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Grex > Sports > #94: 2000-2001 college basketball item | |
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jep
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2000-2001 college basketball item
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Jun 30 17:36 UTC 2000 |
It's danged early for entering a college basketball item, but this way
it'll be here when it's really needed. Also, there's been some
interesting things happening in college basketball already. So here it
is.
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| 13 responses total. |
jep
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response 1 of 13:
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Jun 30 17:43 UTC 2000 |
North Carolina head basketball coach Bill Guthridge is expected to
resign today at about 2:30. He's been the coach for 3 years; he took
over when Dean Smith retired. He's 62, and I guess he's retiring
himself.
Speculation is that Roy Williams, currently the head coach at Kansas,
will be announced as the replacement. Wow! Kansas has been built into
one of the most successful programs in the nation, with a strong core
of young players, sure to be a top 10 pre-season pick this upcoming
year. But North Carolina is North Carolina, in a peer group with maybe
Duke, Kentucky, and UCLA, and no one else. Maybe Indiana is in that
group, too. Being the head coach of the Tarheels is like being the head
football coach at Notre Dame. And Roy Williams was an assistant at one
time for Dean Smith. He played basketball for Dean Smith.
I'd have thought there'd be a national search for the new coach, but if
Roy Williams is willing to take the job, he's a very strong blue chip
coaching candidate.
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jep
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response 2 of 13:
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Jun 30 17:50 UTC 2000 |
Duke may have to forfeit it's 1999 NCAA tournament runner-up finish.
Speculation is that Corey Maggette, a player on the 1998-99 team, took
money in high school and thus will be declared as having been
ineligible. Duke might have to pay back $226,000 in tournament revenue.
This is not good news for college basketball; Mike Krzyzewski has the
reputation of running a clean program. I believe he *does* run a clean
program. If he doesn't, no one in college does. I hope there's no
backlash against college baskewtball because of this.
Michigan State lost to Duke in the Final Four that year. Too bad they
can't go back and replay the end of the tournament. MSU might have
beaten Connecticut in the national championship. Heh.
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albaugh
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response 3 of 13:
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Jul 1 21:14 UTC 2000 |
Sooner or later there is going to be a mega lawsuit in which the NCAA is
destroyed, mostly for trying to regulate every little thing, including
penalizing colleges for the sins of players when they were in high school.
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jep
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response 4 of 13:
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Jul 10 12:45 UTC 2000 |
Roy Williams elected to stay at Kansas, so North Carolina is looking
elsewhere for a new coach. They've interviewed Matt Doherty, who won 22
games last year at Notre Dame, but didn't offer him the job.
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Larry Brown is going to interview, or has
already.
South Carolina's Eddie Fogler said the timing wasn't right for him to
switch jobs. No kidding -- it's the verge of big-time recruiting
season, with the AAU circuit underway. Any college coach who changes
teams now really leaves his old team in a hole. You have to respect
anyone who recognizes that and declines because of it.
I'd personally hate to see Matt Doherty leave Notre Dame so quickly.
Notre Dame was a big-time basketball college when Digger Phelps was the
coach. I'd like to see them back in that position. It was one reason I
wanted them to join the Big Ten; they would have gotten better at
basketball.
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jep
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response 5 of 13:
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Jul 10 12:49 UTC 2000 |
Two Michigan Wolverines have decided to change colleges. Brandon Smith,
who would have been a senior, wanted to move closer to home because of a
family situation. Leland Anderson, a sophomore, wasn't satisfied with
the amount of playing time he could expect.
Brandon Smith is a big loss for the team. He started last year as the
small forward.
Smith and Anderson were the two who were investigated for stealing a
female student's watch and calculator in January. Coach Ellerbe got
them to return the items, and there was no prosecution, but the story
appeared a few weeks later in the Ann Arbor News.
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jep
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response 6 of 13:
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Jul 10 12:54 UTC 2000 |
Zack Randolph, an incoming freshman for Michigan State and the player
rated by some as the #1 college recruit in the nation, didn't make his
required SAT score, but was given full eligibility by the NCAA on
appeal. He had a 2.7 GPA, which was good enough, and an 800 of the
required 820 on the SAT. Randolph was troubled in high school with a
couple of arrests, but Tom Izzo said he's been working hard on his
grades and had improved in school. "He made academics a top priority,
and all of his hard work in the classroom has paid off."
Randolph and fellow recruit Marcus Taylor are MSU's incoming class for
2000-2001. MSU is rated as having the #1 recruiting class by some
analysts.
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jep
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response 7 of 13:
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Jul 10 13:01 UTC 2000 |
Point guard prospect Ricky Morgan of Pontiac Northern HS has been
offered a scholarship by Tom Izzo. He's a high school senior this year.
Unlike Marcus Taylor, he's a passer, not much of a shooter. Marcus
Taylor is both.
Morgan says he's leaning toward MSU, but is also considering Iowa State.
At Iowa State, he'd step in as the probable starting point guard. At
MSU, he'll probably back up Marcus Taylor for a year, then if he's good
enough, Taylor would switch to shooting guard and Morgan would be the
point man.
Morgan is rated as a top-50 player in his class.
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jep
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response 8 of 13:
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Jul 11 21:47 UTC 2000 |
Drat, drat, drat. North Carolina offered the job to Larry Brown of the
76ers, but he turned it down. So they offered it to Matt Doherty, and
he accepted.
You can only blame him to a point. Notre Dame's coaching position is
not a top-tier coaching position. Notre Dame hasn't won in years;
it was a wonderful achievement for them to make the NIT finals as
they did last year. North Carolina is possibly the cream job in college
basketball. NCAA championships should happen occasionally as a matter
of course, if the coach is any good at all. Michael Jordan went to
North Carolina, and so did Grant Hill. North Carolina doesn't recruit,
it offers invitations to the players it deigns to notice. Of course
they accept.
But dangit, Doherty left Notre Dame without a coach, at a crucial point
for recruiting. It's disappointing for Notre Dame.
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albaugh
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response 9 of 13:
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Jul 14 20:52 UTC 2000 |
Yep, disappointing for ND, but they knew it was a possibility, since they
agreed to Doherty's NC escape clause in his contract.
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jep
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response 10 of 13:
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Jul 14 23:37 UTC 2000 |
Notre Dame hired Mike Brey, the head coach at Delaware. I don't know
what this is about; isn't Delaware a Division II school? (I guess
not; they were in the NIT last year. Whoop-de-doo.) He's a former
assistant at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski, which sounds good. Oh, well.
I'm no fan of Notre Dame, but I wouldn't mind seeing their basketball
program return to some kind of prominence. I thought Matt Doherty was
going to get them there.
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jep
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response 11 of 13:
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May 3 13:44 UTC 2001 |
With no activity here, I discussed college basketball all season on
M-Net, not Grex. Maybe we can spur a little interest here, though this
is the wrong time of year for it. Some things are going on.
I'll outline the present situations for Michigan State and Michigan.
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jep
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response 12 of 13:
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May 3 13:45 UTC 2001 |
Michigan State (my favorite):
Tom Izzo is staying at MSU and not bolting to the pros. Two of his top
players are leaving as undergrads, though; Zack Randolph (freshman power
forward) and Jason Richardson (sophomore shooting forward; 2nd team
All-American). And he has 5 others graduating, including starters
Charlie Bell and Andre Hutson, and also David Thomas, Mike Chappell and
Brandon Smith.
He's got some good recruits coming, though, including McDonald's
All-American Kelvin Torbert from Flint, a swingman (guard-forward) named
Alan Anderson from Minnesota, and Chris Hill, a guard from Indianapolis.
He's looking to bring in a junior college kid as well, to help make up
for the big holes left by losing 6 of his regular players.
And next year, the Spartans could be in the running for Anthony Roberson
from Saginaw, the #5 high school junior in the nation this year, who's
considering MSU and Duke; Flint forward Matt Trannon (#9), Pontiac guard
Lester Abram (#24), and they've already got a verbal commitment from
center paul Davis from Rochester.
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jep
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response 13 of 13:
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May 3 14:17 UTC 2001 |
Michigan has a new coach, Tommy Amaker, who played and was an assistant
coach at Duke under Mike Kryzyweski, and who came from Seton Hall.
Michigan only lost one major player as a senior; Josh Asselin. They
also recently dismissed a freshman guard, Maurice Searight, who had
trouble living within team rules.
Michigan has a couple of blue chip recruits coming next year; JaQuan
Hart from Flint, and a kid from California, Dommanic Ingerson. I'm not
as familiar with their other recruits as I am with those for Michigan
State, but they're power forward Kelly Whitney from Marshall, Chicago,
and lightly regarded Chuck Bailey, a small forward from Detroit.
Hart is an All-American quality player. So is Ingerson, but he's been
in trouble several times in high school. I've been pretty critical of
Brian Ellerbe for recruiting a kid like that, given all the problems
he's had in the last couple of years with guys like Searight, Jamal
Crawford, and Kevin Gaines. Ellerbe was desperate to win some
games. Maybe Tommy Amaker can drive some sense into Ingerson's head.
Michigan had a terrific recruiting class two years ago, but that
one included Jamal Crawford (suspended for half the season by the
NCAA for weird rule violations, then went to the NBA); Kevin Gaines
(dismissed before the 2000-2001 season for drinking and driving);
and LaVell Blanchard (a genuine All-American prospect who needs more
support than he's got. Last year they brought in Avery Queen, who's
the point guard; Maurice Searight, just dismissed from the team, and
Josh Moore, a 7'2" big, Big, BIG man who needs to work very hard on
staying out of foul trouble but who might very well contribute some
day. They'll be better this year, or seem it, if only because MSU
is so savagely depleted going into next year. I believe Amaker will
have them back in the NCAA tournament in a couple of years, but not
this year.
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