’t Wooldridge’s production company, Swiperboyz Entertainment, be considered a commercial enterprise? And if so, aren’t there fairly explicit rules as to the limitations or usage of the university’s logo and likeness? For example, look at Rule 12.5.1.3(c) from the NCAA Rules & Regulations:
But on Woolridge’s MySpace site, it’s obvious that he’s a Vol and even includes a conspicuous image of him flexing while wearing a UT jersey.
(ed. note – this picture has since been removed from Woolridge’s MySpace page. Coincidence? photo credit: MySpace)
And what about the shout-outs to all of his current teammates on the song? Per Rule 12.5.2.2, did Woolridge get express permission to use their names on his product, and if not, does it matter that UT probably hasn’t taken steps to remediate that likely omission?
Given what we wrote last week about the NCAA’s worthless investigative arm, none of this probably matters because there are bigger fish for the brass to fry at Prairie View and UC Davis, but coming from someone who remembers how Indiana’s Steve Alford found himself in hot water for simply doing a charity calendar photo two decades ago, we have to wonder how all of Woolridge’s UT-centric rapping reconciles with the NCAA’s rulebook.
