After initially suspending senior guard Jerime Anderson indefinitely following his arrest on July 26 for an on-campus laptop theft, UCLA has announced that they were reducing his suspension to two games in light on Anderson pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts (appropriation of lost property and trespassing). According to the deal that Anderson received from the court he will have to serve 300 hours of community service and if he stays out of trouble for the next two years his the appropriation of lost property charge will be expunged from his record.

Anderson Will Have to Sit Out Two Games (Credit: Anne Cusack /Los Angeles Times)

Anderson, who averaged 5.1 PPG and 2.6 APG as a back-up to Lazeric Jones last season, gained a measure of notoriety for his reported involvement as the host of a large party soon after his initial suspension (he later removed his name away from the party and reportedly did not attend). In a statement released by the school, Ben Howland said, “Now that the legal proceedings in conjunction with Jerime’s arrest have been finalized, I am re-instating him to the team with a two-game suspension. Jerime has been very remorseful in acknowledging his mistake and accepting responsibility for his actions. I believe he has learned a valuable lesson.”

As a result of the suspension, Anderson will miss UCLA’s exhibition game against Cal State San Bernandino on November 6 and their regular season opener against Loyola Marymount on November 11. Once he returns, Anderson and the rest of the Bruins will have two more games to get used to playing together before they face their first true test of the season, a match-up against either Kansas or Georgetown on November 22.

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.

In April of 2009, Sean Miller accepted the head coaching position at the University of Arizona. During the 29 months since that hiring, one can make a realistic argument that Sean Miller has done the best job of any coach in America.

Miller took over a team that finished a lackluster 17-19 in Pac-10 play in the previous two years under Kevin O’Neill and Russ Pennell, had their expected roster gutted following the coaching switch and was mired in a program malaise that hadn’t lingered around the McKale Center since Lute Olson first took the job in the mid-1980s. In just two years time, Miller’s launched Arizona into unexpected heights so soon and so dramatically: a full-on pasting of Duke in last year’s Sweet 16, the grooming of the #2 overall pick in the NBA Draft and an incredible haul of blue chip prospects headed to Tucson to keep the fire burning into the future.

The program has reached a point where, despite the losses of their superstar forward Derrick Williams and point guard Lamont Jones, Arizona is favored to claim the Pac-12 crown in 2011-12 over the likes of UCLA, California and Washington. That speaks to the depth that Miller has assembled at Arizona not too long after the losses of Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill left the program facing a rebuilding project too steep for the likes of John Calipari, Jamie Dixon, Mark Few and even Tim Floyd to take on.

With apologies to Brad Stevens, there’s not a coach I’d rather have leading my program into the next decade than Miller.

Sean Miller has revived a stagnant Arizona program

Team Outlook: Although the loss of Williams is mammoth, a player so efficient last season he nearly caused Ken Pomeroy’s head to explode, there’s a nice blend of veterans and talented freshman to expect only a minimal drop in offensive production. Junior Solomon Hill provided a preview to the Arizona faithful of his potential during a 16/8 on 7-12 FG performance against Texas in last year’s second round and has the versatility to play either forward spot at 6’6. Kyle Fogg should be shooting 2,000 jumpers per day over the offseason after shooting 37% from the field as a junior, especially because he could be their most frequent gunner in 2011-12. Kevin Parrom finished in the top-50 in offensive rating among role players as a sophomore and is one of the most underrated swingmen in the nation. Jordin Mayes finished second in the conference in three-point shooting at 45% as a freshman and really came on strong in March. Freshman Josiah Turner could start at the point from day one after Jones’ transferred to Iona over the offseason. Whether this team can blend on the floor with a rookie floor general and sans Williams are legitimate concerns.

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ESPN.com had an interesting series of stories that went up today regarding various folks’ favorite college basketball arenas to visit and the toughest ones to play in.  As always when you read blurbs of primary source information, it’s enlightening to see the reasoning behind their choices.  For example, we never knew that NC State’s old home was such an ACC snake pit, but ESPN commentators Jay Bilas and Hubert Davis both independently cited Reynolds Coliseum as the toughest arena they ever played in. Davis even claimed that he never scored “on the opposite basket away from our bench in the first half” due to the flustered situation he found himself in all four years he visited Raleigh.

A number of media types also weighed in with their favorite places to experience a game, and several of the old faithfuls represent well here — Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium (3 votes), Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse (2 votes) and the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden (2 votes) — along with a few other tried-and-trues including Oklahoma State’s Gallagher-Iba Arena, Stanford’s Maples Pavilion, Penn’s Palestra, and UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion (1 vote each).  But it was the list provided by Dana O’Neil (excellent usage of “sepia,” by the way) from her interviews of several head coaches back in July on the recruiting trail that really caught our eye. First, here’s her list:

Fifteen prominent coaches chose nine different arenas between them.  Three of those are already retired to the dustbin of history, and three others are clearly a personal house of horrors to specific coaches.  Not many people in this business will choose a place like Murray State Arena over somewhere like the Kohl Center or Breslin Arena, but Big Ten coach Bruce Weber did.  The remaining joints are again places we’re all familiar with as incredibly difficult to walk out with a win, but we quickly noticed that there was something peculiar about the responses among O’Neil’s interviewees.  Take a closer look — of the 15 coaches, only one of them gave an answer that includes a site where his team must regularly play games.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Maryland Adds 7-2 Ukrainian Olexiy Len to 2011 Roster: “Remember those rumblings about Maryland and Mark Turgeon adding a Ukrainian big man to their 2011 roster? Well, they weren’t as wrong as they appeared; they just had the wrong big man. Per InsideMDSports, the Terrapins are adding 7-foot-2 Olexiy “Alex” Len to this season’s roster:” (Testudo Times: News and Analysis)
• Kentucky adds two walk-ons: “Coach Cal has added two new walk-ons, Sam Malone and Brian Long. Malone is a point guard from Scituate, Massachusettes. He is not the owner and bartender on Cheers. Long is from New Jersey.” (Kentucky Sports Radio: News and Analysis)

Yesterday, Dick Vitale went on The Dan LeBatard Show to discuss the scandal at Miami and the implications it could have on college sports. After LeBatard started off the interview with a few fairly benign questions about the Miami scandal, to which Vitale gave the expected media-speak answers (other than his assertion that Donna Shalala must step down as president of the University of Miami), LeBatard asked him about John Calipari and the scandals that have followed him at Massachusetts and Memphis. Vitale brushed it aside, saying that the NCAA has never implicated Calipari. LeBatard’s co-host Jon Weiner (aka Stugotz) then chimed in with the statement/question: “Best guess, Dick. Best guess. I know you are friends with him, but best guess. John Calipari has cheated at some point in his life.” Vitale responded first with silence, then said “Alright, let’s go to the next point.” After some discussion where LeBatard cleared up the fact that it was his co-host who had asked the question, Vitale suggests that there should be laws against boosters like Nevin Shapiro.

When Vitale went on to state that none of the major coaches he knows would have tolerated what happened at Miami (citing Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, and Bob Knight as examples), Stugotz suggests that every coach or program has committed at least one NCAA infraction even if only unknowingly. After Vitale got upset at him and brought up the prostitutes, Stugotz clarified by saying that he never implied that other programs were using prostitutes or doing things as big as Miami is accused of doing. Despite this clarification, Vitale becomes increasingly infuriated at the radio hosts and hangs up. Partial clip below:

While Kentucky fans are widely applauding Vitale for defending Calipari, it seems more like Vitale is on a crusade to defend college basketball, or college sports as a whole, instead of a single coach or program. Although Stugotz’s initial question/statement about Calipari was indelicate, his follow-up questions about programs unknowingly violating rules are valid ones. Unfortunately, it seems that Vitale was so incensed by the earlier question or the storm surrounding the NCAA right now that he was unwilling to hear it. Perhaps if Vitale had stayed on the phone long enough to engage in a reasonable conversation, they could have discussed Krzyzewski’s “controversial” phone call to Alex Poythress or Sam Gilbert’s association with John Wooden‘s UCLA dynasty (OK, maybe that would have set him off). In any event, although many college basketball fans (particularly Kentucky fans) will support Vitale in this case, he does come off as petulant and condescending here.

1. On July 23, Preston Anderson, a former BYU student and current basketball player for Hartnell College in Salinas, California, jumped on his motorcycle at five o’clock in the morning and drove away from his apartment, his roommates assuming he was headed off to a morning workout. Until three days ago, Anderson’s whereabouts have remained a total mystery. He left his cell phone behind and has contacted none of his family or friends. A credit card transaction at a hotel in Corozal, Belize from August 4 — about which his family learned on Tuesday — is the only way any of them know he’s still alive. Hotel staff confirmed that the guest/cardholder was a 6’9” American, same as Anderson. Preston’s father Corey assumes his son is en route to South America, given the current travel vector. We don’t cover a lot of community college basketball around here, but this has sort of a Chris McCandless vibe about it, only more tropical. We hope it ends better, with more of a Ewan McGregor/Charley Boorman-esque resolution.
2. In the title to his article yesterday, Sporting News‘ Mike DeCourcy describes the changes the NCAA wants to make to college athletics as “a mixed bag of genius and idiocy.” Contained within is a fine summary of the new provisions the NCAA wants to implement, not to mention a tasty little UCLA dig. Have to say, here…we’ve been fans of the idea of tougher punishments for a long time; currently, the risks of cheating just don’t sufficiently outweigh the possible benefits, and while no set of rules can eradicate all the rascals, cranking up punishments could at long last have presumptive rule-breakers wondering if it’s really worth it. [Ed. Note: 3 of 5 days of M5 goodness for MD this week! Don’t think any writer has ever had that many in a M-F cycle. And MD and Luke Winn continue to battle for the all-time lead.]
3. Can you believe that Facebook and Twitter now comprise 50% of recruiting interactions between recruiters and prospects? It is without question the best way for coaches to make contact with players nowadays, especially since the latter group seems reluctant to even pick up or open a ringing cell phone. Before you write that off to an alleged aloofness among high school recruits, first consider (as Pete Thamel of the New York Times did in his article from Tuesday) the case of Nerlens Noel, a top prospect who attends a prep school in New Hampshire. He has one hour of free time a day. You think he’s going to spend it all on his phone talking to coaches giving him their sales pitches? He says of Facebook: “It’s a great way to contact me.” He’s not alone.
4. We hope that Chris Webber, Ray Jackson, and Juwan Howard are somewhere laying low and playing it cool right now, since the fates are evidently cracking down on the once-Fab Five. And by the fates, we mean the cops. Jalen Rose is halfway through a 20-day stretch in the pokey after pleading guilty to DUI, and now Jimmy King has been arrested and housed in the same facility (actually, we assume he’s out on bail by now) for failure to pay over $17,000 in child support. As if that wasn’t bad enough, King was arrested on his 38th birthday at a church after authorities saw his name on a basketball camp the church was holding. Whew.
5. SI.com’s Luke Winn is back with another crop of sophomores likely up for big seasons as predicted by his Breakout Sophomore Formula. In addition to his usual clever and well-evidenced insights, two things in particular that we like about this offering from Winn are 1) the formula is designed to avoid insulting your intelligence by making obvious picks like, say, Jared Sullinger or Jeremy Lamb, and 2) Winn takes the time to examine how last year’s prognostications did. In doing so here, he also got in one of the great phrases we’ve seen in any sports article in some time: “libidinous malcontents.” You should already want to do so, but if that doesn’t make you want to click on the above link and check the article out for yourself, nothing will.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Oh Canada! La Salle Wraps Up North Country Tour With a Win: After trailing by 4 at halftime, La Salle ended up winning 66-64 thanks to some solid defense in the second half. (Villanova by the Numbers)
• Men’s Basketball Unveils 2011-12 Out-of-Conference Schedule: “The Commodores will kick off their 2011-12 basketball campaign with a home game against Oregon, according to the team’s newly released out-of-conference schedule. The upcoming season also includes challenging matchups against Xavier, Louisville, Marquette, North Carolina State and a potential preseason tournament showdown with Texas.” (Anchor of Gold)
• Syracuse Basketball: Bucknell Bound For Dome December 20: “Our old friends the Bucknell Bisons will be making a trip to the Carrier Dome on December 20 when they play the Syracuse Orange for the first time since 2005.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Calipari: “Doron Lamb is our best basketball player.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)
  
• USA Midwest, Harris win Nike Global Challenge: “The USA Midwest team, featuring 2012 IU recruiting target Gary Harris, beat Canada 99-94 last night in Hillsboro, Oregon to win the Nike Global Challenge.” (Inside the Hall)
• Epic Kenner League Playoffs Recap: A summary of the playoffs of the Georgetown summer league. (Casual Hoya)

1. It turns out that Oklahoma actually paid a price for being a repeat offender. No, the NCAA didn’t come down with the hammer on them. Instead, Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke elected to go to Butler over the Sooners. Clarke didn’t say that the uncertainty about Oklahoma’s situation was the key factor, but did mention it among his reasons for turning down a chance to play in his home state. Although Clarke won’t be available next season as he sits out per NCAA rules (yes, they enforce some — only for players) he should be a major asset for a Butler team that will be rebuilding and should provide them with one of the most dangerous long-range shooters in the nation.
2. Defending national champion Connecticut released their non-conference schedule yesterday. Let us just say we are underwhelmed. While they do play a few big-name programs all of them are rebuilding so realistically their most difficult out-of-conference opponent may be Harvard, who they could play twice in about 10 days. From UConn’s perspective it is understandable that they want to ease the team into the post-Kemba Walker era, but if they don’t play well in the conference and manage to lose a few of these games they could find themselves on the bubble having to defend an atrocious out-of-conference schedule (don’t forget that they were in a three-way tie for 9th in the Big East at the end of the regular season before they began their run to the national championship).
3. Over the weekend, Jerime Anderson was still listed as the host for the upcoming “I LOVE COLLEGE!!! ATHLETES PARTY!” on August 5th even after his arrest for stealing a Macbook and suspension from the UCLA basketball. In fact a co-planner of the event had confirmed that Anderson would be coming. It appears that Anderson (or someone in the UCLA athletic department) had the good sense to realize that throwing a party a few days after you were suspended for an on-campus arrest might not be the best PR move.
4. Dana O’Neil provides an interesting feature on Brian Gregory, who left Dayton to take over a mess left by Paul Hewitt at Georgia Tech. The background on Gregory is interesting and the Atlanta-area has more than enough to field a decent team (certainly better than the 13-18 record and 11th in the ACC that the Yellow Jackets were last season), but I can’t shake the feeling that if people are expecting Gregory to turn the Yellow Jackets into the third best program in the ACC (seriously, there is no way they ever challenge Duke or UNC) then they are going to disappointed. While Dayton did have a few solid seasons under Gregory every other season he was there they finished in the middle or back of the pack in the Atlantic-10. If Gregory can’t cut it in the Atlantic-10 with a fairly talented team, how is he going to survive in the ACC?
5. Finally, we wanted to send along our best wishes to St. Louis coach Rick Majerus, who had a stent placed in one of his coronary arteries at a hospital in Salt Lake City on Sunday. Based on reports, it appears that Majerus is doing well after what appears to be an uncomplicated procedure. The announcements that have been made by the school have not indicated a specific time for Majerus to return to St. Louis as his team prepares for a 10-day trip to Canada starting on August 19th. We hope to see Majerus on the sidelines in the near future although we have to admit that we always enjoyed his random non sequiturs as an ESPN analyst.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

General News

• Coach K Recruiting Scandal: A variety of updates on the investigation into Coach K. (A Sea of Blue and Kentucky Sports Radio)
• Kenner League Day 10 in Review: An update from the Georgetown summer league. (Casual Hoya)