Parrish and Scout.com Predict Recruit Destinations

We’ve been giving you Final Four Blog readers a lot of Gary Parrish these days, so if you’re getting tired of his haircut, we apologize. However, he’s got yet another good article that you ought to check out. He’s a pretty hard working college basketball writer. Anyways, as usual you can find it at CBS Sports.com. He also employs the help of some Scout.com basketball experts.

The point of Gary’s article is to figure out where some of the nation’s top college basketball prospects are going to sign. With what schools will they play for next season (the one after this upcoming one). The recruiting season is almost over (well, not is you’re Kelvin Sampson) and already many of the nation’s top prep basketball players have agreed wither verbally or on paper to attend a school next fall. However, some are still up in the air. Without saying too much, if you are a fan of Memphis, St. John’s, Georgia Tech, Duke, Florida or Southern California, you might want to read this article.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 30, 2008 - Post a comment

Pitt Coach Dixon Extended Through 2015-16

Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Jamie Dixon recently accepted an offer from the university to stay as the head coach through the 2015-16 season. Mostly this is an unsurprising move. Dixon has been wildly successful as Pitt’s head coach, and it’s a large school with a great basketball program in the Big East Conference, so there’s very little room for vertical growth in the coaching world.

What makes the story more interesting is that Dixon was almost not going to be hired as the coach after Ben Howland (who now coaches at UCLA) left the school. He was only 37 years old, and only had assistant experience. However, the AD took a slight gamble on Dixon and it appears to have paid off greatly. The Panthers are regular NCAA Tournament contenders and have been to the Sweet Sixteen two times in the past five seasons. Garry Parrish of CBS Sports seems to think that there should be more young guns getting a chance at head coaching. Would tend to agree- young coaches mean fresher ideas, and they often pan out.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 29, 2008 - Post a comment

(Coaches vs. Cancer) vs. Congress

As you might know, the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament raises tons of money for cancer research in the hopes that we will someday be able to find a cure for some, if not all forms of this devastating disease. For some coaches, like Jim Calhoun of Connecticut, fighting cancer has taken on a more personal struggle, as he has been diagnosed with skin cancer, and is currently struggling against the disease’s affects. But however dedicated the coaches are in helping to secure funding for more research, they also know that their reach is limited. This why they are pushing for more funding for cancer research on Capitol Hill.

Calhoun, along with Gary Williams of Maryland, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, Fran Dunphy of Temple and Mark Gottfried of Alabama, were present as the American Cancer Society demanded more funding for cancer research the other day in Washington D.C. Money coming from the federal government has been hard to come by lately (unless you’re a large investment bank) and it appears that cancer research dollars have dropped on the priority list. Coaches, we wish you luck in your battle against cancer and congress.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 26, 2008 - Post a comment

Davidson Gets Goliath Schedule, Nevada Lands Goliath

After Stephen Curry led the Davidson Wildcats on a run to the Elite Eight (and a missed three pointer from the Final Four), the Davidson basketball team has increased the toughness of its schedule. The bright side of things for college basketball fans is that you’ll get to see the Wildcats play teams like Perdue, Oklahoma and West Virginia, as well as other possible matchups with good programs in the Jimmy V Classic and the NIT Season Tip Off. The bad thing: Davidson will not play their local rivals, Charlotte, for the first time in 30 seasons because of a scheduling dispute. Let’s hope they aren’t getting too big for their britches.

In other news, Nevada has landed a 6-10 forward named Steven Bjornstad for the 2009 season. Although it’s too early to get comment from the coach of the Wolfpack, having a guy that tall set to join the program is a great sign for coach Mark Fox, who has been doing wonderful things for the Nevada basketball program. Steven’s only a junior now, and was considering Northern California WCC schools Santa Clara and St. Mary’s. He averaged over 18 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks in his junior season.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 25, 2008 - Post a comment

Predicting the Next Sophomore Sensation

Luke Winn and BasketballProspectus.com, two of the most prolific subjects of the Final Four Blog, have teamed up to give you fans a great new blog post here that’s both pure stats from BP and great, insightful writing by Luke. Today they’re suing stats to figure out which players will be breakout stars this next season. Basically (and Luke explains it really well in the article) there are offensive efficiency stats that determine how many often a player gets involves in a play- either by shooting, rebounding making an assist, etc.- on an average. So if you are a very active offensive player, even if you don’t play a lot of minutes, or get good point totals, you’ll still have a high efficiency rating.

Players who go after it as a freshman are more likely to become high scorers when they are sophomores and they start getting more minutes when other players leave. Not surprisingly, the players that Luke Winn names in his research are mostly from mid-major schools, such as Gonzaga and Creighton, because a lot of the time the big time schools’ best frosh leave after one season. Check out the article. Very interesting read.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 24, 2008 - Post a comment

7 ft. 7 Player Might Miss the Season

The tallest college basketball player in the country might not step his huge feet onto the court this upcoming season. Kenny George, a Chicago native and one of the most imposing defensive players in the nation, has been struggling with a foot injury for some time, and is expected to miss the whole 2008-09 college hoops season.

George, who plays for UNC Asheville, has an infected foot (how that happened is not stated in the CBSSports.com article about the matter) and apparently it’s bad enough that they need to have surgery on it.

This is obviously bad news for Kenny George, who might have the makings of a pro player0 either in the NBA or in Europe, but it particularly troubling for the UNC Asheville Bulldogs. George was the Defensive Player of the Year in the Big South Conference, and he averaged 12.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.3 blocks last year. The Bulldogs might have been a tournament hopeful this season, if George were to come back to play.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 23, 2008 - Post a comment

Dick Vitale Inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame

Dick Vitale, perhaps the best known basketball commentator of all time, college or pro, has been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. Dickie V was inducted into the Hall along with Pat Riley, Adrian Dantley, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, William Davidson and Cathy Rush, but for this purpose of the Final Four Blog, and many others who were in attendance, Vitale was the star of the show. While the other players and coaches did a fair job at giving their speeches, everyone wanted to see Dickie V’s exuberant pep talk, which was classic Vitale the whole way through.

If you get a chance you should check out the speech, or portions of it at YouTube or even the ESPN page about the Dickie V induction. Although most people know Dick Vitale because of his commentating and commercials, few know that he was, at one point, a player and a coach. He worked for the Detroit Pistons, and coached a little college, too, at the University of Detroit and Rutgers.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 22, 2008 - Post a comment

Paradise Jam Preseason Tourney

There are all kinds of preseason tournaments to consider attending, to consider buying and selling tickets for, but one might just stand out above the rest: The Paradise Jam. Set to take place in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Paradise Jam offers not only a fabulous location with beautiful beaches, cold cocktails and all the steel drum music you could ever want, but it also provides you with some great college basketball. Check out the list of teams set to play there. You’ve got Wisconsin, UConn, Miami, Valparaiso, LaSalle, San Diego and Southern Mississippi. If you are wanting to get there for the game, here are a few things you should know.

  • You might not get to see a rematch between the San Diego Toreros and the Connecticut Huskies, as they are scheduled in the brackets in just such a way as to allow for a possible meeting in the finals, or a consolation game. But that would be awesome either way, because USD beat UConn in the first round of the Tournament last year.
  • The U.S. Virgin Islands were discovered by Christopher Columbus, although he did not know about the United States back then, so he just named them the Virgin Islands.
  • Tourism (including sports tourism) is a major portion of the economy.
  • The U.S. bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for a mere $25 million.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 19, 2008 - Post a comment

A.J. Price Cleared to Play for UConn

There’s a compelling article about A.J. Price, the point guard for the University of Connecticut Huskies, at SportsIllustrated.com. Price, as you might know, went down in the first half of last year’s opening round game between UConn and the University of San Diego. After the game was over and the Toreros has upset the heavily favored Huskies, Price was told he has a torn ACL. If you’ve followed sports at all, you know that this usually means a nightmarish recovery, of any at all. Well, Price had surgery and has taken the offseason to recover and rehab. Now the knee would be fine, but he’s still working on strengthening it. This week is the first time that A.J. has been cleared to play basketball.

Getting A.J. Price back in business would be a great thing for the Huskies, because with the team that Jim Calhoun has assembled around Price, which includes future first round pick Hasheem Thabeet, the Huskies might be in the Final Four in Detroit. It’s also remarkable that A.J. is even on the team at all. His freshman season he had a life-threatening brain injury, and after that he was suspended for involvement in crime on campus. Let’s hope this is the comeback that all UConn basketball fans have been waiting for.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 18, 2008 - Post a comment

Cole Aldrich: About to Become a Star at Kansas

Last season you didn’t see a lot of Cole Aldrich, but what you did see went a long way. Cole didn’t play much during the regular season, and he didn’t even play much in the NCAA Tournament before Kansas’ huge Final Four game against North Carolina. When the season stats were tallied, he ranked seventh in the Kansas roster in points per game. Kansas was an especially hard team in which to get noticed, as they relied on a very, very diversified scoring arrangement, with no stand-out superstar. And Cole wasn’t even on the short list of players on that team that Bill Self could trust with making a basket. He averaged 8.3 minutes per game.

Said Cole, “I didn’t play a lot of minutes, but I played some big minutes in big games.”

That sure was right. Cole got 17 minutes in the Final Four game, and was assigned the task of playing against All-American Naismith Award winner and college basketball darling Tyler Hansbrough. He wound up scoring 8 points, snagging 7 rebounds and blocking 4 shots in a dominating performance. This year he’s likely going to start for the returning national champions, who have had their roster gutted. Read up on him at FOXSports.com.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on September 17, 2008 - Post a comment


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