Luke Winn Goes Boldly Into the NBA Draft Frenzy

The NBA Draft has been over for some time, but the fallout is still getting hashed and re-hashed. if you want a nice, rambling story about one tech-savvy sports writer’s journey through all the ups and downs of the NBA Draft, check out Luke Winn’s article at Sports Illustrated. Winn usually covers college hoops, and since most of the players getting selected were college players last season, he’s still on the case. He has ton’s of great quotes and twitter feeds from the players who part of the first night of crazy NBA drafting.

As with any competition, and especially with the NBA Draft’s kind of competition, where players are, for better or worse, ranked and told exactly how good they are and how much money the will or won’t make while playing basketball, the night has plenty of drama. There are lots of great anecdotes in Winn’s article. Brandon Jennings and his agent got cold feet and didn’t attend the green room, despite the fact that he eventually went in the top ten. Then there was the Memphis player who was not drafted and tweeted a very sad and angry tweet after it was all over. Check it out and see if any of your favorite players pr teams made the article.

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 30, 2009 - Post a comment

Despite Bad Press, Memphis Still Attracting Talent

The Memphis Tigers are still getting their fair share of recruits, despite the fact that their former head coach, John Calipari, left amid the specter of an NCAA investigation involving illegal player payments.  Two news stories out recently suggest that the school still seems like a recruiting hot bed.

Elliot Williams, a Duke starter last season, will transfer to Memphis.  The move is apparently more of a result of an unfortunate family situation, rather than a basketball-related one, but nonetheless the Memphis Tigers should benefit from this guard’s decision to play in Memphis.  As per typical transfer rules, Williams will likely have to forgo playing in the upcoming season, but will retain that year’s athleticeligibility.

You might not have heard much about Matt Pilgrim because he sat out last season due to transfer eligibility rules. He was supposed to play for Kentucky this upcoming season, but due to some John Calipari moves when the coach took the Wildcats job, Pilgrim got the boot from the team. Where’s he thinking of going? Memphis. He’s slated to take a look at the school sometime soon. As with Williams, Pilgrim might have to sit out this next season.

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 29, 2009 - Post a comment

College Players Dominate NBA Draft; WAC Toureny in Vegas!

Who says it doesn’t pay to have a one-year college education? In a world where more and more promising young basketball players are going overseas to get paychecks and experience before entering the NBA, this latest draft proved that, still the best way to evaluate your talent against the best young hoopsters is to play in the NCAA. As if we didn’t already know that? Blake Griffin of Oklahoma went No. 1, as everyone expected. But after that things didn’t exactly go as some of the projections thought. Hasheem Thabeet of UConn went second, James Harden of Arizona State went third, and instead of picking up Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio, the Kings went for Memphis guard Tyreke Evans for the fourth pick. The first international player selected was Rubio at No. 5. Brandon Jennings, who got selected at No. 10, was the second international. Another athlete from Spain, one from Israel, one from France and one from the Congo were selected in the 20s. Playing in college helps, apparently.

In other news, the Western Athletic Conference is moving their annual basketball tournament to the City of Sin, Las Vegas, Nevada. the Mountain West and West Coast Conference also hold their tournaments in Las Vegas. It’s getting popular these days. Who’s next? Pac-10? Big 12?

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 26, 2009 - Post a comment

Washington Awash in Grand Guards

The Washington Huskies are getting lots of cheers these days for the way they’ve put together a solid team for next season. The Huskies have one of the best returning crews in thePac-10, and they added an exciting point guard prospect that might be the next Pac-10 superstar. Seth Davis of Sports illustrated picks the U-Dub hoops team as the preseason No. 1 in the Pac-10. Even though Washington lost sweet-shooting Justin Dentmon and perhaps he best rebounder in the nation, Jon Brockman, they still have Venoy Overton, Isaiah Thomas, plus they’ve added Abdul Gaddy, who transferred to U-Dub after Arizona lost Lute Olsen as coach.

Later in his article Seth Davis remarks about the situation at USC, where an investigation looms following the scandal during Tim Floyd’s reign at head coach. Davis actually says some nice things about new coach Kevin O’Neill, which is very rare these days.USC was, in general, eaten alive by the media for picking O’Neill as the coach, but Seth seems more subdued and actually in favor of the selection.

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 25, 2009 - Post a comment

Duke Guard No Play; Coach K Gets Pay

All the college basketball news today is focused around the NBA Draft- basically the players who are not going to be playing college basketball anytime soon. While it’s all very interesting from an NCAA hoops perspective, we’re going to focus on some things that affect the actual future of college basketball. Here’s two stories about Duke.

Duke guard Elliot Williams will not play for the Blue Devils next season because of family reasons, reasons which have remained unspecified at this time. The Blue Devils got an added boost from Williams last season when he played his way into a starting position. Given the loss of Gerald Henderson, Williams was widely speculated to be the starting point guard on a team that had national title aspirations. Let’s hope things work out for this young man. Good luck, Elliot.

In other Duke-related news, Coach K made headlines recently for being the highest paid employee of Duke University. Duke is a private school, of course, and doesn’t have the kind of employee salary issues as say UConn and Coach Calhoun, an issue that came up last season. Coach K took in about $3.6 million, way more than the second-highest earner, chancellor emeritus Dr. Ralph Snyderman, who earned just under a cool mil.

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 24, 2009 - Post a comment

William & Mary Needs New Mascot; NBA Draft By the Spots

The College of William & Mary was known as the Indians until recently, when they changed to the Tribe and abandoned their Indian mascot. Now they want a new mascot (but not a new nickname- they’re keeping the Tribe). They’ve been asking for ideas from all-comers, including alumni, students and fans from every corner of the globe. There are face book groups and lots of unique names out ther, including the asparagus and the mud bears and the phoenix. College basketball is great because you get so many unique college basketball names. Let’s hope it’s a creative one.

In other news… the NBA Draft is rpaidly approaching. While most of the projections haven’t changed too much in the closing hours, it will still be interesting to see where the players wind up. SportsIllustrated.com has a nice list of the best draft picks by their position in the draft. You’d be surprised which players went in the late rounds. Can you believe NBA assists leader John Stockton was picked 16th, or that five-time NBA champion and multiple-time rebound title holder Dennis Rodman was picked 27th?

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 23, 2009 - Post a comment

USC Trojans Hire Kevin O’Neil as Head Coach

The search for a new head basketball coach at the University of Southern California is over. The Trojans have replaced the resigned Tim Floyd with Kevin O’Neil, a common name to college basketball fans because he’s been around the league. And when we say he’s been around, we really mean it.

K-O has been coaching college and professional basketball since the early 1980s, and his resume includes no fewer than 14 teams in that time. Most notably he’s been an assistant at Arizona, a head coach at Marquette and Tennessee, and has worked as an assistant with the New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacers. He also served as an interim coach with Arizona between 2001-2008.

Most of the commentary out there about this hire is negative. Greg Doyle’s article at CBSsports.com is somewhat representative of the general feeling on the matter. But why all the hate? At the Final Four Blog we’re going to give O’Neil a chance at least. He’s walking into a somewhat tough situation, and he has a chance to turn things around for the better. Good luck, Kevin.

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 22, 2009 - Post a comment

How Do the Draft Decisions Affect Mid Majors?

Draft decision day was Monday and we’re still decompressing from all the media swirl from that major moment in the college basketball calendar. But speaking of majors… we just had a thought. How will all of the draft decisions affect the mid-majors, the little guys in college basketball?

In the Preseason Top 25 list we gave you yesterday we failed to mention one thing that Andy Katz spelled out in his introduction. This year there were plenty of players who decided to stay in college hoops, despite the lure of the NBA (and recently the lure of European leagues). Will this mean that the high-majors benefit from more players staying around than usual? Perhaps. But check out the list one more time with an eye out for mid-majors. Do you notice any in the Top 25? Actually there are some. Starting with Butler at No. 14. Sienna makes the list, as does Tulsa. Dayton and Gonzaga (if you can call those schools mid-majors) also were mentioned as possible top 25 teams.

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Permalink - Posted in General on June 19, 2009 - Post a comment

Post-Decision Day College Basketball Preseason 25

On Monday the college basketball waited with much anticipation to find out who was in and who was out, who was going to stay in the NBA Draft and who was going to head back to school to play college basketball for one more year. Now that the decisions have been made once and for all, the rankings have to be changed. Yesterday we detailed how the NBA Draft board changed in light of the decisions. Now, the preseason Top 25 team rankings will get the attention. Check out Andy Katz’s preseason top 25, made with the most recent news in mind.

Some of the most puzzling parts of Katz’s Top 25 are the teams that were not part of the equation when it came to making draft-or-college decisions. For example, the man has North Carolina in the top 5. We knew for sure that the Heels would loose Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green way before Monday. That’s pretty much all of their contributors from their fantastic national championship squad. It’s basically a blank slate out there now. But then Andy might know something we don’t. One team that fell in the poll slightly was Kentucky, which lost Jodie Meeks this week. Would they have placed higher than UNC if he had stayed?

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

Permalink - Posted in General on June 18, 2009 - Post a comment

Post-Decision Day College Basketball Preseason 25

On Monday the college basketball waited with much anticipation to find out who was in and who was out, who was going to stay in the NBA Draft and who was going to head back to school to play college basketball for one more year. Now that the decisions have been made once and for all, the rankings have to be changed. Yesterday we detailed how the NBA Draft board changed in light of the decisions. Now, the preseason Top 25 team rankings will get the attention. Check out Andy Katz’s preseason top 25, made with the most recent news in mind.

Some of the most puzzling parts of Katz’s Top 25 are the teams that were not part of the equation when it came to making draft-or-college decisions. For example, the man has North Carolina in the top 5. We knew for sure that the Heels would loose Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green, way before Monday. That’s pretty much all of their contributors from their fantastic national championship squad. It’s basically a blank slate out there now. But then Andy might know something we don’t. One team that fell in the poll slightly was Kentucky, which lost Jodie Meeks this week. Would they have placed higher than UNC if he had stayed?

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

Permalink - Posted in General on June 17, 2009 - Post a comment


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