Congrats to Coach Les and more news on the Valley and elsewhere...

Again -- a big congratulations to Jim Les for being named new head coach at UC-Davis where he'll be able to coach Tyler.
I hear from several sources that after all the interviews, Jim was the one they wanted by far and pursued him strongly.
It will be very interesting to see who he brings in out there!

Jim is getting loads of press out on the west coast and it's all favorable -- with many people reflecting back to Jim's days with the Sacramento Kings and lots of comments like "he was my favorite player back then" and comments about how, when his players were healthy, he repeatedly won 20 games with Bradley and went to the post-season and had his Sweet Sixteen run in 2006 -- even after all the doubters had him dead and buried in February of that year and were wanting a new coach then.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/05/SP3T1JCLLQ.DTL

Here's the official announcement from UC-Davis plus a link to the upcoming podcast of the press conference:

http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/050511aae.html


Hoping to hear good news on Devon Hodges -- did Geno close the deal -- will we hear a release about a signed LOI???
Stay tuned......



Wichita State is trying to pull a nice package deal -- hire away a hot young assistant, Greg Heiar, the guy from Chipola who was on Larry Eustachy's staff at Southern Miss -- and then lure a kid who was committed to USM to come over to Wichita -- a kid who is ranked as the #5 junior college player in the NATION!
If you recall -- DeWitt was part of Missouri's highly talented and highly ranked recruiting class in 2009, but he failed to qualify -- and went to Chipola junior college.
It was said back in 2009 that he would make an immediate impact and would play at Missouri but his two years at Chipola were ho-hum enough that all the big time recruiters dropped off and DeWitt had basically just an offer from Larry Eustachy at Southern Mississippi to grab.
Then as a 23 year old juco sophomore ("clock" ticking > 2 years) this past season, he averaged 9 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 60% on FT and struggled to stay healthy enough to play only 9 games all season.
he has a long track record of troubles, school changes, poor academics, and other issues and disruptions.
He was the subject of an article back in 2008 about being homeless, repeatedly kicked out of school, wandering the streets, and yet someone got him into & paid tuition at Charis Prep (>$10K per year) - and he flunked out of there as well. In the interval he was recruited by almost everyone and was committed several times only to either decommit, fail to become eligible, or get the offer rescinded.

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=229740#post229740

http://ncstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=834045

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=19&f=2887&t=3858150



Top 20 juco prospect Robert Goff is now headed to Marshall -- word is that his academics are very bad...

http://www.jucorecruiting.com/?p=491



As many have predicted for a long, long time...DePaul backup guard Mike Bizoukas has finally figured it out that he'd never get much playing time there and has asked to transfer.
Like Sammy Maniscalco -- Bizoukas could graduate this summer so he is requesting a transfer with immediate eligibility!
Mike Bizoukas -- as you will recall -- originally verballed to UNI then reneged and went to DePaul when he kinda "blew up" a little the year before he graduated from high school. But just about everyone knew he was not going to flourish in the Big East...so he redshirted with injury his first year at DePaul and played little the last three years -- now owning a grand total of 185 career points and 164 career assists in his four years of college -- giving him averages of 2ppg, 1.9 apg.
Bizoukas actually would be a good mid-major player -- he'd be an immediately eligible, 5th year senior PG - so I have to believe schools would be interested -- possibly Horizon, CUSA, or MVC schools....maybe even Geno has given the kid a call.

http://depaul.scout.com/2/1066258.html



There's a rumor of a big new happening at Memphis -- speculation centers on possibly the adding of Bobby Knight to the assistant coaching staff, or joining the Big East, to brand new jerseys with FedEx logos on them.....we shall see soon......



One of Bill Self's top assistants at Kansas, Joe Dooley lobbied and tried like crazy to get the head coaching job at his alma mater George Washington -- only to get beat out by Vermont coach Mike Lonergan...
So Dooley's stuck there under Self...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6489672


Talk about lack of class -- there's someone claiming to be a "lifelong Bradley fan" (LOL - yeah, right) who just signed up on the UC-Davis message board just to post ONE single post so that he can take swipes at and and trash Jim Les in front of a new audience of Aggie fans.
I guess it doesn't surprise me -- that's the way the tiny faction of anti-JL and anti-BU people are. They are driven by their own inferiority and misery to trash anyone else -- hey -- it's not like they don't take swipes at other fans as well -- even guys in the BSS who give money to Bradley and the people who give BU endless free positive media & web exposure on their blogs and message boards!
I guess there's no surprise to how low little minds will stoop to continue their quest to sling mud -- especially since years of doing it hasn't gotten them anything anyway and so now this is simply who they are. Even in threads talking about JL getting his new gig at UCD -- some want to crash in and fire off slams against JL and others on his staff.
I won't give a link since it isn't worth leading anyone else to their garbage.