Morning Five: 08.24.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on August 24th, 2010

  1. College athletic departments are not immune to the economic downturn either, as the NCAA reported that only fourteen of the 120 FCS (I-AA) schools turned a profit in the 2008-09 fiscal year.  Specific names were not released, but some of the usual suspects were confirmed by Transylvania University accounting professor Dan Fulks, who performed the research — Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee.   Slightly more than half of the I-AA schools made money in both football and basketball, but the range between the two was quite a bit larger at the big football powerhouses.  It goes to show just how important these two cash cows are for athletic departments, though, as so few are actually turning a profit due to subsidizing the other sports.
  2. LSU guard Bo Spencer did not meet the school’s academic requirements, so the two-year starter who averaged 15/3/3 APG last season was dismissed from Trent Johnson’s program and will transfer to Nebraska as a walk-on, eligible to play in the 2011-12 campaign.  Yes, you read that correctly — he was unable to make the grade at LSU.   Regardless, Nebraska head coach Doc Sadler said that Spencer is not guaranteed a scholarship even for the year that he plays.  As an interesting side note, Spencer will sit the bench watching his teammates play Big 12 teams next year, but he will be playing Big Ten teams in his senior season after Nebraska changes conference affiliation.
  3. Hey, we enjoy college football as much as the next guy — if you’re a fan of college sports, how can you not?  But this is also the time of year when all the holier-than-thous come out of the woodwork (when every team is 0-0 and therefore still eligible for the national title game, unless your name is Utah, Boise State or TCU…) to tell us about the beauty and sanctity of the CFB regular season.  To that we say: get over yourselves.  If the entire regular season is a ‘playoff,’ then when teams lose one (and most definitely, two) game(s), we don’t want to hear about said team any more this season.  Of course, the hype machine doesn’t work that way (how many Notre Dame games in the last decade have been relevant?  One?), which goes to show that the entire argument is built on a house of cards anyway.
  4. Texas guard Varez Ward is leaving the Longhorn program and his likely destination, according to the Dallas Morning News, is Auburn.  Ward is supposedly moving closer to his Montgomery, Alabama, home to be closer to his mother who suffers from a heart condition.  Ward, as you recall, blew out his knee early last season in a bizarre incident in the layup line at the CBE Classic.  He was expected to have been a significant contributor last year, so even with super-frosh Cory Joseph in the fold, this is a definite blow to Rick Barnes’ backcourt depth, as described in detail over at Burnt Orange Nation.  Ward received a medical redshirt for last season, so he’ll have three years of eligibility left when he joins Tony Barbee’s club next year.
  5. The long national nightmare is over in Minneapolis, as Trevor Mbakwe finally suited up as a Gopher after a year in limbo as a result of his felony assault charge in Miami.  As we mentioned ten days ago, Mbakwe entered a diversionary program that will allow him to work off the charge through community service.  He expects to have that completed prior to Minnesota’s first regular season game in early November.  The Gophers are practicing this week in preparation for a trip to Canada during Labor Day weekend, and Mbakwe’s size and strength inside — he hopes to lead the conference in rebounding — should help Tubby Smith’s team reach its goals for another trip to the NCAA Tournament and a finish in the top half of the Big Ten.  Below is an interview he did yesterday showing how excited he is to finally get to lace them up…

Share this story

Morning Five: 08.23.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on August 23rd, 2010

  1. Our correspondent Andrew Murawa put the Mountain West/WAC situation into understandable terms over the weekend, but we wanted to highlight one area of particular concern.  It certainly appears that BYU will now remain a member of the MWC, while the WAC’s Fresno State and Nevada will join up with its new league as soon as possible; but the real wildcard in all of this is Utah State.  If the Mountain West is able to recruit it’s twelfth school USU over to its side, that would leave the WAC with a mere five teams, less than the requisite six needed (for five consecutive years) to retain its automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.  The current mixture of automatic/at-large bids in the Big Dance exists at 31/37.  If the WAC implodes, another at-large team could be getting a bid as soon as the 2012 Tourney.  Somewhere in southwest Virginia Seth Greenberg just danced a jig.
  2. Jason King at Yahoo! Sports takes a look at one of the most unappreciated aspects of college basketball recruiting, the top assistant coaches who get the job done in the trenches so that the head coach can later take all the credit and glory of those hotshot players.  It should be no surprise to you that the names of assistants at Ohio State, Kentucky, Memphis, Texas, Kansas and Michigan State are all represented on this list.   What is odd is that nobody from Duke or UNC are here — perhaps Coach K and Roy Williams are simply all that is needed to get the job done at those schools.
  3. Chris Allen, the Michigan State guard who did not meet the standards required of him by head coach Tom Izzo, will re-surface at Iowa State in the 2011-12 season.  His decision to transfer to ISU over UTEP and St. John’s is a major boon for Fred Hoiberg’s rebuilding project in Ames.  Allen, a full-time starter on the 2009-10 Spartans, will bring a toughness and solid three-point stroke to the Cyclone program for his senior campaign.  Let’s hope, though, that whatever it was that put him in the doghouse in East Lansing will be left behind among the unused moving boxes.
  4. MaxPreps has released its post-summer top 100 recruits for the Class of 2011, and Michael Gilchrist (Elizabeth, NJ) remains at the top despite strong summers from several competitors.  Kentucky’s John Calipari has already received verbals from three of the top nine — Gilchrist, Anthony Davis (Chicago, IL), and Marquis Teague (Indianapolis, IN).  Interesting note: if you want to see great HS talent in person next season, the Commonwealth of Virginia, with nine players, is where you should be.
  5. This is a must-read every summer, as Luke Winn gives us his 2010-11 Breakout Five players.  He uses Pomeroy statistics to make educated determinations as to the players most likely to have impact sophomore campaigns, and his findings are worth the time.  The biggest surprise name on the list?  Miami (FL)’s Reggie Johnson.
Share this story

Taylor King Throws Down the Academic Gauntlet

Posted by rtmsf on August 11th, 2010

Jeff Goodman reported today that former-Duke, current-Villanova forward Taylor King is transferring yet again, this time making his way from the cooker known as the East Coast to the balmier weather and lifestyle of Southern California.   And when we say Southern California, we mean it literally.  King will enroll at USC this fall and, after sitting out a second transfer season in 2010-11, he will be eligible to play his senior year in his home area, a little less than an hour’s drive from where he grew up in Huntington Beach.  The 6’6 forward was a key contributor at Villanova last season, averaging 7/5 per game in bench duty, but he’s shown flashes of offensive skill with eight double-figure games in points and a solid three-point stroke (career: 37%).

Right. It's the Academics.

King has had some family issues and after spending a few weeks at home this summer decided that giving up the 3,000-mile commute back to the Main Line was in his best interests.  He considered a couple of local NAIA schools, but ultimately found that sitting out the additional transfer season to play at USC was the best option.  However, it was a quote from King buried at the end of Goodman’s report that really caught our eye.  When asked about his decision-making process:

King said while he would like to continue his playing career beyond college, academics and connections at USC played a role in his decision.  “The education is off the charts at SC. No offense to Duke or Villanova, but they don’t compare.”

All snickering aside, most people reading this site may not be aware that USC is a very strong academic school despite its iconic status relating to babes and football (wonder why they’d ever have that perception?).  The latest US News & World Report ranks Southern Cal as the 26th best national university, holding a 24% acceptance rate and SAT scores that it claims are greater than crosstown rival UCLA’s (by and large considered the more academically-minded school).  But Duke?  A perennially top-10 school by any measure?  Villanova?  The top Masters University in the Northeast for more than a decade?  Questionable.

We figured that the denizens of the two dissed schools would come running to their defense, and it didn’t take long.  Villanova fans seemed to find great hilarity in the comment, while the Duke people hardly even gave his comment much consideration due to its absurdity.  Of course we realize that King is only trying to justify his decision to himself when he made that comment, but it would be fourteen kinds of awesome if USC managed to find itself in a road game at Duke or Villanova two seasons from now.  We’re fairly certain that the lesser-academically-inclined students at those places would find clever ways to make him feel welcome.  Hey, we can always hope, right?

Share this story

Morning Five: 08.09.10 Edition

Posted by jstevrtc on August 9th, 2010

  1. Jim Calhoun has to appreciate the support shown by many of his former players as the cloud of an NCAA investigation looms over Storrs, support that was evident on Saturday as many of his UConn family showed up to play in a benefit game for the Jim and Pat Calhoun Cardiology Center.  Heck, we’d pay $20 to watch Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor, Caron Butler and Rudy Gay in an alumni game, especially for a good cause.  The word “family” above is not used lightly, as Butler can attest to in speaking about his coach: “I’ll just sum it up like this.  He’s the closest thing to a father that I’ve ever had.”
  2. It just won’t go away.  Karen Sypher says her trial was unfair because Louisville is a small enough town to feel the influence of Louisville coach Rick Pitino.  “I know now there is no justice system,” she told the AP.  And she also says that there was evidence in her favor that her defense attorney didn’t use, and that it will come out later.  Sypher will be sentenced on October 27th.  We’re fine with Pitino facing no disciplinary action from U of L, since this is a family matter more than anything else, but we’re still evaluating AD Tom Jurich’s statement calling his coach a “grand ambassador” of the program…
  3. SI’s Luke Winn gave us stat nerds the warm-and-fuzzies when he broke out some serious numbers to predict some possible breakout players in the sophomore class for 2010-11 (a taste — Nebraska’s Christian Standhardinger makes the list).  His 2008 version yielded eerily accurate results to the point where we have our current crop of RTC interns investigating if there are some prop bets in Vegas on this topic.  And Luke, if you’re reading…yes, we’ll give you a cut.
  4. Seton Hall announced on Friday that Ole Miss guard Eniel Polynice will be joining the Pirates as a transfer student next season.  Polynice will not have to sit out the typical year for transfers, taking advantage of an NCAA rule that allows early graduates to play their fourth season of eligibility elsewhere if their current school doesn’t offer postgraduate work in their field of study.  Polynice, a communications major who graduated in the spring from Ole Miss, sat out the 2008-09 season as a redshirt student.  He is a very nice late summer pickup for new Hall head coach Kevin Willard, who will need some experienced players to keep uber-gunner Jeremy Hazell under control and tutor a deep incoming class of freshmen.
  5. If we were the president of Florida International University (and just to be clear, we’re not), we’d immediately call head coach Isiah Thomas into our office for a sitdown about a little something called focus.  Coming off a 7-25 season that finished on the high note of nine straight losses, you would think that if Thomas were fully committed to his current job, he wouldn’t be taking on part-time work as a paid consultant for the NBA team he helped destroy, the New York Knicks   The Miami media, to put it lightly, is not amused.
Share this story

Morning Five: 07.21.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on July 21st, 2010

  1. The biggest news in the world of college athletics came out of South Central today as USC announced that its longtime athletic director Mike Garrett will step down in the wake of probation for both the football and men’s basketball programs on his watch.  Pat Haden, another former USC quarterback, will take over for Garrett in that capacity.  New USC president Max Nikias, still weeks away from formally taking over, also decreed that the school will remove all athletic references (photos, murals and the like) to Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo prior to the arrival of incoming students next month.  They’re even sending Bush’s Heisman Trophy back!  Former head coach Tim Floyd, currently whiling his time away in El Paso, had little to say about the matter.
  2. Notre Dame’s Mike Brey to his irresponsible players Tim Abromaitis and Eric Atkins:  “A lot of sweating will be involved.”  Here’s hoping that they have to run a mile for every beer imbibed.  Y’know, because of the extra calories.
  3. Some coaching news from yesterday.  UIC’s Jimmy Collins announced his retirement effective at the end of August after fourteen seasons at the school — including three NCAA Tournament appearances and six other winning campaigns.  As Goodman reports, the timing of this is odd given that it’s currently the height of recruiting season, but Collins has had medical issues in the past.  We hope he’s ok.
  4. One piece of player news that slipped past us over the weekend — Gonzaga (ok, RTC) fan favorite Bol Kong is leaving Spokane for personal reasons.  Kong averaged 4.5 PPG in his only season for the Zags, but showed promise with a solid three-point stroke (43%) and a nose for the ball.  We hope to see him re-surface somewhere soon.
  5. Jeff Goodman and Matt Norlander did a cool thing to get ready for this weekend’s recruiting extravaganza in Vegas.  They polled the top recruits to see whom they would choose as the best in several categories, and the results were interesting.  Austin Rivers was named the top player, Michael Gilchrist the best defender and hardest worker, Brad Beal the best shooter, Marquis Teague the best shooter, and Anthony Davis the best rebounder.  Oh, and best trash-talker: Quincy Miller (no surprise if you read his tweets).  It should be a fun weekend sorting through all of these players out in the desert.
Share this story

Morning Five: 07.05.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on July 5th, 2010

Here’s hoping everyone had a safe and patriotic ID4 weekend.

  1. Sometime this week — perhaps today, but our bet is on tomorrow — the NCAA will announce that it has decided what to do about the four Play-In Games for next year’s and subsequent NCAA Tournaments.  So far we haven’t caught wind of any leaks from among the Committee (where are ya, Andy Katz?), but we’ll lay odds on each of the three stated options.  1) PiGs populated by #16/#17 seeds (odds – 2:1); 2) PiGs populated by last eight at-large teams (odds – 5:1); 3) mixture of the two (odds – 7:2).  We’re truly hopeful that the Committee will somehow incorporate the last few at-large teams into the play-in mix, but we’re not expecting that to happen.
  2. On Friday, TMZ reported that the NCAA is investigating “two current and two” former Kentucky players for contacts with agents that may have jeopardized their eligibility to play college basketball (note: Sports by Brooks reports one of the players to be John Wall).  Your immediate reaction of “TMZ?” followed by a complete and utter lack of shock that John Calipari’s players would be accused of this, is forgivable?  Well, the truth is that TMZ broke the Tiny Gallon/Oklahoma violation back in March so their credibility on this issue might have more weight than considered at first blush, but it is somewhat disconcerting that the report failed to name anyone as explicitly as they did with Gallon.  UK fans are rightfully skeptical with so few details yet released, but we’re not prepared to dismiss TMZ based on rumor-mongering alone because as far as we know, they’re currently hitting 100% on breaking recruiting violation stories (we know of no other recruiting story they broke that was wrong).
  3. Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans…  we don’t meant to call you stupid, but you’re all kinds of stupid.
  4. UCLA guards Jerime Anderson and Tyler Lamb had surgeries last week to continue the yearlong injury bug that has befallen the program.  Neither are expected to be out for long, but you never know with the bad luck that the Bruins have experienced lately.
  5. We’re really not sure how we feel about this, but we’re incredibly hopeful that it works out.  Former Tennessee forward Emmanuel Negedu has reportedly been cleared to play next season at New Mexico, providing an immediate lift to Steve Alford’s team as they recover from losing two of the best players in its history this offseason.  Negedu of course collapsed and his heart stopped beating for a while last fall during workouts at UT.
Share this story

Morning Five: 07.01.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on June 30th, 2010

Happy Fiscal New Year, everyone.  We hope that your 2010-11 is filled with great financial security and hoops hysteria.

  1. Here’s some somewhat dated news, but it didn’t seem to get much attention until this week, which is that Mississippi State’s Renardo Sidney evidently sees himself as a 1-and-doner when he finally gets to play this coming season.  Sidney tweeted during last week’s draft the following: “NYC #2011  Believe dat.”  The big man who sat out the entire 2009-10 season over concerns with his eligibility certainly has the ability to become a top prospect, but he may want to check next year’s draft location before he makes his reservations.
  2. It was an odd summer day for comings and goings yesterday, but Michigan dismissed junior guard Laval Lucas-Perry from its team for an undisclosed violation of team rules, while Oregon forward Jamil Wilson is transferring back east to Marquette for his final three years of eligibility.  Lucas-Perry was a sometime starter for John Beilein’s team, now facing a huge rebuild after losing his two stars and another key contributor in LLP.  Wilson was a starter at Oregon, averaging 5/3 in just under 17 minutes per game — nice coup for Buzz Williams to grab the talented forward from nearby Racine.
  3. Insert New Jersey chemical plant joke here…  Rutgers will offer naming rights to its football and basketball stadiums (“the RAC”) as a way to offset some of the expense of a recent renovations.  Some RTC ideas: The Honeywell Hive?  The Prudential RAC?  Toys R Us Arena?  Campbell Soup Bowl?  We could go on…
  4. An interesting discussion over at Fanhouse as to whether, with John Wooden’s passing, if Coach K is the best coach alive.  He’s certainly on the short list, but it’s hard to believe that he’s above Phil Jackson or Scotty Bowman, much less Pat Summit or Geno Auriemma in his own sport.
  5. At the Under-19 World Championships, Team USA led by Duke’s Kyrie Irving (21 pts) and rising prep senior Austin Rivers (19 pts) won the gold medal when Quincy Miller (another rising senior) hit a three with 25 seconds remaining to give the Americans a three-point lead that stuck.  Good job, fellas.
Share this story

Morning Five: 06.23.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on June 22nd, 2010

  1. Villanova’s Taylor King has now quit on his second program, deciding in the past few days to transfer out of Villanova.  Well, not really.  According to the release, King has decided to “voluntarily withdraw from the men’s basketball team,” but he plans on sticking around the school to complete his degree requirements.  Is this for real?  Despite what Gary Parrish writes about King’s oversized expectations, he was solid for at least half the season on the Main Line last year (7/5 in 19 MPG) and we find it hard to believe that he’s given up on basketball completely.  The guy could probably be a star in the WCC or a similar league.
  2. Luke Winn examines how the new coach at Wake Forest, Jeff Bzdelik is adjusting to his new job.  Bzdelik claims that he will adapt to his personnel and keep the Deacs as an uptempo team that pushes the ball, but every coach says that in the summertime.  The story about how the Wake coaching staff kept their top twenty recruiting class intact is pretty cool, though.
  3. Fred Barakat, a longtime ACC  official and executive as well as former Fairfield coach, died on Monday at the age of 71.  He is widely regarded as one of the key players in the extraordinary growth of ACC basketball as a brand in the 80s and 90s.  RIP, Fred.
  4. Class of 2011 super-recruit James McAdoo was considering bailing on his senior year of high school to matriculate in Chapel Hill a year earlier than expected, but ZagsBlog reported yesterday that he would instead remain in Hampton Roads next year.  You only get to be a kid once, so we fully support this decision.
  5. This interview of Jay Bilas, Gary Williams, Jay Wright and Jim Boeheim at the CvC Golf Invitational shows that coaches are definitely concerned about realignment.  Bilas, as usual, has the best take: the NCAA needs to get in front of this realignment business or risk getting left completely behind in a few years when the super-conferences decide that the entity is no longer necessary.
Share this story

Morning Five: 05.26.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on May 26th, 2010

  1. Vegas Watch aggregates seven pre-preseason top 25s, including yours truly’s.  Duke is a clear #1, but Michigan State at #2 and a lot of teams with serious question marks (K-State, Villanova, Pitt, Gonzaga) populate the rest of the top ten.  We had Butler (#8) and Georgetown (#10) in our top ten, but few others did.  Thanks for doing this, VW.
  2. More transfer news — a while back we suggested that the Wear Twins (David and Travis) would end up at UCLA, and that was confirmed yesterday with the announcement that the SoCal-raised pair will be heading to Westwood.  They’ll have three years of eligibility remaining, beginning in the 2011-12 season.  All we want to know is where was Stanford on this one (remember the Collins and Lopez twins)?  Meanwhile, UNC filled one of their open inside positions with Alabama transfer Justin Knox, who has already graduated and will be eligible to play next season for Roy Williams.  This is a substantial coup for UNC in that they were facing a season with few experienced bigs (only the rail-thin John Henson and Tyler Zeller return inside), and this addition will help bridge the gap until Williams can bring in some help.
  3. Finishing in the top four spots of the Big East regular season will not hold as much meaning as it did the last two years, as conference officials yesterday voted to do away with the double-bye system in the Big East Tournament.  In the new format, MSG’s Tuesday and Wednesday sessions will feature first round games using a traditional 1/16, 2/15, etc., format.  For some reason, we’re less excited about this change.
  4. Gregg Doyel thinks that Oklahoma basketball might deserve the death penalty, but taking his typically grumpy stance (we love it, btw), he doesn’t think that much of anything will come to pass.
  5. Duke’s national championship team has plans to visit the White House tomorrow.  No word on whether Coach K will give President Obama some beef over picking against his Devils in the regionals.
Share this story

Morning Five: 05.25.10 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on May 25th, 2010

  1. Some transfer news from the weekend…  Two of the bigger names in college basketball from a celebrity perspective are leaving their respective schools.  Guard Jeff Jordan (MJ’s son, in case you hadn’t heard) is leaving Illinois for his senior season a mere year after he quit the team and returned the first time.  We’re not sure what exactly the deal is with the somewhat indecisive Jordan, but the word is that he’s looking for more PT than the fourteen minutes per game he received last year for the Illini.  The other big transfer name belongs to Percy Miller, aka Lil Romeo, the hip-hop star who presumably sold a lot more albums than he scored points (5) in his two-year USC Trojan career.  The subject of one of RTC’s first-ever posts (#3 actually), it’s not clear whether he will try to continue playing college basketball elsewhere or give it up completely.
  2. Moving to players that actually matter at this level, former Washington guard Elston Turner will re-surface at Texas A&M beginning in 2011-12 and LSU star guard Bo Spencer will be ineligible for the fall semester next season as a result of academic problems.  Turner will have two years of eligibility in College Station, while Spencer will have an opportunity to return to his team next winter if he can get his books in order.
  3. The final notable piece of news with players leaving is that Florida’s Nimrod Tishman is leaving the Gator program after only one year in Gainesville.  He is returning to Israel to play professionally, causing mass lamentations throughout the SEC fanbases from Fayetteville to Columbia.
  4. Is the one-year renewable scholarship a bigger problem than we, or anyone, knows?  If you buy USA Today’s report that over 20% of athletes on the 65 NCAA teams leave the program in a given year, it just might be.  We’d never really given it much thought other than when a new coach comes into town and runs everyone off (see: Calipari, John), but maybe we should start paying attention to this a little more.
  5. We always thought something didn’t smell quite right with the universally-liked and respected Tyler Smith being caught with a firearm in a rental car on New Year’s Day.  Smith finally came out and said that he purchased the gun based on death threats that he was receiving about his three-year old son.  He didn’t go into details as to whom was making the threats or why they would be making them, but he’s now back in Tennessee after playing professionally in Turkey for a few months and waiting to see if his name is called next month in the NBA Draft.
Share this story