Sam Maniscalco may get one last shot at ISU, more on college players cheating, and now some slime sticks to The General...

Illinois is playing this coming fall in the Cancun Challenge and may play against Illinois State - so Sammy may get another chance to beat the Redbirds...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18680

John Supinie has a column about the Illini basketball team yesterday...
and he notes that Sammy has already started grad school at Illinois...
http://www.pjstar.com/sports/x556414057/Supinie-Foreign-domestic-hurdles

BUT -- compare this Supinie article with the one Mark Tupper wrote more than two weeks ago...
http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/article_4fe15942-7e82-11e0-93f3-001cc4c002e0.html

Both columns start off saying ....
"There are hurdles to clear",
both talk first about Djimde, discuss his transcript issues, both list the requirements before Djimde can practice and play with the team in August, both talk about his language problems...then move on to talk about other Illini sports...

Tupper says...
"there are hurdles to clear — maybe more than Weber realized.....“He speaks three different languages. .. you’re not sure if he’s switching from one language to another."

Supinie says...
"Foreign, domestic hurdles...Djimde speaks three languages...“None of them are English"

Is this just a case of great minds thinking alike??


Sammy Maniscalco will be going with the Illini on their tour to Italy --
they leave August 10 -- the itinerary is mostly set but it's not known yet what pro teams they'll play in Italy... they will begin their allowable 10 practices in July -

....here's the Illinois release...

"Illinois Basketball Team to Travel to Italy in August
Illini Will Tour Italy Aug. 10-20

Champaign, Ill.-The Fighting Illini basketball team will get a head start on the 2011-12 season by participating in a foreign tour trip to Italy in August. The trip runs from Aug. 10-20 and includes stops in Rome, Florence, Venice and Como.

NCAA regulations allow teams to make foreign trips once every four years. The Illini anticipate playing four or five games against Italian professional club teams, although details are still being worked out regarding games. In addition to the travel and competition, the Illini will hold 10 on-campus practice sessions prior to the trip.

"We are excited about taking our team to Italy in August," Head Coach Bruce Weber said. "It's a great opportunity for us to come together as a team and learn more about each other. With six new players joining the roster, we feel it's extremely important for us to take advantage of this trip heading into next season."

Basketball Travelers has arranged a supporters' tour for fans interested in traveling to Italy. A limited amount of spots are available, and costs are $6,600 single/$10,200 double (flights included) or $5,100 single/$7,200 double (without flights). ..


TENTATIVE ITINERARY
Note: This is a partial and incomplete itinerary intended to give a general guideline at this time. It does not include all activities as many details are still being worked out. The number of games and game dates could change as well. ..but they are anticipating at least four games -- maybe five against Italian professional teams.
Basketball Travelers will provide a complete and detailed itinerary for those participating in the supporters' tour.

(Pre-August 10 -- ten allowable practices...)

Wednesday, Aug. 10
Depart from Chicago

Thursday, Aug. 11
Arrive in Rome - Tour Rome

Friday, Aug. 12
Tour Vatican City

Saturday, Aug. 13
Tour Rome - Game #1 vs. TBD

Sunday, Aug. 14
Travel to Florence - Tour Florence

Monday, Aug. 15
Tour Pisa - Game #2 vs. TBD

Tuesday, Aug. 16
Travel to Venice - Game #3 vs. TBD

Wednesday, Aug. 17
Tour Venice

Thursday, Aug. 18
Travel to Como - Game #4 vs. TBD

Friday, Aug. 19
Tour Lake Como

Saturday, Aug. 20
Depart from Milan - Arrive in Chicago"

For fans who want to go -- it's expensive
https://ems.resrunner.com/illinois

http://www.fightingillini.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/042711aad.html



Here's yet another followup of an ex-Bradley Brave..
Ex-Brave Cameron Rigby is getting late in his pro career in Australia, but he's still playing and contributing 14 years after his only season at Bradley (1996-1997)-- and after averaging 20 ppg up thru 2007 and 2008 his averages have dropped and this season is in single digits....
http://www.sportingpulse.com/team_info.cgi?action=PSTATS&pID=184510311&client=1-3363-36740-148972-4362801



Jordan Prosser is doing great and is just about to be officially "completely cleared" -- could happen as soon as today...(knee injury that happened in St. Louis)



Happy Birthday to Jerrance Howard -- 25 y/o today!


How come every time someone talks about how good Dirk Nowitzki is or how well he has developed his skills -- they always have to somehow qualify their statements by noting what race Dirk or isn't.......
They never do that with LeBron or DWade???



With all the revelations that Ohio State's head football coach Jim Tressel obviously knew full well and admitted in e mails that he knew his players were taking and selling their practice jerseys, their autographs and other memorabilia and using the cash themselves of trading for services like free merchandise and tattoos...

This forces us to revisit the possibility that this is actually going on lots of places -- and that Tressel is getting pinched mainly because he knew about it and enabled it then lied to the NCAA.

BUT -- a new topic just started up on the premium Indiana Hoosiers message board --
and it is a very interesting discussion....

Here's the discussion -- you might have trouble seeing it because it's on their premium board...
http://indiana.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=731&tid=158951225&mid=158951225&sid=942&style=2

It starts with stuff that goes back several years....
BUT -- First -- note that everyone who supports Bob Knight, and who says he never cheated and always ran a completely clean program...always graduating players... rrrright.... - you'd better prepare yourself...

IF -- you are so ignorant or biased as to believe that, or perhaps bullied into buying it because Knight had that bullying way and flummoxed people...then you'd better look away and not read the rest of this column....be forewarned....your Bobby-worship might never be the same again......

Here's what's being revealed and discussed....
Let's start with this....Back in 1990 -- legendary NC State head coach Jim Valvano got run out at NC State because of some pretty minor issues -- players selling their shoes and complimentary tickets.
(Sounds eerily familiar to the guy that Bob Knight just backed, supported, and honored as a really great coach - Jom Tressel)

These types of violations are no-no's similar to what's going on at Ohio State, but they appear to be going on just about everywhere at the big schools (BCS schools) but the smaller guys like Bradley simply cannot and DO not have much of this because, as we all know, the NCAA scrutinizes the little guys more, and digs for just about any tiny violation they can find in order to nail the little guys.

Anyway -- at the time Valvano was chased out at NC State, Bobby Knight took a holier-than-thou approach and went public with intense criticisms claiming his program was squeaky clean and never had any of that...saying some pretty awful words about Valvano that displayed a big time hatred he obviously had for Jimmy V - possibly dating the Valvano crashing the big-boys' party by winning the NCAA Tourney!

Well -- since the 90's the multitude of Bob Knight's faults, indiscretions, and violations have now come to light. Of course he's a bully, he's offensive, chokes people, curses and hits refs and other innocent personnel, and his players don't always have good grades and don't always graduate...(all this is proven beyond question - see links below)....

BUT...beyond that there's now evidence that Bob Knight's players also cheated and sold their stuff to get money and were also occasionally paid cash by boosters and supporters of Hoosier basketball....and Jimmy Valvano's brother Bob Valvano was on ESPN radio yesterday talking about it yesterday....

Lots of this stuff has been downplayed (because of course it's Indiana) but the evidence is there....

Valvano stated that back when a player named Mike Giomi was run out at Indiana by Knight -- he then transferred to North Carolina State. As soon as he got to NC State he was puzzled that there were NO NC State-boosters always coming around throwing money at the players and he even had the audacity to ask...

"...he asked the other players where they went to get money. And he was told that doesn't happen here (at NC State) and that Giomi told them everyone was getting paid at IU."

He then went on to say how Knight was always percieved to run a clean program and his brother (Jim Valvano) was vilified as a cheat. Said that N.C. State went through the most intense investigation in NCAA history and the only thing they found was that players were selling their comp tickets."

Of course it's always possible the IU players might have even been getting money that Knight knew nothing about -- but seriously -- you'd have to be on Mars and totally deaf and blind to believe that -- surely Knight, like Tressel, knew and simply looked the other way so the players would be happy.
Hmmm...kinda interesting but since now Bobby is the darling of the networks and ESPN -- I suspect this will just die down again....

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/thenetwork/news/2000/03/14/knight_indiana/
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/19644/firing-line
http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Where-Are-They-Now-Mike-Giomi-1135564.php
http://espn.go.com/chicago/radio/show?showId=vshow

BTW -- things are also heating up in the UNC football scandal...
http://www2.journalnow.com/sports/2011/may/21/WSSPORT01-unc-football-subject-of-another-investig-ar-1052209/
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=178&f=2515&t=7535172


And another odd issue that borders on cheating --
The sister of Memphis head basketball coach Josh Pastner -- Courtney Pastner -- sent an e mail directly to one of the recruits -- committing a flagrant and obvious illegal contact violoation and a headache for Memphis' compliance department!!
Don't expect NCAA to care though -- this is Memphis...
http://larrybrownsports.com/college-basketball/tweet-from-josh-pastners-sister-to-recruit-could-get-memphis-in-trouble/71063



Also -- one last odd twist to this Jim Tressel story -- the on-campus newspaper student reporter who first broke the news in an interview with former players who testified to selling their stuff to get tattoos -- is being harassed and threatened but the legions of goons and football freaks who want someone to blame other than Tressel and the players themselves.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&page=wojciechowski/110531&sportCat=ncf