The decision by sophomore Doneal Mack to transfer from Memphis last month was a bit of a surprise. It was reported that he was unhappy with only averaging 12.5 minutes per game. The reserve guard was, however, poised to get more minutes with guards Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose going to the NBA. The once highly recruited guard didn't choose a SEC or ACC team as initially indicated. Instead, he ended up choosing the University of New Orleans at the beginning of July and began to take classes.
Apparently he's had another change of heart. Barely a week at New Orleans and he wants to return to the Memphis Tigers. While it appears that Coach John Calipari is willing to take back the flighty Mack, the NCAA is now involved. Mack registered and began taking classes at another school. While it is within an actual window of time to return (14 days) and he took part in no athletic activities, there is still a bureaucracy that needs to be followed before he can be fully reinstated.
All the same, if I'm running the Memphis Tigers website, I don't list his bio and name on the roster until the NCAA signs off on this.
Ah, historic Wallace Wade Stadium. The site of the 1942 Rose Bowl. A quaint little stadium with the capacity to seat almost 34,000, rarely exceeds 20,000. Why? Well it's the home to the Duke Blue Devils and their 7-40 record at home over the last 8 years (10-82 overall). It is also, in the words of new Athletic Director Kevin White, in need of "a pretty significant makeover."
Duke's strategic plan for athletics, released in May, has called for renovations at Wallace Wade. White said those renovations need to be so extensive he doesn't even know where to start in talking about them.
He wants to consult with architects about possibilities and prices before getting specific.
"We need to do an awful lot at Wallace Wade," White said. "This facility is antiquated at best, and we just have got to come in here and do a pretty significant makeover. Not a facelift, but a makeover."
It's been a lousy 12 month period for Lute Olson. By any definition. The health issues that kept him from coaching for the year (that were called "personal reasons"); the nasty divorce from his wife (finally settled); the overhauling of his coaching staff last year (that blew up badly); playersdeclaring for the NBA Draft (though, Budinger surprised many by returning); and then the widely heralded recruiting class seemed in jeopardy.
Then it seemed things might be turning around. The coaching staff was drastically overhauled once more, but it paid immediate dividends with regards to getting Chase Budinger to come back for one more season.
When hired on May 15, [Mike] Dunlap said he asked UA head coach Lute Olson if he could work on convincing Budinger to return to Arizona for his junior season. After all, spending the past two seasons as an assistant coach with the NBA Denver Nuggets, Dunlap has an eye for NBA-caliber players.
"Chase has a lot of holes in his game that he needs to fill before he's ready for that next level," said Dunlap, speaking from a podium in the restaurant. "And I just came from that level and I would say to you clearly, he was not a top-25 pick. No way. He wasn't.
"But has he got top-25 talent? Definitely," Dunlap added. "But talent and experience are two things that have to be melted together. He made a wise move to come back."
Brandon Jennings seemed likely to get cleared by the NCAA after the discrepancies between his first and second SAT scores were clarified, and Negedu was released from his scholarship. Things started looking better.
It seemed like a cool thing. A Syracuse alum traveling in Russia actually found a set of Syracuse themed nesting dolls. The dolls even have the numbers of the best players on the Orange squad for this year painted on the back.
Let's look at the facts. The dolls were created in the bowels of the Kremlin, made from the ashes of Josef Stalin's remains, remnants of Hitler's brain and Orange #3. The ingredients were mixed together in a cauldron by this manand set in molds. From there they were placed in a shop that just so happened to be somewhere where American and Syracuse fan Bob Kalka would see them, just HAVE TO buy them, and bring them back to America.
When Indiana University President Michael McRobbie made a video conference appearance before the NCAA Infractions Committee regarding the Kelvin Sampson phone call mess he made a bold statement.
As others have stated, Indiana University took a risk in hiring Coach Sampson and giving him a second chance following his problems at Oklahoma. It is now clear that this was a risk that should not have been taken and the university regrets doing so.
McRobbie also added that it was clear that investing in Pets.com based on a sock puppet in the 90s, buying into the Miami real estate market and wearing a meat suit to a dog fight were also risks that should not have been taken and he regrets doing so.
As for the fault, well, he is all about direct accountability.
Some have said that there is a lot of blame to be shared in all of this, suggesting -- and perhaps hoping -- that there can be a dilution of personal responsibility under some notion of collective guilt. I reject that notion completely and I hope this committee will, as well.
That's integrity. That's strong leadership. That's some accountability. Oh, wait, he doesn't mean himself.
Every program has some turnover when there is a coaching change. There are players dissatisfied with the new system, personalities clash, promises made by the old regime are no longer valid, academics can always be an issue.
That's fine, but turning over a quarter of the roster in a little more than 12 months is ridiculous. Especially when a team goes from 12-1 and winning the Orange Bowl to 6-6 and home for the holidays. That appears to be what has happened at Louisville in the year after Bobby Petrino left and Steve Kragthorpe took control.
The Cardinals' beat writer from the Louisville Courier-Journal listed 21 underclassmen who have left the football team from the spring of 2007 to June 2008. While his list included a couple of players who left early for the NFL, it is still a crazy number.
4 players had to quit due to medical conditions.
6 were simply dismissed from the team.
8 transferred, left the program or quit the team.
1 was an academic casualty.
Add in the 17 seniors who graduated and that comes to 38 players out of the Louisville program in Kragthorpe's first year. There's winnowing out players not on-board with a new system, and then there's clearcutting.
Louisville brought in a 22-man recruiting class. That leaves 16 open scholarships coming into this season. They have roughly 20 scholarship seniors on the 2008 roster. The NCAA limits the number of scholarships to be given to a recruiting class in a given year to 25. It's going to be a while before Louisville gets close to its limits.
At least the walk-ons should get rewarded this season.
During the NBA Draft last week, Jay Bilas took pains to avoid using his favorite words when talking about the draftees: "long" and "upside." It wasn't because the folks at ESPN told him that his overuse of the words had become annoying and tiresome. No. He just wanted to keep people from getting too tanked that night ($).
I am aware of the drinking games that are based upon the use of such terms, and I did my level best to reduce binge drinking across the country. We all have to do what we can. Instead of "long," I used the terms "length," "stretch," "elongated," "extend" and the ever-popular "considerable linear extent in space." With one player, I stated that his arms "extend beyond normal or moderate limits."
The draft daydrinking games featuring Bilas have been around for a few years. I doubt his direct avoidance of those words did much to slow it down. Especially with the other talking heads around him happily picking up the slack.
Still, that Bilas acknowledges the games are played, and actually has something approaching a sense of humor about it is a welcome thing. Most wouldn't admit to it, or at best might mention it in passing if pushed on a radio show. Instead Bilas came out with it on his own.
Missouri likes to play a press defense. Coach Mike Anderson is a Nolan Richardson disciple and has sought to bring "40 minutes of hell" to the Tiger defense. To play that way, though, you need to rotate players and experience in the backcourt to put the pressure on the opponent when bringing up the ball.
Earlier this month, it looked like the enigmatic Stanley Robinson would be history at UConn. The once highly recruited and very athletic power forward was a puzzle to many. He had the physical tools to dominate almost every night, but often seemed more like a role player and unsure how to assert his talent. He was capable of dominating for a game or two and then disappearing for a week or so. Turns out, he was like that off the court as well.
"He does things that are very different and some of those things end up being very hurtful to him," Calhoun said. "And by different I mean whether it be missing classes or disappearing for two or three days at a time and going to Alabama. And he's a terrific, nice, nice kid.
"But he's got to get his life squared away. And this is the only way that we feel that we can get Stanley to start reacting. So he's got some responsibilities this summer. The next step would be the possibility of coming back this January, or next May and be back in summer school with two years' eligibility."
To that end, Robinson is back home in Alabama. While UConn and Coach Jim Calhoun aren't fully explaining what is happening, they are saying it's a mix of personal and academic reasons.
"After 36 years, 23 Final Fours, all 10 Bowl Championship Series title games and a half-dozen laptops, I'm done," he writes.
"I will begin working as a writer/blogger for the Big 12 Conference web site (so I'll need laptop No. 7). The Big 12 wants its web site to convey information about its schools in both video and story form. I'll be somewhat involved with the former and heavily involved with the latter. It's a great opportunity that I'm lucky to have considering the death spiral of major newspapers."
Barnhouse had been the national college football and basketball writer/columnist for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Barnhouse's national reach, reputation and popularity grew as the internet allowed more readers access. His columns were considered required reading by many college sports fans. Barnhouse was also one of the few national college sports writers at a newspaper. Not at a national paper, magazine or TV/internet operation.
The Star-Telegram benefited from his reputation, but the actual value to the paper was low. The national following added little to their subscription base. This led the paper to decide to eliminate the national college beat. Offering Barnhouse the choice of a buyout or assuming role of Texas A&M beat writer. As Barnhouse wrote, "Nothing against the Aggies, but it was clearly time to bail out."
The decision by sophomore Doneal Mack to transfer from Memphis last month was a bit of a surprise. It was reported that he was unhappy with only averaging 12.5 minutes per game. The reserve guard was, however, poised to get more minutes with guards Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose going to the NBA. The once highly recruited guard didn't choose a SEC or ACC team as initially indicated. Instead, he ended up choosing the University of New Orleans at the beginning of July and began to take classes.
Ah, historic Wallace Wade Stadium. The site of the 1942 Rose Bowl. A quaint little stadium with the capacity to seat almost 34,000, rarely exceeds 20,000. Why? Well it's the home to the Duke Blue Devils and their 7-40 record at home over the last 8 years (10-82 overall). It is also, in the words of new Athletic Director Kevin White, in need of "
It's been a lousy 12 month period for Lute Olson. By any definition. The health issues that kept him from coaching for the year (that were called "personal reasons"); the 
It seemed like a cool thing. A Syracuse alum traveling in Russia actually 
Every program has some turnover when there is a coaching change. There are players dissatisfied with the new system, personalities clash, promises made by the old regime are no longer valid, academics can always be an issue. 
During the NBA Draft last week, Jay Bilas took pains to avoid using his favorite words when talking about the draftees: "long" and "upside." It wasn't because the folks at ESPN told him that his overuse of the words had become annoying and tiresome. No. He just wanted to 
Missouri likes to play a press defense. Coach Mike Anderson is a Nolan Richardson disciple and has sought to bring "40 minutes of hell" to the Tiger defense. To play that way, though, you need to rotate players and experience in the backcourt to put the pressure on the opponent when bringing up the ball. 
Earlier this month, it looked like the enigmatic Stanley 
The Big 12's gain is the 
