The above quote is attributable to new Indiana coach Tom Crean, whose program was rocked again yesterday with the news that IU will give up two scholarships in anticipation of a poor APR score in 2008-09. You may recall that the Hoosiers with a score of 899 already ranked in the bottom eight BCS schools in the most recent APR scoring. Seeking to counteract an anticipated horrendous score based on the 2007-08 debacle (can you get a zero in the APR?), Indiana has decided to get proactive and attempt to take their medicine all in one lump next season. Keeping in mind that IU lost seven players this offseason (not to mention a coach and an AD), Assistant AD Frank Cuervo had this to say:
It’s not necessarily about one issue. It’s obviously related to the APR score. In terms of reasons, it’s not necessarily due to just players leaving.
Um, yeah, it’s not about players leaving per se; rather, it’s about players leaving an academic clusterf*ck in their wake. Considering what we know about how Kelvin Sanctions with respect to his organizational management skills (almost as good as Tubby Smith’s missing fax), it’s not a leap to believe that most of his players at IU were barely skirting by in the classroom. Several of them may have stopped attending classes altogether.
Crean Needs Some Good News For Once
The NCAA has a lot of decisions to make in the coming month with respect to the IU program. The NCAA Infractions Report is due near the end of July, and Indiana appears to have put its best foot forward throughout this process to retroactively police itself. But we fear that the ’clean house’ approach may not satisfy the NCAA, who may use this situation to steer conscientious programs away from questionable-character coaching hires in the future. Regardless of the penalties levied, with only eight scholarship players suiting up in 2008-09 Hoosier basketball is probably facing its worst season since Lou Watson’s 7-17 debacle back in 1969-70. And without snagging a few Eric Gordons all at once, it’s unlikely Indiana basketball will ”get back” until early in the next decade.
Along with the turn of the fiscal calendar, July 1 also represents the turn of the academic calendar. This is particularly appropriate for hoopheads, as the NBA’s season has ended and the draft madness that dominated bandwidth for the last two months after the Mario Miracle has died down to a whimper (well, there’salways 2009, right?). All there really is to look forward to until October is the Ego Known as Kobe Bryant’s attempt to restore American hegemony in the international (read: Olympics) hoops realm. That comes in August.
So now is as good a time as any to take a look back at the 2007-08 season and once again review how the NBA’s one-and-done rule worked out for the schools that enabled it. You might recall that we took a look at this last year and concluded: Ohio St., UNC, Texas… good. Georgia Tech, Washington… not so good. We also mentioned that several schools - Stanford, Tennessee, Arizona and Kansas included - were hanging onto players who could have been one-and-dones, but weren’t. With the exception of the often comatose Arizona team, the other three as a result had fantastic squads last year.
To start it off, let’s refresh ourselves with who the Rivals Top 20 recruits were coming into 2007-08. As you can see below, we added a few columns that outline the player’s freshman numbers (pts/rebs/assts or blocks) and his team’s record as well as whether he went into the draft or is returning next season.
So was it worth it? Our takes:
Kansas St. - Well Worth It. K-State rode the best.freshman.everMichael Beasley and sorta-but-not-really one-and-done Bill Walker (he was a medical redshirt in 06-07) as far as it could, which included a third-place finish in the competitive Big 12, a second-round NCAA tournament appearance and the first home win in twenty-four years over its rival and eventual national champion Kansas Jayhawks. In other words, K-State’s best season in a generation. The important aspect of Beasley and Walker’s one-and-dones for KSU head coach Frank Martin is to capitalize on future recruiting from the good will and national notoriety mustered by these players while on campus. If he does not do so, and it’s soon back to the bottom of the Big 12 barrel for K-State, then the potential positive impacts of these stars passing through Manhattan, KS, were missed.
Memphis - Well Worth It. This too is a no-brainer. #1 overall pick Derrick Rose converted a competitive yet incomplete team that would consistently flame out prior to the Final Four against other elite teams into a team that probably should have won the national title. Rose led Memphis to a 38-2 record and had the Tigers in the argument for the most dominant season in the post-Wooden era before its epic free-throw meltdown in the championship game. Even only as a runner-up, a Memphis fan would be hard pressed to find much else wrong with the 07-08 season, and as such, the one-year stopover by Derrick Rose was well worth it.
Memphis Would Take A Rose Every Year (AP photo/Seth Wenig)
UCLA - Worth It. This was a tough one, because UCLA came into the 07-08 season already having been to the last two Final Fours. Anything short of that measure was going to be a disappointment (although Bruin fans might argue anything less than a national title is a disappointment). We’ll argue, however, that Kevin Love brought a toughness and star-quality to Westwood that had been lacking on Ben Howland’s previous teams. Not to mention that UCLA last season at 35-4 was simply a better team than the ones led by backcourt players (Afflalo and Farmar). More than anything, Love’s presence solidifed UCLA again as a marquee destination for top-notch recruits, as Howland has penned five of the Rivals Top 50 in the Class of 2008.
Arizona - Worth It. It’s quite possible that Jerryd Bayless last season saved Arizona from breaking its NCAA Tournament streak of 24 consecutive appearances. Arizona certainly didn’t have a great year amidst all the Lute Olson divorce and feud with Kevin O’Neill turmoils, but with a final record of 19-15, you have to figure that Bayless’ fantastic freshman year was worth a few wins that put the Cats back into the field of 65. But that’s about all it was worth. It certainly didn’t make Arizona into a contender of any kind, and it’s doubtful whether there will be any residual effects from Bayless’ time in Tucson.
Indiana - Worth It. Eric Gordon’s arrival in Bloomington was worth it if for no other reason than it gave Hoosier fans something to be excited about for approximately three months (Nov-Jan). Now that the wheels have come completely tumbling off of the Indiana program, we have to wonder just how long their fans will covet and remember the halcyon days when IU was 16-1 and ranked #7 in the AP Poll. Of course, E-Giddy was partially responsible for Indiana’s subsequent collapse (18.2 ppg on 37.2% FG/25.3% 3FG shooting in the last 13 games (8-5)), but we put most of that on the ultimate dismissal of Kelvin Sanctions whereupon the entire team simply quit playing. So in our view, this one-and-done represents the last great season that Indiana will have for a while. Too bad it couldn’t have worked out better for everyone involved.
Gordon Left More than a Bloody Tooth in His Wake (photo credit: Bloomington Herald-Times)
USC - Not Worth It. For a while during the season, it appeared as if the OJ Mayo one-and-done situation might just work out for Tim Floyd and the Trojan Nation. Similar to K-State, USC hadn’t seen this much hoops attention in years - with Mayo as the headliner, USC played numerous national television games, beat UCLA at Pauley, and ended up tied for third in the rugged Pac-10. Of course, the wheels came off when USC failed to show up to its hyped battle against K-State in the first round of the NCAAs and the propriety of Mayo’s eligibility was called into question by ESPN soon thereafter. Throw in Davon Jefferson (a one-and-done from the Class of 2006 who went to prep school for a year before enrolling at USC) and his foolish decision to enter this year’s draft (undrafted) and we’re not sure just how successful USC can claim 2007-08 was. After all, the 2006-07 edition of the Trojans, led by Nick Young and Gabe Pruitt, also finished third in the Pac-10 but had a better overall record (23-11) and played into the second weekend of March Madness (giving Carolina all it wanted in the process). Finally, with another uber-recruit, Demar DeRozan, coming to USC next year, Floyd needs to be hyper-vigilant about those nefarious agents and runners in light of the Mayo debacle because more eyes will be watching.
NC State - Not Worth It. Hey, remember all the preseason talk about how NC State was the third best team in the ACC, and a definite NCAA Tournament team? Yeah, we don’t either. Actually, we do, and few of the pundits will own up to the fact that it was a terrible prediction. For the record, NC State ended up 15-16, but the Wolfpack were 4-12 in the ACC (worse than the previous year’s 5-11 campaign that inspired such foolishness) and lost their last nine games. So what did JJ Hickson’s presence in Raleigh bring to the team? Other than team chemistry problems, of course? It doesn’t appear that he brought much else than an ability to get himself drafted. NC State will likely be significantly better without him next season.
What Chemistry Problems?
LSU - Not Worth It. While we’re in the business of ripping bad teams with one-and-done players, we shouldn’t overlook the LSU Tigers. LSU seems to have one of these guys about every other year anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter much in terms of long-term effects, but a 13-18 record with a loss at Tulane calls into question the value of Anthony Randolph’s tenure on campus in Baton Rouge. Certainly the mail-it-in coaching style of Mr. Misty Champagne didn’t help things out much, but even with John Wooden coaching that team, we’re not sure how much Randolph could have lifted the Bayou Bengals.
Others. These teams all had one-and-dones of questionable efficacy. Put another way, these teams probably wouldn’t have been much better nor worse had these players gone elsewhere. Exhibit A is Texas A&M’s DeAndre Jordan. TAMU was a tourney team anyway, led by Joseph Jones and Josh Carter, and it’s doubtful that Jordan’s four double-figure points games and two double-figure rebounds games in the Big 12 had much of an effect on A&M’s successful season. Not Worth It.Syracuse fans may disagree with us here, but despite Donte Greene’s exceptional first-year numbers, we find it hard to believe that the Orange would have been any less average than they already were last year (21-14, 9-10 Big East). After all, Jim Boeheim could take five schoolgirls and make them competitive - he just wouldn’t win the title with them (unless Carmela Anthony was on the team). The question is whether Syracuse fans are pleased with a third-round NIT appearance, and we all know the answer to that - a resounding no. For a school with multiple F4s and a recent championship banner, missing the NCAAs completely is a failing season, no matter the reasonable expectation. Not Worth It. Finally, we look at Ohio St., who took Kosta Koufos to replace last year’s one-and-donest, Greg Oden. The answer here once again comes down to the question of expectation vs. reality of the situation. Without Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook, it wasn’t realistic for Thad Matta to make another run at the F4; but the bar has been raised so high at Ohio St. under Matta that a 24-13 season leading to an NIT championship must necessarily be viewed as less-than-stellar. Winning the Capital One Bowl doesn’t match the Rose Bowl, does it, Buckeye fans? We’ll call this one a Push.
Final Thoughts. With so many freshmen leaving this year from the top 20 Rivals list, we’d guess only Florida with Nick Calathes and Chandler Parsons returning may be a team to really watch closely next year. Otherwise, keep an eye on UCLA, Wake Forest and UConn, each of which has multiple top twenty players coming onto campus next year.
For your consideration while we put our Draft afterthoughts together…
Duquesne’s Ron Everhart received a three-year extension after leading the Dukes to their first winning season (17-13) in nearly fifteen years, including a 3-24 abomination two years ago.
Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel also received a two-year contract extension (through 2014) and pay raise that puts his annual compensation at $1.05M. Did anyone see Capel making a million dollars a year at anything ten years ago?
Ohio St. assistant coach John Groce will take over the top position at Ohio University, the lone remaining open head coaching position this summer.
Iowa St.’s top player, Wesley Johnson (12/8 ) is transferring to Syracuse. This is a good pickup for the Orange, as Johnson was the second-best freshman in the B12 two years ago (behind a guy named Durant).
Indiana AD Rick Greenspan fails to avoid the axe in the wake of the Kelvin Sampson scandal, as the obliteration of Indiana basketball continues…
The always excellent Vegas Watch gives us a bettor’s look at the best and worst values in the Top 10 for next season.
Well this is sort of unplanned, but rtmsf asked me to do this and I’ve got nothing else to do tonight so I figured I would throw up a live blog of the events.
7:30 PM: Everybody’s favorite commissioner/megalomanic David Stern walks to the stage. Pretty weak response from the crowd. Minimal booing and almost no response to a mention of the WNBA. I think Isiah and Dolan have broken the New York fans.
7:38 PM: Stern announces the Bulls’ selection of Derrick Rose. Kind of anti-climatic, but surprising how quickly the consensus swung from Michael Beasley to Rose in such a short time without anything really big coming out (other than Beasley being shorter than advertised, but the decision was already made at that point).
7:40 PM: ESPN shows some highlights of Rose winning the state championship game 31-29 in OT. Yes, 31-29. I guess the lack of offense in the Big 10 goes all the way down to the high school level.
7:42 PM: Stern comes to the podium with the Miami Heat’s pick. . .Michael Beasley. For all the talk about going with O.J. Mayo I always thought this was a no brainer. I mean they could have dropped down to the #5 pick, but I don’t buy the whole Rudy Gay + #5 for #2 trade. There’s no way Memphis would have done that. Does Pat Riley think Chris Wallace is an idiot? Oh wait. . .
7:45 PM: The interviews have been pretty tame so far. Beasley could have at least pulled the dead rat “joke” on Stephen A. Smith. The Stephen A. Smith guys better have something good planned for the draft because this is pretty weak so far.
7:48 PM: Minnesota is up. Time for Kevin McHale to shine. And the pick is. . . O.J. Mayo! Why do I have flashbacks to KG and Stephon Marbury. Stu Scott fills us in on O.J.’s full name. Thanks for that since we haven’t seen it in every single article written about him (except on RTC). At least O.J.’s time in Hollywood got him prepared for the bright lights of Minnesota. Wait, Minnesota?
7:50 PM: If you’re reading this after the draft and wondering why the writing sucks, blame it on the stupid 5 minutes between picks. There’s no way Bill Simmons live blogs this stuff. It’s impossible. He has to take 3-4 hours after the draft to put something together.
7:53 PM: Wow. Six picks for Seattle. Stu Scott with the quick math (6/60 = 1/10th). I’m not sure why they didn’t do some kind of big package to try and get some help for Kevin Durant.
7:54 PM: Stern with the pick. . .Russell Westbrook! Our first surprise of the night. I had heard Westbrook might be top 5, but never really believed it. The guy’s athletic, but I just don’t see how he’s considered the 4th best prospect in this draft. If you’re just going on athleticism, I’d take Eric Gordon over Westbrook. As for his “great” defense, I don’t remember it against Memphis and Rose. Plus I don’t buy Westbrook as a NBA point guard.
7:58 PM: Commercial break. Weak start to the draft so far. At least we have the comedy of the booing of the Knicks draft pick to look forward to in 2 picks.
8:00 PM: Bilas is pushing for Memphis to take Kevin Love. Stern with the announcement. And it’s Kevin Love. Nice call by Bilas even if Love basically gave it away on PTI earlier this week. I’m pretty sure the first time that anybody has ever had the Color Me Badd facial hair in Memphis.
8:03 PM: Pretty routine breakdown of Love. Good court sense/knowledge of the game, passes well, good range, and can’t run the court. Can we have someone disagree with a pick? I just want to see the player’s reaction (not to mention what their mom will do).
8:05 PM: Waiting for the Love family interview to finish so I can see the Knicks screw up their pick. This is the highlight of the night. . .
8:07 PM: Stern walking to the podium with the Knicks pick. . .(dramatic pause). . .Danilo Gallinari. BOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sorry. Just had to join in the fun. I don’t really buy Gallinari, but hey the YouTube video looks decent and that worked out well for guys like Kwame Brown and Eddy Curry worked out great, right? (Yes, I know that was before YouTube).
8:08 PM: Fran Fraschilla offers the most important piece of news of the night (for those of us who read Deadspin or The Big Lead). “Gallo” is apparently the Italian word for “rooster”. If you’ve read the posts on either site yesterday, you’ll know what that’s important.
8:12 PM: The Clippers select Eric Gordon. I feel bad for the guy. He goes from the most dysfunctional program in the country to the worst franchise in pro sports. Love the guy’s game, but he’s just too inconsistent at times. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
8:15 PM: Our first horrible suit of the night. Gordon with the combination of white coat and navy blue pants. Not quite Karl Malone level, but you would figure his high school agent could have gotten him something nice.
8:18 PM: Joe Alexander to Milwaukee. At least it won’t be much of a culture shock going from Morgantown to Milwaukee although Joe won’t be seeing as many burning couches.
8:23 PM: MJ and Larry Brown are on the clock. It seems like Brook Lopez is the choice here. The Bobcats certainly have enough college talent on that team being veterans of the lottery process (tip of the hat to the legend Elgin Baylor).
8:24 PM: Jay Bilas and Mark Jackson agree with me.
8:25 PM: But apparently MJ and Larry do not. The Bobcats take D.J. Augustin. Looks like Raymond Felton is going to have some competition. This seems like a good pick for a trade.
8:27 PM: I still don’t get it. Of course, MJ was also the mastermind behind the Kwame Brown selection so maybe I shouldn’t.
8:28 PM: So it looks like Brook Lopez here to New Jersey. They can’t take Jerryd Bayless since they already have Devin Harris. This will be an interesting pick since they just traded away Richard Jefferson for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons.
8:30 PM: Brook Lopez at #10 to New Jersey. Solid pick especially this far down. I’m surprised that he fell down this far. A 7-footer with a mean streak and solid fundamentals. Usually guys like this go too high and typically don’t slip. Not sure what is going on.
8:33 PM: Wow. Looks like our first classic draft moment of 2008. Apparently Jeff Spicoli dressed up as a 7-foot tall guy who went to Stanford. I wish I had been there for Brook’s Stanford interview. What? You mean he didn’t go through the regular admissions process?
8:35 PM: Bayless at #11. I like Bayless at #11, but does Indiana need another guard? Jamaal Tinsley, T.J. Ford, and Bayless. Looks like Tinsley and his gun collection are moving out of Indiana.
8:42 PM: Sacramento takes Jason Thompson. Our first real surprise pick of the draft. I’m actually ashamed to say I have never seen this guy play. Bilas says he’s pretty good so I guess I’ll have to go with that.
8:46 PM: Portland at #13. . .Brandon Rush. Interesting pick. He’ll probably fit in well with this team. He isn’t a star, but they have enough young talent that they don’t need him to be more than a solid role player. He’ll probably back-up Brandon Roy for the next couple of years.
8:50 PM: Golden State is on the clock. This is the part of the draft where teams have a lot of choices. Let’s see what the Warriors do.
8:51 PM: Stern with the pick: Anthony Randolph. 3rd team All-SEC member. Even the LSU blogger doesn’t believe in him. Not sure what else I have to say about this pick.
8:54 PM: Dick Vitale ripping the international. Comparing Gallinari to Darko Milicic. Ouch. Not a surprise since Dickie V loves all things college (as do we, but we don’t rip on the other stuff).
8:56 PM: Phoenix takes Robin Lopez at #15. I’ll admit it. I’m hitting the wall here so I’m probably only going to make it through the first round. I actually like this pick. Robin isn’t an offense force, but is a pretty good defender, which Phoenix is lacking.
9:03 PM: With the 16th pick, Philadelphia selects Maureese Speights. Seems like a talented player. It will be interesting to see how he works with Samuel Dalembert. Wow. Stuart Scott just compared FG% in college to FG% in the NBA as if it’s the same thing. I don’t even know what to say to that.
9:08 PM: Toronto selects Roy Hibbert at #17 for Indiana (part of the Jermaine O’Neal trade). This makes sense. Hibbert will “replace” O’Neal. It’s too bad that Hibbert fell this far. He would have been a top 10 pick last year. He didn’t get injured or play poorly, but because he never exploded like NBA scouts hoped he would he fell far enough down that it probably cost him a few million dollars.
9:12 PM: JaVale McGee at #18 to Washington. Looks like Lebron has another guy to dunk on.
9:15 PM: Pretty interesting trade. Indiana gets Jarrett Jack and Brandon Rush for Ike Diogu and Jerryd Bayless to Portland. Bayless and Roy make a really scary potential backcourt dishing the ball off to Greg Oden and company.
9:19 PM: Cleveland is on the clock. This pick is big for Danny Ferry because it might go a long way to keeping Lebron in Cleveland and out of Brooklyn. Darrell Arthur is still sitting in the Green Room. . .
9:21 PM: The Lebrons select J.J. Hickson and Darrell remains seated.
9:26 PM: Charlotte’s on the clock at #20 and take Alexis Ajinca. I’ll turn to Stuart Scott here, “Who is this guy?”
9:28 PM: Wow. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time the economy ever was mentioned in the NBA Draft. Fran informs us that the fall in the dollar’s value will affect Ajinca’s decision whether to stay in Europe. (Side note: Josh McRoberts is part of the Portland-Indiana deal. He’s not worth his own post.)
9:33 PM: The Nets go with Ryan Anderson at #21. Darrell is still sitting. . .
9:38 PM: Looks like Orlando goes with another guard by taking Courtney Lee. I loved Jeff Van Gundy’s analysis. Basically, Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis are the only two guys he likes on the team–a team that’s coached by his brother. More importantly, what does this do to everybody’s favorite Zima drinker, J.J. Redick?
9:42 PM: Utah takes Kosta Koufos. It will be interesting to see how Koufos fits in with Utah’s bigs (Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Andrei Kirilenko, and Paul Millsap). He’s a skilled big guy who was really hyped coming in, but was too inconsistent to stay in the top 10. Playing for Jerry Sloan will either toughen him up or turn him into AK-47 (and cry during the playoffs).
9:49 PM: Seattle takes Serge Ibaka. Fraschilla says he’s good and he’ll be here in 3-4 years. Yeah. . .
9:50 PM: Doris Burke interviewing Darrell Arthur. Pretty tame interview. No tears. Not much to say.
9:55 PM: Houston takes Nicolas Batum. Fraschilla compares him to Rudy Gay, which I guess is good. Fran also says he needs to work on his ball-handling and he’s only 20 years old. Since when do people learn how to dribble after they turn 20?
9:58 PM: Ric Bucher announces that Darrell Arthur has a kidney problem, which he says explains why Arthur hasn’t been selected. Sounds like a HIPAA violation somewhere along the line.
10:00 PM: George Hill from IUPUI? Well apparently he plays great defense and has 3% body fat (thanks for that Stuart).
10:08 PM:New Orleans Portland ends the madness and takes Darrell Arthur. Nice moment as the New York fans clap. Nice pickup here. He should be able to come in and spell the big guys for a few minutes here and there immediately.
10:15 PM: Memphis selects Donte Greene. Seems like he’ll be playing behind Rudy Gay for a while. Well at least they got something for giving away Pau Gasol.
10:22 PM: Detroit selects D.J. White. Nice pickup at this position. Productive player who should be a solid guy off the bench for stretches.
10:31 PM: Mercifully, Boston with the last pick of the first round. J.R. Giddens. Wow. What a long ride it’s been for that guy. The former big-time recruit at Kansas who transferred to New Mexico.
A little Friday the 13th juice to go with you gin this weekend…
Will it be a house of horrors in Seattle today for Indiana? IU is meeting with the NCAA (and Kelvin Sanctions) in a hearing to ascertain just how screwed the program is going to be in the wake of phonegate. Considering Tom Crean only has one scholarship player returning, the Hoosiers are already screwed. The Indy Star is liveblogging from the proceedings today…
Maybe Indiana should have hired this guy - The Fixer - to help with today’s proceedings. Oh, wait, Kelvin already did…
Florida’s Marreese Speights supposedly announced he was leaving Florida yesterday, but a report surfacing today suggests that he’s still on the fence about it.
Arizona’s Chase Budinger is still thinking about whether to return next year, but he is apparently a strong lean toward going into the draft - he has until Monday (June 16) to make a final decision.
There are twenty players still thinking about the draft decision before Monday’s deadline, and Gary Parrish decided to help them out with their decisions.
More draft coverage - apparently Michael Beasley is having trouble shaking off his perception of being the class clown; and DeAndre Jordan is having issues with his mental toughness being as soft as charmin.
The contract terms of former LSU coach John Brady’s agreement with Arkansas St. came out yesterday. There’s no mention of whether the deal includes a fully-paid membership to the local houses of burlesque.
We were trolling through some of the Indiana blogs yesterday to see how things were going in red-state flyover land the heartland, and although there was some palpable anger still directed at Kelvin Sampson for the shenanigans he pulled in Bloomington during his tenure, it seemed as if most of their fans were ready to move on with the new Tom Crean regime and their headline (only?) returning player, sophomore guard Jordan Crawford (9/3 last year). Funny, plans. On May 28, The Hoosier Scoop wrote about Crawford (paraphrasing Crean):
Crean said that there is no change in Jordan Crawford’s status. Crawford, who will be the only returning player who came to IU on scholarship, is back in Detroit right now and will not attend summer school. “He doesn’t need to, and I think it’s good for him to get home,” Crean said. “It’s important to remember that those guys have been through a whole lot.”
Apparently Crawford liked home a little better than Bloomington. Today he became the sixth Indiana player to leave the program in the wake of the Kelvin Sanctions fiasco - joining Eric Gordon (NBA), Armon Bassett, DeAndre Thomas, Jamarcus Ellis, AJ Ratliff and Eli Holman as players going elsewhere next year. As far as we can tell, this leaves only little-used (11 mpg) senior forward Kyle Taber as the only scholarship player returning next season.
Witness the pain emanating from the most excellent IU blog, Inside the Hall:
Now, please excuse me. I’m going to go ignore the fact that any of this ever happened. If you close your eyes so hard you see stars, breathe deeply, and hit yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer forty or fifty times, it’s like our team is still really good. And there are pretty colors everywhere! I highly recommend it.
Ouch. This complete demolition of a program with the status of Indiana represents a nearly unprecedented situation in college basketball history. Sure, Tulane and Baylor blew up their programs based on scandals (point-shaving, and well, murder), but the closest thing we can remember that compares to what Tom Crean will face next year is Rick Pitino’s first year (1989-90) at Kentucky in the wake of several major recruiting violations. Pitino had several scholarship players returning including two all-SEC honorees, however, and four of the younger players ended up with their names in the rafters. Still, it took five years for the Wildcats to get back to the F4. We have trouble seeing Kyle Taber leading any sort of renaissance at IU - it could take many more than five years before this sinking ship at Indiana is righted again.
Former Georgetown guard Jeremiah Rivers will transfer to Indiana (perhaps he sees immediate PT awaiting in 2009-10?).
Who’s coming back? Memphis guard Antonio Anderson, Marquette guard Jerel McNeal and Alabama guard Alonzo Gee declared their intentions to return to school, ensuring that Memphis will have at least one starter back from its national runner-up team. One intriguing name who is still undecided, WVU’s Joe Alexander, described his daily routine in Vegas getting ready for the pre-draft camp.
Speaking of which, the Orlando Pre-Draft Camp begins tomorrow. Here is the list of players invited.
Frank Burlison at Scout.com has an interesting rumors/tidbits report on where players are likely to land in the NBA Draft - his most interesting takes were questioning Michael Beasley’s true size (6′8ish?) and Robin Lopez getting selected before his more accomplished brother, Brook.
It’s official - Mike Jarvis will take over as the head man at Florida Atlantic.
There will be no payout for Bill Duffy Associates, the agency allegedly supplying OJ Mayo with money through street agent urchin Rodney Guillory, as Mayo has “restructured” his inner circle by parting ways with his BDA agent, Calvin Andrews.
Will the Class of 2008 produce far fewer 1-and-dones than the last two years?
We always thought there was something bizarre about the NCAA F4 ticket-request process. Looks like we weren’t the only ones.
As previously mentioned on RTC (and every other decent site that covers basketball), the NBA held its draft lottery last night. Among the luminaries in attendance were the Basketball Jesus himself Larry Bird, Dwayne Wade of “Fall down 7 times, shoot 14 free throws” fame, Jay-Z, Kevin Durant, Mitch Richmond, Fred “The Mayor” Hoiberg, and some lady who has Sacramento Kings season tickets.
As most of you know by now, the Chicago Bulls defied their 1.7% odds to steal the #1 pick. Rounding out the top 3 were the Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves. The losers of the draft were the Seattle Oklahoma City Supersonics who fell from the #2 spot to #4, which I think they deserved after last year (still bitter despite a NBA record 42-win turnaround and a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals).
The top 2 are essentially set in stone although the Bulls lack of an interior scoring presence (not you Joakim) and lack of an elite point guard (sorry, Kirk) means they could go either direction. The Heat will get the “leftovers”. I’m guessing that Pat Riley (still the GM, right?) is hoping that the coachless Bulls take Michael Beasley because it seems like Beasley and Shawn Marion would clash in terms of their inside-outside styles and type of play so he would prefer Derrick Rose, who could be absolutely ridiculous paired with Wade and Marion.
We’ll be putting up draft previews over the next couple of days, but until then we’ll just offer a few thoughts:
(1) If I was the Bulls GM (if Reinsdorf or any one in the organization is reading this, please contact me), I would go with Rose. Even though they lack a great inside scoring threat, I think it’s a lot easier to find a serviceable PF than PG. I also think the impact of a great PG is bigger as Chris Paul and the other great recent vintage PGs have shown everyone the past few years. The Bulls have a lot of talented NBA-quality young guards (Chris Duhon, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Larry Hughes, and Thabo Sefolosha) along with a couple talented unproven youngsters (JamesOn Curry and Shannon Brown). While some analysts may argue that this is a reason to get a big man, I would argue they should take Rose (better than any of the current guards) and make a big package of these young guys to try to get another inside presence to compliment Andre Nocioni, Joakim Noah, Drew Gooden, and Tyrus Thomas along with the team’s only “star” Luol Deng. I’ll have more on this in an upcoming post. . .
(2) I wonder if Mike D’Antoni is starting to think he should have asked the Knicks for more money. He could have had almost the perfect team for his offense if he went to Chicago even before they had the chance to select Rose. I also wonder how D’Antoni is going to handle being on a team that uses its draft pick to select a player instead of selling it for money.
(3) Hoiberg looked like he was going to throw the cancer patient’s teddy bear when the Timberwolves ended up with the #3 pick (falling outside of the Beasley-Rose jackpot). That would have made an even better YouTube moment than it already was (around the 2:20 mark of the clip below).
A couple quick, early links on the NBA Draft:
(1) As always, Chad Ford has a mock draft up with a brief analysis. I swear he must have enough spare time during the year to come up with mock drafts for every possible team draft order combination.
(2) Meanwhile, Jack McCallum chimes in with his own thoughts. Mostly just rambling about what D’Antoni must be thinking along with a brief breakdown of what the top teams in the draft might do.
(3) If you want to hate John Hollinger and his ridiculous unproven stats, check out his Pro Potential analysis (ESPN Insider access required). For those of you without access here are a couple of gems:
- Michael Beasley at #1 followed by. . .Blake Griffin at #2 and Danny Green at #4.
- 11 of the top 25 are freshman, which isn’t surprising, but that does not include several notable freshman who didn’t make the list: Derrick Rose, OJ Mayo, DeAndre Jordan, Donte Green, and Eric Gordon.
- The list of freshman that Hollinger considers to have more pro potential than those five heralded freshman: DeJuan Blair (Pittsburgh), Dar Tucker (DePaul), Robbie Hummel (Purdue), Andrew Ogilvy (Vanderbilt), and Matt Howard (Butler). The fact that I decided to list the schools these guys play at should tell you how far off the radar most of these guys are as NBA prospects. Hollinger offers an impassioned defense of his system, but I don’t buy it.
Finishing out your week with a bunch of meaningless links - enjoy!
OJ Mayo claims he never took nothing from nobody! Apparently Mayo’s HS in Ohio (North College Hill) will keep its two titles from 2005 and 2006 - the OHSAA only gives you six weeks to contest a violation of any kind! nvr1983 update: I prefer the actual LA Times article/interview. Even though I know it is normal for athletes to get rather large gifts from agents before the draft (rtmsf and I witnessed it in 1998 with Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison and a tricked out Navigator), the last sentence is a classic.
UNC’s Alex Stepheson announced that he is transferring closer to home for family reasons (SoCal).
USC may lose a major recruit for 09 in the fallout of the Mayo scandal.
UConn guard Doug Wiggins is transferring to UMass - oh, to reminisce on what an uproar this would have caused ca. 1994.
Indiana’s former assistant coach Dan Dakich got bought out for $185k.
BYU’s Trent Plaisted signed with an agent and will stay in the NBA Draft.
Here’s Shawn Siegel’s most excellent ratings of the top ten players at each position in this year’s draft class (PGs, SGs, and more to come…)
Yes, kids, testing the waters can end up pigeonholing you and hurting your future draft position.
Jay Bilas indicts everyone and anyone related to the stink emanating from the business of basketball (and we largely agree with him). (insider only)
Gary Parrish talks about how teams are stealing players from programs going through coaching changes (Duke and UCLA are the latest beneficiaries).
If this isn’t IRONIC in the wake of Huggins’ stint at Kansas State (one-and-done), we don’t know what is…
Andy Glockner reports that the mid-majors are getting hit hard by the glut of early entries these days too.
Is college basketball being unfairly singled out for additional enforcement (vis-a-vis football) by Myles Brand?
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