After months of waiting for UConn to respond the NCAA’s allegations of eight infractions against the Huskies that were filed in May, UConn finally delivered its report to the NCAA today. Unfortunately, none of us will have a chance to see what UConn’s administration and bevy of defense attorneys could come up with for quite a while (assuming that our readers don’t work for the NCAA). The charges, based on a NCAA investigation stemming from an outstanding piece of investigative journalism by Dan Wetzel and Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports about the recruitment of guard Nate Miles (who played an uninspiring 16 minutes as a Husky), include making hundreds of illegal phone calls and text messages (Kelvin Sampson alert!), giving recruits improper benefits including free tickets, and the failure of Jim Calhoun to ensure compliance within the program. Although we will probably have to wait quite a while for the NCAA to deliver its punishment, some experts are expecting the NCAA to come down hard on the Huskies particularly in light of how hard they came down on USC (the NCAA’s college football cash cow). Under Connecticut state law, UConn has ten days to respond to a request from the Associated Press open records request of a summary of the report and some sources within the UConn administration have suggested that they will likely wait until next week to release that information. According to UConn spokesman Kyle Muncy, the report, which takes up “several three-ring binders,” provided to the NCAA will have to be scrubbed of names and other information covered under state and federal privacy laws before it can be released to the public.

What we will be reading through this fall

As of right now the only heads to have rolled are Beau Archibald, head of basketball operations, and Patrick Sellars, an assistant coach. According to reports, Archibald, Sellars and Calhoun are expected to provide their own individualized responses to the NCAA’s allegations. For the time being the most immediate impact on the UConn program will be their continued difficulty attracting top recruits with a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the program. The Huskies have already lost Maurice Harkless, a 2011 recruit who previously committed to UConn before pulling out and committing to St. John’s, and have lost Ater Majok, who has decided to pursue a pro basketball career in Australia, in a move that some of pointed to as an ominous sign of things to come for the program.

After a week off due to some outside issues we are back with a lot of links that should keep you satiated while waiting for college football to come to its anti-climatic finish and the nation can turn its full attention to college basketball.

• ESPN has a new #1 in the class of 2011 rankings: Austin Rivers. Rivers has not committed yet, but most of the speculation that we have heard has him leaning towards Duke although he apparently will also visit Kansas and UNC.
  

  Your new #1 recruit?

• Mike DeCourcy disagrees with the ESPN rankings as he has a new #1: Adonis Thomas. We have previously profiled Thomas and his decision to go the reality TV route for his recruiting process. We never said we doubted his ability. We just questioned his methods of making himself a household name.

More Adonis after the jump.

• Score another one for Kentucky as they landed Kyle Wiltjer, a top 5 power forward in this year’s class, to go with their already ridiculously loaded class of 2011. The question now is whether or not they can land Quincy Miller to complete yet another super class for the Wildcats and essentially end the conversation about whether or not this 3-year run by Kentucky is the greatest group of recruits ever.
• For his part, Miller visited Louisville this weekend and appeared to like it there. Jody Demling has more here about Miller and other top recruits if you are willing to scroll through his chat.
• Speaking of Kentucky, KSR provides us with a quick rundown of Kentucky‘s latest recruiting efforts. As you can guess John Calipari is only going after the big names.
• Josiah Turner, the #2 point guard in this year’s class, has narrowed his list of schools to 5 (Louisville, UCLA,Arizona, Oregon, and Kansas) and has set dates for his projected visits.
• Steve Lavin is beginning to build his “Noah’s Ark” at St. John’s with the addition of Maurice Harkless, a small forward who had initially committed to UConn before backing out recently.
• Rutgers landed its top recruit of the early Mike Rice era when top 10 power forward Kadeem Jack committed to the Scarlet Knights.

Read the rest of this entry »

There were only a few commitments this week and none of the magnitude of Anthony Davis or Isaiah Austin, but many highly rated prospects are beginning to narrow down their lists, which means we should be getting even more news coming out about them in the next few weeks.

• Arizona picked up a pair of commitments when it added Nick Johnson and Sidiki Johnson. Nick, a top 10 shooting guard, appears to be the star of the current Wildcat class, but Sean Miller is still out trying to fill up his class even after the sanctions the NCAA imposed upon the program.
• One of Miller’s target recruits, Jahii Carson, a top 10 point guard, opted against joining the Johnsons in Tucson and instead joined Herb Sendek when he committed to Arizona State last week.
• Staying in the southwestern part of the country, New Mexico State picked up a commitment from French-born Remi Barry who most recently went to high school in California. Barry will have to sit out a year as he didn’t qualify based on NCAA requirement, which is reportedly due to difficulty analyzing his academic transcript from two continents.
• Heading back east, Ohio State picked up a commitment from LaQuinton Ross, a small forward who was rated very highly early in his high school career, but has slid down some ranking lists due to injury. If we were Ross, we would take it easy on the talk of trying to fill Evan Turner‘s shoes in Columbus.
• Bernard Sullivan, a top 15 power forward, announced that he would be committing to Clemson after considering a variety of schools including Harvard, which technically cannot offer an athletic scholarship.
• Myck Kabongo, the #2 rated point guard in this year’s class, has been hearing a lot of rumors that he was wavering on his prior commitment to Texas and decided he needed to put an end to that speculation by coming out and reaffirming his commitment to Rick Barnes and the Longhorns.

• Tony Barbee picked up a pair of commitments this week when Willy Kouassi and Bernard Morena committed to Auburn. The pair, who are from the Ivory Coast and  are currently teammates at a school in Birmingham, Alabama, were reportedly a package deal. Their background is interesting as they have been moved around the country as a pair by their legal guardian/AAU coach (yeah, sounds sketchy to us too).
  Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first things I did on this website upon debuting two years ago was live blog ESPN’s first 24-hour college hoops marathon from start to finish.  You know how it is. You’re the new guy, you want to impress your co-bloggers, and all that.  I volunteered for the job, thinking I’d earn the respect of my RTC-mates and perhaps bring a few new visitors to the site. I assumed the novelty of it (it wasn’t that novel) would, in the same way that circus-goers stroll by the exhibition of freaks, bring a few people by to check in on the weirdo who was staying up and live blogging the whole thing.  I thought it turned out great, especially for a guy’s first time.  I had been awake for 16 hours before it started, too, so there were a few palpitations and many hallucinations by the time it was over, but I was proud. And as I was doing it, I was convinced that the combination of my astute basketball observations with my razor-sharp pop culture references would make this site a household name and propel us into the very heart of the American consciousness. Which, as we all now know, is precisely what happened.

Last year I did it again, despite the wagging fingers of my internist and a couple of specialists. We had some technical difficulties when the internet connection at the RTC Southern Compound tendered its resignation, but with some help of friends who subbed for me while I changed location, we got it done and I was able to finish strong.

Oh sweet, delicious caffeine -- the Marathon blogger's best friend.

We’re still in secret discussions as to what we’re going to do this year to celebrate the national holiday that is the 24-hour hoops marathon. I might insult my cardiovascular and central nervous systems for a third year in a row, or we might have something better in store this year. But because I’ve done it twice and not yet needed a trip to the ER, I — erroneously, in all likelihood — consider myself the authority on the subject.  To celebrate the release of this season’s Marathon schedule and the fact that it’s — *sigh* — only three short months away, here are my 24 favorite things about watching ESPN’s 24 Hour Hoops Marathon from beginning to end.

24. The fact that it’s actually about 26 hours of basketball, not 24. The last game starts at 11:30 PM ET, if it’s on time. Not only is it an “extra” game, but it’s a good time to summarize what you’ve seen during the day and pat yourself on the back.  Bonus hoops?  I’m not complaining, not even after 24 hours.

23. Seeing whether or not ESPNU’s Lowell Galindo will continue to go with the full Windsor knot in his tie.  Others in the sports media have worn it. Only one man has perfected it.  He’s made some appearances without it during the off-season, and stock markets all over the world plummeted each time.

22. The constant string of games is an instant reminder of those sweet days of Championship Week and the NCAA Tournament.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Let us introduce you to the Crossroads Classic, a new four-team event beginning in 2011 that will feature the major college basketball programs in the state of Indiana in a made-for-TV doubleheader — Purdue, Butler, Indiana and Notre Dame.  The 2011 and 2012 events will take place at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, with IU playing Notre Dame and Purdue taking on Butler in the first edition.  Indiana and Purdue will switch opponents in 2012, presumably leading to a back-and-forth matchup cycle for the life of this event.  We’re not old enough to remember the original Hoosier Classic that featured these four teams from 1948-60, but we do recall the “Big Four Classic” event in Indy from the late 80s/early 90s that matched IU and Notre Dame against Kentucky and Louisville in alternating years, and that was pretty cool.  Let’s hope this becomes a new annual holiday tradition with some staying power as well.
2. Former Purdue head coach Gene Keady has been chosen as one of the 2010 recipients of the Joe Lapchick Character Award, annually given to coaches who have shown character traits over their career mimicking that of the former St. John’s legend.  At Purdue, Keady won six Big Ten championships and was invited to seventeen NCAA Tournaments, but he was never able to push through to the promised land of the Final Four, twice reaching the Elite Eight and losing in that round.  Still, he is widely regarded as a man of great integrity, pushing his players to a 90% graduation rate throughout his career, assisting USA Basketball and acting as president for the NABC at one point.  Bob Hurley, Sr., head coach at Jersey City St. Anthony’s, and Jody Conradt, women’s coach at Texas, will join Keady in accepting the award at the semifinals of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in New York on November 18.
3. In a cost-savings measure, the NCAA announced yesterday that it would be cutting some of its drug-testing program to more effectively target the higher-risk sports and athletes for testing.  In other words, profiling.  Translation: if you play football, baseball, run track or lift weights, expect to see more of those nerdy-looking people in the white coats asking for urine samples.
4. We hope to have more up on the ESPN 24 Hours of Hoops spectacuganza soon, but what if Transformers/The Rock/Armageddon director Michael Bay got his hands on the direction of this event?  Andrew Sharp of SBNation takes a look, and if nothing else, the photoshops are kinda funny.  Especially the one involving Bruce Pearl (paging Tyler Smith…).
5. St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin is already thinking outside the box, in that he actually wants his team to have a nice locker room at its home arena, Madison Square Garden.  Imagine that!  Apparently the Red Storm have traditionally used an auxiliary locker room at MSG, but officials are exploring the possibility of allowing Lavin’s team to use the Knicks’ locker room for their home games.  And how long has it been since the Red Storm has been relevant?  We probably shouldn’t be amazed by this news, but we kinda are.

Rob Dauster of Ballin’ is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

Around The Big East:

• NCAA Sanctions: From a basketball perspective, the biggest story in the Big East this summer was up at UConn. The Huskies received a notice of allegations from the NCAA in May, informing them of eight major violations in the recruitment of Nate Miles. UConn will find out its final punishment from the NCAA in October, but the violations have already cost them two assistants — Beau Archibald and Brad Sellers, the son of former Husky star Rod Sellers. Jim Calhoun avoided the heavy artillery — getting grazed with a citation for “failure to monitor” the program, which is ironically what the best coaches need to do to succeed.
• Coaches: The NCAA infractions weren’t the only reason Calhoun was in the news. Ailing health as he nears 70, impending NCAA sanctions, a team that is going to need some rebuilding, and the fact his contract was up made many believe Calhoun would hang ’em up this summer. Wrong. He signed a five-year deal instead.  Calhoun had far from the worst summer for coaches in the Big East. Rick Pitino let the world — and every single opposing student section — know about his 15-second tryst on a restaurant table with one Karen Sypher. Bob Huggins fell, a result of being in Vegas the medicine he took on an empty stomach making him light-headed, and broke seven ribs. Fred Hill was run out of Rutgers, in part because he lost it on the Pittsburgh baseball team’s coaching staff. Through all of that, perhaps the worst summer was had by Bobby Gonzalez, who lost his job at Seton Hall, had the entire episode come out in the New York Times, sued his former employer, was unable to receive credentials at the NBA Draft, and then find himself arrested for attempting to steal a $1,400 man-purse satchel. The three new coaches to the conference: Oliver Purnell left Clemson for DePaul; Mike Rice left Robert Morris to fill in for Hill at Rutgers; and Kevin Willard left Iona and took Gonzo’s spot at Seton Hall.
• LOIs: Three Big East teams made headlines for issues with recruits signing LOIs. DePaul initially refused to release Walter Pitchford, Jr., from his LOI. He signed with Jerry Wainwright, who was at DePaul before Purnell was tabbed. After appealing both the school and the NCAA, DePaul finally released Pitchford. The same thing is currently happening to Joseph Young at Providence, who as of this writing has not yet been granted a release by the Friars. At Marquette, DJ Newbill was dropped from his LOI when Buzz Williams had the opportunity to bring in former top 100 recruit Jamil Wilson, a transfer from Oregon. All in all, Big East members did not shine bright this summer.
• Back to Providence: Man oh man, did they have a rough summer. Two freshmen kicked out of school for beating up a student. Their star, Greedy Peterson, thrown off the team. Another player arrested.  Did Keno Davis have this much trouble in mind when he took the job two years ago?
• Seton Hall Didn’t Fare Much Better: Aside from their coach being kicked to the curb, the Pirates had their best big man spend nearly a month in the hospital because he collapsed after finishing a workouts and saw Robert “Sticks” Mitchell get arrested for (get this) robbing eight people at gunpoint just two days after being kicked off the team.

Power Rankings:

1. Villanova: While the Wildcats lose All-American Scottie Reynolds, Jay Wright‘s club (as always) will be more than fine in the backcourt. Corey Fisher, fresh off an alleged 105-point performance in a Bronx summer league, and Maalik Wayns will be as dynamic as any backcourt in the country and should be able to thrive in Scottie’s absence. Corey Stokes is still going to be a lights out shooter. Dominic Cheek and James Bell will be dangerous on the wings. Up front, the five-man rotation of Antonio Pena, Mouph Yarou, Isaiah Armwood, Maurice Sutton, and JayVaughn Pinkston gives Villanova a very deep, very talented roster for the upcoming season. The Wildcats should compete for the Big East title and, depending on how well some players develop (Armwood, Cheek, Wayns, Yarou) and how good a couple of freshmen are (Bell, Pinkston), Nova could very well make a run at the Final Four.
2. Pittsburgh: The Panthers were the surprise of the Big East last season, and with the majority of their roster coming back this season, its tough to envision Pitt falling off. Pitt has almost reached the level of a Wisconsin — no matter who is on their roster, this is a team that is disciplined and well-coached to the point that they are always going to be competitive. As always, expect a gritty, defensive-minded team from the Panthers. An already-solid back court of Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker, and Travon Woodall will be bolstered by the addition of freshmen Isaiah Epps, JJ Moore and Cameron Wright, as well as Lamar Patterson finally getting healthy. Gilbert Brown, who missed the first half of last season due to academic issues, will be back at the small forward spot. Brown had an inconsistent season in 2010, but showed flashes of some serious potential. Gary McGhee and Nasir Robinson will bolster the front line, but the real x-factor on this team is going to be sophomore Dante Taylor. Taylor was one of the most highly-touted recruits last year, but it took him awhile to adjust to the Big East. If Taylor can live up to his promise, Pitt is a potential Final Four team. If not, this is still a club that will be competing for a league title.
3. Syracuse: It is easy to look at the Orange and think that, with the players they lost (Wes Johnson, Andy Rautins, Arinze Onuaku), they will be down next season. Well, they might not win a Big East title, but they certainly will be in the mix atop the conference standings. Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine will anchor the backcourt, with freshman Dion Waiters providing an offensive spark as an off-guard. Kris Joseph should blossom into a dangerous weapon as a slasher on the wing, and if he can add some strength and a jumper this summer, could very well be in the running as a first-team all-Big East selection. Rick Jackson will be paired with Fab Melo, who Jim Boeheim has been raving about (he raved about Johnson last summer, and look how that turned out), in the frontcourt. With guys like CJ Fair, Mookie Jones, James Southerland and DaShonte Riley providing minutes off the bench, there is no doubt Syracuse will be a good team. How good — borderline top-25 or a potential Big East champ — remains to be seen. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that we’re all back in the swing of things from the holiday weekend, let’s dive into another set of morning links.

1. Former Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez was arrested under suspicion of trying to steal a $1,395 man purse from a Ralph Lauren store in a New Jersey mall. The story says “satchel”, but we all know that’s just a nice way of saying man purse. We don’t know which man purse it is, but these are the most likely options (purse 1 or purse 2).
2. Adam Zagoria brings you the winner of future all-name college basketball teams, God’s Gift Achiuwa, who is being recruited St. John’s. Zagoria missed a great potential finishing joke when he forgot to mention the upcoming moment where Knick fans boo the selection of God’s Gift.
3. The Legends Classic announced the match-ups and locations for the regional match-ups of its early season tournament with Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Michigan, and UTEP hosting a bunch of sacrificial lambs–Albany, Bowling Green, Detroit, Gardner-Webb, Mercer, Niagara, Western Carolina, and William & Mary.
4. Georgia’s athletic department took a step toward getting back to business as usual by naming Frank Crumley interim AD on Tuesday.  University prez Michael Adams, though, has formed a committee who will search outside the UGA system for a permanent replacement for Damon Evans.
5. Celebrate we will, for it’s the July evaluation period.  Coaches might not be able to talk to available recruits, but they may watch them as much as they want and determine where — that is, on whom — they’ll concentrate their recruiting efforts.  The period kicked off with a huge showcase in Indianapolis featuring over 4,000 basketball players as well as many of the biggest names in the coaching game.

Without question, the condition of John Wooden is the most important concern in the world of college basketball right now, and certainly beyond it, and we will be updating the site as needed on that issue.  Because that is obviously a subject that demands much greater reflection, today’s Morning Five links five other stories relevant to our sport.

1. This has been a very busy week for college hoops news despite the calendar showing June.  We know that it won’t be today as we had all originally heard, but at some point in the near future USC will learn its NCAA-meted fate as a result of the Reggie Bush/OJ Mayo/Tim Floyd eras.  Should the Trojan faithful be worried?  Mike DeCourcy believes that the hoops program will come out relatively unscathed, but Floyd and the footballers?  Not so sure.
2. Is the Big 12 seemingly disintegrating right before our very eyes?  It would certainly appear to be the case after yesterday’s report that the Pac-10 is looking to raid the southern half of the conference and a stalwart such as Missouri failing to calm the whispers about its imminent move to the Big Ten.
3. Great story today by ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neil about Bill Courtney, the new head honcho at Cornell, and his boundless optimism.  He definitely seems like the kind of guy for whom it would not just be fun to play, but maybe play hoops with, as O’Neil references in the article.  It’s tough taking over a program that just had one of its best seasons and just lost its key players, but it sounds like Courtney will enjoy and smile right through any weighty expectations.
4. We know about DePaul not releasing Walter Pitchford from his LOI, and here we go again.  Joseph Young, son of former Houston star and Phi Slamma Jamma member Michael Young (who also happens to be Director of Basketball Operations at UH), had signed on to attend Providence, but wants out so he can be nearer to home and a sick aunt with whom he’s very close.  Providence is saying no dice, and the Youngs aren’t happy.
5. This was posted a couple of days ago, but if you haven’t read Seth Davis’ article about Steve Lavin immersing himself in his new position as the caretaker at St. John’s, here’s another chance.  Evidently the guy’s been so busy with vital aspects of the job like, er, recruiting, fundraising, and finding some assistants, that the he hasn’t even found a permanent residence in NYC yet.

The biggest coaching news today had to do with a couple of extensions of existing contracts.  First, Louisville extended Rick Pitino’s deal through 2017, which would put the historically itinerant coach at 64 should he remain at the school through the life of the contract.  He’s already been at Louisville for nine seasons, which is his longest stay in any one place in his career.  He will also receive a $3.6M loyalty bonus on Friday as part of the new deal.  The other extension went to Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon, who had been rumored to have received an offer from Oregon earlier this week.  His extension will keep him at Pitt through the 2018 season, and we don’t see any chance he leaves the situation he has there short of one of the major players calling (Duke, Kentucky, UCLA, etc.).   Meanwhile, George Mason’s Jim Larranaga, riding a 12-year winning season streak, also received an extension from his school through the 2016 season.  The all-time leader in wins at GMU, he’ll have plenty of time to put together another opportunity for a run in the Tournament.

New St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin believes that the NCAA Tournament is in the near-future of his program with 94% of its offense returning next season from a team that was 17-16 and made the NIT.  He expects to recruit nationally and is hoping to hire an all-star staff of east coast guys to help with recruiting.  One name that he’s hoping to bring on board in an advisory capacity is former Purdue great Gene Keady, the coach who gave Lavin his first job.  At least one columnist believes that the reason Lavin (and UTEP’s Tim Floyd) are working again is because of their visibility.

Quick trigger in mid-majorville, as Holy Cross fired its head coach Sean Kearney after a single 9-22 season.  The AD said that the dismissal was an affirmation of how important basketball is to Holy Cross.  So… Billy Gillispie can get two years at Kentucky, but Kearney only one at HC?  Seems ridiculous, but there’s probably more behind the scenes to this than just wins and losses.

Two major names announced today for the NBA Draft: Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney and Kentucky’s Daniel Orton.  Delaney, the ACC first-teamer who led the league in scoring this year at 20.2 PPG will test the waters to see what his options are.  As of now, he is not considered a serious prospect, but that may change based on his workouts.  Orton only averaged 3/3 in 13 minutes per game for the Wildcats playing behind DeMarcus Cousins, but scouts still like his 6’10, 255-lb frame and his ‘upside,’ whatever that means.

Pete Thamel of the New York Times is reporting tonight that Steve Lavin is set to be hired at St. John’s soon, as an unnamed source familiar with the proceedings labeled today as a “productive and positive dialogue” between the two parties.  Lavin has spent the last seven seasons as a commentator for ESPN after being fired from UCLA after a disastrous 10-19 season in 2002-03.  He was reportedly close to accepting the NC State position in 2006, but ultimately decided against it to remain in television.  This is a solid hire in our view.  Lavin has name-brand recognition with high school kids who have grown up watching him on ESPN, and he’s always been a strong recruiter anyway.  So long as he can connect with NYC-area kids, he should be successful there.  St. John’s has been down for so long that merely getting to a Sweet Sixteen level of success with regularity would probably give Lavin lifelong job security in Jamaica, NY.  And we’ve always had a bit of feeling that Lavin feels he got a raw deal in Westwood, so he should be all the more motivated to prove his doubters wrong there.

The other big news today was a report out of Eugene that Oregon was prepared to offer Michigan State’s Tom Izzo the richest head coaching contract in college basketball history — greater than Kentucky coach John Calipari’s $32M/8-year deal he received last spring.  Phil Knight is backing the search financially and this squares with the rumors that UO was going to attempt to hire a big name this year.  Izzo said today that he was happy where he’s at, which is currently coaching yet another Spartan team into the Final Four.  It probably won’t be Izzo, but someone will bite on this.  The numbers are simply too large to pass up.

In other coaching carousel news, Marshall’s Donnie Jones has taken the head coaching position at Central Florida.  He replaces Kirk Speraw, who was fired two weeks ago after compiling the all-time wins record in eleven seasons at UCF.  So… does this mean that CUSA FrOY and DPOY Hassan Whiteside is going pro? His mother says that early reports of his going pro are premature and that no decision has yet been made.

We’ve already discussed Kansas center Cole Aldrich and Michigan guard Manny Harris’ decisions to go pro in other spaces, but two other prominent players announced their intentions to go pro today.  Seton Hall sophomore center Herb Pope will test the waters, but is likely to stay in the draft, and UTEP junior center Derrick Caracter will also leave school for professional opportunities.  Pope is projected as a late first rounder, but Caracter at this point is not seen as a legitimate prospect given some of his previous offcourt troubles.