Luke Winn vs. Arizona’s Chase Budinger
While the college basketball season slowly comes upon us, Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated.com has been busy giving us the low-down on a low-poster. There have been a couple of big stories coming from the University of Arizona this summer, and Luke’s giving us the chance to get in on the dirt with one of the stories: Chase Budinger. As you might know, Chase decided to drop out of the NBA Draft at the last minute so that he could come back to Arizona for one more year, at least. Luke asks him about the decision, don’t you worry.
Another big news item from Arizona has been the Brandon Jennings saga. The highly touted high school senior had trouble getting the right test scores to play college ball, so he opted not to go to Arizona- and instead signed with a European club. You can see Chase’s take when you read the whole story. You also get some insight about the way things are going considering the coaching situation, such as the players’ reaction to Lute Olsen leaving during the season last year.
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Beverley To Miss Season For Arkansas
Patrick Beverley, an up-and-coming college basketball player for the Arkansas Razorbacks, will miss the entire basketball season this year due to academic ineligibility. Last year the sophomore shooting guard averaged 12.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists while starting 35 games. In his freshman season he averaged 13.9 points.
Clearly this is a big-time setback for the Razorbacks, who were hoping that Beverley would be the go-to guy on offense. Not only that, but Beverley was a better than average defender, and although he’s only 6-1, he has proven to be a force on the glass. Last year Beverley helped Arkansas win a first round game in the NCAA Tournament against Indiana. They later fell to the North Carolina Tar Heels in the second round. This year, the razorbacks were planning on another trip to the Dance, but id they re to get there again, it will have to be without one of their top players. There are some great players coming to the school this season, so it might turn out that they do just fine despite the setback.
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Breaking Down The Ivy League
The Ivy League is an odd duck. They don’t have an end-of-season tournament and they do not hand out scholarships. As such, they stand alone in the D-I college basketball world. Sometimes they get neglected, especially around Tourney time. Because there are no dramatics near the finish of the regular season, the team that moves on to the NCAA Tournament from the Ivy League (and usually this is Penn or Princeton) has about two weeks of waiting before they have to turn it on again for the tournament- which is typically a disadvantage unless the team happens to need some rest to get players back to form. Anyways- the Ivy League has not won an NCAA Tournament game in a long, long time (since 1998, in fact). Could this year be the one that breaks the streak?
The Ivy League has been dominated by Penn and Princeton for the past few decades… that is, until Cornell came barreling into the upper echelon of the Ivies last season. The Big Red won the conference and played in the NCAA Tournament last season, and, according to Andy Glockner of ESPN, they should win the conference again, as they return a very strong backcourt. Cornell’s problem will be making up for the absence of their big man from last season, Jason Hartford. He did a lot of the dirty work down low- rebounding, blocking, playing good defense in the post- but they don’t appear to have anybody who will step into that role right away.
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NCAA Retains Status Quo on Beer Ads and Fantasy Sports
NCAA committee chairman Michael Adams announced on Thursday that alcohol advertisements and fantasy sports at the college level will continue despite recent discussion of both topics. The NCAA executive committee determined that despite the inappropriateness of beer ads at the college level, there is no way to ban them in a country whose sports rely heavily on alcohol sponsorship. Currently ads can only be sold for beverages containing 6 percent or less of alcohol (such as beer) during the NCAA national championships and beer ads in arenas or stadiums must be covered during these events as well. This topic recently came under fire in April, when over 100 university presidents addressed NCAA president Myles Brand about the “embarrassingly prominent” beer ads appearing in the men’s basketball tournament.
The inclusion of college-level sports in the online fantasy sports arena has been another debated about topic for the NCAA. Until recently, college sports were exempt from web competition, but that all changed when CBS Sports announced plans of an $11 billion television deal with the NCAA that will incorporate real names and stats of college-level football players. The NCAA release on Thursday confirmed that the league will not prohibit the inclusion of college sports in fantasy leagues due to the refusal of the Supreme Court to hear the case and the ruling of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. For more information on these topics see the full article and more news on NCAA updates on ESPN.com.
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2008 Old Spice Classic Pairings Revealed
ESPN Regional Television, Inc. (ERT) announced the 2008 Old Spice Classic matchups last week. Georgetown University will go head-to-head against Wichita State in the first round of the Old Spice event, which will be held on Thanksgiving weekend at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Florida. Eight teams will be competing at the Classic, of which seven qualified for postseason play during the 2007-08 season. The slated teams also include five in the NCAA Tournament, and two advancing to the Sweet 16. The first round of the tournament will begin Thursday, Nov. 27 and each team will compete in one game per day of the bracket-tournament style Classic.
The first round includes face-offs with Tennessee and Siena (noon); Wichita State vs. Georgetown (2 p.m.); Maryland squares off against Michigan State (7 p.m.); Oklahoma State and Gonzaga finish the first day (9 p.m.). The winning team of the Wichita State-Georgia game will go up against either Siena or Tennessee on Nov. 28 at 1 p.m. while the losing team will play the other team that Friday at 10:30 a.m. The winning teams of the Old Spice Classic openers will compete in a championship at 7:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Nov. 30. For a complete list of tournament pairings, find the full article on the NCAA website. All of the 2008 Old Spice Classic will be broadcast live on the ESPN Networks (ESPN2 and ESPNU).
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Opening tournament: Chaminade vs. North Carolina at Maui
The 25th annual EA Sports Maui Invitational, which will be held Nov. 24-26 at the Lahaina Civic Center, will host Chaminade against North Carolina. The early-season tournament pairings were announced Tuesday. Other first-round games include Indiana against Notre Dame, last season regional finalist Texas facing Saint Joseph’s and Oregon contending with Alabama.
With star players Danny Green, Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson (who all withdrew from the NBA draft), North Carolina is expected to be the leading pre-season team after last year’s 36-3 record. Coach Roy Williams’ team is up against Division II Chaminade of Honolulu, who beat Princeton last season. The Chaminade Silverswords are also responsible for one of the biggest upsets in college basketball when they beat then-No. 1 team Virgina in 1982. While the Tar Heels are two-time winners of the Maui Invitational, in 1999 and 2004, this will be the first time Alabama, Oregon and Saint Joesph’s play on the island. Indiana, who won the tourny in 2002, will debut new coach Tom Crean who formerly coached the Golden Eagles of Marquette.
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Bassirou Dieng Slated to Play for Georgia Tech in 2008-09 Season
Georgia Tech has announced that Bassirou Dieng, who has just been accepted to Tech’s International Affairs graduate program, will play for the Yellow Jackets’ in the 2008-09 season. Dieng, who played basketball for St. Francis University (Pa.) for the last two seasons, has been awarded one year of immediate eligibility by the NCAA. While playing for St. Francis, Dieng (pronounced dee-ENG) averaged 8.5 points per game, 5.2 rebounds per game and shot 46.2 percent from the floor. In addition to his two years at St. Francis, the six foot nine, 215 pound-player also played at Norfolk State during their 2004-05 season. Following NCAA transfer rules, Dieng accordingly waiting in the sidelines during the 2005-06 season at St. Francis.
According to NCAA regulations, the NCAA has the ability to grant a waiver for student-athletes enrolling in graduate programs not offered at their previous school. Dieng, who completed his undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Studies at St. Francis in the spring, will begin his graduate work at Georgia Tech in the fall and will be eligible to play for the Yellow Jacket’s in accordance with the NCAA waiver. Yellow Jackets’ coach Paul Hewitt has expressed his excitement about Dieng, a native of Dakar, Senegal, joining the Georgia Tech men’s basketball team.
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Who’s Who in the Top Ten
If you’re already placing bets for which NCAA men’s basketball teams will make it to the Final Four in 2009, ESPN’s countdown of the most prestigious programs since 1984-85 will give you a leg up on your competition. The 1984-84 season is significant because it was the first time the NCAA expanded to include 64 teams, thus making a national champion win six tournaments to trim down the teams. ESPN’s Prestigious Rankings score the best Division I men’s collegiate basketball programs numerically according to a number of criteria from the team’s cumber of national titles to the amount of players recruited in the top ten of the NBA draft.
At the top of the list is the Georgetown Hoyas, followed by the Syracruse Orange and the UNLV Rebels. The UCLA Bruins take the number seven spot with the Connecticut Huskies, and the Wildcats from Arizona followed by the Kentucky Wildcats are slated next. The bottom three are rounded out but the the Kansas Jayhawks, the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils. For a complete breakdown of the top NCAA men’s basketball programs of the past 24 seasons check out the article on ESPN.com.
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Look Out For Kentucky In 2009
Bill Gillispie might have had a rough first year at the helm of the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team, but you should not expect that this program will be out of the upper echelon of the SEC for long. As you might remember, the Wildcats were a different team from the beginning to the end. In the beginning, they had plenty of injuries, and lost quite a few games they should never have lost otherwise. Heck, the University of San Diego Toreros beat them early on, if that’s any indication that they should have been playing better. However, Gillispie got some players back to action, steadied the ship and got the team to the NCAA Tournament, based on strong play in the SEC portion of the season. They lost in the first round of the Tourney, but they made an impression of the competition. Don’t count them out.
So where would expect the Wildcats to place next year? With Tennessee likely falling off a bit, and Florida coming up the rankings, among several other moves, it’s going to be hard to predict where teams will land. However, with many returnees and a year with the coach under their belts, the it would really be something if the Wildcats didn’t win at least five more games next year.
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Top Recruits Shine in Las Vegas
The NCAA basketball word is always after news of the next big star. That’s why it’s important to get in on the buzz surrounding the summer basketball camps for high school recruits. Sports writers from all over the nation go to these camps to figure out which athletes will go where, and to report back the rumors to all of us college hoops fans.
Reporting for FOX Sports, Jeff Goodman went to Vegas for the annual summer basketball camps there- among the most prestigious in the country- and reported back about a few players who made the college scouts drool. He gives you the names, the schools they come from and the schools who are interested in acquiring their basketball skills once they can sign an letter of intent. At such a young age, it’s hard to tell how a player will turn out in college (some of them are still growing), however, some things become obvious when you watch the kids play. Checkout the article and see if any of the standouts are slated to go to the school you root for.
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