1. Kentucky basketball special assistant Rod Strickland was arrested Thursday morning for charges including driving on a suspended license, failure to signal, and having no vehicle registration. The university sent out a statement issued by UK athletics spokesman DeWayne Peevy. “Rod Strickland was pulled over this morning in Lexington on a routine traffic stop on the way to the office,” the statement said. “According to police reports, he was pulled over for failure to signal and for driving with a suspended license. According to Strickland, his vehicle was properly registered and he produced his driver’s license at the scene. We are currently gathering information on whether his license was suspended due to a clerical error which led to his arrest.” Strickland was last arrested in April of 2010 for a DUI while a Kentucky assistant.
2. John Calipari and his Kentucky Wildcats worked hard for their national championship rings. And now they have given one to UK basketball fan and hip hop star Drake. Really? “They gave me a chance to actually come in and talk to them early in the season,” Drake told CoachCal.com in 2010. “Just them listening to me, I think we all connected. They’re all my boys. This is my family.” That’s understandable, but giving the guy a championship ring after he’s been a fan for three years? Come on. Give one to Ashley Judd, coach! Or find a way to reward the loyal fans who camp out for weeks to receive Big Blue Madness tickets. The ring was even etched with Drake’s nickname, “Drizzy”.
3. Speaking of head coaches making friends with music stars, new South Carolina head coach Frank Martin is now friends with Pitbull. Martin sent out this tweet stating, “On my way 2 Atlanta 2 c the best performer that’s our there @pitbull . I want our players 2 play w the same passion w which he petforms.” What’s next? How about Kevin Stallings going to a Reba McEntire performance? Maybe Mike Anderson taking in a Coldplay show? Steven Tyler could befriend Billy Donovan and start attending games in Gainesville. Who knows, maybe John Calipari will give Drake his national championship ring. Oh wait, maybe that’s not quite out there enough. Deadspin calls the relationship “weird,” but I say it’s awesome. I’m not sure how much inspiration the Gamecocks can seek from Pitbull’s performances, but I like a little celebrity action when I take in college basketball. I just don’t think any fan deserves a championship ring that the players and coaches earned.
4. Laurence Bowers, the 6’8″ Missouri Tigers forward who sat out all of last season with an ACL injury, has been cleared for full contact. Bowers averaged 11.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per game in his junior season for the Tigers in 2010-11. Frank Haith missed Bowers’ size last season, as he was forced into playing a four-guard lineup. With Bowers’ return, Missouri immediately becomes a major threat at the top of the conference, and for that matter, the nation.
5. Rob Dauster of NBC’s College Basketball Talk wrote a post on how “sleaze is alive and well in the recruiting world.” In his article, he utilized a picture of Kentucky’s John Calipari on the cover, even though Calipari wasn’t involved in any of the implications. Oh uh. As you might expect, Kentucky fans responded. As our friends at A Sea of Blue point out, “The article does look a little bit like an attack, even though I’m pretty sure Calipari wasn’t the intended target, but “sleaze” in general. Sadly, for many, Calpari is the poster boy for that word. Yes, that’s unfair, but since when was life fair?”

1. Thursday was a day of personnel movement around the college basketball landscape, but it was an endorsement of a proposal by NCAA leadership that made the most news. If approved as expected by NCAA presidents in October, a new measure for much more punitive penalties against NCAA rules violators would include “postseason bans of up to four years, fines that could stretch into the millions and suspensions for head coaches.” If these sanctions sound familiar, they should — Penn State’s unprecedented probation meted out by the NCAA just over a week ago included several components of these changes. Perhaps the biggest and most important change is in the shifting of culpability from individuals within the program to the “captain of the ship” — the head coach. Under the new guidelines, head coaches would be presumed vicariously liable for illegal actions performed by members of their staff — the burden would then fall on the head coach himself to prove that he was completely unaware of those transgressions (and was not negligent in doing so) to avoid responsibility. We haven’t had time to give this a lot of thought just yet, but in the era of ensuring plausible deniability among top dogs everywhere, this is a sea change in the way the NCAA views its expectations of conduct.
2. Kelsey Barlow was last seen getting booted off of Purdue’s basketball team in late February after his second disruptive incident in a year, when he and teammate DJ Byrd became involved in some kind of confrontation at a West Lafayette bar. A tremendous perimeter defender with ideal size for the position at 6’5″, Barlow left his team high and dry for the second straight year during March Madness — in 2011, he was suspended for “conduct detrimental to the team,” and while VCU thoroughly ripped Purdue in that year’s Round of 32, he surely could have helped the Boilers in their tight game with Kansas at the same spot last year. Illinois-Chicago announced on Thursday that Barlow will resurface in the Loop, sitting out next season as a transfer to become eligible to play as a senior in 2013-14. Barlow started 22 games for Purdue last season, averaging 8/4/2 APG in a key glue guy role while also helping to lock down opposing guards in Matt Painter’s sticky defense. This is a talented pickup for a program that was absolutely terrible last year — 3-15 in the Horizon League, 8-22 overall — let’s hope that Barlow uses his second chance wisely.
3. USC basketball received excellent news on Wednesday when doctors cleared its star point guard Jio Fontan to begin full contact practices again. It was a little over a year ago when the Trojan playmaker tore his ACL during an exhibition trip to Brazil, effectively torpedoing USC’s season before it even got started. A 19-win NCAA Tournament team from 2010-11 drooped to a disastrous six-win group without Fontan’s floor leadership as injuries mounted and hope was lost. Next season, though, Kevin O’Neill has a much higher ceiling for his squad — with Fontan back to join the intriguing prospect of seven-footer DeWayne Dedmon and a host of talented D-I transfers, the Trojans may be poised to leap back toward the top tier of the Pac-12 in a hurry. For comprehensive coverage of USC basketball, check out our Pac-12 microsite’s USC Week from back in early July.
4. Going from the national championship game to an interim tag in the SWAC is a precipitous decline for a single decade of work, but that’s exactly where former Indiana (2002 national finalist) and UAB head coach Mike Davis finds himself this Friday morning after accepting the interim head coaching job at Texas Southern. According to local reports, the school “plans […] on keeping” Davis on board permanently as soon as it figures out how to handle the abrupt resignation of its previous head coach, Tony Harvey. Davis, along with Matt Doherty (UNC) and Billy Gillispie (Kentucky) represents one of the holy trinity of hires at elite programs in the last decade who were way, way in over their heads at that level. The race to the bottom knows no bounds.
5. There’s no shortage of bizarre arrest stories in sports, and this one won’t move the broader society needle. But the weird “clerical error” involving Kentucky assistant Rod Strickland that resulted in his arrest during a routine traffic stop on Thursday is borderline absurd. First of all, he was reportedly stopped for “failure to signal” at a turn near the UK campus in Lexington. In most situations, this is otherwise known as a pretext to profile someone — seriously, who gets stopped for a turn signal violation? But it appears that in stopping him, a whole new can of worms was opened in that it turns out that Strickland’s license is currently suspended in Tennessee (which, through reciprocity with Kentucky, showed up in the national criminal database). That suspension stemmed from another arrest in October 2007 when he was pulled over while intoxicated and at the time was driving on a suspended license from Maryland! He also has a DUI conviction from Kentucky in 2010 which temporarily suspended his license there (it was reinstated in 2011). Good grief, man. It sounds like Strickland has a problem — whether with poor decision-making or something more sinister. Regardless, he just needs to leave the car at home.

Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter.

It’s been almost a full week since Southern Methodist officially hired Larry Brown to become the Mustangs’ new head coach, creating major headlines from a school that hasn’t had much to show from its program’s entire basketball history. The question surrounding the hire remains — Does SMU really expect Brown to turn around the program, or is the hire simply intended to draw publicity to a team in desperate need of some attention? We tend to think that the primary motive was the latter, but that it also just might be a smart move for the SMU program at this point in time.

Why Him? Hall of Famer Larry Brown (and his Assistants) are a Smart Hire for SMU (AP Photo/N. Raymond)

Larry Brown is in the Basketball Hall of Fame with a decorated legacy that includes being the only coach to win both an NCAA (Kansas) and NBA (Detroit) championship, but he hasn’t coached in the college ranks in nearly 25 years. At 71 years old, and with a track record of bolting from head coaching positions early in his tenure, why is there any reason to expect that Brown will be capable of turning around a struggling college program? The truth of the matter is there probably isn’t. College basketball is not what it was back in 1988 when he won a title for Kansas. There are now over 340 Division I teams, many of which have come to expect postseason success given the widespread parity that the sport has developed. The fact that SMU hasn’t qualified for an NCAA Tournament since 1993 doesn’t give Brown any slack either — the school is headed for the Big East in two seasons and desperately needs to turn things around in a hurry.

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1. Over the past few months Saint Joseph’s and Phil Martelli took a lot of heat for their decision to block the transfer of Todd O’Brien. They are about to have some company with the decision by Wisconsin and Bo Ryan after they decided to place significant restrictions on Jarrod Uthoff in his attempt to transfer from the school. It is standard procedure for schools to restrict players from transferring within the conference or to rival schools and occasionally schools they feel may have tampered with their (former) player. But a list of 25 schools? Including the entire ACC? Ryan apologists might point to the ACC-Big Ten challenge as a potential obstacle, but unless Wisconsin is planning on moving to the ACC it seems like a rather odd set of restrictions. What is more odd is that Uthoff has not even played for the Badgers yet as they opted to redshirt him and even though he figured to be in their plans for the future the entire situation feels dirty. For now the only legitimate school that Uthoff appears to be interested in going to (and Ryan has not already blocked) is Creighton. Of course, there is still time for Ryan to put Creighton on his restricted list.
2. Yesterday, Tulsa star Jordan Clarkson was granted a release by the school. The sophomore, who was First Team All-Conference USA last season, appears to have been significantly influenced by the firing of Doug Wojcik and it appears that the hiring of Danny Manning was not enough to make him stay in Tulsa. While initial reports sparked a minor frenzy on Twitter when it was revealed that Clarkson wanted to look at 8-9 schools, but Tulsa was only willing to release him to three schools (Colorado, TCU, and Vanderbilt). Since we are not sure which 5-6 schools were rejected by Tulsa we will hold back our criticism because for all we know those schools could all be in Conference USA in which case it would be considered nothing more than normal operating procedure. If those schools are not and we are talking about a Bo Ryan/Phil Martelli situation, we could be adding Danny Manning to an ignominious list.
3. Normally we would have led with the news that it looks like Larry Brown will most probably be the next head coach at Southern Methodist, but those two transfers and the noise surrounding them stole some of the spotlight. While many journalists online are trying to make it seem like this is a done deal, there appear to be a few details that need to be worked out. According to reports the main hold-up is getting his assistant coaches in place. Brown’s staff appears to be made of Tim Jankovich, Jerrence Howard, and Rod Strickland. The latter two appear to have their bags packed, but Jankovich is waiting for an assurance that he will be a guaranteed coach-in-waiting since he is leaving a decent job as a head coach at Illinois State for a team that was at the bottom of Conference USA and is heading toward the Big East, which will be a shell of its former self and SMU will still be near the bottom of that depleted conference.
4. For those of you who may be aspiring college athletes or in the business of recruiting them (or maybe just love to know the minutiae of the sport), the NCAA released new eligibility requirements that go into effect for the 2015-16 academic year. They are available as an executive summary or a short slideshow. Essentially what it is trying to do is be more explicit for the eligibility requirements for incoming athletes. It focuses on core course requirements, GPA, and standardized test scores. One major issue that it does not address is the omnipresent shadow of basketball factories, which seem to be an all too frequent problem when issues with eligibility are raised. Of course there are more than three years before these rules go into effect so there could be substantial changes before they are put into practice.
5. As we mentioned yesterday, the five starters for Kentucky announced that they were entering the NBA Draft. It is amazing that we have come to the point where we can merely shrug our shoulders at the defending national champions losing their entire starting lineup of three freshmen and two sophomores without a second thought. Of course, this is not an indictment of Kentucky, but rather a reflection of the current state of college basketball. Or perhaps the real reflection on the current state of college basketball is that the Wildcats probably will not miss a beat next year as they will just reload with another set of five-star recruits.

Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor to RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. 

If you want to ask your friends a great trivia question, or perhaps settle a debate, check out the Wall Street Journal’s list of college basketball programs whose players have earned the most money in the NBA since 1985. The WSJ calls it the ‘Basketball Alumni Loot Index.’ This is the kind of intense research that pays off, as this article is now a great bookmark for fans’ reference.

UNC's Rasheed Wallace Made A Lot of Noise in the NBA; He Also Made A Lot of Money (AP Photo)

A look at the data shows plenty of interesting results. North Carolina and Duke are the first and second schools on the list, to nobody’s surprise. Our beliefs are confirmed that these two programs produce the most successful NBA players. Powerhouses like Arizona, UCLA, Georgetown, Connecticut, Kansas, and Kentucky all round out the top 10, again legitimizing the findings. Incredibly, Division II school Virginia Union cracks the top 50 of the list thanks to the $100 million-plus earnings of Ben Wallace and some of Charles Oakley’s deals from the 90s. DePaul has made the NCAA Tournament just once in the past 12 years, but they rank #31 on this list, thanks to recent pros like Wilson Chandler, Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, and Steven Hunter. They also had Rod Strickland in the late 80s, who signed multiple lucrative contracts in a great 17-year career.

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1. In last night’s annual Kentucky Blue vs. White game, Sophomore Terrence Jones went off for 52 points setting a record for most points scored in the intra-squad scrimmage. While just an exhibition game, the barrage of points has to be encouraging for Wildcat fans hoping for a new and improved Jones. Freshman Anthony Davis guarded Jones for most of the evening, but it didn’t seem to matter who was on him as he scored from just about everywhere on the court. Jones was 24-31 from the field, finishing with 16 rebounds and six assists. Scrimmage or not, 52 points is impressive. Jones displayed an ability to score in a variety of ways — knocking down threes, taking it strong to the rim and even finishing with his much-discussed right hand. Eight Kentucky players scored in double figures overall as freshman Kyle Wiltjer finished with 27 points on 5-8 shooting from beyond the arc and sophomore, Doron Lamb also scored 31 points.
2. Memphis coach Josh Pastner has a message for all SEC teams — don’t ask to play his Memphis Tigers in a non-conference game. Pastner says it won’t happen on his watch. He singled out Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Florida as teams he does not want to play in order to avoid giving a recruiting advantage for those looking to recruit in Memphis. He says the solution, however, is simple. Invite Memphis to play in the SEC. Pastner says, “That will solve everything. You don’t have to ask me; we would play twice. If you’re coming in here, if you want to play Memphis, go to your presidents and vote Memphis in the SEC. That’s the easiest way to do it. If you’re asking me for a non-conference game, it’s not going to happen.” Pastner is either making a good case for Memphis to be considered for expansion to the SEC or he is setting the Tigers up to be the most hated non-conference rival by the entire league.
3. Several SEC teams will be taking part in secret scrimmages over the next couple of weeks to prepare for opening games. Why the secrecy? Well, nobody seems to know, but you may want to delete your browser history if you click on the link. Better safe than sorry. The SEC teams taking part in the secrecy and their mysterious opponents are: Virginia @ Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech @ South Carolina, LSU @ Rice, Arkansas-Little Rock @ Ole Miss, Georgia @ Clemson, UCF @ Florida and Western Kentucky vs Alabama. Anybody with super-spy abilities, we need video and/or pictures. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
4. Ole Miss junior Murphy Holloway has been cleared to play immediately for the Rebel Black Bears. Holloway played two seasons for the Rebs before transferring to South Carolina to care for his daughter. After sitting out a year with the Gamecocks, Holloway decided to transfer back to Mississippi. He had to apply for a waiver with the NCAA to avoid having to sit out another year. The waiver was granted and Holloway will be allowed to play this season. He provides an immediate post presence for Ole Miss as he averaged 10.1 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in his sophomore year. Andy Kennedy’s squad will get an impact player with SEC experience.
5. Tennessee‘s athletic program boasts that their men’s basketball coaching staff has more than 5,000 career college basketball points during their playing careers. In fact, they claim to have more than 1,000 more college points than any other Division I staff. Here’s to hoping that this sets up an SEC coaching staff battle between former players. Rod Strickland vs. Anthony Grant. Orlando Antigua vs. Cuonzo Martin. Billy Donovan vs. John Calipari. John Pelphrey vs. Darrin Horn. Tony Barbee vs. Tracy Webster. Rick Stansbury vs. Kevin Stallings… Okay, maybe not that last one. Having a coaching staff with this much experience can give the Tennessee players a slight boost of confidence, but shouldn’t be much of an advantage otherwise. It is fun to think about a pick-up game of epic proportions at the next SEC media days. Battle royale style.

Have you heard this one before? New York Times. John Calipari.

Shots fired.

[That’s a favorite of the Twitterati.]

In Wednesday’s online edition of the New York Times there appeared an article written by Harvey Araton about Kyrie Irving attending the live NBA Draft Lottery rank-order show and about how Irving could go as the first overall pick to Cleveland. In the piece, Araton makes a point to mention that, according to Kyrie’s father, Drederick, Kyrie’s decision to leave school after a single college season (one in which he played in a mere 11 games due to injury) did not represent a “long-planned escape from the often unholy alliance of Division I sports and academia.” In other words, the father is asserting that Kyrie isn’t just leaving school early to avoid college nor is Kyrie abandoning his plans for obtaining a degree. The elder Irving is a financial broker on Wall Street, and Araton quotes him as saying, “Everybody in my family has gotten their degrees, their master’s. We value the education aspect of it with Kyrie.”

Calipari Is Characterized As Someone Who Devalues Education Because He Embraces One-and-Done Players, a Logical Fallacy Not Many Critics Will Own Up To

Here is Araton’s next sentence in the article:

“Had they not, Kyrie would have been with John Calipari at Kentucky last season, where [Kyrie’s] godfather, [Rod] Strickland, works as an assistant coach.”

Uh…beg pardon? Let’s make sure we got that straight. Using Araton’s own words, what he said there was, “Had they not cared about the education aspect of it with Kyrie, Kyrie would have been with John Calipari at Kentucky last season, where the godfather, [Rod] Strickland, works as an assistant coach.”

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The Morning Five is back, you know you missed it…

1. There is some weirdness surrounding Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson (considering sticking around for his senior year?) and hotshot Euro recruit Enes Kanter (did he take $600k to play in Turkey?).  Oh, and assistant coach Rod Strickland was arrested for DUI over the weekend — his FOURTH time in the last twelve years.  One thing you can say about John Calipari’s program is that it’s never boring or lacking in interesting news.
2. Overall #2 player in the junior high school class Marquis Teague has narrowed his list down to the final five schools: Louisville, Kentucky, Purdue, Indiana, and Cincinnati.  A very midwestern flavor among that quintet.  We still think he joins Rick Pitino at Louisville, ultimately.
3. Is Kansas getting new uniforms?  We don’t have confirmation of this, but some of the buzz suggests that yes, they are.
4. With Fran McCaffery acting as the new sheriff in town, Iowa is losing players hand over fist — sophomore Aaron Fuller and two 2010 signees, Ben Brust and Cody Larson, have all left the program in recent days.
5. Two Providence freshmen players, Johnnie Lacy and James Still, were both charged with assault on a fellow student stemming from an incident early Monday morning.