Bleacher Report - Articles by Rush the Court

College Basketball: 2008-09 Quarterly Report - Q1

Rush the Court — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:47:38 -0500

Believe it or not, we’re already one-quarter of the way through college bastketball's regular season. Most teams have played seven or eight of their allotted 28 regular season games, and as we head into the next two weeks of semester finals, things will quiet down a bit.

Thus, now is a good time to stop, take a look back at the first month of the season, and reflect as to some of the things we think we’ve learned through the “getting to know us” portion of the schedule. Here’s your 2008-09 First Quarter Report. All stats and records are through Sunday, Dec. 7.

Top Storyline. Nothing could be finer than to be from Carolina. Right now, the top story is whether anyone can stop the North Carolina Tar Heels before April 6 in Detroit. There’s no need to go over all the impressive stats in this space again (check here instead), but suffice it to say that UNC has looked absolutely dominant through its eight games, and the reigning National Player of the Year has only played in half of them.

It’s an absolute lock that UNC will hit Atlantic Coast Conference play undefeated and it’s very difficult to envision a scenario where the Heels drop more than a couple in league play by March Madness. The storyline from here on out will be if any other team(s) develop to the point where they can realistically challenge UNC.

: photo credit: Men’s Health

The Impact of the Longer Three. To all those coaches who said they didn’t expect the one-foot-longer three-pointer to have much of an effect on their team this season, we offer the following evidence through one month of the longer line.

Not only are percentages down across the board to levels not seen in over a decade (from 35.02 percent to 33.87 percent), but teams are shooting and making nearly one fewer three per game.

As StatSheet.com shows on its superb tracking page, 20 of the 25 top three-point shooting teams and 16 of the top 29 returning shooters from last season are down compared to this season.

Nearly 60 percent of all teams are down from last year as well. Say what you want about the degree of impact that the new line is having, but so far there is no doubt that the 20-foot, 9-inch line is having an impact on shooting. Not to mention the confusion we’ve witnessed as players step all over several lines (on many courts) trying to find their way to the proper men’s college line on the floor.

source: StatSheet.com

Q1 Awards.

Player of the Year. The player of the year race involves three players right now. Blake Griffin (25/16 on 67 percent field goal percentage—Oklahoma), Stephen Curry (31/6 assists/3 steals on 50 percent/41 percent field goal/3-point field goal percentage—Davidson) and James Harden (26/7/4 assists on 58 percent/50 percent field goal/3-point field goal percentage—Arizona St.) have destroyed everything in their paths so far this year, and it’s really too close to call at this point. Tyler Hansbrough (UNC) has been injured, but we know he’ll be a major factor in the remainder of the season.
Freshman of the Year. This isn’t a season like last year, where players such as Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, and Derrick Rose were mentioned as Players of the Year in addition to the rookie award. Still, there are some good frosh to keep an eye on—our pick thus far is Steph’s little bro—Seth Curry (21/5 on 44 percent/41 percent field goal/three-point field goal percentage—Liberty), who appears to be another ‘miss’ for the ACC just like his brother. Honorable mention goes to Samardo Samuels (17/5 on 67 percent field goal percentage—Louisville) and Tyreke Evans (16/6/4 assists/3 steals on 44 percent field goal percentage—Memphis) for leading their teams thus far.
Coach of the Year. John Beilein at Michigan is the current choice, for knocking off two top-five squads (UCLA and Duke) in the span of 16 days with a team that wasn’t supposed to be ready to compete this year. As of now, Michigan looks like a mid-level NCAA Tournament team. Honorable mention could go to a number of the top 10 (Roy Williams, Jamie Dixon, Mark Few, Jeff Capel, etc.), but how about Jimmy B. at Syracuse? Everyone knew the Orange had talent coming into this season, but lingering questions remained about the last two seasons worth of regular season flame-outs. Wins over Kansas and Florida in the CBE Classic re-awakened America to the fact that 'Cuse isn’t going to be a Big East also-ran again this year.

photo credit: Flickr

Early Surprise Teams. We already covered Michigan and Syracuse. How about Gonzaga, who has finally figured out how to stop people, and in so doing, won the Old Spice Classic over Tennessee and appears well-suited for its position in the top five of the rankings.

For some others, we go to the Buckeye State, where Thad Matta’s Ohio State team has two road upset wins (at Miami (Fla.) and versus Notre Dame in Indy) to its credit and a new star-on-the-rise in Evan Turner. Dayton is another team off to a hot start, with road wins at Auburn, Akron and Marquette on its early resume.

Early Disappointments. Michigan State takes the prize here, and not just because they Spartans were destroyed by UNC 80 miles from East Lansing last week. No, because they also were destroyed by Maryland the previous week, and doggone near lost to Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne prior to that. Tom Izzo isn’t getting consistent production from his wings and this preseason top five team barely looks to be top 25 at this point.

Florida is another disappointment thus far (along with the entire SEC). Billy Donovan may have to close the locker rooms again because the Gators aren’t playing any defense (241st in field goal percent defense) and Joakim Noah isn’t walking back through that door. (Side note: Does anyone care? Urban Meyer is back in the BCS title game.)

UCLA has also been a little disappointing, but that’s most likely because too much was expected too early based on Ben Howland’s magic. We’ll check back with them in two months for a fairer comparison.

photo credit: Daniel Mears/Detroit News

Biggest Upset. Virginia Military Academy 111, Kentucky 103. Is there any question about this one? Rupp Arena isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still Rupp Arena, and VMI walking into Kentucky’s home barn and dropping 111 on the 'Cats and stealing a win will probably end up being the biggest upset of the year.

Honorable mention goes to Utah’s ridiculous opening loss to D2 Southwest Baptist 80-79.

Big Games (next four weeks).

Texas v. Villanova (at New York)—Dec. 9
Memphis at Georgetown—Dec. 13
Marquette vs. Tennessee (at Nashville)—Dec. 16
Connecticut vs. Gonzaga (at Seattle)—Dec. 20
Xavier vs. Duke (at East Rutherford)—Dec. 20
Syracuse at Memphis—Dec. 20
Davidson at Purdue—Dec. 20
Texas at Wisconsin—Dec. 23
Georgetown at Connecticut—Dec. 29
Tennessee at Kansas—Jan. 3
Kentucky at Louisville—Jan. 4

Extremes. There are 17 unbeaten teams remaining, 11 from the power conferences and all but Butler from the high-mids. Fully a quarter of the nation’s best conference—the Big East—remains undefeated.

Conversely, 13 schools remain winless at the quarter-season mark. The SWAC (4) and Independents (3) with their guaranteed-money games are taking the brunt of the pain here. New Jersey Institute of Technology in particular is now at a record 40 losses in a row.

Unbeatens

Dayton (A10) - 8-0
Xavier (A10) - 7-0
Clemson (ACC) - 9-0
UNC (ACC) - 8-0
Wake Forest (ACC) - 8-0
Oklahoma (B12) - 8-0
Pittsburgh (Big East) - 9-0
Connecticut (Big East) - 8-0
Syracuse (Big East) - 8-0
Villanova (Big East) - 8-0
Minnesota (B10) - 8-0
Ohio St. (B10) - 5-0
Butler (Horizon) - 7-0
Illinois St. (MVC) - 8-0
BYU (Mtn West) - 8-0
Stanford (Pac-10) - 4-0
Gonzaga (WCC) - 6-0

Winless

Fordham (A10) - 0-6
USC Upstate (A-Sun) - 0-6
North Florida (A-Sun) - 0-7
NJIT (Ind) - 0-7
Houston Baptist (Ind) - 0-8
NC Central (Ind) - 0-9
Wright St. (Horizon) - 0-6
Fairleigh Dickinson (NEC) - 0-6
Southern (SWAC) - 0-6
Arkansas-Pine Bluff (SWAC) - 0-7
Texas Southern (SWAC) - 0-8
Miss. Valley St. (SWAC) - 0-10
Loyola Marymount (WCC) - 0-8

Tyler Hansbrough, For Your Own Good, Play or Get Out

Rush the Court — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:15:49 -0500

John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His columns will appear on Tuesdays throughout the season.

Fine. If it has to be me, then it has to be me. I don’t mind, I’ll take the heat. I’ll be the one to bring up the subject that nobody else wants or has the stones to bring up.

I’m calling him out.

I don’t know what Tyler Hansbrough’s plans are for this Wednesday, but they had better involve showing up at Ford Field in Detroit at around 9 p.m. In uniform. Ankles taped. Ready to play, self-proclaimed 100% healthy.

Or, they better involve not just a DNP, but a long-term hiatus from basketball.

Now, I know that, in college basketball circles, saying anything negative about Tyler Hansbrough is just the worst thing you can do.

To know that he has an injury but still demand that he get out onto the floor and actually play basketball paints me as unfeeling, a heathen—possibly even a heretic, given the public perception of Hansbrough, his head coach Roy Williams, and the entire UNC basketball program...which has gotten to the point to where the image surrounding all of them can only be described as, well…almost HOLY, for some reason.

I might as well go tell a bunch of little kids that I hate puppies or a roomful of girls that I can’t stand weddings.

I don’t care. I’ll be the one to suggest that there’s an ugly truth behind the false beauty. I’m going to point at the emperor and call him naked. Someone has to say it, and I’m volunteering, because it’s best for college basketball and Tyler Hansbrough that he and his handlers make a decision on his status once and for all.

I say “he” because that’s who the play-vs.-sit decision evidently falls to before every game. Since the season began, we’ve heard that Hansbrough is the one who determines whether he’s well enough to go or not. We’ve heard nothing about team physicians or their opinions.

We’ve seen Ol’ Roy (expectedly so, since it’s what you’re supposed to do) talk about how Tyler’s just rip-roarin’ to play, and how they basically need to use chains to keep the guy on the bench…but the decision to play or not has still been Hansbrough’s.

The only thing close to an exception has been their last game against UNC-Asheville where we were told that Hansbrough was “held out,” though it wasn’t specifically stated who did the holding.

Acceptable Reason to Sit Out

That in mind, let’s look at Tyler’s season so far.

The DNP against Penn wasn’t surprising. The “stress reaction” was relatively new and, with all due respect to the Ivy League, it was the first game and it was against Penn. Enough said.

Then came the game against Kentucky, the headline event (which turned out to be a snooze) on ESPN’s 24-hour de-facto opening night marathon of college hoops, a game that was hyped as much as any Final Four match-up in recent years.

I thought Hansbrough would play in this one, since in last year’s UK-UNC game (which also featured a No. 1-ranked Tarheel team against an unranked Kentucky), in his sixth game as a collegian, Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson largely outplayed Hansbrough and I thought the reigning POY would want to exact revenge in such a high-profile game.

When Hansbrough sat out, I began wondering if this shin injury was worse than we were being led to believe.

But then, the puzzler. Three days later against Cal-Santa Barbara…Hansbrough started and played 25 minutes. So let me get this straight. You DON’T play in a hugely-hyped game in prime time against one of your arch-rivals in Kentucky because of this injury, but you DO play three days later against UCSB?

Could those three days have made that much difference for the stress reaction? If what we hear about Hansbrough’s desire to play is true, that they basically have to tranquilize him and put him in a cage to keep him from playing, it seems to me that the game he’d WANT to play in is the Kentucky game, since he’d be the headline player on the headline team in the headline game in that situation, and it would have afforded him the chance to go up against Patterson again.

Any highly confident, top-flight athlete would LOVE that stage on which to perform. I can’t buy that the three days between the games made that much difference to this nebulous, ill-defined injury, at least not a Kentucky-to-UCSB difference.

Then the thought, sinister as it is, crept into my head. Maybe Hansbrough didn’t want to run into Patrick Patterson again, especially on prime-time TV (and right there in front of Erin Andrews, and all).

Three days after playing against UCSB, Hansbrough logs another DNP against Chaminade in the Maui, but then plays on consecutive nights against Oregon (19 minutes) and Notre Dame (a 30-minute, 34-point performance).

His appearance in the Notre Dame game had me rethinking the issue until I learned that Luke Harangody HAD FREAKING PNEUMONIA, which certainly made Hansbrough’s night relatively easier (even though Harangody, after receiving a day’s worth of IV fluids, did put up 13 points and seven rebounds in 27 minutes against him).

At this point, with UNC having claimed the Maui in most impressive fashion, everyone assumed Hansbrough was healthy and that the issue was settled.

Four days later, he DNPs in that pantsing of UNC-Asheville, and now we hear that he’s a game-time decision for the chance to play in front of a leviathan crowd at Ford Field tomorrow against the highest-ranked team they’ve faced so far this season.

Unacceptable Reason to Sit Out

College basketball fans, and especially UNC fans, should be getting sick of this. I began thinking Hansbrough was ducking certain teams/players or sitting out of “meaningless” games, or maybe that his coaches were really keeping him out of games where he might not be truly needed.

This would be especially alarming, because…well, you have to play them all, or at least make it apparent to the rest of the team that the guy is at least willing and able to go.

You can’t play the guy in some games and sit him in others because, despite Hansbrough’s valuable future, that’s even more insulting to your opponents and the game overall than a 70-point bitch-slapping. Either be a college basketball player, or don’t, you know?

But rather than fall victim to this negativity, I felt that I should go learn more about this injury. Now, what I’m about to describe is not the result of a double-blinded, well-powered, randomized controlled trial.

It’s the result of me talking to a couple of orthopedic surgeon and radiologist friends and some internet searching, so take it however you want. There are probably orthopods and radiologists out there who can explain it better than me. But here’s what I found as far as how this works…

An athlete (say, a college basketball player) notices some pain somewhere in his lower leg after practices/games and decides to go to his coaches and/or team trainer/physician about it because it’s not going away.

It’s not bad, but it’s annoying enough for the player to seek advice about it. The team physician will probably ask very specific questions about this pain (sharp or dull? Constant or intermittent? What makes it better or worse?) and do a complete physical exam.

As helpful as all of that is, the doctor will probably send this athlete for some kind of imaging of this leg, like (in usual ascending order of image quality) an X-ray, and/or maybe a CT scan, bone scan, or an MRI.

Based on what is found on those images, the treatment plan is determined. In fact, it’s just flowchart thinking at that point. You see this on your imaging? Well, here’s your treatment plan. It’s already been determined by decades of medical practice.

So let’s say our athlete has some imaging done and his doctor tells him that he has a “stress reaction,” implying that it is NOT an actual stress fracture, but rather a condition of “pre-fracture.”

There’s no guarantee that the injury will develop into a fracture with continued use, but there’s medical evidence that says it’s certainly more LIKELY to happen in that area. And with continued pounding and loading of that bone (like with continued running, jumping, etc.), it sure as hell ain’t gonna get any better.

How did the doctor come to this diagnosis? From the way the specific area appeared on the imaging, or combination of various imaging studies like X-ray or MRI.

You can see what the bone is doing on these pictures. Is it building itself up or is it breaking down? Is there a fracture or just some irritation or swelling?

Most likely in a stress reaction, the doctor will not see an actual fracture line, but rather a change in color or density in that part of the image taken. As noted above, based on that appearance, the treatment plan is pre-determined.

And this, my friends, is the compelling part of this whole situation to me. I don’t know whether Hansbrough’s leg has been put in the X-ray machine or the MRI scanner or whatever (I’d assume it has, since he’s a big-time athlete at a big-time program), but once something (ANYTHING) is found on any imaging study, the decision to play or not play is no longer Hansbrough’s to make.

Not if his best interest is being considered. The ONLY way that Tyler Hansbrough should be asked “Can you play tonight or not?” should be if his doctor’s examination and the imaging studies showed a TOTALLY NORMAL leg.

The results of the imaging studies are graded on severity and that is what determines the treatment plan. The MINIMUM (and here is where I did indeed find some ranging of opinions) rest period, since rest is the only real treatment for a stress reaction, based on imaging is THREE WEEKS of consecutive rest.

Has Hansbrough had this? And since the injury hasn’t improved clinically, should he even be trying to play or practice? If there’s even a hint of a fracture line on those imaging studies, some people say that a minimum of 6 to 16 weeks (!!) of rest is warranted.

This leads me to believe that one of two things is happening, here. We have to assume that Hansbrough and his coaches are aware of what was found on the imaging studies, assuming they were done (there’s really no doubt they were done).

If Hansbrough is allowed to practice or play on his injury, either his imaging showed nothing and his leg is totally normal except for an unexplained pain, OR his coaches are ALLOWING him to play on an injury they know should be rested longer, most likely because of Hansbrough’s intense desire to play that we keep hearing about, and the program’s desire to win.

A Typical Stress Reaction

If it’s the first, and Hansbrough has a totally normal leg after his doctor’s physical exam and by the imaging, then the guy’s got no excuse to be missing a second of practice or game action.

Basically, he’d just need to suck it up and get out there in the assumption that nothing’s wrong with his leg. It would definitely warrant a downgrading of his nickname from Psycho T (majorly depressed T? seasonal affective disorder T?). But if it’s the second of those possibilities, other questions have to be raised.

I’m a big admirer of players who play through pain to help their team. I’m all for putting team first and self second. But in this case, where the athlete in question has millions of dollars waiting on him that are dependent on his health, if there was something on that imaging (and, I’m assuming, multiple re-imaging to assess progress), if I were a coach or a team physician I’d be putting Hansbrough on the pine if I was really worried about his best interests.

Plus, it’s not like this UNC team needs him. The way they’ve looked this year so far, with those basically un-guardable guards and the play of Deon Thompson and Danny Green, UNC’s just fine without him for a while.

Plus, a full 20 percent of the regular season schedule is over. Can Hansbrough really do anything to improve his draft status at this point? Or can he do more to hurt it?

I’m not going to sit here and try to figure it out or place blame on either Tyler Hansbrough or the coaches/physicians. As far as I know, nobody knows what his imaging studies have shown or how this is being handled behind the scenes.

I’ll leave that to the readers of this column, and I’d love to hear what you think. I’ve got to tell you, because I’ve even slightly implied something negative about the UNC basketball program, I feel like Winston Smith in Orwell’s 1984.

I’m convinced that I’m going to be followed, my house will be bugged and my phones tapped. I’m convinced that I’ll walk out to my car tomorrow and find at least one flat tire. Hell, I’m even afraid to start the thing.

Before you go climbing telephone poles and putting steak knives in my Goodyears because I’m questioning something about Carolina basketball, all I ask is that you consider the question.

A diagnosis of a stress reaction mandates a certain treatment—and it seems that if the injury is persistent, even more caution is warranted. Has he received even the minimum time-off for the injury? Maybe so. But it isn’t any better.

Logically, either the leg is fine and Hansbrough needs to suck it up and play ALL the time, or he’s being allowed to continue to practice and sometimes play on a leg that is apparently begging for rest.

It’s not my job to lay blame or tell these people what to do, because they know better than me. But whatever’s being done for Mr. Hansbrough, let’s hope the insiders and decision-makers in this situation have done a true, honest risk-vs.-reward analysis and figured out what’s best for this guy and his future.

Jimmy Connors Is Having None of Your Instructions

Rush the Court — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:20:21 -0500

Somehow in the libational haze of last Friday night’s self-induced dystopia, we noted a strange factoid surfacing across the ESPN bottom-line crawler.

Tennis great Jimmy Connors, he of the former No. 1 ranking and a current Santa Barbara resident, had gotten into some kind of row with another fan outside the UCSB Thunderdome prior to the Gauchos’ game with No. 1 North Carolina, and found himself arrested.

The story got lost among all the football and hoops this weekend, but we wanted to make sure that we remembered it correctly. Turns out, we did. From the NY Daily News report:

Tennis giant Jimmy Connors was arrested outside a college basketball game in California for standing his ground, police said. Connors, 56, was ordered to move away from the entrance of the Thunderdome just before UC Santa Barbara and top-ranked North Carolina were set to play Friday night. The eight-time Grand Slam champ, known for his fiery temperament in his heyday, refused and was arrested, police said.

(photo credit: MensVogue)

We can only speculate as to who the other guy must have been or what he must have done to elicit such rage in Connors so that he would miss the once-in-a-generation opportunity for the local school (of which he supposedly is a fan) to host the nation’s No. 1-ranked team. Hmmm…

Just thinking out loud here, but who fits that description? What nemesis is capable of eliciting such rage so that Connors would refuse to comply with police instructions and move his arse? Who could that have been?

Oh, right.

(photo credit: Ron Waite)

Where Will Bob Knight Land Next?

Rush the Court — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:51:34 -0400

Lost in the detritus of last week’s news was an interesting interview that Bob Knight did with a public television station in Indianapolis (WFYI), where he talked about various topics including cheating (”In college basketball, if you get caught cheating, they should shoot you because you’re too dumb to be alive.“) and his public image as a rude boor (”I simply tried to do what I thought was right. I never really particularly cared about what other people thought except those I knew knew what they were talking about.”).

But the truly newsworthy takeaway from the interview were Knight’s comments regarding a possible return to coaching someday. From the AP:

“I got nothing else to do. It would just depend on the circumstances,” the former Army, Indiana, and Texas Tech coach told host Mickey Maurer on “Mickey’s Corner” on Indianapolis public TV station WFYI.

(photo credit: Flickr.com)

There’s no doubt that this man loves yelling, mentoring, and coaching young minds about the nuances of the game of basketball—and as much as he seemed a natural fit for studio work last March on ESPN, we’d give him only one more go-round before he ends up shoving a green highlighter up...physically assaulting Digger Phelps on national TV.

So we got to thinking...if Knight wanted to take another head coaching job next season, where would his most likely opportunities lie, and which school’s set of circumstances would be most conducive to landing him?

To help us answer that question, we came across a neat site called Coaches Hot Seat, which purports to list the top 20 or so head coaches who are one more bad season away from the pink slip and unemployment line.

We whittled the list down a little bit (Billy Gillispie? Puh-lease...that guy is adored in Lexington), but for good measure, we threw a few more names of coaches who are, um, for lack of a better phrase, approaching retirement age.

We dunno—for some reason we can totally see Knight stalking the sidelines in his golden years somewhere like Lehigh. Stay tuned.

If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin’…

Rush the Court — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:08:55 -0400

This article is syndicated content from our college basketball blog, Rush the Court.

Seems Sir Charles was right after all. Somehow, this wonderfully crafted piece by Dan Wetzel at YahooSports got past us for nearly a week before we found it. Wetzel essentially fires a Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US shot across the bow of the Good Ship NCAA, led by Capt. Myles Brand, for its notably lax invisible investigation and enforcement of NCAA rules among its two revenue cash cow sports, football and basketball.

Doing some solid investigative work himself, Wetzel concludes that it’s been nearly two years since a major college basketball program was hit with a significant violation (Kansas with Ol’ Roy’s largesse in Oct 2006), which is the longest such drought in almost a half-century. Similarly, it’s been fifteen clean months in college football since the last major violation (Oklahoma in July 2007).

So the reasonable conclusion here is that the NCAA has cleaned up its high-profile sports to the point where schools are by and large playing by the rules, right? Right?

Wetzel has a slightly different take:

The NCAA has expanded its staff of investigators (its cops) to an all-time high of 20. It now has its infractions committee (its judge and jury) meet as often as seven times per year. Still, it hasn’t been this feeble at catching crooks since a 16-month stretch ending in 1962. Back then, it had one investigator. [...] It never has been so obvious the NCAA is protecting its big-time programs and television money. It’s gotten to the point where Jerry Tarkanian’s legendary line about the NCAA’s selective enforcement habits – “the NCAA was so mad at Kentucky, it gave Cleveland State two more years of probation” – has become outdated. These days the NCAA doesn’t even get mad at Kentucky.

Wetzel goes on to describe just how toothless the NCAA investigations staff has become in recent years despite its recent expansion. Apparently they’re still quite excellent at catching small-school hopscotch coaches who have the audacity to text recruits outside of the mandated contact periods (check the below list from 2008).

But when it comes to the power conference schools who have big money, big boosters, big media and drive the whole ship into port for the NCAA coffers, the investigators are largely missing.

What a joke. We harkened back to this problem when the OJ Mayo allegations came out last spring. With a notorious character like Rodney Guillory hanging around the USC program, how could the NCAA and the LA media have so completely missed it?

We’ll buy the fact that newspapers don’t have the proper resources to perform comprehensive investigative journalism while entire newsrooms are shuttering, but the NCAA still has no excuse. Especially when we look at the above list and see what those twenty investigators have been so diligently working on for the past nine months.

We made reference yesterday to coaches like Billy Gillispie finding the grey areas of the NCAA rulebook and making those in charge make decisions. With what Wetzel has shown us, we ask, why even bother with the gray areas?

Why not just start funnelling booster money directly to recruits instead of worrying about impressing them with big extravaganza weekends? Make it truly an arms race where the most-moneyed always win. Then at least we can all walk away from the stench without lying to ourselves as to what’s causing it.

10.01.08 Fast Breaks

Rush the Court — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:48:24 -0400

It’s Wednesday afternoon, 72 degrees and sunny, and we’re heading outside…

Kelvin Sanctions fires back at Indiana - get this blasted bus off of me!
Good news - Bob Knight will be back on your television set in some capacity this winter. Will Digger’s jealous rage get in the way?
We like this - which coaches got begotten, er, begatten?
Let’s call it the “trickle-down effect” of college basketball. Although unlike the economic version, this kind, you know, actually works?
Two weeks ago, we (and our bookies - seriously, the check is on the way) might have been worried about this… luckily, the implosion of the Palin-drone appears nearly complete, and our worries have subsided.
The guy who allegedly killed Tubby Smith’s nephew pleaded not guilty in Worcester, Mass., yesterday. There were numerous witnesses - good luck with that.
For fear of karmic payback of mammoth proportions, we’ll abstain from captioning the below photo (h/t Hugging Harold Reynolds), but LORDY… you’ve got Jim Boeheim, Gary Williams and Mark Gottfriend all in one place! All you need to add is Steve Lavin and Dave Odom (6th man: John Brady) and you’d have a starting five of mediocrity unmatched in history.

The Harassment of Billy Gillispie By That Coward the NABC

Rush the Court — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:27:54 -0400

This article is syndicated content from our college basketball blog, Rush the Court.

For the second time since last spring’s Mario Miracle, the NABC has put out a statement that squarely fixes its crosshairs on Kentucky’s second-year coach, Billy Gillispie.

Certainly you remember the June directive the NABC made to stop recruiting junior high players in the wake of the media firestorm over Gillispie’s recruiting of eighth grader Michael Avery. We wrote at the time:

"Luckily, this may be a situation where coaches were doing it because they felt they needed to avoid a competitive disadvantage. Now that the NABC has effectively disavowed this as a strategy (although it is still legal), coaches [including Gillispie] appear to be supportive of the line-drawing."

(Ed. Note: Apparently another Billy, as in Billy Donovan, didn’t get that memo from the NABC.)

Andy Katz now reports on his blog today that the NABC put forth a new statement yesterday that admonishes coaches for using their early autumn "skill development" time (two hours/week) prior to full practices for recruiting purposes.

More specifically, they don’t want schools to bump up their Midnight Madness festivities to a preceding weekend so as to take advantage of a more favorable recruiting scenario (i.e., big football game on campus, local stripper convention, the fact that nobody else is having Midnight Madness that weekend).

Why is this important now? Because Kentucky and Illinois (with its gimmicky outdoor practice) are planning on having their Midnight Madnesses a week prior to the "official" start of practice.

The NABC statement (via Katz):

"The NABC board of directors said that 'skill development events should not be open to the public.' The NABC said the initial intent was for coaches to assist their players in skill development and create stronger relationships. But by 'making such skill development sessions public events, they appear to be geared more for recruiting than skill development sessions.'"

Coach Gillispie, godlovehim, just cannot resist pushing the envelope when it comes to the NCAA rulebook. We’re not saying that he’s breaking any rules—hell, we’re not even saying that he’s bending them—but like any fastidious attorney, he manages to consistently find the gray nether-regions where legislative intent meets bright-line rule, and he forces those in charge to make decisions.

Our take on these early Midnight Madness celebrations is such: We tend to like orderliness when it comes to college hoops, as in...we’d like to know with assurance when Opening Night will be or when the Final Four will be.

So we’re 100 percent in agreement with the NABC on this one: Can’t we just all agree to have Midnight Madness on the same night, and preferably, AT MIDNIGHT? If the NCAA has to mandate this, so be it—add another page to the 17-lb. rulebook.

Update (10/1): Jeff Goodman weighs in with this background information about the NABC:

Word is that there were numerous coaches on a conference call who were less than thrilled with Gillispie’s decision. They feel that the NCAA allows the coaches the two hours per week for skill development and Gillispie is taking advantage of the rule. It was the unanimous decision of the Board that skill development events should not be open to the public.