Monday, April 29, 2013

College Basketball's NBA Draft Early Entry Winners and Losers

Now that all the relevant NBA draft deadlines have passed, college basketball coaches can finally have some semblance of roster continuity, barring the occasional homesick/minute-starved transfer.

The players who bailed are off to get (officially) paid for play, so they leave our sphere of discussion. Our examination centers on what they left behind. Is Phil Pressey's alma mater still fielding a solid team next season, or is Frank Haith stitching a lineup together with chicken wire and Duck tape?

Several other coaches are enjoying some surprisingly good news, while still others are headed back to the drawing board. Who's who?

Read on.


Friday, April 19, 2013

Eli Carter Leaving Rutgers: Can Eddie Jordan Pull a Tom Crean Rebuild?

This headline is an exaggeration, I know. At least it is as of right now.

If the SS Rutgers continues taking on water in its present volume, though, all-but-announced new coach Eddie Jordan will be able to sympathize with Tom Crean's pushing forward with one scholarship player in 2008.

What little upside the Scarlet Knights had for the future was tied up in the talented young backcourt of Jerome Seagears, Eli Carter and Myles Mack. Now, two are out the door and the other may not be far behind.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Loyola (Md.) Heading for Patriot League With Interesting New Coaches

On Friday, the Loyola (Md.) Greyhounds promoted assistant G.G. Smith to head coach, replacing longtime boss Jimmy Patsos. Patsos left for Loyola's former MAAC rival Siena, jumping off the ship before it sailed off to the Patriot League.

Smith, the son and former point guard of new Texas Tech coach Tubby Smith, made his first assistant coaching hire on Tuesday, and it's a name that Maryland basketball fans will know well.


Sunday, April 14, 2013

Missouri Valley Adds Loyola (Chicago) to Replace Creighton

According to a report from the Chicago Sun-Times, the Missouri Valley Conference has responded to its first membership change in almost two decades.

After Creighton's announcement that it would leave for the new-look Big East, the MVC was down to nine members from the optimum 10 that it rode with since Tulsa left in 1996. The Valley will not, however, play a game as a nine-school league with the addition of Loyola University of Chicago, late of the Horizon League.


Saturday, April 13, 2013

If Green Bay is the New Rutgers, Is College Basketball Becoming South Park? (UPDATED)

In the wake of the Mike Rice video scandal, the prevailing sentiment was that coaches nationwide were frantically digging through practice tapes and ordering them burned.

Once that was done, there were a lot of directors of player development/basketball operations/towel-and-shoe maintenance/whatever to be given raises, taken to dinner or plied with liquor and whores, whatever it took to keep those guys from going all Murdock on their program.

The other worrisome storm on the horizon was the specter of further accusations against coaches across America. It would have been a surprise if we got through the offseason with no other coaches being accused of verbal or physical abuse.

We didn't even make it a week.


Friday, April 12, 2013

Lawson, Marcius Leave Purdue: How Boilers' Depth is Affected

Two days, two defections. In the post-Mike Rice era, the more scurrilous conspiracy theorists (especially those near Bloomington, Indiana) will begin searching for video of Purdue coach Matt Painter throwing toasters at his players.

Forward Sandi Marcius received his release to transfer on Thursday and another Boiler frontcourt player, Jacob Lawson (No. 34 in your picture), did the same on Friday.

In workouts before the 2012-13 season, Painter was excited about the idea of having plenty of big men at his disposal. With Marcius and Lawson bailing, though, how does that depth look now?

Thursday, April 11, 2013

UConn Unveils New Husky Logo: No More Mr. Nice Pup

Coming straight from UConn Today, we get the new and improved Jonathan Husky.

Wait. Jonathan? Really? Was Claude taken? Or Horatio?

Actually, scratch that last. Horatio would be sort of cool. Better than Jonathan, anyway.

The report explains that the new logo is part of a rebranding campaign that will make "UConn" the exclusive phrase on every athletic uniform and have all Husky teams rocking the Husky logo.

(Yeah, this dude totally doesn't look like a Jonathan.)

More following le jump.

Steve Alford's Pierre Pierce Statement: The Ultimate Spin Move

New UCLA coach Steve Alford and his athletic director, Dan Guerrero, released a statement today designed to finally stop people nagging him about former Iowa star Pierre Pierce, whose repeated legal issues and multiple cases of sexual assault were a major black eye to the Hawkeye program during his abbreviated career.

Unfortunately for Alford, all the statement has done is fan the flames higher, serving as a spin move more flamboyant than anything the former Indiana Hoosier legend ever uncorked on the court.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

College Basketball 2012-13 Review: The Nation's Top 10 First-Year Coaching Jobs

Last May, I ran down a ranking of every college basketball coaching change made official at the time. A few more trickled in, including a Hall of Famer bailing to elevate his former point guard at UConn.

With the season now complete, which guys performed the best in their new jobs? Once again, to clarify, we're talking about coaches in their first year at a new school, not necessarily men in their first seasons ever as head coaches.

Some of these coaches may become hot names a la new USC coach Andy Enfield if lightning strikes right next season. Some may be out of jobs this time next year. For now, though, these 10 men did great work following a change of scenery.