BUBravesBlogger: News on Sammy, Andrew, new asst. Greg Graham, Hersey & Corey Hawkins, and the Midwest Flames

Here's a new column on the Illini newcomers, and this one does NOT ignore Sammy Maniscalco -- in fact it kinda hints that he will be Illini's top newcomer...

"Sam Maniscalco

The fifth-year senior transfer from Bradley will work on his post-graduate degree at Illinois and be a welcome addition to the point guard mix. He will help replace the loss of McCamey, a former AAU teammate and friend.

What he brings: Big shot Sam is known for making shots at the end of games, as well as his leadership and toughness. He's a veteran point guard who has been through the fire and has shown he knows what it takes. He is the ideal fit for a transition year between McCamey and Tracy Abrams.

Question marks: After missing last season with ankle surgery, health has to be a question for Maniscalco. Will he be back at 100 percent? Will he be able to handle the grind of a rigorous Big Ten schedule? Obviously a healthy Maniscalco provides stability to a young team in need of a veteran."

http://illinois.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1231214

Andrew Warren has a workout with the New York Knicks today -- good luck Drew!!
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=231782#post231782

Here's the Boise news account of Greg Graham getting hired at Bradley.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/06/13/1687736/former-boise-state-basketball.html

Greg Graham was delayed in getting "hired" and announced at the newest assistant coach at Bradley -- and here's a possible reason why...

According to previous articles, when Graham was let go by Boise State in 2010 -- he still had a year left on his contract, and that year extended all the way through the first part of June, 2011...
as evidence by him signing the contract in early June, 2008...

So even though we have all kinda known that Greg Graham was going to be hired, the delay was likely to complete the time under his previous contract so he'd get his full head coach pay from Boise State, then once that contract had expired, get the full release from BSU then sign the paperwork at BU.

Here's some good news for Will Egolf -- Purdue's Robbie Hummel is progressing well after his 2nd ACL reconstruction surgery on the same knee...
http://blogs.indystar.com/purdue/2011/06/07/hummel-moore-updates/

Hersey's on twitter
http://twitter.com/#!/hhawk33

Hersey's wife tweets about the boys...
http://twitter.com/#!/headtotoez

And it looks like Hersey's boys are all in the news....
First, his oldest, Brandon Hawkins, who first went to Pacific then juco then Portland State...may be done with basketball. He was on the roster for Portland State in 2010-2011 - LINK

But he is not rostered for 2011-2012 - LINK

Hersey's 2nd son Corey Hawkins just left Arizona State where he was unhappy playing for Herb Sendek, and now looks to be headed to St. Mary's to become a Gael...
It hasn't been made official but you heard it here first -- that Corey is on campus at St. Mary's checking it out and has offers from UC-Davis and UMass.

Hersey's 3rd son Devon Hawkins just finished his sophomore season at West Linn High School near Portland. He is very talented and led the team to the Elite Eight in Class 6A and will soon start getting major recruiting attention.
Here are some links --

Video

Story with picture

Daniel Ruffin's brother and ex-Peoria Central grad AJ Guyton is doing some coaching this summer.
He is the coach of the NEW Peoria ABA team....the Midwest Flames!!

"A.J. Guyton
I am proud to announce I will be the head coach of Peoria's new ABA team
the Midwest Flames. It is a great opportunity to represent Peoria once again,
help quality basketball players maximize their potential, and move one step
closer to my goal. All the support I have recieved on fbook has been tremendous, please continue, I need it!"

BTW -- AJ Guyton just spent this past season as an assistant basketball coach at ICC under Tony Wysinger. ICC basketball really doesn't get much coverage and very few people even knew AJ was now into coaching.
http://www.icc.edu/athletics/basketballM/coachingStaff.asp

Here's more on the Midwest Flames that will start play next season...
also on the coaching staff will be Steve Turner -- ex-Woodruff star..
http://is.gd/uRT8hy

http://sites.google.com/site/midwestflamespeoria/

The Flames held tryouts Saturday at EastSide....
Here are some pictures from the Midwest Flames tryouts -

This is Ben Egolf - guarded by Matt Salley (?):