Michael Ochereobia has been a little under the radar, but he has been followed for several months by those who knew he was a target for recruitment. He is originally from England - previously an African emigree - and is training at the Canarias basketball Academy (CBA).
The CBA is run by a guy with tons of American coaching experience...
Rob Orellana...read about him and the staff here...
http://www.cbacademy.org/
http://www.cbacademy.org/index.asp?modulo=02&idioma=en
Michael Ochereobia's name has finally been made known in a little blurb in the paper...but our staff has been watching and following the guy for nearly the last year. He has now been offered and has verballed to Bradley and is awaiting official clearance - so you know how that goes...
Here is their roster
http://www.cbacademy.org/index.asp?modulo=05&idioma=en
Michael Ochereobia
http://www.cbacademy.org/index.asp?modulo=05&idioma=en&id=28
He is a true center, 6-8 (sometimes listed as 6-9) and has come on strong in the past 12 months and beginning to get widespread attention...
Several other D-I coaches have flown to the Canary Islands to check him out and a few have offered.
By the way ..for those who have said that Coach Jim Les has NOT been out recruiting, then just check this out from a few weeks ago...
http://twitter.com/ChristopheEPcom/status/11202112933
This guy who writes about Euro prospects has been e mailing me on the Canarias kids...he also noted other top coaches going there to the Canarias to check out Ochereobia...
http://twitter.com/ChristopheEPcom/status/12299558750
http://twitter.com/ChristopheEPcom/status/12207379877
But Michael Ochereobia gave and kept his committment to Bradley!!
That was more than a month ago and Coach Les has actually traveled tens of thousands of miles recruiting while some thought he was laying on a beach vacationing...goes to show the extent of the misinformation people try to spew...
It's pretty obvious that while those who were uninformed were making stupid claims that Jim Les had been fired or bought out, and others were claiming he was sunning himself in Cancun....
in truth he was traveling the WORLD to help land recruits!
Just goes to show how absolutely out of the loop and misguided some of those posts were. And kudos to our staff for keeping this all quiet, as you never know how those other recruiters would have tried like crazy to screw this up since they need big men, too.
Great job to all involved who knew of Ochereobia through the notes on the internet as far back as months, yet were able to keep it quiet.
Here is a fine site to check out Ochereobia and other Euro prospects..
http://www.europeanprospects.com/
Note the site has Ochereobia listed thus...
Michael Ocherobia – Interested School: Bradley
2m04 – Center
Current team: Canarias Basketball Academy (Spain)http://www.europeanprospects.com/information-database/ncaa-recruiting-europe-based-played/#more-1101
More on Ochereobia...
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/tracker/player?recruitId=104738&season=2010
http://netscoutsbasketball.com/blog/2010/02/26/english-players-at-the-national-prep-school-basketball-invitational-canarias-basketball-academy/
In the one tourney he came and played in the US... in four games, Ochereobia averaged good numbers........
This tourney was held in Kingston, RI back in early Feb. 2010...and many will recall we knew that some of our coaching staff was there to watch Ocherobia as well as Danny Lawhorn.
Here is the premium article that says the Bradley staff was there watching at the prep tourney...
http://bradley.scout.com/2/948476.html
Here are three other stories on the tourney...
These two mention that coaches from Bradley are there--
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/944246.html
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/944501.html
This one mentions the talent that the Canarias Academy has...
"The Canarias Academy nearly knocked off South Kent on Saturday. They have a few kids that particularly stood out..(and have)the look of a high major prospect"
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/944647.html
Ochereobia's four game averages were...
12 ppg, 7 rpg, on 60% shooting and 75% from the FT line.
There is one other player at Canarias I might also love to see here, Patrik Auda, a 6-9 kid who plays the wing and averaged 18 ppg in the same prep tourney...but he's a lot like TB & SH so right now is lesser priority...
BTW - for those who have unknowingly made reference to the Canary Islands as named for canaries or birds....the truth is far different. Maybe read up on it before demonstrating an uninformed state.
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/funfacts/canaryislands.htm
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
More Scandal Update
Gotta wonder the scrutiny if any of this happened in Peoria.....
but outside of reading a few blogs or message boards, you wouldn't hear much at all about most of these cheating scandals..........
A followup of the brewing scandal in the Athletic Department at Wisconsin-Milwaukee--------
George Koonce, the AD at UW-Milwaukee remains on administrative leave for what has been described a a serious, confidential matter, but is still being paid his $175,000 per year salary! But everything is being really kept hush-hush - nobody wants to talk on the record.
Student leaders felt Koonce was a strong supporter of the students' concerns, and have backed him, wanting him to return and some student spokespeople now claim they will organize students to withdraw support for their new on campus arena if Koonce isn't re-instated!
This is in effect like the inmates demanding to run the asylum!! The whole reason this guy is in trouble is reportedly because he's making some shady deals possibly illegal deals so he can get rich while the students are hit with a big time NEW STUDENT ATHLETIC FEE that'll help pay for the new arena..
In other words....the guy may just have been ripping off the very students that are now stupidly pleading to let the potential crook come back!
The whole place seems to be in chaos with students, cheating AD's, administrators, and trustees all blaiming everyone else and at each others' throats..making threats!
One local newspaper is even so fed up with the babyish whining and shenanigans,
that they have recommended that UW-M DROP ALL SPORTS ALTOGETHER!!!!
http://onmilwaukee.com/sports/articles/begeldropuwmsports.html?22476
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/92353554.html
IN THE PROCESS, the writer of the first article confirms that of the $10 MILLION athletic budget at UW-M...virtually all of it...nearly 100% is funded BY TAXPAYERS!!!!
"There is a drop in the bucket of private money but almost all of it is public money"
Can we hear again from those who keep repeating the mantra that most public universities fund their athletics without using taxpayer dollars???
So much for the rarity -- a scandal at a smaller school, on to the everyday scandal and cheating at the BCS schools....
Does it never end at University of Connecticut?? These big boys get caught cheating over and over...
and the NCAA still hasn't even bothered to check into the last time they were caught cheating!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575210401099496076.html
More than a year ago were revelations of hundreds of other serious violations and cheating -- MORE illegal phone calls than even Kelvin Sampson had!!
And yet to date, not even a sniff from NCAA!!!!!
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ys-uconnphone032509
Just a year or two earlier, TENS of thousands of $$$$$ worth of illegal benefits were uncovered, and I might just be the only person left in America that even remembers all this, as it has been totally ignored and swept under the rug...
NCAA simply does NOT care when the cheating is at UConn or one of the big boys' schools....
Did it take a year or two or three for NCAA to swoop onto BU;'s campu to dig for the Star Trucking records after some snitch called the NCAA??
Nope -- NCAA had investigators on the ground and digging on campus within weeks of the stoolies' calls, and BU was slammed with penalties only a couples months or so later!!
Yup -- strong justice is swift when it's Bradley but at USC and UConn you can cheat like HELL and nobody cares!!
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/mar/27/271023/tampa-surgery-linked-investigation-uconn-recruit/sports/
I have no idea how the NCAA justifies letting these guys gat away such cheating and how they can maintain an aura of being fair or honest while letting these guy get away with their cheating.....
...but it is so obvious that the big boys who get caught cheating never get any serious penalties...and even the time it takes for the investigations
causes all the evidence to grow cold, so it makes it even easier for the the cheaters to get off with nothing.
IU, if you recall, voluntarily gave up ONE SCHOLARSHIP for ONE YEAR..and the NCAA later said, they had been punished enough so they levied no further substantial sanctions...
and of course IU took the penalty the one year they were horrible and not going to win anything anyway...so in the long run NOT ONE single aspect of the penalties they had
were significant to any degree...yet we keep hearing them use the excuses and alibis of how their program was devastated by NCAA sanctions...baloney...
They were devastated by cheating to land horrible recruits that they had hoped would win lots of games in a hurry but they were mostly kids who flunked out,
did drugs, and all left or were thrown out...leaving absolutely ZERO talent -- then hiring a coach who has trouble landing anyone with more than low-mid-major caliber talent
- so that 3 years later they still can't win a game -- all the time still using the alibi that this is because of what the NCAA did to them!!!!!
(and the press even buys all this crap and tries to drum up even more pity for the Hoosiers - who are not only one of the sorriest programs in a long time,
but they are one of the most crooked, greediest, most arrgoant, blatantly defying the rules, and most cheatingest programs of all time as well........)
I seem to catch a little heat because I stand up for justice and call them out for all their lies and cheating...but so be it.....someone has to ...
The other scandals currently getting swept under the rugs are of course the black-market/stolen ticket sales scandal at University of Kansas in which the major parties are all neck deep in shenaigans, including Bill Self...
And of course the half-decade long cheating/illegal payments/Reggie Bush/OJ Mayo scandal...that for at least 3 YEARS we have been hearing promises that the NCAA was wrapping up and was going to rule........
Yeah-- right, I'll believe it when I see it....but it does make for interesting reading how Tim Floyd claims not only was he totally honest and never broke any rules, but that also the reason he quit at USC was because he was so clean and so honest that he didn't feel the university was supporting him and was going to hang him out to dry - so he got out of there pronto... sure....and I have some swamp land in Florida for sale.....right.......
At Indiana - their deperate need for a big man has moved yet another raw, unskilled, and obscure juco 7-footer to the top of the list ahead of John Wilkins.
http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/archives/2010/04/another_2010_ju.html
This big guy averages about 7 points and 6 rebs for his junior college team...but seriously, just how impressive is that - or just maybe it's impressive in the opposite direction!
In fact, if a guy that big plays 30 minutes of any junior college game anywhere, he's bound to have a few balls fall into his hands, or he'll get fouled or make a bucket...so single digits averages is really not good at all...in fact it's not even average - it's LOUSY!
David Collins' numbers dwarfed this guy...as DC averaged 12.5 ppg and 7 rebs...
even a few years ago..both Shang Ping and Matt Nicholson at ICC put up numbers that were better than this guy!
Indiana already has a couple of foreigner, 7-footer raw centers, and neither of them could even work into a minute of court time on a team this desperate for a big man!!
What in the world makes this guy any more likely to help than Tijan Jobe or Bawa Muniru??
Indiana is really getting desperate.
Speaking of which, is likely why John Wilkins is starting to look elsewhere knowing Indiana is jacking him along and playing for a dope...
John Wikiins just visited Houston........
Houston just hired a new head coach and two new assistants...
one was previously an Iowa State assistant, Daniyal Robinson, and the other is the father of a Bradley assistant, Alvin Brooks, Jr...
both these guys knew full well about John Wilkins and went after him right away when they got their feet on the ground in Houston.
This is now probably one of JW's top options, they really are going after him strong, now......
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&stm=76102681
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&stm=76102944
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&stm=76111306
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&p=2
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5896255
RECRUITING NEWS!!!
Iowa State lands a nice big man right away after hiring Fred Hoiberg -- this really has to be egg in the face of Indiana's Tom Crean, who was heavily after this kid!!!
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=281141
Diante Watkins, a juco point guard Bradley had been recruiting has now signed with D-II in Missouri.
Creighton recruit Tyrone Nared has asked out of his LOI - but likely he was also being told he wasn't going to play at Creighton...as new Coach McDermott is probably freeing up some scholarships.
Nared is obscure with no other offers, and has stats that are reminiscent of a deep sub on an average juco team...
Dana Altman's assistant in Omaha, Brian Fish, had originally said he would leave Creighton to join Altman at Oregon, leading some to think Darian DeVries, another Creighton assistant and Bruce Rasmussen the Bluejay AD would also possibly be joining Dana in Oregon.
BUT -- now it's reported both those guys are staying in Omaha....
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2010/04/oregon_basketball_former_altma.html
Seton Hall PF Herb Pope collapsed at a practice and was in serious condition at a local hospital with reports saying he had heart stoppage...
but since he's trying to make himself available for the NBA Draft, they are keeping everything quiet - but I can assure you the NBA teams wouldn't dare take a chance on this situation, so he's gonna go undrafted!
http://www.nj.com/college-basketball/index.ssf/2010/04/seton_hall_releases_statement_regarding_health_status_of_forward_herb_pope.html
And a little followup on the most overrated players coming out of high school in 2008...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=180802#post180802
Anthony Booker is probably the most overrated incoming recruit in the MVC in history...but some of the Saluki fans just never figured that out.....
but outside of reading a few blogs or message boards, you wouldn't hear much at all about most of these cheating scandals..........
A followup of the brewing scandal in the Athletic Department at Wisconsin-Milwaukee--------
George Koonce, the AD at UW-Milwaukee remains on administrative leave for what has been described a a serious, confidential matter, but is still being paid his $175,000 per year salary! But everything is being really kept hush-hush - nobody wants to talk on the record.
Student leaders felt Koonce was a strong supporter of the students' concerns, and have backed him, wanting him to return and some student spokespeople now claim they will organize students to withdraw support for their new on campus arena if Koonce isn't re-instated!
This is in effect like the inmates demanding to run the asylum!! The whole reason this guy is in trouble is reportedly because he's making some shady deals possibly illegal deals so he can get rich while the students are hit with a big time NEW STUDENT ATHLETIC FEE that'll help pay for the new arena..
In other words....the guy may just have been ripping off the very students that are now stupidly pleading to let the potential crook come back!
The whole place seems to be in chaos with students, cheating AD's, administrators, and trustees all blaiming everyone else and at each others' throats..making threats!
One local newspaper is even so fed up with the babyish whining and shenanigans,
that they have recommended that UW-M DROP ALL SPORTS ALTOGETHER!!!!
http://onmilwaukee.com/sports/articles/begeldropuwmsports.html?22476
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/92353554.html
IN THE PROCESS, the writer of the first article confirms that of the $10 MILLION athletic budget at UW-M...virtually all of it...nearly 100% is funded BY TAXPAYERS!!!!
"There is a drop in the bucket of private money but almost all of it is public money"
Can we hear again from those who keep repeating the mantra that most public universities fund their athletics without using taxpayer dollars???
So much for the rarity -- a scandal at a smaller school, on to the everyday scandal and cheating at the BCS schools....
Does it never end at University of Connecticut?? These big boys get caught cheating over and over...
and the NCAA still hasn't even bothered to check into the last time they were caught cheating!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575210401099496076.html
More than a year ago were revelations of hundreds of other serious violations and cheating -- MORE illegal phone calls than even Kelvin Sampson had!!
And yet to date, not even a sniff from NCAA!!!!!
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ys-uconnphone032509
Just a year or two earlier, TENS of thousands of $$$$$ worth of illegal benefits were uncovered, and I might just be the only person left in America that even remembers all this, as it has been totally ignored and swept under the rug...
NCAA simply does NOT care when the cheating is at UConn or one of the big boys' schools....
Did it take a year or two or three for NCAA to swoop onto BU;'s campu to dig for the Star Trucking records after some snitch called the NCAA??
Nope -- NCAA had investigators on the ground and digging on campus within weeks of the stoolies' calls, and BU was slammed with penalties only a couples months or so later!!
Yup -- strong justice is swift when it's Bradley but at USC and UConn you can cheat like HELL and nobody cares!!
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/mar/27/271023/tampa-surgery-linked-investigation-uconn-recruit/sports/
I have no idea how the NCAA justifies letting these guys gat away such cheating and how they can maintain an aura of being fair or honest while letting these guy get away with their cheating.....
...but it is so obvious that the big boys who get caught cheating never get any serious penalties...and even the time it takes for the investigations
causes all the evidence to grow cold, so it makes it even easier for the the cheaters to get off with nothing.
IU, if you recall, voluntarily gave up ONE SCHOLARSHIP for ONE YEAR..and the NCAA later said, they had been punished enough so they levied no further substantial sanctions...
and of course IU took the penalty the one year they were horrible and not going to win anything anyway...so in the long run NOT ONE single aspect of the penalties they had
were significant to any degree...yet we keep hearing them use the excuses and alibis of how their program was devastated by NCAA sanctions...baloney...
They were devastated by cheating to land horrible recruits that they had hoped would win lots of games in a hurry but they were mostly kids who flunked out,
did drugs, and all left or were thrown out...leaving absolutely ZERO talent -- then hiring a coach who has trouble landing anyone with more than low-mid-major caliber talent
- so that 3 years later they still can't win a game -- all the time still using the alibi that this is because of what the NCAA did to them!!!!!
(and the press even buys all this crap and tries to drum up even more pity for the Hoosiers - who are not only one of the sorriest programs in a long time,
but they are one of the most crooked, greediest, most arrgoant, blatantly defying the rules, and most cheatingest programs of all time as well........)
I seem to catch a little heat because I stand up for justice and call them out for all their lies and cheating...but so be it.....someone has to ...
The other scandals currently getting swept under the rugs are of course the black-market/stolen ticket sales scandal at University of Kansas in which the major parties are all neck deep in shenaigans, including Bill Self...
And of course the half-decade long cheating/illegal payments/Reggie Bush/OJ Mayo scandal...that for at least 3 YEARS we have been hearing promises that the NCAA was wrapping up and was going to rule........
Yeah-- right, I'll believe it when I see it....but it does make for interesting reading how Tim Floyd claims not only was he totally honest and never broke any rules, but that also the reason he quit at USC was because he was so clean and so honest that he didn't feel the university was supporting him and was going to hang him out to dry - so he got out of there pronto... sure....and I have some swamp land in Florida for sale.....right.......
At Indiana - their deperate need for a big man has moved yet another raw, unskilled, and obscure juco 7-footer to the top of the list ahead of John Wilkins.
http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/archives/2010/04/another_2010_ju.html
This big guy averages about 7 points and 6 rebs for his junior college team...but seriously, just how impressive is that - or just maybe it's impressive in the opposite direction!
In fact, if a guy that big plays 30 minutes of any junior college game anywhere, he's bound to have a few balls fall into his hands, or he'll get fouled or make a bucket...so single digits averages is really not good at all...in fact it's not even average - it's LOUSY!
David Collins' numbers dwarfed this guy...as DC averaged 12.5 ppg and 7 rebs...
even a few years ago..both Shang Ping and Matt Nicholson at ICC put up numbers that were better than this guy!
Indiana already has a couple of foreigner, 7-footer raw centers, and neither of them could even work into a minute of court time on a team this desperate for a big man!!
What in the world makes this guy any more likely to help than Tijan Jobe or Bawa Muniru??
Indiana is really getting desperate.
Speaking of which, is likely why John Wilkins is starting to look elsewhere knowing Indiana is jacking him along and playing for a dope...
John Wikiins just visited Houston........
Houston just hired a new head coach and two new assistants...
one was previously an Iowa State assistant, Daniyal Robinson, and the other is the father of a Bradley assistant, Alvin Brooks, Jr...
both these guys knew full well about John Wilkins and went after him right away when they got their feet on the ground in Houston.
This is now probably one of JW's top options, they really are going after him strong, now......
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&stm=76102681
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&stm=76102944
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&stm=76111306
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5891851&p=2
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=215&f=2805&t=5896255
RECRUITING NEWS!!!
Iowa State lands a nice big man right away after hiring Fred Hoiberg -- this really has to be egg in the face of Indiana's Tom Crean, who was heavily after this kid!!!
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=281141
Diante Watkins, a juco point guard Bradley had been recruiting has now signed with D-II in Missouri.
Creighton recruit Tyrone Nared has asked out of his LOI - but likely he was also being told he wasn't going to play at Creighton...as new Coach McDermott is probably freeing up some scholarships.
Nared is obscure with no other offers, and has stats that are reminiscent of a deep sub on an average juco team...
Dana Altman's assistant in Omaha, Brian Fish, had originally said he would leave Creighton to join Altman at Oregon, leading some to think Darian DeVries, another Creighton assistant and Bruce Rasmussen the Bluejay AD would also possibly be joining Dana in Oregon.
BUT -- now it's reported both those guys are staying in Omaha....
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2010/04/oregon_basketball_former_altma.html
Seton Hall PF Herb Pope collapsed at a practice and was in serious condition at a local hospital with reports saying he had heart stoppage...
but since he's trying to make himself available for the NBA Draft, they are keeping everything quiet - but I can assure you the NBA teams wouldn't dare take a chance on this situation, so he's gonna go undrafted!
http://www.nj.com/college-basketball/index.ssf/2010/04/seton_hall_releases_statement_regarding_health_status_of_forward_herb_pope.html
And a little followup on the most overrated players coming out of high school in 2008...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=180802#post180802
Anthony Booker is probably the most overrated incoming recruit in the MVC in history...but some of the Saluki fans just never figured that out.....
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Overrated/Underrated
I was just thinking about the final end result of Chris Lowery's fine, highly touted recruiting class back in 2008 - labeled the best recruiting class in Valley history, if you believe some.
Then I realized that lots of SIU recruits appear to have been overrated......and all the while, very few Bradley recruits are that overrated, most being underrated.
Let's just look at a comparison using the recent players......and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, this is not meant to be demeaning to anyone...
Bradley's recent players have almost all been underrated coming to Bradley.
Sam Maniscalco was not highly recruited nor given a lot of press anywhere outside of Chicago - and not even much in Chicago. Yet, Sammy has become one of the better players in the Missouri Valley and got votes for the Player of the Year!!
Andrew Warren is also one of the Valley's best scorers and best players, yet was barely known coming out of high school, didn't get many offers, and was a steal for Bradley.
Taylor Brown has also become one of the league's best players but was a virtual unknown in high school and as a juco freshman. In fact, if TB continues to improve as the pace he's getting better, he could be one of Jim Les' best recruiting coups!
Same can be said of Chris Roberts, Will Franklin, POB, Will Egolf, and many other Bradley players that became fine or solid Valley players but were almost unknown coming in.
Dodie is also a perfect example -- while at prep school and going to Iowa State, Dodie had a 3-Star ranking, and had plenty of hype.
Then when he went to juco and on to Bradley - that ranking dropped and his name barely got a mention!!
Here's the proof of the guru's hypocrisy --
Dodie going to Iowa State has 3 Stars
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Dodie-Dunson-34182
But Dodie going to Bradley gets ZERO STARS!!! Amazing!!
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Dodie-Dunson-72835
But let's contrast all those Bradley players who were very UNDERRATED coming to Bradley, with the really overrated guys that ended at SIU.
I like Carlton Fay, but he was pretty highly touted...and even Bradley wanted him.
And he is a good player, but in his first two years at SIU he accumulated just 399 points and 203 rebounds playing nearly FULL TIME!!!
These aren't horrible numbers, but note than Will Egolf's totals after his first two seasons at Bradley are not a whole lot different!!! And Will hasn't played NEARLY as many minutes in his two years as Carlton did.
But how about we compare Carlton Fay's first two years to Taylor Brown's...
Carlton Fay - 399 points, 203 rebounds
Taylor Brown- 489 points, 294 rebounds
whoa....what a HUGE difference.........this clearly argues that as underrated as TB was, he has had a FAR more substantial career for Bradley to this point, as CFay did in his first two years at SIU!!! How many people knew that??
Then we get to the real overrated guys....
Anthony Booker was a 4-Star recruit, rated by scout.com as the #29 best player in the NATION in Class of 2008 - only 4 slots on their list away from being a 5-STAR guy!! He was hailed as the best incoming recruit in the past 3 years in the Valley. But he's been a bit of a bust, not even starting much (except when other player dismissals and issues essentially forced it) - and now he's gone....
I'd say he might just well be the MOST overrated player the Valley has ever seen!!
Kevin Dillard....this is literally the poster boy for overrated!! We had to endure tons of press and message board posts telling us how this guy was going to dominate the Valley - how he'd lead SIU back to national prominence!
Well, if Anthony Booker isn't the most overrated guy the Valley has seen, then this guy will gladly take the award!
The departure from SIU of Kevin Dillard made me wonder how each of the past Illinois Mr. Basketball's have done...
The most recent, 2010, Jereme Richmond, hasn't even entered college, but he certainly has a bright future.
The 2009 Mr. Basketball, Brandon Paul, played a lot and was a key part of Illinois' team, starting about half the games,
and averaging 8 ppg, 3 rpg...but also his future is bright and he hasn't exactly floundered.
The going all the way back to 1995, EVERY OTHER ILLINOIS MR. BASKETBALL has either jumped right to the NBA and had a great payday or been a star in the NBA...
and all the rest, save for one, have been great college players, many All Americans.....(Rose, Scheyer, Dee Brown)..
But one guy stands out, not only for being the guy who won with the least vote totals, but also the guy who has failed to distinguish himself much at all...
After two years at SIU, he's a decent player with better than average numbers, but he has prevailed over two of THE WORST YEARS THAT SIU HAS HAD IN MEMORY!!! (13-18, 15-15)
In fact, to find a season that was worse than the 18-losses you have to go back to the early 1980's..almost 30 years ago!
These two seasons with Kevin Dillard as floor chief, have been two of the worst 4 or 5 years since SIU went D-I!!
Here are the past Illinois Mr. Basketball's all the way back to the mid 90's......
Year...Mr. Basketball... School........ Points received ...College
2010 Jereme Richmond Waukegan High School, Waukegan 455 Illinois
2009 Brandon Paul Warren Township High School, Gurnee 337 Illinois
2008 Kevin Dillard Homewood-Flossmoor High School 228 SIU
2007 Derrick Rose Simeon Career Academy, Chicago 720 Memphis
2006 Jon Scheyer Glenbrook North High School, Northbrook 1187 Duke
2005 Julian Wright Homewood-Flossmoor High School, Flossmoor 645 Kansas
2004 Shaun Livingston Peoria Central NBA 1056 (Letter of Intent: Duke)
2003 Shannon Brown Proviso East High School, Maywood 887 Michigan State
2002 Dee Brown Proviso East High School, Maywood 952 Illinois
2001 Eddy Curry Thornwood High School, South Holland NBA 1443 (LOI: DePaul)
2000 Darius Miles East St. Louis High School NBA 1264(LOI:St. Johns)
1999 Brian Cook Lincoln Community High School, Lincoln 903 Illinois
1998 Frank Williams Manual High School, Peoria 1049 Illinois
1997 Sergio McClain Manual High School, Peoria 1361 Illinois
1996 Ronnie Fields Farragut Academy, Chicago 1270 CBA (LOI: DePaul)
1995 Kevin Garnett Farragut Academy, Chicago 1443 NBA (LOI: DePaul)
so in many respects...KD was simply way overrated......but some of the voters in 2008 knew it - thus he just didn't have the vote totals of the other Mr. Basketballs.
The other recent SIU guys - Torres Roundtree, Ryan Hare, Justin Bocot, Tony Freeman, etc...have all been hyped way too much, even o the point where some like Freeman were predicted to give a run for POY and the rest were guaranteed starters who'd carry SIU and challenge for the MVC title.
Well....funny how none of that happened. So what gives?
Does anyone else note how so many SIU guys are horribly hyped then fall flat...but polar opposite - so many BU guys are unknowns with NO hype who turn out to be solid players?
Maybe it's tied in with my argument of how hard it is to get recruits interested in Bradley. Maybe it's time for the media and the future recruits to wake up and smell the roses.....
That SIU isn't on par with UCLA - and the top recruits need to stop placing Carbondale ahead of Peoria as a desirable destination........
But then, that's my purpose.....get the word out.........
Check out Peoria, consider Bradley -- that's what all the top instate and even out of state recruits need to do. And stop drooling over the hopes of playing in Carbondale - as you can see, it's the college basketball equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot!!
Then I realized that lots of SIU recruits appear to have been overrated......and all the while, very few Bradley recruits are that overrated, most being underrated.
Let's just look at a comparison using the recent players......and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, this is not meant to be demeaning to anyone...
Bradley's recent players have almost all been underrated coming to Bradley.
Sam Maniscalco was not highly recruited nor given a lot of press anywhere outside of Chicago - and not even much in Chicago. Yet, Sammy has become one of the better players in the Missouri Valley and got votes for the Player of the Year!!
Andrew Warren is also one of the Valley's best scorers and best players, yet was barely known coming out of high school, didn't get many offers, and was a steal for Bradley.
Taylor Brown has also become one of the league's best players but was a virtual unknown in high school and as a juco freshman. In fact, if TB continues to improve as the pace he's getting better, he could be one of Jim Les' best recruiting coups!
Same can be said of Chris Roberts, Will Franklin, POB, Will Egolf, and many other Bradley players that became fine or solid Valley players but were almost unknown coming in.
Dodie is also a perfect example -- while at prep school and going to Iowa State, Dodie had a 3-Star ranking, and had plenty of hype.
Then when he went to juco and on to Bradley - that ranking dropped and his name barely got a mention!!
Here's the proof of the guru's hypocrisy --
Dodie going to Iowa State has 3 Stars
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Dodie-Dunson-34182
But Dodie going to Bradley gets ZERO STARS!!! Amazing!!
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Dodie-Dunson-72835
But let's contrast all those Bradley players who were very UNDERRATED coming to Bradley, with the really overrated guys that ended at SIU.
I like Carlton Fay, but he was pretty highly touted...and even Bradley wanted him.
And he is a good player, but in his first two years at SIU he accumulated just 399 points and 203 rebounds playing nearly FULL TIME!!!
These aren't horrible numbers, but note than Will Egolf's totals after his first two seasons at Bradley are not a whole lot different!!! And Will hasn't played NEARLY as many minutes in his two years as Carlton did.
But how about we compare Carlton Fay's first two years to Taylor Brown's...
Carlton Fay - 399 points, 203 rebounds
Taylor Brown- 489 points, 294 rebounds
whoa....what a HUGE difference.........this clearly argues that as underrated as TB was, he has had a FAR more substantial career for Bradley to this point, as CFay did in his first two years at SIU!!! How many people knew that??
Then we get to the real overrated guys....
Anthony Booker was a 4-Star recruit, rated by scout.com as the #29 best player in the NATION in Class of 2008 - only 4 slots on their list away from being a 5-STAR guy!! He was hailed as the best incoming recruit in the past 3 years in the Valley. But he's been a bit of a bust, not even starting much (except when other player dismissals and issues essentially forced it) - and now he's gone....
I'd say he might just well be the MOST overrated player the Valley has ever seen!!
Kevin Dillard....this is literally the poster boy for overrated!! We had to endure tons of press and message board posts telling us how this guy was going to dominate the Valley - how he'd lead SIU back to national prominence!
Well, if Anthony Booker isn't the most overrated guy the Valley has seen, then this guy will gladly take the award!
The departure from SIU of Kevin Dillard made me wonder how each of the past Illinois Mr. Basketball's have done...
The most recent, 2010, Jereme Richmond, hasn't even entered college, but he certainly has a bright future.
The 2009 Mr. Basketball, Brandon Paul, played a lot and was a key part of Illinois' team, starting about half the games,
and averaging 8 ppg, 3 rpg...but also his future is bright and he hasn't exactly floundered.
The going all the way back to 1995, EVERY OTHER ILLINOIS MR. BASKETBALL has either jumped right to the NBA and had a great payday or been a star in the NBA...
and all the rest, save for one, have been great college players, many All Americans.....(Rose, Scheyer, Dee Brown)..
But one guy stands out, not only for being the guy who won with the least vote totals, but also the guy who has failed to distinguish himself much at all...
After two years at SIU, he's a decent player with better than average numbers, but he has prevailed over two of THE WORST YEARS THAT SIU HAS HAD IN MEMORY!!! (13-18, 15-15)
In fact, to find a season that was worse than the 18-losses you have to go back to the early 1980's..almost 30 years ago!
These two seasons with Kevin Dillard as floor chief, have been two of the worst 4 or 5 years since SIU went D-I!!
Here are the past Illinois Mr. Basketball's all the way back to the mid 90's......
Year...Mr. Basketball... School........ Points received ...College
2010 Jereme Richmond Waukegan High School, Waukegan 455 Illinois
2009 Brandon Paul Warren Township High School, Gurnee 337 Illinois
2008 Kevin Dillard Homewood-Flossmoor High School 228 SIU
2007 Derrick Rose Simeon Career Academy, Chicago 720 Memphis
2006 Jon Scheyer Glenbrook North High School, Northbrook 1187 Duke
2005 Julian Wright Homewood-Flossmoor High School, Flossmoor 645 Kansas
2004 Shaun Livingston Peoria Central NBA 1056 (Letter of Intent: Duke)
2003 Shannon Brown Proviso East High School, Maywood 887 Michigan State
2002 Dee Brown Proviso East High School, Maywood 952 Illinois
2001 Eddy Curry Thornwood High School, South Holland NBA 1443 (LOI: DePaul)
2000 Darius Miles East St. Louis High School NBA 1264(LOI:St. Johns)
1999 Brian Cook Lincoln Community High School, Lincoln 903 Illinois
1998 Frank Williams Manual High School, Peoria 1049 Illinois
1997 Sergio McClain Manual High School, Peoria 1361 Illinois
1996 Ronnie Fields Farragut Academy, Chicago 1270 CBA (LOI: DePaul)
1995 Kevin Garnett Farragut Academy, Chicago 1443 NBA (LOI: DePaul)
so in many respects...KD was simply way overrated......but some of the voters in 2008 knew it - thus he just didn't have the vote totals of the other Mr. Basketballs.
The other recent SIU guys - Torres Roundtree, Ryan Hare, Justin Bocot, Tony Freeman, etc...have all been hyped way too much, even o the point where some like Freeman were predicted to give a run for POY and the rest were guaranteed starters who'd carry SIU and challenge for the MVC title.
Well....funny how none of that happened. So what gives?
Does anyone else note how so many SIU guys are horribly hyped then fall flat...but polar opposite - so many BU guys are unknowns with NO hype who turn out to be solid players?
Maybe it's tied in with my argument of how hard it is to get recruits interested in Bradley. Maybe it's time for the media and the future recruits to wake up and smell the roses.....
That SIU isn't on par with UCLA - and the top recruits need to stop placing Carbondale ahead of Peoria as a desirable destination........
But then, that's my purpose.....get the word out.........
Check out Peoria, consider Bradley -- that's what all the top instate and even out of state recruits need to do. And stop drooling over the hopes of playing in Carbondale - as you can see, it's the college basketball equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot!!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Scandal Tracker...
There are lots of scandals going on in college basketball, and really only the big ones and the ones being ignored by NCAA and being swept under the rug by the schools are of interest.
We just can't talk scandal without starting with USC...
they've been one of the dirtiest programs for decades but always get a pass from NCAA.
But info about the massive freebies given to Reggie Bush and the corrupt way in which he (and his family) were allowed to live openly in mansions and expensive apartments and given upwards of $300,000 in extra benefits, should have sure been caught and penalized by NCAA, right?
Not quite -- for years NCAA pretended it did not exist...then when faced with numerous nationally published and well researched and proven articles by YahooSports, then NCAA finally and reluctantly said they'd look into it...
Well, that was more than 3 years ago -- and still nothing......
Then the whole thing was compounded when numerous people testified that OJ Mayo was also getting paid off and tons of freebies....and there were even eyewitnesses saying they saw money being given to coach Tim Floyd and the payoffs going to OJ.
Oh well...the NCAA says it has concluded its investigation, but still nothing...and even if they do act, they'll impose a laughably soft pseudo-penalty like the did at Indiana...but the scandal rolls on..........now Tim Floyd gets a new gig..
he gets hired at UTEP and announces he didn't cheat at USC and that he left there because they didn't support him...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=180302#post180302
It'll be interesting, but I am certain all these cheaters will get off either scott free or really easy!
Then we move to the ticket selling, corruption and scandal at Kansas that definitely seems to involve Bill Self -- or at least he had to know about it...
So far, NCAA is looking the other way but the feds aren't - they know this is crooked and people are raking in cash with illegal sales of tickets that don't belong to them and they are not paying taxes and they are defrauding the government!!
Kansas may get nailed by the feds...but the NCAA will ignore the whole thing and the corruption.....
Kansas has already gotten rid of one guy (Assistant AD and Chief Fund Raiser)and most of the evidence...they are already learning from IU and USC on how to hide the facts, get rid of a scapegoat and then avoid NCAA penalties.
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=180081#post180081
Then there's scandal brewing at Wisconsin-Milwaukee..but everyone is silent!
Their AD has also been canned unceremoniously...and nobody's talking and everyone is running for cover. Look for this one to run deeper than everyone thinks......the whole thing just smells dirty...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15530
Even their own fans expect much worse revelations and know a whole lot is being hidden...
http://www.uwmpost.com/2010/04/26/ad-koonce-placed-on-administrative-leave/
http://www.uwmpost.com/2010/04/26/a-holding-pattern/
http://uwmfreak.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Games&action=display&thread=5230
Latest scandal........brewing at Notre Dame...looks like Head Coach Mike Brey might just be in hot water over a sex scandal with an attractive TV reporter....with a history...
http://www.casualhoya.com/2010/4/27/1446897/mike-brey-out-at-notre-dame
http://starcasm.net/archives/44808?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Starcasm+%28Starcasm%29&utm_content=IceRocket+Blog+Search
Sort of Tiger Woods & John Edwards mixed together........
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15548
well, that's all I have time for.......more scandals at a future time..this is way too many already......
Had any of this stuff happened at Bradley, there wouldn't have been enough runways at our airport to handle all the traffic of NCAA investigators plying to Peoria to dig and find smut to penalize BU for and for all the media people who would be labeling BU a renegade program!!!
We just can't talk scandal without starting with USC...
they've been one of the dirtiest programs for decades but always get a pass from NCAA.
But info about the massive freebies given to Reggie Bush and the corrupt way in which he (and his family) were allowed to live openly in mansions and expensive apartments and given upwards of $300,000 in extra benefits, should have sure been caught and penalized by NCAA, right?
Not quite -- for years NCAA pretended it did not exist...then when faced with numerous nationally published and well researched and proven articles by YahooSports, then NCAA finally and reluctantly said they'd look into it...
Well, that was more than 3 years ago -- and still nothing......
Then the whole thing was compounded when numerous people testified that OJ Mayo was also getting paid off and tons of freebies....and there were even eyewitnesses saying they saw money being given to coach Tim Floyd and the payoffs going to OJ.
Oh well...the NCAA says it has concluded its investigation, but still nothing...and even if they do act, they'll impose a laughably soft pseudo-penalty like the did at Indiana...but the scandal rolls on..........now Tim Floyd gets a new gig..
he gets hired at UTEP and announces he didn't cheat at USC and that he left there because they didn't support him...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=180302#post180302
It'll be interesting, but I am certain all these cheaters will get off either scott free or really easy!
Then we move to the ticket selling, corruption and scandal at Kansas that definitely seems to involve Bill Self -- or at least he had to know about it...
So far, NCAA is looking the other way but the feds aren't - they know this is crooked and people are raking in cash with illegal sales of tickets that don't belong to them and they are not paying taxes and they are defrauding the government!!
Kansas may get nailed by the feds...but the NCAA will ignore the whole thing and the corruption.....
Kansas has already gotten rid of one guy (Assistant AD and Chief Fund Raiser)and most of the evidence...they are already learning from IU and USC on how to hide the facts, get rid of a scapegoat and then avoid NCAA penalties.
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=180081#post180081
Then there's scandal brewing at Wisconsin-Milwaukee..but everyone is silent!
Their AD has also been canned unceremoniously...and nobody's talking and everyone is running for cover. Look for this one to run deeper than everyone thinks......the whole thing just smells dirty...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15530
Even their own fans expect much worse revelations and know a whole lot is being hidden...
http://www.uwmpost.com/2010/04/26/ad-koonce-placed-on-administrative-leave/
http://www.uwmpost.com/2010/04/26/a-holding-pattern/
http://uwmfreak.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Games&action=display&thread=5230
Latest scandal........brewing at Notre Dame...looks like Head Coach Mike Brey might just be in hot water over a sex scandal with an attractive TV reporter....with a history...
http://www.casualhoya.com/2010/4/27/1446897/mike-brey-out-at-notre-dame
http://starcasm.net/archives/44808?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Starcasm+%28Starcasm%29&utm_content=IceRocket+Blog+Search
Sort of Tiger Woods & John Edwards mixed together........
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15548
well, that's all I have time for.......more scandals at a future time..this is way too many already......
Had any of this stuff happened at Bradley, there wouldn't have been enough runways at our airport to handle all the traffic of NCAA investigators plying to Peoria to dig and find smut to penalize BU for and for all the media people who would be labeling BU a renegade program!!!
Monday, April 26, 2010
A more universal topic...
Maybe some of you saw the Discovery Channel presentation about Steven Hawking and his theories...some of which appear to be intentionally exaggerated and aggrandized for the sake of good TV...but they are interesting........
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0426/Stephen-Hawking-aliens-theory-doesn-t-scare-planet-hunters
I saw that Discovery show last night doting on every word he says...or actually every word his computer churns out because he can't talk...and obviously there are all kinds of opinions, but the one opinion of whether there ARE other civilizations "out there" on other planets has only 2, maybe 3 answers...
Either yes, no, or maybe - don't care - don't have a way to know...etc...
Here's my thoughts.........
after decades of everyone having high hopes about the possibility of finding intelligent life elsewhere, now Hawking says it would kinda be for us like it was for the Native Americans when Columbus arrived...
There'd be little reason those intelligent aliens would spend the time, effort, and whatever they have in place of money to come here except for wanting what we have and they'd probably treat us poorly in the process..
In other words...if they ever did make themselves known to us or come here, it probably would be because they ruined their own world and are coming here to take ours or it's resources.
BUT --- here's another thought...Steven Hawking does concede the the highest probability would be that if we find life elsewhere it would NOT be intelligent, but would be primordial or just like bacteria..
BUT if there are intelligent beings elsewhere...one thought is that SOME....maybe even JUST ONE (as long as they're postulating millions of possible habitable planets) -- would have done something by now that we'd have seen...
visited us, sent a signal, generated explosions or electromagnetic waves, something that we would have detected and yet we haven't...we've seen nothing....
And there's no area in science where the total LACK of even a tiny piece of evidence still draws HUGE hopes and beliefs that what we have no evidence for still exists - and not even exists but those scientists draw up detailed speculation about all the aliens that exist and even what they eat and how they function!!
This, to any real scientists, is NOT what science is about - and this is cartoonish fantasy...but honestly, the science on aliens is absolutely absent and non-existent....
YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS...
you can't use the argument that the universe is nearly limitless so the statistical probability is HIGH of some planet out there having life...
Then turn right around and deny MY ARGUMENT, that if it is so limitless, then SURELY by now one of those planets with life would be way ahead of us and would have BY NOW done something we would have detected!! -- They'd have made themselves obvious or apparent to us, on purpose!!
We've been to several other planets and moons (both with human explorers and probes) and we've made NO effort whatsoever to hide our trips to the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, etc...
Surely if there was life out there they'd have seen us or detected us..and so why are they all hiding...or are they???
Also -- surely we wouldn't be the MOST advanced of those societies...surely some planet - of the supposed gazillions out there - houses beings that are far more advanced than us...so why have we not seen them nor have they found US and visited us..???
And why do we always presume that any being coming from another world always represents that entire world...
It sure isn't the case here on earth...we are so factionated and when one of our astronauts goes anywhere, he certainly isn't representing all the people on earth....just the naiton that sends him....so any theoretic discussions he'd have with beings elsewhere wouldn't necessarily represent the feelings of everyone else on earth...
But here's a thought that some are always so certain to shoot down as preposterous..but it isn't....
..could it be there is NO ONE out there...or if they are there...that NOBODY yet has found a way to travel the vast distances...so therefore neither will we...
and if that's the case...then we are wasting a lot of $$ trying...
If Hawking compares to Columbus visiting America...there's an ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE...
Columbus or anyone in Europe..had NO IDEA and no way to have an idea what was over there on the other side of the ocean....they couldn't see the tiniest evidence of what was there---
By contrast, we have a plethora of ways of looking out there and seeing almost everything or anything for signs of life...AND NONE EXIST...sorry to break the news....but the crap we see and read about aliens and flying saucers is a lot like the Bigfoot argument...
Maybe a couple decades ago I coulda bought it (although I never did) but now with all the sophisticated devices we have that can tell every inch of airspace covered by planes like Payne Stewart's unpiloted airplane or JFK, Jr.'s fatal flight...
we know that technology exists to know everything we need to know about those flights, so don't you think if there were aliens flying among us, we'd have the evidence by now??
Just ONE solid piece...one craft shot down or crashed (and don't cite Area 52 unless you have some evidence on that - but you don't, just speculation again), one tiny bit of hard, solid evidence...but to date we have NONE. Even people willing to pay and offering millions for the evidence still have their money and nobody's provided the proof yet!
If even any intelligent being has ever come within 50 light years of earth, then they would have emitted electromagnetic waves that we could have and quite possibly WOULD have seen or found by now....
The SETI (giant radio telescopes searching the skies continuously and endlessly at your expense!!) program has been meticulously searching for any radio wave or electromagnetic signal of any kind that is not random or would suggest reason or intelligence...
and yet NONE have been found in 50 years...so when will they finally give up and admit none exist...
If none exist, then how do we explain the tens of thousands of reports on a daily basis of flying saucers and alien ships, and phenomena....
there are only two possible answers...
--either the evidence does exist and it's being hidden or kept from us by a conspiracy that would have to be so vast as to include all governments and most top scientists...
it would be like trying to buffalo the world into thinking there's no such thing as a tornado or an earthquake, or a meteor....because those events are all actually rarer and seen by fewer than claim to see UFO's!!!!
This is even more preposterous that so many people could all keep the same monumental secret from the masses......when they can't even hide a politicians secret love affair!!
--or they are ALL false reports and mistakes and other unidentified natural occurrences, and that NO aliens have ever visited...
Sorry - if you're one of those who swear you have seen evidence of aliens, then it is just possible you and many others have been duped or fell for a lie...
The reports are so numerous and so varied that you'd have to conclude multiple alien civilizations have been here -- all of whom are sloppy, leave behind ridiculously observable evidence to a few individuals, but that they've been incredibly fortunate so far and none of their solid evidence has ever fallen into the hands of someone credible and believable in a manner that's not so bizarre and weak, who has gone public with it
And .......that all the different aliens have unified in their desire and their plan NOT to intentionally contact us or let us know they really are here beyond doubt...
all the while flirting with leaving behind badly bumbled evidence when they abduct people and do alien exams then return those people to earth..
The whole scenario is absolutely laughable - kinda comic book-oid - which is why I conclude all those who claim to have seen such things are simply weak or deluded minds or they have been deceived or have hallucinated...
Alien life from other planets isn't worth the money and effort put into looking for it...
but you and anyone else are free to spend your own $$ and time...
I think the total LACK of believable evidence in the past 60+ years since people have been earnestly looking with gazillions of high tech scientific equipment speaks volumes, just like the total lack of evidence of Bigfoot even when the rarest animals are still often seen, photographed, and caught...
True science should take a neutral position and neither believe nor disbelieve anything unless it's proven. Yet we see scientists (who all want to make something off their opinion - usually doing TV or selling books) claiming they still believe in something no evidence exists for..
The true scientific position should be that the more time goes by and no evidence exists, then the less likely we are going to ever find any evidence.
You obviously can't prove something doesn't exist but you can disprove each individual piece of evidence (about 95-98% do eventually get disproven, but after a while people get tired of disproving so many bits of useless and false evidence).
It's actually fantasy to speculate all these things about aliens and other worlds...
and, by the way....we're no closer to ever going out there or getting to another world than we were 40 years ago...and not likely to get any closer in the forseeable future.
So in the end it probably doesn't even matter what anyone thinks...
unless the aliens come here and finally reveal themselves...and don't hold your breath on that one...
When that happens, give me a call.......I'd be willing to consider the facts, but not the hype and the imagination...same goes for Bigfoot.
PS-- by virtually universal agreement, the definition of science requires that the scientist remain objective and somewhat skeptical of unproven events, especially those events and phenomenon that have such a dearth of evidence.
Science is all about the measurable, reproducible, observable, and studyable...
anyone who has studied science, or spent years in college learning many aspects of it or who have a degree in physics would agree.
Any talk of other beings or aliens leads to really wild conjecture....sort of like a few people stealthily knocking down some wheat stalks at night, then spawning a whole realm of alien believers who swear it was caused by aliens even when those who did it step forward with video evidence. So when scientists begin speculating about aliens as Hawking did...even guessing what aliens on Jupiter would have to be like - low weight and made of gaseous elements - or silicon based on planets that have little or no carbon, then he enters the realm of speculative, fiction, and fantasy...and NOT SCIENCE.
To even pretend that this was a scientific program then throw in all that ficiton and fantasy totally destroys the credibility...
It would be as if I tried to study how the brain worked then blend into my science - the opinion that ghosts exist and that invisible goblins are responsible for unexplained phenomenon about the brain....
It takes us backwards 200 years in science, and I am quite disappointed that Hawking chose to throw in so much fantasy and dreaming, but I am sure the show's producers wanted it so it would be more appealing to the relatively non-scientific audience. I am sure they weren't too worried about ticking off the few scientists in the viewing audience that would call them on their completely un-scientific process!
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0426/Stephen-Hawking-aliens-theory-doesn-t-scare-planet-hunters
I saw that Discovery show last night doting on every word he says...or actually every word his computer churns out because he can't talk...and obviously there are all kinds of opinions, but the one opinion of whether there ARE other civilizations "out there" on other planets has only 2, maybe 3 answers...
Either yes, no, or maybe - don't care - don't have a way to know...etc...
Here's my thoughts.........
after decades of everyone having high hopes about the possibility of finding intelligent life elsewhere, now Hawking says it would kinda be for us like it was for the Native Americans when Columbus arrived...
There'd be little reason those intelligent aliens would spend the time, effort, and whatever they have in place of money to come here except for wanting what we have and they'd probably treat us poorly in the process..
In other words...if they ever did make themselves known to us or come here, it probably would be because they ruined their own world and are coming here to take ours or it's resources.
BUT --- here's another thought...Steven Hawking does concede the the highest probability would be that if we find life elsewhere it would NOT be intelligent, but would be primordial or just like bacteria..
BUT if there are intelligent beings elsewhere...one thought is that SOME....maybe even JUST ONE (as long as they're postulating millions of possible habitable planets) -- would have done something by now that we'd have seen...
visited us, sent a signal, generated explosions or electromagnetic waves, something that we would have detected and yet we haven't...we've seen nothing....
And there's no area in science where the total LACK of even a tiny piece of evidence still draws HUGE hopes and beliefs that what we have no evidence for still exists - and not even exists but those scientists draw up detailed speculation about all the aliens that exist and even what they eat and how they function!!
This, to any real scientists, is NOT what science is about - and this is cartoonish fantasy...but honestly, the science on aliens is absolutely absent and non-existent....
YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS...
you can't use the argument that the universe is nearly limitless so the statistical probability is HIGH of some planet out there having life...
Then turn right around and deny MY ARGUMENT, that if it is so limitless, then SURELY by now one of those planets with life would be way ahead of us and would have BY NOW done something we would have detected!! -- They'd have made themselves obvious or apparent to us, on purpose!!
We've been to several other planets and moons (both with human explorers and probes) and we've made NO effort whatsoever to hide our trips to the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, etc...
Surely if there was life out there they'd have seen us or detected us..and so why are they all hiding...or are they???
Also -- surely we wouldn't be the MOST advanced of those societies...surely some planet - of the supposed gazillions out there - houses beings that are far more advanced than us...so why have we not seen them nor have they found US and visited us..???
And why do we always presume that any being coming from another world always represents that entire world...
It sure isn't the case here on earth...we are so factionated and when one of our astronauts goes anywhere, he certainly isn't representing all the people on earth....just the naiton that sends him....so any theoretic discussions he'd have with beings elsewhere wouldn't necessarily represent the feelings of everyone else on earth...
But here's a thought that some are always so certain to shoot down as preposterous..but it isn't....
..could it be there is NO ONE out there...or if they are there...that NOBODY yet has found a way to travel the vast distances...so therefore neither will we...
and if that's the case...then we are wasting a lot of $$ trying...
If Hawking compares to Columbus visiting America...there's an ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE...
Columbus or anyone in Europe..had NO IDEA and no way to have an idea what was over there on the other side of the ocean....they couldn't see the tiniest evidence of what was there---
By contrast, we have a plethora of ways of looking out there and seeing almost everything or anything for signs of life...AND NONE EXIST...sorry to break the news....but the crap we see and read about aliens and flying saucers is a lot like the Bigfoot argument...
Maybe a couple decades ago I coulda bought it (although I never did) but now with all the sophisticated devices we have that can tell every inch of airspace covered by planes like Payne Stewart's unpiloted airplane or JFK, Jr.'s fatal flight...
we know that technology exists to know everything we need to know about those flights, so don't you think if there were aliens flying among us, we'd have the evidence by now??
Just ONE solid piece...one craft shot down or crashed (and don't cite Area 52 unless you have some evidence on that - but you don't, just speculation again), one tiny bit of hard, solid evidence...but to date we have NONE. Even people willing to pay and offering millions for the evidence still have their money and nobody's provided the proof yet!
If even any intelligent being has ever come within 50 light years of earth, then they would have emitted electromagnetic waves that we could have and quite possibly WOULD have seen or found by now....
The SETI (giant radio telescopes searching the skies continuously and endlessly at your expense!!) program has been meticulously searching for any radio wave or electromagnetic signal of any kind that is not random or would suggest reason or intelligence...
and yet NONE have been found in 50 years...so when will they finally give up and admit none exist...
If none exist, then how do we explain the tens of thousands of reports on a daily basis of flying saucers and alien ships, and phenomena....
there are only two possible answers...
--either the evidence does exist and it's being hidden or kept from us by a conspiracy that would have to be so vast as to include all governments and most top scientists...
it would be like trying to buffalo the world into thinking there's no such thing as a tornado or an earthquake, or a meteor....because those events are all actually rarer and seen by fewer than claim to see UFO's!!!!
This is even more preposterous that so many people could all keep the same monumental secret from the masses......when they can't even hide a politicians secret love affair!!
--or they are ALL false reports and mistakes and other unidentified natural occurrences, and that NO aliens have ever visited...
Sorry - if you're one of those who swear you have seen evidence of aliens, then it is just possible you and many others have been duped or fell for a lie...
The reports are so numerous and so varied that you'd have to conclude multiple alien civilizations have been here -- all of whom are sloppy, leave behind ridiculously observable evidence to a few individuals, but that they've been incredibly fortunate so far and none of their solid evidence has ever fallen into the hands of someone credible and believable in a manner that's not so bizarre and weak, who has gone public with it
And .......that all the different aliens have unified in their desire and their plan NOT to intentionally contact us or let us know they really are here beyond doubt...
all the while flirting with leaving behind badly bumbled evidence when they abduct people and do alien exams then return those people to earth..
The whole scenario is absolutely laughable - kinda comic book-oid - which is why I conclude all those who claim to have seen such things are simply weak or deluded minds or they have been deceived or have hallucinated...
Alien life from other planets isn't worth the money and effort put into looking for it...
but you and anyone else are free to spend your own $$ and time...
I think the total LACK of believable evidence in the past 60+ years since people have been earnestly looking with gazillions of high tech scientific equipment speaks volumes, just like the total lack of evidence of Bigfoot even when the rarest animals are still often seen, photographed, and caught...
True science should take a neutral position and neither believe nor disbelieve anything unless it's proven. Yet we see scientists (who all want to make something off their opinion - usually doing TV or selling books) claiming they still believe in something no evidence exists for..
The true scientific position should be that the more time goes by and no evidence exists, then the less likely we are going to ever find any evidence.
You obviously can't prove something doesn't exist but you can disprove each individual piece of evidence (about 95-98% do eventually get disproven, but after a while people get tired of disproving so many bits of useless and false evidence).
It's actually fantasy to speculate all these things about aliens and other worlds...
and, by the way....we're no closer to ever going out there or getting to another world than we were 40 years ago...and not likely to get any closer in the forseeable future.
So in the end it probably doesn't even matter what anyone thinks...
unless the aliens come here and finally reveal themselves...and don't hold your breath on that one...
When that happens, give me a call.......I'd be willing to consider the facts, but not the hype and the imagination...same goes for Bigfoot.
PS-- by virtually universal agreement, the definition of science requires that the scientist remain objective and somewhat skeptical of unproven events, especially those events and phenomenon that have such a dearth of evidence.
Science is all about the measurable, reproducible, observable, and studyable...
anyone who has studied science, or spent years in college learning many aspects of it or who have a degree in physics would agree.
Any talk of other beings or aliens leads to really wild conjecture....sort of like a few people stealthily knocking down some wheat stalks at night, then spawning a whole realm of alien believers who swear it was caused by aliens even when those who did it step forward with video evidence. So when scientists begin speculating about aliens as Hawking did...even guessing what aliens on Jupiter would have to be like - low weight and made of gaseous elements - or silicon based on planets that have little or no carbon, then he enters the realm of speculative, fiction, and fantasy...and NOT SCIENCE.
To even pretend that this was a scientific program then throw in all that ficiton and fantasy totally destroys the credibility...
It would be as if I tried to study how the brain worked then blend into my science - the opinion that ghosts exist and that invisible goblins are responsible for unexplained phenomenon about the brain....
It takes us backwards 200 years in science, and I am quite disappointed that Hawking chose to throw in so much fantasy and dreaming, but I am sure the show's producers wanted it so it would be more appealing to the relatively non-scientific audience. I am sure they weren't too worried about ticking off the few scientists in the viewing audience that would call them on their completely un-scientific process!
An interesting Valley off-season
Not a whole lot of action other than the multi-juco commitments from several Valley schools...then suddenly Dana Altman departs for a far higher paying job at Oregon.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15543
Then Creighton apparently immediately hires Greg McDermott...who isn't real popular at Iowa State, hasn't won there, and has precious few NCAA Tourney success or wins on his resume...(not confirmed yet, but the hype is such that it's almost too late to say no!)
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15547
But -- we still need resolution to a couple situations...
I'd like to see how Indiana fills out their only open scholarship - although they could easily run at least one guy out and free up at least one more ride with ease...
This has impact on John Wilkins, and at least, therefore, some impact on Bradley.
Plus, BU's need for some depth at the big man spot is still an interesting topic....
If Bradley isn't going to get Wilkins, and it sure looks like Wilkins will wait 'til Crean's hair turns gray for that offer, then where's he gonna go???...his options are drying up....
Iowa State just landed two big guys and then their coach departs....BU is looking FAR and wide, and so that leaves pretty much just Illinois State. So if Wilkins ends anywhere but ISU, then it says volumes about how little he valued an offer from his dad's alma mater with all the perks & bribes thrown in...
And the coaching carousel is STILL not done spinning, because Iowa State now needs a new guy....will they go for another Valley guy...or will they look elsewhere??
It is all very interesting, but in the end whatever happens elsewhere isn't going to bother me a bit -- no matter what -- I just enjoy watching all the stuff happening.
Here's what I know...even as it sits...Bradley returns four of the best scorers in the Missouri Valley, Sam Maniscalco, Andrew Warren, Taylor Brown, and Dodie Dunson.
Add to that we are really perhaps as deep in the post as we've been for a long time with 4th year Will Egolf returning, but Anthony Thompson returning with a bit more bulk and experience. Then we have one of the best newcomers in Jordan Prosser, and we also have the probability of landing another solid post guy with some significant skill and experience...time will tell.
I am optimistic about our outlook, and believe we should have the talent - barring injury - to compete with anyone in the MVC!
Creighton people are not too happy with Dana Altman!
http://whiteandbluereview.com/?p=6056
Some interesting rumors starting up this morning at Notre Dame...
http://twitter.com/xb7/status/12882098657
If it wasn't for UNI, the state of college basketball in Iowa would really, really suck!!
One more top target out there for ISU to go after as a transfer!!
http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/daytonflyers/entries/2010/04/23/berry_dropped_by_ud_after_arre.html
The same day the NCAA announces the hiring by DePaul of David Booth & Kevin Nickelberry...
http://ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2010/ncaa+record/the+record_04_26_10_ncaa_news
Nickelberry quits and takes another job...
http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/04/depaul-assistant-leaves-for-howard-opening.html
..that leaves a real coaching assistant spot open at DePaul...hopefully they'll promote David Booth...he deserves it...
I talked with a D-I head coach over the weekend who believes David is gonna be a head coach some day and might even work closer to home that you think....
Alvin Brooks, Jr. (our AB III's dad) hiring at Houston and all the publicity that goes with it...
http://www.examiner.com/x-1519-Houston-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d13-UH-basketball-makes-a-good-move-in-rehiring-Brooks
...will vault our AB III's name to the forefront and he'll get some mentions elsewhere...he's a top guy and a great assistant and recruiter....
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15543
Then Creighton apparently immediately hires Greg McDermott...who isn't real popular at Iowa State, hasn't won there, and has precious few NCAA Tourney success or wins on his resume...(not confirmed yet, but the hype is such that it's almost too late to say no!)
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15547
But -- we still need resolution to a couple situations...
I'd like to see how Indiana fills out their only open scholarship - although they could easily run at least one guy out and free up at least one more ride with ease...
This has impact on John Wilkins, and at least, therefore, some impact on Bradley.
Plus, BU's need for some depth at the big man spot is still an interesting topic....
If Bradley isn't going to get Wilkins, and it sure looks like Wilkins will wait 'til Crean's hair turns gray for that offer, then where's he gonna go???...his options are drying up....
Iowa State just landed two big guys and then their coach departs....BU is looking FAR and wide, and so that leaves pretty much just Illinois State. So if Wilkins ends anywhere but ISU, then it says volumes about how little he valued an offer from his dad's alma mater with all the perks & bribes thrown in...
And the coaching carousel is STILL not done spinning, because Iowa State now needs a new guy....will they go for another Valley guy...or will they look elsewhere??
It is all very interesting, but in the end whatever happens elsewhere isn't going to bother me a bit -- no matter what -- I just enjoy watching all the stuff happening.
Here's what I know...even as it sits...Bradley returns four of the best scorers in the Missouri Valley, Sam Maniscalco, Andrew Warren, Taylor Brown, and Dodie Dunson.
Add to that we are really perhaps as deep in the post as we've been for a long time with 4th year Will Egolf returning, but Anthony Thompson returning with a bit more bulk and experience. Then we have one of the best newcomers in Jordan Prosser, and we also have the probability of landing another solid post guy with some significant skill and experience...time will tell.
I am optimistic about our outlook, and believe we should have the talent - barring injury - to compete with anyone in the MVC!
Creighton people are not too happy with Dana Altman!
http://whiteandbluereview.com/?p=6056
Some interesting rumors starting up this morning at Notre Dame...
http://twitter.com/xb7/status/12882098657
If it wasn't for UNI, the state of college basketball in Iowa would really, really suck!!
One more top target out there for ISU to go after as a transfer!!
http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/daytonflyers/entries/2010/04/23/berry_dropped_by_ud_after_arre.html
The same day the NCAA announces the hiring by DePaul of David Booth & Kevin Nickelberry...
http://ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2010/ncaa+record/the+record_04_26_10_ncaa_news
Nickelberry quits and takes another job...
http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/04/depaul-assistant-leaves-for-howard-opening.html
..that leaves a real coaching assistant spot open at DePaul...hopefully they'll promote David Booth...he deserves it...
I talked with a D-I head coach over the weekend who believes David is gonna be a head coach some day and might even work closer to home that you think....
Alvin Brooks, Jr. (our AB III's dad) hiring at Houston and all the publicity that goes with it...
http://www.examiner.com/x-1519-Houston-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d13-UH-basketball-makes-a-good-move-in-rehiring-Brooks
...will vault our AB III's name to the forefront and he'll get some mentions elsewhere...he's a top guy and a great assistant and recruiter....
Friday, April 23, 2010
Just how desperate is Tom Crean?? JW needs to be watching this...
There's a joke that goes like this....
I got a phone call today from Indiana coach Tom Crean....
yeah...he was asking if I had any kids who were over 6-6! I said no, and then he asked if I knew anyone else who did. When I said no to that, he then asked if I had any college eligibility remaining...........you get the rest...
Wow, is all I can say...Indiana basketball is now at the level of Lipscomb or Winston-Salem State! They are going after every reject, transfer, and obscure player over 6-6, and getting shot down by all of them...
If John Wilkins is being asked to wait until Crean finishes his garbage-picking, then what an insult!!
The fact that the Indiana coach is hotly pursuing and offering just about every obscure kid and leftover and asking Wilkins to wait has to be insulting....what gives?? Does JW want to be a Hoosier this bad to be shelved until Crean finishes offering every available leftover all the way down to 1-Star's??
Now only have all the other big man prospect chosen to turn down Indiana's offers, but now even obscure kids that have little chance of even playing have become Tom Crean's hottest new recruiting targets.
Case in point...
Little used Walter Offutt spent two years at Ohio State and did nothing...
He played a handful of games, a total of 124 minutes, and demonstrated that he really just cannot play at this level...so after two disappointing years, he is leaving Ohio State. But he's welcome at Indiana....although there's a lot of catches here. Recall, if you go from one Big Ten school to another, you cannot be on scholarship - this is the rule that kept Cody Larson or Ben Brust from considering Indiana, not that Tom Crean didn't try hard to get them.
So Offutt would have to pay his own way and walk on, but if there's a single position that Indiana is actually pretty well set at, it's shooting guard.
They have Maurice Creek, their best player, and Verdell Jones, their 2nd best player...plus they have Matt Roth and others...so just where and how much is Offutt going to play if he does go to Indiana??
But the real stumper here is Tennessee player Emmanuel Negedu, who nearly died when his heart stopped, then he got an implanable defibrillator (heart shocker) and is NOT being allowed to play at Tennessee....
..but Crean is going hard after the kid.
He plays a wing position (where IU is alrady deep), is not an outside shooter (has only made on 3-pointer ever), and is definitely NOT the big man IU really needs.
Then, since he's transferring, he would have to sit out, unless they can pull off the waiver from NCAA. Even then, many experts say a kid whose life almost ended because of this condition should NOT risk playing sports again....
Also, it is a severe liability....just recall Gene Gathers, Lenny Bias, and Reggie Lewis - all of whom died playing ball.......and two of them were under doctors' orders not to play without proper medical treatment and both Lewis & Gathers went ahead and played anyway....and there were lawsuits that followed!!!
Negedu might be a decent player but would he be a game breaker...
He played AAU with the Indiana Elite with Matt Roth and wasn't even the 3rd or 4th best player on that team...
He had committed to Arizona, then reopened when the Lute Olson stuff happened...
then he was about to commit to Indiana then backed off and went to Tennessee...
I think he would appeal to NCAA in the same manner of when a school terminates a particular sport and those players are allowed to transfer without penalty - like when UNI discontinued baseball....
-- in effect, by him getting banned at UT, it's the same thing, and he's not being allowed to play there...it is unfortunately BEYOND the kid's control - and that's the factor NCAA looks at...
so I expect NCAA may allow him immediate eligibility......as they are always quite favorable to the big schools -- they were in the Tyler Smith transfer to Tennessee so he could have a little fun there with guns and dope...
But some of the comments I have read are also quite funny...
Walter Offutt himself thinks because he is walking on that he won't have to sit out a year - as if that transfer rule applies only to scholarship players.
NOPE - even walk ons at D-I have to sit out a year...
http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=75443
But the real amusing comments come from a few Indiana fans who think if they can land Negedu or Offutt, two players who couldn't even crack the lineup where they were....that somehow that'll make IU a Final Four team...
One says.....
"If we land Offutt and Ngedu as walkons, the sky is the limit"
..then more on getting both players eligible right away because they are desperate...
"If Offutt walks on then I believe he can play"..
...claiming the key thing is that walk ons don't have to sit out, only scholarship players!!
But it's even worse than most people think...because Offutt actually played a couple games this past season with Ohio State...but only two..he could try to get 2009-2010 as a redshirt year...but then transferring would be a 2nd year sitting out...and any way you look at it, he will have only 2 years remaining, and yet over the past 2.5 years he has only played a TOTAL of 124 minutes (102 in 2008-2009 and 22 this past year)..so he is nowhere near developed to the Big Ten level..
Hard to get too excited over a player that no matter how highly rated he was, he couldn't even score as a deep sub at OSU.
Then there's this...
"Eman may be able to appeal since I don't think he played many games last season"
...what??? So how does the number of games played have a thing to do with whether you sit out for transferring??
Anyway...it's a stumper what the heck the guy's talking about at all...
since in his only season that he played, his freshman year, Negedu played in over 30 games!! That's way, way too many for the number of games played to even be an issue in anything...
But this past year, he did NOT PLAY AT ALL!!
He collapsed on Sept. 28 last fall in the preseason...and had the defibrillator on Oct. 6...and never played a minute of any game in 2009-2010.
http://www.utsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/100609aab.html
Then here's a guy who says...
"Offutt would have to sit out a year while residing at IU. He can try to appeal and be eligible to play 2nd semester next season but that would burn one of his 2 years of eligibility."
...again...what??? Sure he played early in 2009-2010, but he didn't transfer until now....so how does he have any possibility of getting eligible for 2nd semester next year.....either he gets a waiver and can play right away like the Tyler Smith rule - to be closer to his family, or he has to sit out a year...and would NOT be eligible in 2nd semester...
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=170&f=2353&t=5873499&p=4
Tom Crean is also pursuing Kevin Noreen..but lots of desperate coaches are after just about anyone over 6-6!!
http://rivalshoops.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1077447
Even a totally obscure kid at Brehm Prep gets a Big Ten offer...Oto Osenieks!!
http://minnesota.scout.com/2/964682.html
If Wilkins wants to play at Indiana, then I wish Crean would just offer and sign the kid. In the end it is beginning to look like when he strikes out enough, Crean will end up coming back to Wilkins since that's all he will have left.
The Kansas scandal....finally getting a little press....as I predicted it would be kept pretty quiet, since Kansas athletics is just about everything out there...
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/22/1896851/ku-ticket-scandal-involves-big.html
but now this scandal is coming to light as going way back many years and involving a lot of biggies, including the current AD who still holds his job and maybe even Bill Self knew something more than he's willing to admit...!
"the ticket scandal involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in undeclared cash transactions going back many years, and that it benefited numerous people. The tickets included NCAA tournament tickets and regular season games at Allen Fieldhouse"
"Potential crimes (INCLUDE)..tax evasion, money laundering, theft and fraud"
BTW-- READ THE ARTICLE AND SEE THE CONNECTIONS THIS GANGSTER AND CROOK HAS WITH THE KANSAS PLAYERS AND COACH!
"he was a partner in the construction business with former KU basketball standout Roger Morningstar, whose son, Brady, currently plays for the team"
"Freeman built a seven-bedroom house that he eventually sold to KU basketball coach Bill Self"
"Freeman and Morningstar sold two lots in a Basehor, Kan., housing development to (the Kansas asst. athletic director and Kansas fund raiser) Jones, who purchased them under the name of his business, Par 4 LLC.
In April 2007, Jones, through Par 4, deeded one of the properties — on which a house had been built — directly back to Freeman, who sold it nine days later to a Basehor couple."
"..athletic fundraising arms such as the (Kansas University) Williams Fund — which require large contributions from boosters in return for tickets — make tickets so valuable that it’s hard to resist the temptation to sell them under the table.
“There is an incredible amount of money on the table here, so if someone has their finger in the till, it doesn’t surprise me a lot,”"
But it's Kansas...surely they didn't do anything wrong...and if they did, it was minor and doesn't deserve anything!
Wichita gets deeper into the juco mix & signs yet another juco guard....
http://www.kansas.com/2010/04/20/1278529/wsu-basketball-signs-juco-shooter.html
Lastly.....just for laughs...the stoopidest post of the day....
that somehow the Canary Islands are named for canaries...
they are actually named for dogs...but such matters don't mean a thing when you make up your own truth...
http://twitter.com/xb7/status/12712805896
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Other Valley news
All it took was for Southern Illinois to start working on a game with University of Illinois, and the fury has broken loose...
Bruce Weber waited until SIU dropped a bit and is struggling before playing them anywhere as he had promised..but here are a couple of representative comments from Saluki fans...
"Who would have guessed that they finally managed to set this up once we were a thursday night team again"
""We won't play a high major team for a one and done." - Chris Lowery"
"Illinois by 30" (that's actually one of the nicer comments)
"Really , Really bad decision in my opinion....why in the world would we choose to go up their and get our ass handed to us"
..then it goes on and on to 11 pages of rips against their coach and AD...pretty merciless......
http://salukitalk.net/st/viewtopic.php?t=32820
Then there's a 2nd thread with even more vicious and personal attacks about this situation...
http://salukitalk.net/st/viewtopic.php?t=32822
BTW -- the official news story from The Southern says...
"It's not set in stone.."
"a preliminary deal that will place the Fighting Illini's men's basketball team against the Salukis"
"possible matchup"
"a few signatures away"
"contract is not finished yet"
"Lowery did not return a message left on his cell phone Wednesday (about this game)"
....awful lotta "if's"...so obviously this thing is NOT fully set yet...but the SIU fans are vicious about this and a few other recent happenings...
Sad that fans can't just support their program...way too many feel an entitlement to success and believe they have a right to go overboard and bitch when things don't go the way they want...
Honestly...I know there are good Saluki fans who are still suporting their team but they're being drowned out by these whiner and bad fans....
I hope they all disappear like they are promising to do....a team really doesn't need more fans like this..........
Even one of their local beat writers seems like he has this entitlement mindset - demanding the school, the coach, and the athletic department come clean and spill their guts...
seems like I have heard this argument before that somehow the school has the obligation to call up the media guys and tell them all their confidential info...
http://www.thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/winkeler/article_a3f3c328-4cfe-11df-838e-001cc4c002e0.html
BTW-- now it's looking more and more like at least 4 or 5 players are leaving at SIU....
But --- Could finances be the reason...SIU needs money bad...they are in serious financial trouble...
I am seeing some comments that SIU has some serious financial difficulties and may not be able to rely on the Illinois taxpayer to bail them out...
http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/07/struggle-for-sius-future
"the school projects a deficit of some $125 million for the coming fiscal year. This prompted SIUC President Glenn Poshard to require every department to submit a plan for 10 percent across-the-board budget cuts for next year--cuts that would inevitably lead to layoffs and severely undermine education at SIUC."
http://www.alacrastore.com/research/moodys-global-credit-research-MOODY_S_DOWNGRADES_SOUTHERN_ILLINOIS_UNIVERSITY_S_LONG_TERM_DEBT_RATING_TO_A3_FROM_A1_REMAINS_ON_WATCHLIST_FOR_POSSIBLE_DOWNGRADE-RU_600024378_16335679
http://www.herald-review.com/news/state-and-regional/article_16b0a7c2-79df-5b65-9da0-09aec589fe9a.html
http://freesiu.blogspot.com/2010/03/proposed-budget-cut-15-layoffs-at-siu.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/illi-f18.shtml
http://freesiu.blogspot.com/2010/02/state-of-denial-illinois-is-going.html
Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Athletic Director has been placed on "administrative leave"...for "undisclosed reasons"...and it was said to one
TV station it was a "confidential personnel matter."
George Koonce has been on the job for less than a year...one source says an "investigation is under way"...and rumors are swirling...
http://sports.uwmpost.com/2010/04/21/koonce-on-administrative-leave/
Many of the current rumors center on suspicion that Koonce made some kind of shady deal when working on agreements & plan to have the UW-M team play in an on-campus arena...AND he was also busily involved in fund raising & securing cash gifts.. which might just be his downfall...but there are no people who are officially talking about this...
in fact the silence is really quite striking....almost as if something really ominous and serious is going on.
---"bad decision making" and "Koonce is not expected to return to the job" mean he's done something the higher-ups view as seriously wrong and he is now cooked!
I find this in one way, funny since certain voices from UW-M have hammered away about BU ethical issues...maybe they need to get busy cleaning up their own home (and their own personal issues) before speaking out...
There are also concerns of losing scholarships due to so many players leaving and some academic issues.
Between ISU, Creighton, and SIU, there's about 20 junior college players on the rosters...what's happening....all they seem to go after are the jucos!!!
As for the high school coaches who are ripping into the new DePaul coach...seems like a whole lot of sleaze has come from some of these guys on a regular basis...
Robert Smith from Simeon...the coach that was at Simeon when four of his players had someone else to take the SAT and one of them got caught and cost Memphis 30 wins and a Final Four spot...he's doing most of the public bitching!
In fact, one of their players who had some fraudulent issues while there at Simeon
was Kenyon Smith, who is now headed to ISU from Lincoln College- after indeed his academics did get scrutinized and cause him to be declared ineligible at ISU - forcing him to go to juco and get his associates degree since his high school academics were completely worthless. Nice job Simeon Coach Robert Smith...just another young kid's life badly affected and two years at the D-I level ruined...
And plenty of academic fraud was discovered on at least four players there at Simeon, improper grade changing for athletes, phony ringers taking standardized exams, teachers' grades overridden, computers hacked and records altered....etc...all of which was quietly swept under the rug when "nobody" could figure out how it happened??
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=134174&postcount=11
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1596666,derrick-rose-simeon-grades-cheat-memphis.article
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=134176&postcount=12
yea...this guy is really an upstanding citizen...
Iowa's Fran McCaffery is offering all the big kids around like Tom Crean is...
he's found an obscure, skinny kid from Connecticut and I have even heard once source (although I can't confirm) claim he has offered other midwestern big kids like Justin Gant...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=180028&postcount=6
Seems like I recall someone predicting that Walter Offutt was kinda overrated...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=147853&postcount=4
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15528
Looks like some of the kids on the Illinois Wolves are pretty hot commodities right now...
from Wolves' head coach Mike Mullins...
"Phone blowing up as live period ends -we must be pretty good all of a sudden LOL"
http://twitter.com/wolves10/status/12619764724
And lastly....I heard that Dr. Martin Abegg has passed away...former BU president..
My wife used to babysit for some of their famliy and her family knew them well......
I have met Dr. Abegg as well as his son who is world reknowned as an expert in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and who has spoken widely on them...
http://www.twu.ca/academics/faculty/profiles/abegg-martin.html
And yup....some of the ISU fans are right....JW is waiting for IU to come with the solid offer and is sitting on his other offers...
Probably, with Crean striking out at this rate, there'll be nobody left in a few days and Wilkins will get the offer and grab it...being the next Hoosier to spend his entire career in the IU record books the wrong way...(most losses, worst team, poorest record, etc...)
If Crean does land someone better, then I think ISU is still hanging by a thread..
http://www.idsnews.com/blogs/hoosierhype/?p=10732http://hoosierchronicles.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Some recruiting notes
A whole bunch of interesting tweets from Illinois Wolves AAU coach Mike Mullins, one of the most highly respected guy in the business, and a truly great advisor to many of the kids who play for him...
some of Mullins' players include Sam Maniscalco, Evan Turner, Demitri McCamey, Carlton Fay, and his son Bryan Mullins.
But in the midst of the hottest recruiting period, Mike Mullins sends out five tweet......
and they obviously express his displeasure with one or more college coaches who have not been fair and honest with his kids...
Here are the tweets from just this morning and a workout was scheduled with some of his AAU kids...(by the way, Bradley has already been to see his kids and we've offered Jacob Williams, Frank Kaminsky, and David Sobolewski).
--"Not a big suprise in a relationship business the schools who are diligent about recruiting tend to be the ones who get the players and win"
-"Had a player have a 6am workout requested and the schools who asked for it dont show and dont call!"
--"Love the schools who burn bridges and try the end run to avoid me-If u werent hiding anything why so nervous?"
--"Same coaches who preach family values and dump the kids and school in the middle of night for new family and kids over $-strong character!"
--"Basic humanity 101-How u treat people always comes back -good and bad"
Nice to see such a great AAU coach and role model, playing fair and standing up for his kids...as compared to all the sleazy AAU-recruiter stories we have heard!
Interesting that no announcements officially has yet been made about many the juco kids that have recently verbaled to SIU...could those official announcements be pending the departure of the guys who currently hold the scholarships??
They did announce Troy Long's
http://siusalukis.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/042010aaa.html
There is a ceremony at Mamadou Seck's juco today so I think he's signing.
Indiana's Tom Crean still out there shaking the bushes and turning over every stone in search of a big man...NO MATTER how obscure!!
Gotta wonder how patient or how desperate John Wilkins must be that he's still waiting for Crean to ask everyone else first and be shot down before turning the offer to Wilkins??
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=179963#post179963
Some of the IU fans are beginning to realize how demeaning it is and humbling that so many 2-Star and 3-Star kids are turning Indiana down...
http://indiana.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=731&tid=142310333&mid=142310333&sid=942&style=2
and pssst.......Todd Peterson is not going to be the next head coach of Chicago State, and he isn't even all that likely to be an assistant at BU...
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Just a few happenings around the Valley
Creighton just got a commitment from Canadian PG Jahenns Manigat. Manigat had already verballed to Canisius but apparently, according to Manigat's own testimony, Dana Altman kept recruiting and pursuing him and talked him out of his commitment!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15511
Here is a picture of Jahenns Manigat...they claim he is 6-2 and 160 lbs, but he looks to be all of about 150 lbs...
http://vmedia.rivals.com/uploads/1209/938890.jpg
Here is some video on him....slender is an understatement...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ythu60CR4
Here's a couple comments from Jahenns...
Regarding his first thoughts when he visited Creighton...
"What did you think of Omaha when you first saw it?"
"I'm not going to lie, when I first saw it, I thought to myself 'What am I getting myself into?"
"What was it about Omaha that worried you?"
"How small the airport was"
"You verballed to Canisius College earlier in this process but took the visit to Creighton anyway. Why did you decide to reopen your recruitment?"
"Basically, when I had my verbal with Canisius, I felt like that was the end of my recruiting ..but once I was approached with the opportunity to come to Creighton, I felt like I shouldn't completely shut down my recruitment before signing."
Creighton is losing several guards - P'Allen Stinnett is not expected back (although Dana has grovelled before and begged the guy back, so don't count that out again!), and Andrew Bock - the highest rated recruit coming into the Valley last year at 4-Stars, and touted as an immediate starter and impact player who obviously fell a little short of those predictions!!
They also love Cavel Witter and Justin Carter who played like a guard although he was listed as a 6-4 forward.
Creighton's Kenny Lawson entered his name in the NBA Draft, but even if the NBA Draft had 10 rounds, I'd be aghast if Kenny Lawson got picked....a 6-8 center??
Gimme a break.....there hasn't been an NBA center this small since Wes Unseld!
Creighton is also going after YET ANOTHER juco kid...will this never end??
http://rivalshoops.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1076266
They are battling neck and neck with SIU for the moniker "Juco U."...
but this offer to this kid must mean that P'Allen is done and gone....finally and forever!
More reports coming out of SIU that both Kevin Dillard and Anthony Booker are already gone...plus rumors of othwer kids like Teague, Crowder, Freeman...and still there are no reports yet that any of the three juco kids they just recruited have signed their LOI's.
SIU will have 5 juco players on the team at one time - and nobody can ever recall having more than 1 or 2, and you have to go all the way back to about 2000 to even find the last juco who got much playing time (Lamar Owen).
so much for what was billed as the Missouri Valley's best recruiting class in history...
..and what ever happened to all the talk about SIU landing James Siakam??
Evansville's best returning frontcourt player is leaving....lots of player losses there, although not as many as at SIU or Iowa State!!
Aces also are losing newcomer, junior Monie Hudson...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15515
Could he getting phone calls from Tom Crean??
Wichita's best freshman, highly touted Kenny Manigault is leaving - they just didn't play the kid enough to keep him happy!
http://www.goshockers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=61179&SPID=2851&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=7500&ATCLID=204932312
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15512
An ex-Missouri State player has become famous in China...famous like Ron Artest and Kermit Washington...famous for throwing punches and fighting!!
http://deadspin.com/5520286/
The article says he was from Southern Mississippi, but he is also a Missouri State guy from back when it was called Southwest Missouri State...since that's where he played his first two seasons...he's also from the same high school in Houston as Anthony Thompson and Toure Murry.
http://www.nba.com/dleague/players/charles_gaines.html
Missouri State's Ryan Jehle also has left the team and won't be back...
Ex-Evansville Kaylon Williams now going to Wisconsin-Milwaukee...
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/panthers/90716584.html
Barely any word on John Wilkins...almost as if he's being urged to lay low and not talk to anyone and make no further visits!! Ahem... in the meantime, things are happening....
Iowa State is moving in another direction and offering and pursuing plenty of other big man options...
Indiana is offering just about every unsigned kid over 6-5...and even pursuing a few who are signed, as in Cody Larson, who had sighed with Iowa and who is NOT going to be able to transfer to Indiana and recieve a scholarship because of a Big Ten rule that prohibit that...apparently Tom Crean is or was unaware of this Big Ten rule...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=179704#post179704
So with Larson ruled out, then Big man Will Yeguete verbals to Florida yesterday, and now Crean is down to only a couple options...
He is still hot after D-II juco big man Dwight McCombs, but so are many other programs, and with so many options to choose form, it is unlikely McCombs, with only two years to play coming from juco, will want to come to a rebuilding program, and most reports have him leaning towards Arizona State.
So I think John Wilkins may luck out and get the indiana offer he appears to want and is willing to wait and beg for...
Too bad, because he'll probably be relegated to minimal playing time there like Derek Elston and Tom Pritchard, IU's other two big men who were there before JW.
Here's a novel way for Tom Crean to recruit....hire an assistant like Steve McClain from Colorado...then get the guy to lure his best players into following to Indiana!!
Bingo...Indiana picks up a kid without spending a cent from the recruiting budget (except probably the phone calls!!)
http://www.denverpost.com/colleges/ci_14917518
But here's the big hurdle...if the kid (Freshman of the Year in Big 12) does come to Indiana, then Crean will have to crean yet another player from the roster in order to open up yet another ride!! But wait -- I thought Matt Roth LOVED being at Indaina...well...ahem....we'll see if he loves it enough to pay his own way....
No word on where Illinois' Stan Simpson will go...he'd make a good mid-major player, but he'll probably go somewhere else that he'll sit the bench...
New head coach at UTEP, Tim Floyd, landed his first recuit...ex-Chicago Washington star Michael Haynes, who spent the last year at a prep academy in Virginia.
As recently as a month ago, Haynes was hoping to play at Duke, but I guess Duke decided not to offer?
http://duke.scout.com/2/953104.html
Haynes was once a target of Bradley's recruiting..........but was declared ineligible when he transferred to the same school Walter Lemon was at in 2009, then he went to the prep academy...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=9203
Article on the turmoil at NIU...
http://www.northernstar.info/ArticlePage.php?pk=1991§ionfrom=4
I also heard a rumor that Illini's Joseph Bertrand, may be having 2nd thoughts about staying with the Illini...
He did not play at all last, partly because of injuries, but also because his conditioning was way behind everyone else...he made Bill Cole look obese!!
He still has four year of eligibility remaining, but with all the playing time going to guards that are undoubtedly going to stay ahead of him in the rotation (McCamey, Richardson, Paul, even Jeff Jordan...) he may play very little this next year as well...then the next year other talented guards (Abrams, Head..) will be grabbing playing time as well.....
I guess time will tell.............
Anyone else note that even tho Bradley's Anthony Parker gets few of the headlines in Cleveland....he still hits key shots and plays good defense, and was a real key to the Cavs beating the Bulls last night!
Did you see this??? With all the talk of Big Ten expansion...now Maryland fans are wanting to know how come they haven't been asked!!
Can you imagine how HUGE that would be -- if the Big Ten could steal Maryland from the ACC!!
I would love it!!! Looks like they are mainly talking football but I suspect some Terp fans are fed up up playing 2nd fiddle to the Heels and Blue Devils in basketball!!
http://www.examiner.com/x-30425-College-Football-Examiner~y2010m4d20-Why-not-Maryland-Terps-fans-speak-on-Big-Ten-expansion
New NC-Wilmington coach Buzz Peterson lays it out as to why he'd leave a good job at Appalachian State....the money, baby....so I wish other coaches would be so honest...
http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=12339670
Tony Barone's son has confirmed he is leaving Indiana (the 2nd assistant there to leave or be fired this past month...) and will take an assistant spot at UW-Green Bay.
Brian Barone was also an assistant under Porter Moser at ISU.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20100420/GPG020101/4200484/1225/GPG02/Men-s-basketball--Wardle-adds-Barone-to-staff
Some recruiting blogs...
http://illinihq.com/blogs/recruiting_wrap/2010/04/16/sky_is_the_limit_for_pair_of_illinois
http://www.illinihq.com/news/mens_basketball/2010/04/19/5_oclock_shadow
This week's bad mistake....
DePaul's Mac Koshwal is getting all his education plus room and board paid for...and he has another year to play for DePaul...
yet he withdraws and has now declared for the NBA Draft...and he can't go back this time, since this is the 2nd time he's done it, and you are only allowed to return one time...
This is a bad choice, the draft is strong this year, especially in big men like DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton, Hasaan Whiteside, etc..
Mac is gonna go undrafted and have to look to play overseas...
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/colleges/post/_/id/343/depauls-koshwal-to-enter-nba-draft
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15511
Here is a picture of Jahenns Manigat...they claim he is 6-2 and 160 lbs, but he looks to be all of about 150 lbs...
http://vmedia.rivals.com/uploads/1209/938890.jpg
Here is some video on him....slender is an understatement...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ythu60CR4
Here's a couple comments from Jahenns...
Regarding his first thoughts when he visited Creighton...
"What did you think of Omaha when you first saw it?"
"I'm not going to lie, when I first saw it, I thought to myself 'What am I getting myself into?"
"What was it about Omaha that worried you?"
"How small the airport was"
"You verballed to Canisius College earlier in this process but took the visit to Creighton anyway. Why did you decide to reopen your recruitment?"
"Basically, when I had my verbal with Canisius, I felt like that was the end of my recruiting ..but once I was approached with the opportunity to come to Creighton, I felt like I shouldn't completely shut down my recruitment before signing."
Creighton is losing several guards - P'Allen Stinnett is not expected back (although Dana has grovelled before and begged the guy back, so don't count that out again!), and Andrew Bock - the highest rated recruit coming into the Valley last year at 4-Stars, and touted as an immediate starter and impact player who obviously fell a little short of those predictions!!
They also love Cavel Witter and Justin Carter who played like a guard although he was listed as a 6-4 forward.
Creighton's Kenny Lawson entered his name in the NBA Draft, but even if the NBA Draft had 10 rounds, I'd be aghast if Kenny Lawson got picked....a 6-8 center??
Gimme a break.....there hasn't been an NBA center this small since Wes Unseld!
Creighton is also going after YET ANOTHER juco kid...will this never end??
http://rivalshoops.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1076266
They are battling neck and neck with SIU for the moniker "Juco U."...
but this offer to this kid must mean that P'Allen is done and gone....finally and forever!
More reports coming out of SIU that both Kevin Dillard and Anthony Booker are already gone...plus rumors of othwer kids like Teague, Crowder, Freeman...and still there are no reports yet that any of the three juco kids they just recruited have signed their LOI's.
SIU will have 5 juco players on the team at one time - and nobody can ever recall having more than 1 or 2, and you have to go all the way back to about 2000 to even find the last juco who got much playing time (Lamar Owen).
so much for what was billed as the Missouri Valley's best recruiting class in history...
..and what ever happened to all the talk about SIU landing James Siakam??
Evansville's best returning frontcourt player is leaving....lots of player losses there, although not as many as at SIU or Iowa State!!
Aces also are losing newcomer, junior Monie Hudson...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15515
Could he getting phone calls from Tom Crean??
Wichita's best freshman, highly touted Kenny Manigault is leaving - they just didn't play the kid enough to keep him happy!
http://www.goshockers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=61179&SPID=2851&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=7500&ATCLID=204932312
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15512
An ex-Missouri State player has become famous in China...famous like Ron Artest and Kermit Washington...famous for throwing punches and fighting!!
http://deadspin.com/5520286/
The article says he was from Southern Mississippi, but he is also a Missouri State guy from back when it was called Southwest Missouri State...since that's where he played his first two seasons...he's also from the same high school in Houston as Anthony Thompson and Toure Murry.
http://www.nba.com/dleague/players/charles_gaines.html
Missouri State's Ryan Jehle also has left the team and won't be back...
Ex-Evansville Kaylon Williams now going to Wisconsin-Milwaukee...
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/panthers/90716584.html
Barely any word on John Wilkins...almost as if he's being urged to lay low and not talk to anyone and make no further visits!! Ahem... in the meantime, things are happening....
Iowa State is moving in another direction and offering and pursuing plenty of other big man options...
Indiana is offering just about every unsigned kid over 6-5...and even pursuing a few who are signed, as in Cody Larson, who had sighed with Iowa and who is NOT going to be able to transfer to Indiana and recieve a scholarship because of a Big Ten rule that prohibit that...apparently Tom Crean is or was unaware of this Big Ten rule...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=179704#post179704
So with Larson ruled out, then Big man Will Yeguete verbals to Florida yesterday, and now Crean is down to only a couple options...
He is still hot after D-II juco big man Dwight McCombs, but so are many other programs, and with so many options to choose form, it is unlikely McCombs, with only two years to play coming from juco, will want to come to a rebuilding program, and most reports have him leaning towards Arizona State.
So I think John Wilkins may luck out and get the indiana offer he appears to want and is willing to wait and beg for...
Too bad, because he'll probably be relegated to minimal playing time there like Derek Elston and Tom Pritchard, IU's other two big men who were there before JW.
Here's a novel way for Tom Crean to recruit....hire an assistant like Steve McClain from Colorado...then get the guy to lure his best players into following to Indiana!!
Bingo...Indiana picks up a kid without spending a cent from the recruiting budget (except probably the phone calls!!)
http://www.denverpost.com/colleges/ci_14917518
But here's the big hurdle...if the kid (Freshman of the Year in Big 12) does come to Indiana, then Crean will have to crean yet another player from the roster in order to open up yet another ride!! But wait -- I thought Matt Roth LOVED being at Indaina...well...ahem....we'll see if he loves it enough to pay his own way....
No word on where Illinois' Stan Simpson will go...he'd make a good mid-major player, but he'll probably go somewhere else that he'll sit the bench...
New head coach at UTEP, Tim Floyd, landed his first recuit...ex-Chicago Washington star Michael Haynes, who spent the last year at a prep academy in Virginia.
As recently as a month ago, Haynes was hoping to play at Duke, but I guess Duke decided not to offer?
http://duke.scout.com/2/953104.html
Haynes was once a target of Bradley's recruiting..........but was declared ineligible when he transferred to the same school Walter Lemon was at in 2009, then he went to the prep academy...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=9203
Article on the turmoil at NIU...
http://www.northernstar.info/ArticlePage.php?pk=1991§ionfrom=4
I also heard a rumor that Illini's Joseph Bertrand, may be having 2nd thoughts about staying with the Illini...
He did not play at all last, partly because of injuries, but also because his conditioning was way behind everyone else...he made Bill Cole look obese!!
He still has four year of eligibility remaining, but with all the playing time going to guards that are undoubtedly going to stay ahead of him in the rotation (McCamey, Richardson, Paul, even Jeff Jordan...) he may play very little this next year as well...then the next year other talented guards (Abrams, Head..) will be grabbing playing time as well.....
I guess time will tell.............
Anyone else note that even tho Bradley's Anthony Parker gets few of the headlines in Cleveland....he still hits key shots and plays good defense, and was a real key to the Cavs beating the Bulls last night!
Did you see this??? With all the talk of Big Ten expansion...now Maryland fans are wanting to know how come they haven't been asked!!
Can you imagine how HUGE that would be -- if the Big Ten could steal Maryland from the ACC!!
I would love it!!! Looks like they are mainly talking football but I suspect some Terp fans are fed up up playing 2nd fiddle to the Heels and Blue Devils in basketball!!
http://www.examiner.com/x-30425-College-Football-Examiner~y2010m4d20-Why-not-Maryland-Terps-fans-speak-on-Big-Ten-expansion
New NC-Wilmington coach Buzz Peterson lays it out as to why he'd leave a good job at Appalachian State....the money, baby....so I wish other coaches would be so honest...
http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=12339670
Tony Barone's son has confirmed he is leaving Indiana (the 2nd assistant there to leave or be fired this past month...) and will take an assistant spot at UW-Green Bay.
Brian Barone was also an assistant under Porter Moser at ISU.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20100420/GPG020101/4200484/1225/GPG02/Men-s-basketball--Wardle-adds-Barone-to-staff
Some recruiting blogs...
http://illinihq.com/blogs/recruiting_wrap/2010/04/16/sky_is_the_limit_for_pair_of_illinois
http://www.illinihq.com/news/mens_basketball/2010/04/19/5_oclock_shadow
This week's bad mistake....
DePaul's Mac Koshwal is getting all his education plus room and board paid for...and he has another year to play for DePaul...
yet he withdraws and has now declared for the NBA Draft...and he can't go back this time, since this is the 2nd time he's done it, and you are only allowed to return one time...
This is a bad choice, the draft is strong this year, especially in big men like DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton, Hasaan Whiteside, etc..
Mac is gonna go undrafted and have to look to play overseas...
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/colleges/post/_/id/343/depauls-koshwal-to-enter-nba-draft
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Uh oh - more bad news for P'Allen Stinnett and other thoughts...
There's quite a bit of chatter about P'Allen Stinnett getting involved in an altercation and getting punched in the face...
http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=twitter&lng=&q=%22p%27allen+stinnett%22
http://creighton.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2688&mid=133083347&sid=1209&tid=132387711&style=1
http://creighton.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2688&mid=133083768&sid=1209&tid=132387711&style=1
Indiana's #1 target...Will Yeguete has now dropped Indiana and will decide between Georgia Tech & Florida...
so the recruiting focus has reportedly now shifted to Dwight McCombs and maybe Cody Larson... and both of them are also expected to decide (or narrow their decisions) pretty soon.....
That means John Wilkins will know within a couple days, maybe as soon as tomorrow if he has an Indiana offer....
This is just more really tough news for Ton Crean at Indiana...every single kid he's chased hard after and offered for the past year has snubbed Indiana and chosen elsewhere.
Didn't it used to be that when Indiana offered, kids instantly dropped every other thought and jumped at the chance to be a Hoosier...
this just proves how fall IU has fallen, that they are having trouble even appealing to the leftover-types of recruits...
we're not talking 4-Star and 5-Star guys here!!! Every one of these kid is basically a mid-major caliber recruit who might be getting a left-over offer because of other players leaving early for the NBA (as just happened at both Georgia Tech & Georgetown).
Now Indiana, instead of using their prestige, tradition, and name to draw recruits, are mainly hawking their "immediate playing time"...and that's about it....sad that such a storied program is reduced to begging and using the promise of being able to step right on the floor and play right away as their best item on the menu!!
But I guess they've done it to themselves with their greed and cheating.....
It's not Tom Crean's doing - he simply finds himself in the mess created by both Kelvin Sampson and an organization and fan base so filled with greed for wins and 5-Star recruits, that they were willing to sell their souls..
One last note.....however, the NCAA actually went quite easy on Indiana as one would expect.....being a BCS school - all of Indiana's problems are self inflicted!! They landed horrible recruits who did drugs, flunked out, left after one year, and had bad enough grades to cost scholarships.
You can't play victim here - and don't blame NCAA! this is all of your own doing Hoosiers and fans!
Is BU's recent assistant coach hire a good hire???
I will, of course support whoever our coaches are (unlike some)...and he has my 100% backing because I am a Bradley FAN...
And I will be his 31 fan since that's what I think is the calling when you label yourself a Braves fan!!
However, I guess what blows me away is the clear hypocrisy of a small handful of people who have been whining for months about a our assistant coach situation, and who have been yapping non-stop about what we need to have as qualities in an assistant..
tell me, have we not heard those demands for...
--a proven winner - a guy from a BIG TIME program - well known...his name will immediately give BU some credibility on the recruiting trail
--a guy who's helped land other top recruits
--a guy who has even been a winner as a head coach, and who has experience even as an assistant helping produce winners...not someone who is an underling at some team that is at or near the bottom of some low ranked conference -- least of all a guy whose team just finished dead last in a lightweight conference -- a guy who might have been on the hot seat at the school he's coming to BU from!!
--a guy who comes from a winning program that's a highly respected program, one that puts points on the board, one that draws well, one that has a NAME.
Not a guy from a program that has either finished DEAD LAST or next to last in every season he's been at his current position.
--someone with current and significant ties to the midwest
--someone with a solid base in Chicago that'll help us recruit there
--a guy who can coach BIG MEN..and certainly NOT a guy who has trouble getting anyone with talent to go to his current school - and whose teams have trouble scoring more than 45 or 46 points in any of their games this season..
--a guy whose name carries some weight so that we can outrecruit the Butlers, SIU, ISU, and Chicago schools...
--a guy whose teams wherever he's been have been consistent winners
Had I proposed a few weeks ago that we bring in a guy with these credentials, I'd have been absolutely slain...
yet now we have the very people who'd have slain me calling this a great hire...
so what's behind the hypocrisy??
If we had 200 applicants, then I wonder what were the credentials of the 199 who were rejected? Were they assistants at even lower programs than Army?
Seriously - there were endless bashes of Eric Buescher....and I wonder what would have transpired if someone proposed bringing in Jim Molinari as a new assistant...yet both of those guys' credentials have appeal that would obviously place them ahead of those rejected 199 as well.
In the end it just puts more burden on the head coach if we have assistants with NO connection to the Chicago area or to the large base of prospects in Illinois and the neighboring states where BU has drawn so many of their players from.
So - let's see if we can now land some army-caliber recruits from out east....and then let's see how long before the very people whining to get rid of EB start whining about the new situation....as predictable as death and taxes....
Worst "reports" and "facts" seen on message boards lately....all guaranteed true by the experts...
#6 - John Wilkins has verbaled to Iowa State and it's a strong commitment, meaning he's no longer considering Bradley. He is going to be their BEST player!
#5 - lots of other players besides Eddren are looking to leave, maybe even Taylor Brown, Jordan Prosser, and DSE..
#4 - now that Eric Buescher is gone, look for even more staff shakeups and firings
#3 - BU was out of the running for John Wilkins more than a year ago
#2 - Coach Les has been on vacation for the past month and hasn't spent a minute out on the recruiting trail!
#1 - Jim Les has been fired - bought out for $650,000, there's even a detailed analysis of the buyout paid out over 3 years....
Yeah........the jokes keep coming, but the traffic at sites that report this stuff has come to a crawl...
Sometimes 2-3 days with nothing...no wonder......
XXXXX
(this next part has been re-edited out, so I hope you got your screen shots all taken while I had it up there.... ;)
So is John Calipari just a high paid failure??
http://bit.ly/bPtU2d
Here's a list you don't want to be on....
http://listverse.com/2007/09/09/top-10-ugliest-female-celebrities/
http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=twitter&lng=&q=%22p%27allen+stinnett%22
http://creighton.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2688&mid=133083347&sid=1209&tid=132387711&style=1
http://creighton.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2688&mid=133083768&sid=1209&tid=132387711&style=1
Indiana's #1 target...Will Yeguete has now dropped Indiana and will decide between Georgia Tech & Florida...
so the recruiting focus has reportedly now shifted to Dwight McCombs and maybe Cody Larson... and both of them are also expected to decide (or narrow their decisions) pretty soon.....
That means John Wilkins will know within a couple days, maybe as soon as tomorrow if he has an Indiana offer....
This is just more really tough news for Ton Crean at Indiana...every single kid he's chased hard after and offered for the past year has snubbed Indiana and chosen elsewhere.
Didn't it used to be that when Indiana offered, kids instantly dropped every other thought and jumped at the chance to be a Hoosier...
this just proves how fall IU has fallen, that they are having trouble even appealing to the leftover-types of recruits...
we're not talking 4-Star and 5-Star guys here!!! Every one of these kid is basically a mid-major caliber recruit who might be getting a left-over offer because of other players leaving early for the NBA (as just happened at both Georgia Tech & Georgetown).
Now Indiana, instead of using their prestige, tradition, and name to draw recruits, are mainly hawking their "immediate playing time"...and that's about it....sad that such a storied program is reduced to begging and using the promise of being able to step right on the floor and play right away as their best item on the menu!!
But I guess they've done it to themselves with their greed and cheating.....
It's not Tom Crean's doing - he simply finds himself in the mess created by both Kelvin Sampson and an organization and fan base so filled with greed for wins and 5-Star recruits, that they were willing to sell their souls..
One last note.....however, the NCAA actually went quite easy on Indiana as one would expect.....being a BCS school - all of Indiana's problems are self inflicted!! They landed horrible recruits who did drugs, flunked out, left after one year, and had bad enough grades to cost scholarships.
You can't play victim here - and don't blame NCAA! this is all of your own doing Hoosiers and fans!
Is BU's recent assistant coach hire a good hire???
I will, of course support whoever our coaches are (unlike some)...and he has my 100% backing because I am a Bradley FAN...
And I will be his 31 fan since that's what I think is the calling when you label yourself a Braves fan!!
However, I guess what blows me away is the clear hypocrisy of a small handful of people who have been whining for months about a our assistant coach situation, and who have been yapping non-stop about what we need to have as qualities in an assistant..
tell me, have we not heard those demands for...
--a proven winner - a guy from a BIG TIME program - well known...his name will immediately give BU some credibility on the recruiting trail
--a guy who's helped land other top recruits
--a guy who has even been a winner as a head coach, and who has experience even as an assistant helping produce winners...not someone who is an underling at some team that is at or near the bottom of some low ranked conference -- least of all a guy whose team just finished dead last in a lightweight conference -- a guy who might have been on the hot seat at the school he's coming to BU from!!
--a guy who comes from a winning program that's a highly respected program, one that puts points on the board, one that draws well, one that has a NAME.
Not a guy from a program that has either finished DEAD LAST or next to last in every season he's been at his current position.
--someone with current and significant ties to the midwest
--someone with a solid base in Chicago that'll help us recruit there
--a guy who can coach BIG MEN..and certainly NOT a guy who has trouble getting anyone with talent to go to his current school - and whose teams have trouble scoring more than 45 or 46 points in any of their games this season..
--a guy whose name carries some weight so that we can outrecruit the Butlers, SIU, ISU, and Chicago schools...
--a guy whose teams wherever he's been have been consistent winners
Had I proposed a few weeks ago that we bring in a guy with these credentials, I'd have been absolutely slain...
yet now we have the very people who'd have slain me calling this a great hire...
so what's behind the hypocrisy??
If we had 200 applicants, then I wonder what were the credentials of the 199 who were rejected? Were they assistants at even lower programs than Army?
Seriously - there were endless bashes of Eric Buescher....and I wonder what would have transpired if someone proposed bringing in Jim Molinari as a new assistant...yet both of those guys' credentials have appeal that would obviously place them ahead of those rejected 199 as well.
In the end it just puts more burden on the head coach if we have assistants with NO connection to the Chicago area or to the large base of prospects in Illinois and the neighboring states where BU has drawn so many of their players from.
So - let's see if we can now land some army-caliber recruits from out east....and then let's see how long before the very people whining to get rid of EB start whining about the new situation....as predictable as death and taxes....
Worst "reports" and "facts" seen on message boards lately....all guaranteed true by the experts...
#6 - John Wilkins has verbaled to Iowa State and it's a strong commitment, meaning he's no longer considering Bradley. He is going to be their BEST player!
#5 - lots of other players besides Eddren are looking to leave, maybe even Taylor Brown, Jordan Prosser, and DSE..
#4 - now that Eric Buescher is gone, look for even more staff shakeups and firings
#3 - BU was out of the running for John Wilkins more than a year ago
#2 - Coach Les has been on vacation for the past month and hasn't spent a minute out on the recruiting trail!
#1 - Jim Les has been fired - bought out for $650,000, there's even a detailed analysis of the buyout paid out over 3 years....
Yeah........the jokes keep coming, but the traffic at sites that report this stuff has come to a crawl...
Sometimes 2-3 days with nothing...no wonder......
XXXXX
(this next part has been re-edited out, so I hope you got your screen shots all taken while I had it up there.... ;)
So is John Calipari just a high paid failure??
http://bit.ly/bPtU2d
Here's a list you don't want to be on....
http://listverse.com/2007/09/09/top-10-ugliest-female-celebrities/
Little known factoids about BU's new assistant Jim Platt
Hey - there is yet another Jim Platt - ISU connection.... back in 1991 when Jim Platt was the head coach of Arkansas-Little Rock, one of his assistants at UALR was Dwayne Tyus...who played his college ball at Illinois State thru 1983. Anyway, Tyus was a bad boy.... he misappropriated (actually he STOLE) money from the meager recruiting fund at UALR and disappeared on a long joy ride.
He was arrested after he vanished for 3 weeks - using the $$ for dope and booze (and a few other fun things)...
He didn't go very far - he was found in a Little Rock flop house and arrested....effectively ending his college coaching career after gigs as an assistant at DePaul & UALR.
But a little suspicion fell on the head coach for how this could happen.... Here's an old article about Tyus at ISU...
www.bit.ly/bv2BR0
And here's a little bit about the arrest...
http://bit.ly/95pudI
- "felony theft of property".....Tyus pretty much disappeared and was never heard from again in the college scene -- Platt is still around.. Tyus was a Donewald player...... but Tyus did appear at least ONE MORE TIME in the Chicago headlines...
"Retail theft
Dwayne E. Tyus, 41, of the 5500 block of West Rice Avenue, Chicago, was arrested on the Marion Street Green Line CTA platform after he allegedly took two DVDs from Borders, 1144 Lake St., and fled without paying. Tyus was also allegedly in possession of drug paraphernalia and was wanted on a Lake County arrest warrant."
http://www.wednesdayjournalonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=12&ArticleID=6620&TM=83081.44
Well........so much for the ISU section of the police blotter............
Jim Platt played high school ball at Aurora East.. One teammate was Tom Boatright, father of current Aurora standout Ryan Boatright..
Another high school teammate was Tom Kivisto - now a member of Illinois Basketball HOF, who went to Kansas and was a star there - 2 Final Fours!
Platt's Aurora East team in 1969 lost in the State semifinal at U of I's Assembly Hall -to Peoria Spalding, 3/22/69, Spalding's Alvin O'Neal starred in that game..
Aurora then finished 4th in 1969, and Spalding lost the Championship game to Proviso East & Jim Brewer..
Another tidbit -- Brian Lavin's dad, Rich Lavin, was also on that Spalding team...
Jim Platt went on to coach at Chicago Luther North from 1973-1978, running up a 5-year record of 55-75.
One last little known tidbit - in 1989 when Northern Illinois University was hiring a new coach, Jim Platt was one of the finalists... but he was beaten out by his cohort Jim Molinari.
At the time, BOTH were assistants at DePaul. The very next year, Platt got his turn, and took the top spot at Arkansas-Little Rock...and then hired ex-Redbird Dwayne Tyus as one of his assistants.
Other famous people from Aurora, IL include ex-BU HOF'er Chick Hearn and the guy who put Northern Illinois University (a few years before Jim Molinari) on the map, Kenny Battle, and ex-BU great and NBA player, Bob Carney.
(btw- WGN weatherman Tom Skilling is also an ex-HS mate at Aurora of Jim Platt)
BTW - one guy who is an expert in ISU history tells me there was a "Legends" game held at Illinois State back in 2001...inviting all their "greats" back for an exhibition All Star game.
Ex-Redbirds like Dwayne Tyus, Chad Altadonna, Rickie Johnson, Jamar Smiley (driving a nice new car ;)), Matt Taphorn, all-time flop star Mike VandeGarde were all there, but conspicuously absent were Doug Collins and Jeff Wilkins.
I am told that Collins simply couldn't make it due to other obligations (he had just been hired as head coach of the NBA Wizards). But Wilkins was apparently left off the invite list by design...and nobody really knows what all the truth is in this matter...but there clearly appears to have been some significant falling out between Wilkins and FF and the folks at ISU.
You can talk to people from ISU of that era...and they will tell you that Wilkins' accomplishments during his time at ISU were discounted and ignored, and the name simply never got mentioned.
Flash has helped keep the history from being purged....but he's about the only one...
http://www.flashshoops.com/isu.htm
Apparently the entire Gene Smithson era is something the ISU people don't want to talk about - as it is pretty common knowledge that a lot of cheating was going on, with Smithson finally getting caught and penalized while at Wichita State.
Rumors out of Saluki-land seem to grow by the day....
still no solid confirmation of Dillard & Booker leaving but it is apparently pretty widely accepted that's going to happen, and that's why Chris Lowery is restocking big time with jucos...
but now there's rumors of several other players leaving...Gene Teague, Jack Crowder, John Freeman....what the heck is going on??
There's even talk among Saluki fans that after his one year banishment at junior college, Ryan Hare will be recruited back and even welcomed back at SIU by Chris Lowery --can you imagine!!
TWO guys on the team at one time with felony arrests!!
I guess we'll have to wait & see it all unfold!
He was arrested after he vanished for 3 weeks - using the $$ for dope and booze (and a few other fun things)...
He didn't go very far - he was found in a Little Rock flop house and arrested....effectively ending his college coaching career after gigs as an assistant at DePaul & UALR.
But a little suspicion fell on the head coach for how this could happen.... Here's an old article about Tyus at ISU...
www.bit.ly/bv2BR0
And here's a little bit about the arrest...
http://bit.ly/95pudI
- "felony theft of property".....Tyus pretty much disappeared and was never heard from again in the college scene -- Platt is still around.. Tyus was a Donewald player...... but Tyus did appear at least ONE MORE TIME in the Chicago headlines...
"Retail theft
Dwayne E. Tyus, 41, of the 5500 block of West Rice Avenue, Chicago, was arrested on the Marion Street Green Line CTA platform after he allegedly took two DVDs from Borders, 1144 Lake St., and fled without paying. Tyus was also allegedly in possession of drug paraphernalia and was wanted on a Lake County arrest warrant."
http://www.wednesdayjournalonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=12&ArticleID=6620&TM=83081.44
Well........so much for the ISU section of the police blotter............
Jim Platt played high school ball at Aurora East.. One teammate was Tom Boatright, father of current Aurora standout Ryan Boatright..
Another high school teammate was Tom Kivisto - now a member of Illinois Basketball HOF, who went to Kansas and was a star there - 2 Final Fours!
Platt's Aurora East team in 1969 lost in the State semifinal at U of I's Assembly Hall -to Peoria Spalding, 3/22/69, Spalding's Alvin O'Neal starred in that game..
Aurora then finished 4th in 1969, and Spalding lost the Championship game to Proviso East & Jim Brewer..
Another tidbit -- Brian Lavin's dad, Rich Lavin, was also on that Spalding team...
Jim Platt went on to coach at Chicago Luther North from 1973-1978, running up a 5-year record of 55-75.
One last little known tidbit - in 1989 when Northern Illinois University was hiring a new coach, Jim Platt was one of the finalists... but he was beaten out by his cohort Jim Molinari.
At the time, BOTH were assistants at DePaul. The very next year, Platt got his turn, and took the top spot at Arkansas-Little Rock...and then hired ex-Redbird Dwayne Tyus as one of his assistants.
Other famous people from Aurora, IL include ex-BU HOF'er Chick Hearn and the guy who put Northern Illinois University (a few years before Jim Molinari) on the map, Kenny Battle, and ex-BU great and NBA player, Bob Carney.
(btw- WGN weatherman Tom Skilling is also an ex-HS mate at Aurora of Jim Platt)
BTW - one guy who is an expert in ISU history tells me there was a "Legends" game held at Illinois State back in 2001...inviting all their "greats" back for an exhibition All Star game.
Ex-Redbirds like Dwayne Tyus, Chad Altadonna, Rickie Johnson, Jamar Smiley (driving a nice new car ;)), Matt Taphorn, all-time flop star Mike VandeGarde were all there, but conspicuously absent were Doug Collins and Jeff Wilkins.
I am told that Collins simply couldn't make it due to other obligations (he had just been hired as head coach of the NBA Wizards). But Wilkins was apparently left off the invite list by design...and nobody really knows what all the truth is in this matter...but there clearly appears to have been some significant falling out between Wilkins and FF and the folks at ISU.
You can talk to people from ISU of that era...and they will tell you that Wilkins' accomplishments during his time at ISU were discounted and ignored, and the name simply never got mentioned.
Flash has helped keep the history from being purged....but he's about the only one...
http://www.flashshoops.com/isu.htm
Apparently the entire Gene Smithson era is something the ISU people don't want to talk about - as it is pretty common knowledge that a lot of cheating was going on, with Smithson finally getting caught and penalized while at Wichita State.
Rumors out of Saluki-land seem to grow by the day....
still no solid confirmation of Dillard & Booker leaving but it is apparently pretty widely accepted that's going to happen, and that's why Chris Lowery is restocking big time with jucos...
but now there's rumors of several other players leaving...Gene Teague, Jack Crowder, John Freeman....what the heck is going on??
There's even talk among Saluki fans that after his one year banishment at junior college, Ryan Hare will be recruited back and even welcomed back at SIU by Chris Lowery --can you imagine!!
TWO guys on the team at one time with felony arrests!!
I guess we'll have to wait & see it all unfold!
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