Friday, March 19 (all CBS)
12:25pm - Minnesota vs. Xavier
12:30pm - Cornell vs. Temple
2:30pm - Siena vs. Purdue
2:35pm - Missouri vs. Clemson
4:45pm - Utah St vs. Texas A&M
7:10pm - FSU vs. Gonzaga
7:15pm - Ga Tech vs. Okla St
7:20pm - NMSU vs. Michigan St
9:30pm - Syracuse vs. Vermont
9:40pm - Houston vs. Maryland
9:45pm - Louisville vs. California
Joe Dumars’ son, 6′5 freshman forward Jordan (is that a joke?), has already left the South Florida program and enrolled at Michigan for the remainder of his career. He’s only played 27 minutes so far this season, scoring all six of his points in a single game against Kent State.
Oklahoma State’s Marshall Moses was suspended for one game almost immediately after his arrest for possession of marijuana and driving on a suspended license. Averaging 11/10 on the season, he will miss tonight’s game against Coppin State.
Tennesseeupdate from the AD himself: “we start at dismissal and work our way backwards.” Sounds about right. Let’s hope he means it.
Here’s Seth Davis‘ annual Stock Report. This is always a fun read, and his UNC “sell” looks particularly prescient after last night’s loss to Charleston, but there will always be a few quibbles on something like this. We will not, for example, be buying anything Florida is selling, and we are definitely unloading what little Louisville stock we still have lying around, but overall, pretty good assessment.
Happy New Year, everyone! Everyone here at Rush the Court hopes you had a safe and fun evening last night which will be followed by the best 2010 you can hope for. We feel blessed here with the growth in readers, notoriety and access that RTC continues to have, and we’re certain that this will be our best year yet.
A late Xmas present for Jay Wright and his Villanova Wildcats today, as freshman center Mouphtaou Yarou will be back to play after being diagnosed with hepatitis B earlier this year. It will undoubtedly take Yarou a while to get his sea legs back, but even if he can provide 15-20 minutes/game in hustle, rebounding and defense, that would be a tremendous benefit to VU throughout Big East play.
Here’s a nice piece from George Dorhmann on USC’s Mike Gerrity, who is without a doubt making the single biggest impact as a transfer player this season anywhere. USC was barely a D1 program when he was on the bench.
We’d agree with Goodman’s sentiment that UConn is overrated this year, but part of the problem is that there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of difference between teams in the #10-#30 range. Interesting about Calhoun’s recruiting, though.
Kevin Laue, the Manhattan College player with only one arm who was featured here as well as many other places in the past year, got the first point of his collegiate career Wednesday night in a game versus Vanderbilt. He played a season-high seventeen minutes and hit one of four free throws while also totaling eight rebounds! A great story just keeps getting better.
Illinois guard Alex Legion will leave his second team in three years as he has plans to transfer from Illinois during the semester break. The former Parade All-American clearly exhibits a disconnect between his actual talent level and his production, as the 6′5 junior guard with a career 32% shooting percentage and 3.8 PPG average just hasn’t been able to find a comfortable home in his college career. Mike DeCourcy points out that Legion’s second go-round on transferring mid-season has cost him up to as many as fifty games over the life of his career.
Kalin Lucas: suspended by Tom Izzo. No legal or school issues involved, but it’s clear that Izzo is trying to send a message to his team’s captain (and his team) that they’re not performing up to expectations.
Iowa’s Anthony Tucker has pleaded guilty to public intoxication. He’ll pay a little less than $200 in fines and is working toward reinstatement on his team given the requirements of the university’s student-athlete substance-abuse policy.
Here’s Luke Winn’s early warning signs column on which teams are likely overrated and underrated via the nonconference schedule. It’s a great article and very enlightening, but the point about Kentucky is apparent — the young UK players aren’t taking lesser teams as seriously as they should (until last night, gulp). That could be very different by February, however.
Marquette lost freshman forward Jeronne Maymon today when coach Buzz Williams announced that he was transferring from the school after just nine games, leaving the Golden Eagles with a mere nine scholarship players. Or are they? According to Maymon’s father, it was news to him and his son is “loving every minute of being” at Marquette. Stay tuned on this one.
Food for thought: Seth Davis reminds us that Kansas guard Xavier Henry is pretty solid in his own right, while the rest of us have become a sticky hot wet mess over Kentucky’s John Wall.
If you didn’t read John Stevens’ report from the Crosstown Shootout on Sunday night, grab yourself a cup of joe, relax, and let yourself be taken away to a college basketball nirvana.
Roy’s ejectee Brian King was interviewed by Dane Huffman at WRAL Sports yesterday, and he unequivocally states that he was not intoxicated and that he did nothing to warrant the ire that the UNC coach projected at him after he heckled Deon Thompson. We gave our opinion on this yesterday, and yeah, this pretty much confirms what we thought. Roy’s knowing smirk at the end of his press conference interview is telling — he’s the teflon don and he knows it.
Heading into an interesting Saturday of games, we’ve got a few dollops of knowledge that will help you navigate things. Keep in mind we’ll be doing our first weekend Boom Goes the Dynamite this afternoon, in addition to RTC Lives for Butler vs. Ohio State and the Wooden Classic this afternoon…
UNC’s Marcus Ginyard will be held out of today’s game against Presbyterian with pain in his foot. A UNC doctor was quick to say that this pain was unrelated to last year’s stress fracture that Ginyard suffered, but it is in the same foot. This is a ‘precautionary’ measure to keep Ginyard from fracturing the foot. UNC undoubtedly won’t need the defensive dynamo today, but against #2 Texas next Saturday? Yeah, probably want him in the lineup then.
Some Comings and Goings. Wake Forest junior guard Konner Tucker is leaving the school after seven games (he was JuCo transfer), and St. Mary’s fifth-year senior guard Wayne Hunter is out for the rest of the season after tearing his ACL in a game this week against Utah State. In terms of relative importance, the Hunter loss is much more significant, as he was averaging 12/3 for the season and was one of the best perimeter defenders for the Gaels. Tucker was only averaging 2.2 PPG in just over five minutes per contest.
Unless Notre Dame is interested, and they’re not, the only way this makes sense is if the Big Ten can poach another major conference football power. Missouri? Kentucky? West Virginia? Pittsburgh? Louisville? It’s fun to speculate about this, but from a hoops perspective we’d hate to see the Big East change at the top (you can send the bottom quarter to the A10 or America East for all we care).
Want to get ready for today’s games — Seth Davis, Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman give us a pretty good rundown of what to watch this weekend.
Pitt’s Jamie Dixon picked up some great news today when it was announced that Centenary’s Chase Adams, a 5′10 waterbug point guard originally from Baltimore, is transferring to play for the Panthers and he will be eligible immediately. With Centenary’s recent decision to move down from D1 to D3, all of its players were given the option to transfer to another school without penalty. Dixon must be ecstatic because his returning backcourt is relatively inexperienced (Ashton Gibbs was the presumed incumbent), but now he’ll be adding the 2009 Summit League DPOY, a player who was eighth nationally in steals per game (2.7). This goes along with some nice numbers in scoring (14.6), rebounds (4.2) and assists (4.5) per game. It sounds as if Adams will fit the Panther ethos of hard work and defense to a T…
Elliot Williams to Memphis. Nothing surprising here, as we reported last week that Elliot Williams was leaving Duke to move closer to home to attend to his mother’s illness. The only school that made reasonable sense was his hometown University of Memphis, and Gary Parrish reported yesterday that Williams will indeed become a Tiger. If Williams can get the NCAA to approve his hardship waiver so that he can play next season, he should walk right into a starting position at the PG spot for Josh Pastner’s squad. While we’re on the subject of Memphis getting new players, former Kentucky player (well, he never actually played) Matt Pilgrim is probably transferring to Memphis with the assistance of new UK coach John Calipari. Pilgrim, a transfer from Hampton who sat out last season at UK, wasn’t part of the new regime’s plans. Since he didn’t want to leave Lexington but was no longer welcome, Coach Cal is trying to facilitate a seamless transfer for him.
The NCAA Shell Game. Seth Davis wrote an article last week that illustrates just how one-sided the NCAA scholarship system can be. When new coaches (e.g.,Isiah Thomas and John Calipari) get to their new schools, they often feel the need to run off players (such as Pilgrim, mentioned above) who don’t fit in their lofty plans for the program. That’s all fine and well for replacing lesser players, but the whole house of cards gets exposed when a coach wants to keep a player who otherwise would like to transfer. Meet Freddy Asprilla, a 6′10 Colombian center at FIU who had a great freshman year and wants to transfer to a major conference school, but whom isn’t being released by FIU simply because, well, they don’t have to. There’s an adage about the deck getting stacked somewhere in here.
FIU Cheerleading. We know it’s purely coincidental that FIU is enabling cost-cutting measures by cutting its cheerleaders during the same year that they hired Isiah Thomas to coach their men’s basketball team (Thomas isn’t taking a base salary this year). Still, the rich irony of FIU wholly dismantling the cheerleading team within months of Thomas’ arrival on campus isn’t lost on anyone. Sometimes the unintended consequences are more compelling than the intended ones.
What’s this? Two days in a row with FBs? Indeed. There’s a lot to get caught up on…
Duke Downer. The biggest news today was the news that Duke point guard Elliot Williams (he of the happy, happy feet) will be leaving the Duke program so that he can move closer to Memphis, his hometown. Reportedly his mother is facing a life-threatening illness there and Williams wants to be nearby for support as she battles her disease. He plans on petitioning the NCAA to waive the one-year transfer obligation so that he will be able to play immediately at his new school (presumably Memphis). This is undoubtedly a major blow to Coach K’s backcourt in 2009-10, as he’ll now be left with only Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith to log minutes there. Big things were expected of Williams based on his insertion into the starting lineup at midseason and his excellent all-around play down the stretch. Duke fans are largely crushed by this news, given the unfortunate circumstances causing it as well as the huge, gaping hole in the backcourt it leaves (while, ironically, the perfect fix named Seth Curry can only wait and watch next season). In other Duke news that came out today, Coach K is the highest paid Duke employee by far ($3.6M last year) – no surprise there.
Like Father, Not Like Son. A bit of a surprise today is that Jeffrey Jordan (you know, that Mike guy’s son) is ending his basketball career at Illinois to focus on his studies. This comes on the heels of news from earlier this year that Jordan’s hard work and commitment to the program had resulted in a scholarship for the rest of his time at the school. Guess he’d had enough. Actually, we can totally understand this. Jordan was undeniably under more pressure to perform than any walk-on turned scholarship player in the history of college basketball, and although it made for nice copy, it’s safe to say that Jordan probably didn’t love the sport anywhere near the same as his famous dad. He probably reached a personal epiphany of some kind that included a heart-to-heart with pops, and once MJ gave him the blessing, he’s now free to pursue the activities he truly enjoys. Good for him. And good for him for working his tail off in his two years at Illinois to go from walk-on to scholarship to expected contributor, despite limited talent.
Vegas, Baby. The WAC has followed its mid-major brethren WCC and Mountain West Conferences by moving its postseason tournament to Las Vegas, where the Orleans Arena will host beginning in 2011. This comes on the heels of a very successful WCC Tournament at the Orleans last year, where a sold-out, raucous arena was shown on national television for St. Mary’s vs. Gonzaga. The MWC already holds its conference tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center down the street, and this move by the WAC means that Vegas will become the basketball destination for every legitimate conference (save the Pac-10) west of the Rockies every March. Sounds like a really fun environment for fans of these leagues.
No, No, No. Everyone got this wrong. Derrick Rose wasn’t flashing a gang sign in the below pic, he was practicing universal remote hand signals for the letter “B” on the SAT exam.
It’s been a light few days, but we’re here to get you caught up on the few things surfacing…
Florida’s Alex Tyus was transferring, now he’s not. This confused us until we remembered that he learned from Donovan two-step from the master himself.
Bruce Pearl’s romantic overtures know no bounds… not even the head football coach’s wife (not that we blame him).
Oddly, USC is no longer recruiting big man Renardo Sidney (who moved to LA three yrs ago for marketing purposes). Now he may be heading back home to Mississippi St? Stay tuned on this one.
Will Syracuse be the one-year football destination for Greg Paulus?
The NBA’s early entry deadline was Sunday – here are a few of the last-minute entries: Mississippi St.’s Jarvis Varnado (no agent), UConn’s Ater Majok (no agent), Tennessee’s Tyler Smith (no agent), USC’s Taj Gibson (no agent) and BYU’s Jonathan Tavernari (no agent).
It’s hard to believe this didn’t happen now that the FBI has brought charges against Karen Sypher for attempting to extort Rick Pitino for $10M, two cars, a paid-off house and college tuition. Wow. Regardless, we have to agree with Goodman when he says nothing good is ultimately coming from all of this.
He was only “holding it” for someone named “Luck.” Welcome to Nevada basketball in the post-Mark Fox era.
Wichita St.’s Gregg Marshall got a one-year contract extension (to 2015) after an improved second year at the school.
Good to see the NCAA gumshoes going after the big boys like Northeastern, who received two years probation on Friday.
Who? Depaul’s Dar Tucker (Mr. 0-18, with an agent) and Southern Miss’ Jeremy Wise (no agent) have decided to throw their hats in the early entry ring as well.
Dolla Dolla Bills. Mizzou’s Mike Anderson parlayed 31 wins and an Elite 8 appearance into seven more years on his contract at a minimum of $1.35M per.
Isiah Will Work for Free (sorta). FIU introduced Isiah Thomas as their new head coach today, and he will not take a salary of $200-300K this season (the Knicks are still paying him $12M for his final two years on his contract). Jeff Goodman thinks there’s a reasonable chance it might work out for Isiah there, maybe he took some of those sleeping pills as well? Mike Freeman has a slightly different take.
Which of the ten (now nine) unbeaten teams are frauds and which are legit? Not sure we agree about Minnesota, Goodman.
On Jan. 7th, ESPN will have its announcers switch roles, using its NBA team of Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Mike Tirico to call the Duke-Davidson game, and its college team of Dan Shulman and Dick Vitale to call the Heat-Nuggets game. One can only hope that Van Gundy and Jackson will get into an argument over how to best defend Stephen Curry.
Weekend Wrap. The weekend was generally light, with only a few really good matchups. So we’ll just hit the highlight games in short order tonight.
Saturday Games.
LSU 64, Washington St. 52. Is LSU a team to watch in the SEC West? Well, the Tigers are 10-0 at home and 0-1 on the road against the nation’s 300th toughest schedule. You tell us.
Kentucky 76, Florida Atlantic 69. The Cats struggled in this one as a team, but Patrick Patterson (27/14/3 blks) is entering himself into first-team all-american consideration with his consistently superb numbers. Consider that PP is averaging 20/10 on 71% shooting and is the second most efficient player in America (behind only Blake Griffin).
Louisville 82, UAB 62. Rick Pitino benched Earl Clark and Andre McGee and the Cards responded with the new lineup by pulling away from an overmatched UAB team with little depth. T-Will nearly had a trip-dub with 21/10/7 assts.
West Virginia 76, Ohio St. 48. Unbeaten no more. WVU put the smack down on the Buckeyes in their house, ending a 14-game winning streak and giving Bob Huggins sweet vindication given his previous snubs by the flagship university of the state of Ohio. A 27-4 run in the mid to late-second half did the trick.
Michigan St. 82, Oakland 66. This game is only notable because Goran Suton started, contributing 16/9 in the process. A healthy and effective Suton is key to MSU’s season.
Sunday Games.
St. Mary’s 87, San Jose St. 78 (Sat.) and St. Mary’s 76, Morgan St. 60. Don’t look now, but SMC has now won nine in a row against a top 60 schedule.
Wagner 68, NJIT 58. That’s 45 Ls in a row now. The next best chance for a win – try 1/21 against Bryant University.
UCLA 78, Lousiana Tech 55. It’s hard to tell whether UCLA is actually improving, but they’ve won their last six by an average of 25+ pts. Jrue Holiday had 12/10/5 assts/3 stls today.
Illinois St. 72, Missouri St. 69 (OT). In a key early-season MVC matchup, ISU stayed unbeaten. Down 15 in the mid-second half, the Redbirds used a 22-2 run to take the lead and held on in OT.
Florida St. 82, W. Kentucky 69. FSU pulled away late against the most schizophrenic team in America behind Toney Douglas’ 27/5/5 assts.
USC 66, Oral Roberts 56. Demar DeRozan had his third consecutive solid game (18/5) as the Trojans held off ORU.
Virginia 88, Georgia Tech 84 (OT). In an entertaining battle of two teams going nowhere this season, the Wahoos were able to steal a conference road win behind super frosh Sylvan Landesberg’s 26/6/5 assts. We still can’t figure out why Ga Tech isn’t better than they are with the talent they have on that roster.
Lipscomb 74, Indiana 69. This is what we were afraid of with this IU squad. With 5 minutes to go in the first half, IU led 37-16. They were outscored 58-32 the rest of the way. A four-win Big 10 slate should be considered a huge success this year.
Florida 74, Winthrop 45. Winthrop (1-10) is an abomination these days. Halftime score – Florida 53, Winthrop 11.
Minnesota 82, High Point 56. Minny is now 12-0, its best start in sixty years. That Tubby hire looks good right now, doesn’t it?
Siena 75, St. Joseph’s 74. Siena rallied from eighteen down to get this win, and in turn, may have saved its season.
UNC 97, Rutgers 75. Another methodical blowout win for the Heels. Hansbrough had 26/10. Up next for Rutgers… #3 Pitt, then #2 UConn.
Stanford 111, Texas Tech 66. This was the most shocking score of the weekend. Certainly right now Johnny Dawkins is looking like a national COY candidate – he’s never lost a game!
On tap Monday (all times EST). Big Monday gets a jump before the new year with a blockbuster game – Georgetown at UConn. The nightcap – Cincy at Memphis – isn’t half-bad either.
Some post-election madness in the college hoops world…
You’re my boy, Blue! RTC fav Ken Mink scored two foul shots in his debut for Roane State Monday night (which makes him 71% better than Ish Smith), for his first collegiate points in fifty-two years. Props to Deadspin for mentioning this, but we had the same thought – who fouls a 73-year old basketball player? Seriously, dude, move your feet a little.
Ohio St. forward Nicola Kecman will miss twelve games stemming from his association with a semi-pro team in his native Serbia. His first game back will be Jan. 6 at Michigan St.
The Daily Tar Heel reports that Tyler Hansbrough may only miss two weeks of practice relating to his stress reaction after all. We’re still not sure they’re getting through November unbeaten, though.
Nice, Arizona. AD Jim Livengood denied freshman center Jeff Withey’s request for release from his scholarship. We see no possible good coming out of this.
The legendary Gus Gilchrist received his waiver from the NCAA and will be eligible to play for Stan Heath’s South Florida team on Dec. 14 – set your Tivos now.
Interesting thought – will Barack Obama’s presidency help Craig Robinson’s recruiting efforts in any way at all? It’s worth tracking…
Our first big transfer news of the impending season occurred today, as the word from Gator Country is that PG Jai Lucas informed Billy Donovan of his intention to transfer from the program at the end of this semester. From the Orlando Sentinel:
Lucas informed Donovan of his decision at around 12:30 p.m. After starting all 36 games and averaging 8.5 points and 30.1 minutes per game as a freshman, Lucas described Florida as “not being the best fit for him,” Donovan said. Being far away from his home of Bellaire, Texas, also contributed. Lucas, who plans to stay on campus until the fall semester ends, has yet to choose a new school, Donovan said. “There was a point where Jai wasn’t totally happy,” Donovan said. “He wanted to try to make it work…I hate to see him go, but my biggest thought for him is I want to see him happy wherever he goes. We haven’t even talked about schools.”
It seems peculiar that Lucas has suddenly become unhappy two weeks into practice of a new season. In our experience, that usually belies an issue of ’the writing on the wall’ in terms of another player kicking his butt up and down and all over the court in practice. Despite Donovan’s admonitions about Lucas’ exit not having to do with playing time, we’re not buying it – so who could be causing Lucas to feel expendable?
Our best guess – freshman guard Erving Walker. Donovan has already publicly called the 5′8 freshman Walker a “formidable backcourt player,” and his 13/6 assts in Monday’s debut was the newsworthy takeaway from that exhibition. It’s no secret that Lucas, who had a solid overall freshman year in 2008, struggled with distributing the ball. Despite playing over 30 minutes per game, he only averaged 2.3 assists (4th on the team) and accounted for merely 12% of his team’s assists – not great numbers for a point guard.
There’s also the issue of class of 2009 stud Kenny Boynton, who will arrive in Gainesville next season as the Next Big Thing. While Boynton is expected to play shooting guard, his presence will put additional talented bodies into an already-crowded backcourt. We don’t find it coincidental that Boynton’s commitment to UF came last week, Walker’s hype began earlier this week, and Lucas’ decision came today. Solid logical pathway there.
What say ye, Gator fans? Where will Lucas end up? Oklahoma State, Texas, Kentucky?
We stumbled across this blurb today and hadn’t seen it anywhere else. Ken Mink is a sweet-shooting guard from Tennessee who hopes to see a few minutes a game this season for his new school, Roane State (TN) Community College. He transferred in from Lees (KY) Junior College, but his route between the two schools was more than a little unorthodox. You see, Mink, a self-described adventurer and athlete, last played college ball when it was whiter than snow in 1956, and he is now 73 years old. From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:
Ken Mink was shooting baskets in his driveway about this time last year when he had a sports epiphany. “I had been knocking down shot after shot, so when I came in the house I told my wife, ‘I’ve still got it,’ ” said Mink, a 73-year-old semi-retired journalist. “She said, ‘You’ve got what?’ I said, ‘I can still play.’ “ Roane State coach Randy Nesbit took Mink up on his offer. “I’m not very good at saying no,” said Nesbit, who just turned 50. “It’s a gesture of good will to help a fine man find closure. Why not?”
(photo credit: Saul Young)
Hey, we just think that’s great. We’re sure that the Raider players will love the daily routine of ridiculous touch fouls, razor-sharp elbows, 60-lb metal knee braces and standstill corner jumpers, but the important thing is that everyone gets to live their dream, right?
Seriously though, if we’re puttering around half as well as this old codger at his age, we’d be thrilled. Although from the looks of it in the video here, Mink needs to step it up on D…
Corey Johns is the RTC correspondent for the America East conference.
Predicted Order of Finish:
Boston U (13-3)
Vermont (12-4)
UMBC (12-4)
Hartford (9-7)
Binghamton (8-8)
Albany (8-8)
New Hampshire (5-11)
Maine (2-14)
Stony Brook (2-14)
What You Need to Know (WYN2K). Last year nobody could predict what happened in this conference. One of the pre-season favorites, Vermont, had a new star in Marquis Blakely but still couldn’t crack the top two in the league, while the other preseason favorite, Boston U., didn’t even finish in the top half of the league. UMBC and Hartford shocked everybody by being the two top teams. Both built their team in different ways: UMBC through transfers, Hartford through the tremendous improvement of returning players (along with a freshman and one transfer). But this year don’t expect Vermont and Boston U. to disappoint – they should be ready to regain their spots on top of the conference.
Predicted Champion. Boston U. (NCAA #15 Seed) This is truly a toss up between Boston U. and Vermont. Both teams are similar – Vermont has one of the top forward/guard tandems in the conference in Marquis Blakely and Mike Trimboli, and BU has John Holland and Corey Lowe. Last year BU’s Holland won the freshman of the year award and was a major reason for their turnaround at the end. After a horrid 5-14 start to the season, the Terriers put it together and finished 9-3 to advance to the semifinals of the conference tournament. BU returns every significant player from last year’s team, including second team all conference point guard Corey Lowe (Am East #2 scorer – 18.8 ppg). But what truly sets Boston U. above Vermont is that head coach Dennis Wolff runs a very good defense on his team. They gave up the least amount of points per game in the conference last year (64.8 ppg) and if the offense picks up they should win the title.
Others Considered.Vermont has a lot of talent on their team and can certainly put together a run for another conference championship (three titles from 2003-05). Marquis Blakely and Mike Trimboli are a great one-two punch but the Catamounts added another factor with Maurice Joseph, a transfer from Michigan State who averaged 6.2 ppg there as a freshman. The only thing that might hurt them is they lose two starters including Kyle Cieplicki, the lone member on the team last year who was on the 2005 team that upset #4 seed Syracuse in the NCAA tournament.
The Rest of the Conference. UMBC took major losses by graduating three all-conference players from last season, but they return and add plenty to remain competitive. Jay Greene and Darryl Proctor were both first team all-conference players last year and possibly the best at their positions. Greene was second in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio and was fourth in the nation with 7.2 assist per game. One thing about Greene is he can be one of the best scorers in the conference if he chooses to shot the ball. He only averaged 8.8 ppg but when he needed to score had games of 26, 21, and 17. Hartford is another team that still has enough to make an impact with four starters back, led by Joe Zeglinski and Jaret Von Rosenberg. The big issue that could keep the Hawks out of the conference championship game is their lack of rebounding. Last season they were last in the conference in that category and lost their best rebounder and major inside presence. If they can develop another big body to take control of the paint then they may still have hope. Binghamton and Albany will be relying on the development of transfers, combining for eight between the two teams. Transfers did wonders for UMBC last season but it is always a gamble in terms of team chemistry. Both teams lost three of their top players but if the transfers can have an impact right away then both teams can be dangerous. New Hampshire has been one of the bottom dwellers for a while but can move up if Dane DiLiegro steps up at center and inproves the team’s rebounding. With a lack of quality big men they might end up starting four guards including Tyrece Gibbs, who is one of the premier scorers in the conference, and Alvin Abreu, who was the top freshman guard a year ago. As for Maine and Stony Brook they will likely finish in the bottom two spots again.
Games to Watch. As a one-bid league, only one game will matter to most people.
America East Championship Game (03.14.09) ESPN2.
RPI Boosters. The America East in one of the conferences where if you don’t win it, you don’t get in the NCAA Tournament. Two years ago Vermont went 15-1 in conference play but lost in the conference finals and took a nice consolation trip to the NIT. With the win-or-go-home aspect of the conference the teams also know they have to do everything they can in OOC games to get higher than a #15 or #16 seed, which is tough to do. UMBC won 24 games last year, beating American and almost beating Ohio State but still ended up with a 15th seed. This year four of the top Am East schools all scheduled games against big-time opponents where an upset wouldn’t be out of the question and they all could have a major bearing on where the winner of the conference is seeded.
Albany @ DePaul (11.17.08)
Hartford @ Penn State (11.20.08)
Vermont @ Maryland (11.21.08)
Boston U. @ Notre Dame (12.13.08)
UMBC @ Nebraska (12.13.08)
Hartford @ Baylor (12.22.08)
Boston U. @ Cornell (12.29.08)
Impact Transfers. The America East might soon get the nickname “The Conference of Transfers.” Between the nine teams in the conference there are 17 eligible transfers either cleared from sitting their transfer year or coming from junior college. Last year transfers did wonders for UMBC and other teams hope for the same this year. This year the transfer list is headlined by Vermont’s Maurice Joseph, a transfer from Michigan State who averaged 5.9 ppg in 16.8 minutes per game as a sophomore (get a look at Joseph in HS below). Other key guys include Binghamton’s quartet of transfers, Tiki Mayben, Malik Alvin, Sean Watson, and Theo Davis (eligible in the second semester), Albany’s Louis Barraza (20.1ppg at the JuCo level), and UMBC’s 6’7” Ricky Flemming, a transfer from Fairfield.
Neat-o-Stat. Since 1980 when the conference started, the champion has repeated 44% of the time while the regular season champion has won the conference championship 75% of the time. The lowest seed to ever win the conference tournament was a #3 seed which happened once in 1993 when Delaware beat the #1 seed Drexel (67-64).
65-Team Era. The America East is 3-23 (.115) since the field moved up to 65, with three first-round victories from 1989 (#14 Siena over #3 Stanford), 1996 (#12 Drexel over #5 Memphis), and 2005 (#13 Vermont over #4 Syracuse). But the America East is surprisingly the only mid-major conference in the northeast that has never been apart of the play-in game.
Final Thought. Usually two or three teams have a chokehold on the top of the conference, but this year the conference remains top heavy but it is still anybody’s league. Vermont and Boston U. are projected to be the top teams this year but Hartford, UMBC, Albany, and Binghamton all can make some noise and should make the year very interesting.
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
A little Friday the 13th juice to go with you gin this weekend…
Will it be a house of horrors in Seattle today for Indiana? IU is meeting with the NCAA (and Kelvin Sanctions) in a hearing to ascertain just how screwed the program is going to be in the wake of phonegate. Considering Tom Crean only has one scholarship player returning, the Hoosiers are already screwed. The Indy Star is liveblogging from the proceedings today…
Maybe Indiana should have hired this guy – The Fixer – to help with today’s proceedings. Oh, wait, Kelvin already did…
Florida’s Marreese Speights supposedly announced he was leaving Florida yesterday, but a report surfacing today suggests that he’s still on the fence about it.
Arizona’s Chase Budinger is still thinking about whether to return next year, but he is apparently a strong lean toward going into the draft - he has until Monday (June 16) to make a final decision.
There are twenty players still thinking about the draft decision before Monday’s deadline, and Gary Parrish decided to help them out with their decisions.
More draft coverage – apparently Michael Beasley is having trouble shaking off his perception of being the class clown; and DeAndre Jordan is having issues with his mental toughness being as soft as charmin.
The contract terms of former LSU coach John Brady’s agreement with Arkansas St. came out yesterday. There’s no mention of whether the deal includes a fully-paid membership to the local houses of burlesque.
We were trolling through some of the Indiana blogs yesterday to see how things were going in red-state flyover land the heartland, and although there was some palpable anger still directed at Kelvin Sampson for the shenanigans he pulled in Bloomington during his tenure, it seemed as if most of their fans were ready to move on with the new Tom Crean regime and their headline (only?) returning player, sophomore guard Jordan Crawford (9/3 last year). Funny, plans. On May 28, The Hoosier Scoop wrote about Crawford (paraphrasing Crean):
Crean said that there is no change in Jordan Crawford’s status. Crawford, who will be the only returning player who came to IU on scholarship, is back in Detroit right now and will not attend summer school. “He doesn’t need to, and I think it’s good for him to get home,” Crean said. “It’s important to remember that those guys have been through a whole lot.”
Apparently Crawford liked home a little better than Bloomington. Today he became the sixth Indiana player to leave the program in the wake of the Kelvin Sanctions fiasco – joining Eric Gordon (NBA), Armon Bassett, DeAndre Thomas, Jamarcus Ellis, AJ Ratliff and Eli Holman as players going elsewhere next year. As far as we can tell, this leaves only little-used (11 mpg) senior forward Kyle Taber as the only scholarship player returning next season.
Witness the pain emanating from the most excellent IU blog, Inside the Hall:
Now, please excuse me. I’m going to go ignore the fact that any of this ever happened. If you close your eyes so hard you see stars, breathe deeply, and hit yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer forty or fifty times, it’s like our team is still really good. And there are pretty colors everywhere! I highly recommend it.
Ouch. This complete demolition of a program with the status of Indiana represents a nearly unprecedented situation in college basketball history. Sure, Tulane and Baylor blew up their programs based on scandals (point-shaving, and well, murder), but the closest thing we can remember that compares to what Tom Crean will face next year is Rick Pitino’s first year (1989-90) at Kentucky in the wake of several major recruiting violations. Pitino had several scholarship players returning including two all-SEC honorees, however, and four of the younger players ended up with their names in the rafters. Still, it took five years for the Wildcats to get back to the F4. We have trouble seeing Kyle Taber leading any sort of renaissance at IU – it could take many more than five years before this sinking ship at Indiana is righted again.
Alabama PG and former all-american Ronald Steele made the smart decision and is heading back to Tuscaloosa for his senior campaign. Oops – maybe not yet.
Arizona’s Nic Wise has decided to stick it out at UA – he had previously said he was transferring. Since Lute finally got to the end of his divorce fiasco, maybe the good folks in the desert can get back to worrying about basketball this year.
More OJ Mayo scandal – getting an Attorney General involved is never a good thing (unless Elliot Spitzer is springing for the booze and hos).
Gary Parrish points out that former Iowa St. reject and D-League star Mike Taylor’s solid week at the NBA Predraft Camp in Orlando last week fashions him a sort of trailblazer for knuckleheads who can’t stick with college programs but still want a direct route to the NBA. Um, good luck with that.
How similar is this year’s draft class to the 1996 class?
Notre Dame got another major transfer pickup to go along with Ben Hansbrough (from Mississippi St.) – Scott Martin – a freshman forward who averaged 8/4 for the Boilers will be heading north on US 31 to ND. Suddenly the Golden Domers are looking really good for the 2009-10 season.
UConn coach Jim Calhoun is reportedly facing skin cancer on his neck for the second time, and will undergo six weeks of radiation therapy this summer to remove it.
Syracuse’s Donte Greene has decided that he’s a 1-and-done player, as he recently signed with an agent and will not be eligible to return to the Orange next season.
Joey Dorsey made the claim in Orlando this week that he has the inside track on who the Bulls will select as the #1 overall draft pick, and he says Michael Beasley. Jeff Goodman writes about the maddening mind that is Dorsey.
Clemson’s head man Oliver Purnell got an extension to 2014 and a raise to $1M per annum. Still significantly below Tommy Bowden ($1.8M), but hey, who’s counting.
Luke Winn has a nice piece on Chris Lofton’s tumultuous senior campaign, as he is now finally starting to get his legs back after beating testicular cancer.
In his first public interview since the Rodney Guillory scandal hit, OJ Mayo was more upset that the news hit on Mother’s Day than the fact it made him look like a cheat and a liar.
In some sad news, Louisville center Clarence Holloway was diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome, which has effectively ended his basketball career. We wish him all the best fighting this disease.
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Regular Features, morning 5 | Tagged: criminal charges, florida, jordan dumars, kevin o'neill, louisville, marshall moses, michigan, ncaa violations, oklahoma st, seth davis, suspensions, tennessee, transfers, tyler smith, usc | 
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