Now it's been 3 days since the news was pronounced by a message board source in Iowa that John Wilkins was verballing to Iowa State. Other news reports either ignored the initial report since there was and still is NO independent confirmation -- not from Wilkins, not from Wilkins' family, and not from the juco head coach.
Generally when the PJS has written about John Wilkins, there are gobs of quotes from Terry Carroll, the juco coach, from John himself or from his father, Jeff Wilkins in Gary, IN.
But oddly this time, absolutely NO quotes at all...just a parrotting of the message board report out of Iowa.
But there are some pretty solid reports from "behind the scenes" that the news of John's verbal is really quite premature, and that NO verbal has actually taken place.
That's not to say he isn't going to verbal to Iowa State or maybe Indiana, or elsewhere...but he just hasn't solidly verballed yet!
Going with such a story is a ploy often used to make it so difficult to publicly "withdraw" the statement about the verbal...that just maybe it was a ploy to pressure John into indeed carrying through with the verbal.
Iowa State really is that desperate...they can't win even when they have NBA caliber and even lottery caliber players, so what are going to do next year when they have virtually nobody?
Anyway....since the verbal was announced, there's an embarrassingly strong silence out of Iowa...the message boards have gone blank...no further followup stories, even though there were numerous promises that followup stories and interviews would be up by Thursday afternoon. They still aren't....so where are they and are they forthcoming at all, or will this story be exposed as a huge bonehead mistake?
For a good timeline of the events, and a summary of the events that leaves a whole lot of doubt about the cyclonefanatic.com report...check here...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15199
And as a little joke..I have compiled a David Letterman-like Top 10 list about Iowa State...
Top 10 reports on cyclonefanatic.com this morning...
10 - Greg McDermott has been moved to the position of athletic Director and Jeff Wilkins has been hired as new head coach
9 - John Wilkins has accepted a contract to play for Alba Berlin and will team up with Lucca Staiger, so he won't be playing at Iowa State
8 - Jonathan Wilkins, the 14 year old, 7-ft younger brother of John Wilkins has accepted a scholarship offer from Iowa State
7 - Greg McDermott has hired Jim Les as an assistant coach at Iowa State
6 - Donivine Stewart has changed his mind and will verbal to Iowa State instead
5 - Matt Roth has announced he will leave Indiana and transfer to Iowa State
4 - Jereme Richmond has reconsidered and is requesting to be released from his LOI so he can sign with Iowa State
3 - Sean Harris is leaving the mission field and treturning to the US to sign a Letter of Intent with Iowa State
2 - Tyler Les has accepted a scholarship offer from Greg McDermott and will play next year at Iowa State
1 - All three of Hersey Hawkins' sons have decommitted and will sign with Iowa State for next year
BRADLEY GETS ROBBED!!!
Here is a Sports Illustrated story/pictorial about the NCAA's biggest first round upsets...
they list Indiana State and Merfeld's Hampton upset...but when 13th seed Bradley knocked off Kansas in 2006, apparently nobody noticed...that win is NOT mentioned!!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1003/ncaa.tourney.biggest.first.round.upsets.history/content.1.html
Here's a really nice story on UNI and Ali Farokhmanesh...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/sports/ncaabasketball/20northiowa.html?ref=sports
I couldn't help but snicker at Digger Phelps and his ilk doing the commentating - and trying to come up with excuses and alibis on why mid-majors like Northern Iowa and Ohio are doing well, while Notre Dame, Louisville, and all the Big East teams are doing so poorly..
Digger even had the stupidity to claim it is because the schedule the Big East teams play is so difficult, that it drains then and they are no good any more by the post-season.
Whoa...then maybe they should schedule like ISU, but it sure didn't help them!!!
Wallace State stayed alive last night at the NJCAA Junior College Nationals....
Mitchell Anderson, Jr. play for them, as they beat NW Florida 69-62 to advance to the title game in the consolation bracket...
The Final Four who are playing for the overall Championship are--
Navarro vs. Eastern Utah (3rd place game)
Three Rivers vs. Howard (for the National Championship)
In the D-II juco playoffs, Lincoln beat Kirkwood 62-50.
Kirkwood's Kaylon Williams, who left Evansville for greener pastures, had 13 pts, 4 assists, 4 turnovers.
For Lincoln, ISU recruit, who now has an open scholarship guaranteed, was 4-16, including 0-7 from 3-pt range, 10 points, 3 assists, 2 TO.
Thankfully ex-Limestone Rocket DeMarius Sumrell had a great game to pick up Kenyon, and was 8-16 for 20 points!
Lincoln will now play Cincinnati State Technical & Community College for the National Championship.
Not much news on the topic of ISU's Bobby Hill's arrest for sexual assault..but there is more news of how Coach Tim Jankovich is going to free up a couple scholarships to go out recruiting this spring to find someone who can shoot.
Freshman Terrence Johnson..highly touted by ISU folks as a great scorer and point guard of the future...has quit and will transfer (or was he janked?).
His 8% shooting from beyond the arc is even worse than highly touted sharpshooter Sean Odzic's all time record bad shooting of 10.5%.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15211
http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/article_37dfb912-33db-11df-9e49-001cc4c03286.html
Osiris Eldridge ended his career as the 5th best career scorer at ISU with all time greats Ron Jones, Fred Marberry, Billy Lewis and Doug Collins ahead of him, although NONE of those guys got to play 4 years or 35 games in a season or have the benefit of 3-pointers, or get to take 450 shot attempts per season!
scout.com claims Donivine Stewart has verballed to Illinois State, not Bradley!
Sure this silly, erroneous report isn't from the Iowa State Cyclone site??
http://illinoisstate.scout.com/a.z?s=461&p=9&cfg=bb&c=4&yr=2011
Rayvonte Rice of Champaign Centennial could not lead his team to the Class 3A title game, and they will now play for 3rd place.
Rayvonte is a fine player and he is verballed to Drake...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15209
Ex-Drake head coach Tom Abatemarco is hired as assistant at Colorado.
http://www.coloradodaily.com/ci_14696349#axzz0iYrWQlOL
The beat writer for SIU wrote a summary article about their disappointing seaosn....it differs from what most Bradley fans would be used to in that it doesn't rip into the team and is actually quite fair, optimistic, and positive despite a far more ominous situation that Bradley has ever had!!
http://www.thesouthern.com/sports/ddba04ec-3317-11df-90a2-001cc4c03286.html
Likewise for ISU - despite a lot of downers, the guy doesn't rip on the team and the players...so it can be done!
http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/illinois/article_60d52a32-3241-11df-801b-001cc4c002e0.html
Evansville guard Monie Hudson is leaving and transferring...and their center Clint Hopf had knee surgery.
http://www.lancewilkerson.com/lance-wilkerson-blog/2010/3/19/aces-hopf-undergoes-knee-surgery.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment