Kansas Jayhawks
Hoops season unofficially begins today with the annual Media Day in Allen Fieldhouse. It is closed to the public.
…“It’s been fun watching our guys grow together,” said 11th-year KU coach Bill Self, whose Jayhawks were able to practice two hours a week during summer school and two hours a week since the start of the fall semester in accordance with NCAA rules. “We have the foundation to have a good year if things fall right.
“It’s as deep a team as we’ve had. There will be somebody disappointed. They all deserve to play,” he added of players who ultimately do not make the rotation. “I’ll be honest. All our guys are doing well. It’s the longest team I’ve ever had. The big question is can we consistently make shots and make shots at the end of games. I think this team will be able to defend and create some havoc. This will be a fun team to watch.”
The team begins practice Friday in accordance with new NCAA rules.
LJW
The University of Kansas men's and women's basketball teams will celebrate the beginning of the 2013-14 season at the 29th annual Late Night in the Phog Friday, Oct. 4, in Allen Fieldhouse.
The 2013 Late Night in the Phog, presented by Hy-Vee, will run from 6:30 p.m. to approximately 9:30 p.m. Admission is free; doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Children, 12 and under, will not be admitted without an adult, and the Fieldhouse doors will be closed when the arena reaches capacity.
With school in session, all university parking lots will be restricted by permit only until 5 p.m., with the exception of Lot 90 located across Naismith Drive to the east, and south, of Allen Fieldhouse which will be available for public parking at 3 p.m. During the day, public parking is available in the parking garage just north of Allen Fieldhouse with hourly rates. Parking in the garage for Late Night in the Phog after 4 p.m. will be $5 per vehicle. Additionally, for those driving to Allen Fieldhouse from the north or via I-70 (exit 202), Iowa Street remains under construction from Harvard Ave., north of 15th Street (or Bob Billings) to 19th Street.
As is the tradition at Late Night, fans are encouraged to bring nonperishable food items, which Kansas Athletics will donate to "Just Food" of Douglas County. Just Food will also be outside Allen Fieldhouse taking cash donations for those not able to bring a food item.
Time Warner Cable's Metro Sports will oversee the television production of Late Night in the Phog which will be seen live on the Jayhawk TV Network, including ESPN3. Television hosts will be Nate Bukaty and former men's basketball guard Greg Gurley. The entire Late Night in the Phog can be seen and heard via the internet via Jayhawk Digital Passport, KU's online network via KUAthletics.com. Additionally, 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City and KLWN Radio in Lawrence will provide coverage of the festivities.
The event will feature music by the KU pep band, skits by both basketball teams, video highlights from KU's award-winning Rock Chalk Video department, coach and player introductions, scrimmages by the KU men's and women's teams, and much more.
KUAD
It's almost become a formality whether you're a fan of the Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns or even Boston Celtics. You pray for your team to drop game after game so you can be the clubhouse leader and receive the most pingpong balls in the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes.
There's just one issue. This won't be the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes.
This isn't 2003, when LeBron James was the ultimate no-brainer to be selected No. 1 in the NBA draft. It's not 2012 either, when there was virtually no chance heading into the college season that anyone other than Anthony Davis would be taken No. 1.
Wiggins might be the clubhouse leader, but the first draftee to shake new NBA commissioner Adam Silver's hand in 2014 could be Kentucky's Julius Randle or even Duke's Jabari Parker. In fact, let me be the first to go out on that proverbial limb and say I'd take Randle, a 6-foot-9, 250-pound man-child, with the No. 1 overall pick.
Go ahead and check all of the mock drafts, whether it's our own Chad Ford or anyone else. The 6-7 Wiggins, a Canadian who will play for Bill Self at Kansas this season, sits atop all of the boards.
Wiggins is exceptionally talented. He's long, athletic and has a body that draws comparisons to Kobe Bryant. There are just a couple of issues that NBA personnel raise: Does he possess the killer instinct to be a star in the NBA, and will he develop a perimeter shot that eventually forces defenders to go over screens?
"He's no lock," one NBA executive said of Wiggins being tabbed with the top pick. "He has all the physical tools, but mental makeup is the biggest question with Wiggins."
"He has a lot of things he must show this year," added another high-ranking NBA guy. "His shot must improve and he has to develop a sense of urgency and a better focus."
ESPN Goodman ($)
When you are preparing to house one of the most historic documents in the history of sports, there are certain things you must consider. The lighting, for example. It can’t be too harsh, or too low, and it certainly can’t compromise the document.
When James Naismith’s original rules of basketball find their permanent home in the DeBruce Center, a new building adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse, KU officials hope they become a destination attraction for generations.
So details such as the lighting — and other major design issues — have pushed back the construction of the DeBruce Center to next spring, according KU Endowment president Dale Seuferling.
The KU basketball team, which opens practice on Friday, begins its exhibition schedule Oct. 29 against Pittsburg State at Allen Fieldhouse. For KU officials, the idea of starting construction on the three-story, $18 million project during basketball season was an impractical idea.
“It reached the point,” Seuferling said, “where you don’t want to start now and have these huge conflicts with the game-day crowds.”
When KU Endowment announced formal plans for the DeBruce Center in April, construction was scheduled to start this year. But other than a delayed start date, Seuferling says the rest of the project is ready. The financing, which includes a primary donation from Paul and Katherine DeBruce of Mission Hills, is in place. And the general plans haven’t changed.
KC Star
9/24/13, 3:16 PM
The #Knicks announced they have officially signed Cole Aldrich
@AdamZagoria
No terms were disclosed, however ESPN New York’s Ian Begley said the deal is non-guaranteed, meaning the 6-foot-11, 245-pound Aldrich must make the team in training camp.
ESPN’s Nick Borges reports that, “the Knicks will be luxury tax payers in 2014 and Aldrich counts $884,293 against the salary cap should he stay on the roster until the beginning of January.”
LJW
Kansas women's basketball spent time Tuesday afternoon giving back to the Lawrence community as the Jayhawks volunteered with Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, Inc., and served lunch to those in need.
"It means a lot to us to give back and to help them out," said senior CeCe Harper. "To see the excitement on everyone's faces and to do something good for the community is amazing."
All 12 members of the KU women's basketball team and several members of coaching staff headed to First Christian Church to serve a hot home-cooked meal through LINK. Aside from helping serving lunch, the Jayhawks had the chance to visit with members of the community and talk about basketball.
KUAD
Big 12/College News
Weber, who led K-State to a 25-6 record and a share of the Big 12 regular-season title in his first season, will use the time to break in Spradling at point guard.
“Early on, he’s going to have to do it,” Weber said. “He’s played some point before, even before we got there. We feel good to have him there.”
Spradling also played some point last season when Angel Rodriguez suffered a foot injury in mid-December. Spradling logged several minutes at the point in the win over Florida at the Sprint Center, when he had 17 points and five assists in 38 minutes.
Weber said he’s relying on veterans such as Spradling, who averaged 7.4 points and 2.4 assists last season, as well as Shane Southwell, Thomas Gipson, Omari Lawrence, D.J. Johnson and Williams to guide a promising class of newcomers following the departures of Rodriguez, Rodney McGruder, Martavious Irving and Jordan Henriquez.
“They’re going to have to be consistently productive,” Weber said.
KC Star
Inside a conference room Monday near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, NCAA president Mark Emmert laid out a timeline for what are expected to be massive changes in the governance of college athletics.
In a speech to the Faculty Athletics Representatives of the so-called “1A” organization, which encompasses schools in the top-level Football Bowl Subdivision, Emmert suggested that a new model for Division 1 could emerge out of presidential meetings in October, January and April, ready for implementation by next August.
Meeting downstairs in the same hotel, athletics directors were skeptical. Hardly anything moves that fast in the world of college athletics, especially something as intricate as NCAA governance.
But as they emerged Tuesday morning, there was not only a consensus that major changes were coming to the NCAA structure but that athletics directors, who have felt marginalized in high-level policy discussions the past several years, were going to have a much bigger voice in how the NCAA is reshaped.
“There was a time when we were real leaders,” said one BCS athletics director, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions this week were supposed to be private. “Because of the gyrations and the system reinventing itself over time, we were reduced to middle managers. Now we need to reemerge as leaders. We’re on the tarmac every day in this enterprise, and it’s very important to us.”
USA Today
A new book doesn’t single out Missouri as the only college football program where student tutors were alleged to have sex with the players they were paid to help academically.
Still, “The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football” written by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, which went on sale last week, doesn’t paint a flattering picture of Missouri’s Total Person Program.
Chapter 12, titled “The Tutor: Friends with benefits,” briefly details accusations made by former tutors at other schools.
Georgia football players slept through tutoring sessions, tutors did homework for South Carolina football players and football players at the University of Miami routinely had sex with tutors, but most of the 21-page chapter focused on former Missouri running back Derrick Washington’s 2011 conviction for sexually assaulting a former tutor.
“If you’ve been anywhere near this issue, most of these cases don’t result in convictions,” Benedict said, explaining why Washington’s case was included in the book, a 386-page peek-behind-the-curtain of college football. “It’s very rare that a student-athlete or a pro athlete who’s accused of a sex crime gets convicted.”
The book — which includes interviews with Washington and his family as well as two former tutors, including Washington’s victim and her roommate, who also was a tutor at Missouri — describes the academic center as “a hotbed for hooking up.”
Boone County prosecutor Andrea Hayes, a self-proclaimed Missouri fan who prosecuted Washington, laid some responsibility at MU’s feet for ineffective oversight of the interactions between athletes and tutors.
“The university has created this environment,” Hayes is quoted as saying in the book. “When you put a room of athletes together with attractive girls, some of whom like to sleep with athletes, you are just asking for trouble. It creates a sexually charged environment, and athletes get an opinion of girls that is skewed. Tutors who are in it for the right reasons get lumped in with the others. (Their) tutoring program needs to be revamped.”
KC Star
But in an effort to tap into the fan base's pride and sense of nostalgia, Maryland on Tuesday announced it would hold its 2013 Midnight Madness festivities at the famous former hallowed hoops house.
Not a good idea. A great one. It is the first time the men's program will hold an official basketball event at the Field House since it closesd the doors after beating Virginia on March 3, 2002. The return to Cole will commence on Oct. 18 with the women's and men's teams hosting a party for all Terps fans who can fit inside the building, and despite some attendance concerns in recent years, I'd think/hope the event will have a good chance of selling out.
"Cole Field House represented many of the most iconic and memorable moments in Maryland basketball program history," coach Mark Turgeon said in a statement. "Cole was host to multiple hall of fame coaches and countless All-Americans that helped make Maryland basketball what it is today. It will be a special evening for our fans, students, alumni and our university as we reconnect with the historic past of Cole Field House and Maryland basketball.”
CBS
Team IMPACT has had a major influence on college basketball in the past month – and no, that's not an AAU team. It's a non-profit organization that enhances “the lives of children facing life-threatening and chronic illnesses by matching them with college athletic teams.”
Two weeks ago, Bradley signed two brothers from a local elementary school. Johnah Sahrs, 5, is in recovery from Stage 4 High Risk Neuroblastoma, and has been undergoing treatment for the past 18 months after having surgery in 2012. Jarret, 9, has been with Johnah through the entire process.
On Monday, Xavier signed 12-year-old Trey Couch, who was diagnosed with Cerebellar Degeneration in 2010. The disease has no cure.
CBS
The North Carolina Tar Heels are looking to get back on top of the college basketball world. What’s the quickest way to do that? You’ve got to dress for success.
Today, ESPN’s Darren Rovell tweeted out a photo of custom Jordan brand ‘XX8 SE’ shoes that the Heels will don at some point in 2013-14:
Link
Big XII composite schedule
ESPN College GameDay Schedule
2013-14 Early-season events schedule
Recruiting
Rashad Vaughn (Findlay Prep/Golden Valley, Minn.), the 11th-ranked player in the ESPN 100, trimmed his list to seven schools: Arizona, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina and UNLV. Georgetown, Kentucky, UConn and UCLA were eliminated.
..."I am going to Baylor (Oct.18-20) and Iowa State (Nov. 7-9). Those are set," said Vaughn. "I plan to go to Kansas and North Carolina during the season."
Vaughn's last official visit will be between UNLV and Minnesota. "I have to discuss it with my parents," said Vaughn. "Arizona is here (out west) so I will go on an unofficial there."
The Minnesota native said he plans to make a decision this spring, based on two factors: his relationship with the head coach and the team's style of play. "I want to go where they go up and down the floor and have a fast tempo and set ball screens in the half court," said Vaughn.
ESPN ($)
Rashad Vaughn isn’t open, but still able to score. That's one of the reasons why the Findlay Prep senior guard is a consensus top-10 recruiting prospect.
During a scrimmage at the end of the Pilots' practice last week, Vaughn made all three of his 3-point attempts. One found him all alone in the corner on a kick out. For the other two Vaughn, listed at 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, had multiple hands in his face and little room to breathe.
The shots still went in just as smoothly as the wide open one. It’s that shot that has college programs salivating over his services.
“Pure shooting touch,” Pilots coach Jerome Williams said. “He’s got an effortless offensive game.”
…“My parents want to see (UNLV),” Vaughn said. “My dad has a good relationship with coach (Dave) Rice.”
Rice and assistant Todd Simon were in Minnesota last week to meet with Vaughn’s parents. Vaughn said relationships are a big factor for him and if his decision comes down to that, UNLV may have a leg up thanks to its newest assistant coach.
Simon started talking to Vaughn when Simon was still Findlay’s head coach and he never really stopped once he joined the Rebels staff in early July. That Findlay connection could be big for many reasons.
Pete Kaffey, Vaughn’s mentor and trainer since about the sixth grade, moved with Vaughn and is now on the Findlay Prep coaching staff. A former high school coach, Kaffey agreed to follow Vaughn wherever the shooting guard decided to play. That decision became easier after watching former Pilot and Rebel Anthony Bennett go No. 1 in June’s NBA Draft.
“We thought, ‘Man, Findlay is doing something over there,’ ” Kaffey said. “That was key.”
Las Vegas Sun
I think Myles Turner will have the most long-term impact in the game because he has the most upside of all the big men in the Class of 2014. Turner is productive right now as he influences and impacts the game on both ends of the floor, which makes him special. Blessed with physical tools and excellent instincts, he still has so much to learn about the game and how to us his long, athletic frame inside.
For such a young post player, there are three areas where Turner stands out. First, his gift to block shots with superb timing while keeping the ball in play is rapidly developing as he can also make multiple jumps in a possession, which enhances his ability to protect the rim. Second, his face-up jumper extends to the 3-point line and he is also effective on the blocks with a turnaround jumper. And third, he is an above-average passer both facing the rim and with his back to the basket.
Turner reminds me of a combination former NBA players Theo Ratliff on defense and a young Tim Duncan with his offensive touch.
ESPN Biancardi ($)
Recruiting Calendar
My KU Alumni games, 2011-12 Border War, Legends of the Phog, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos, Late Night in the Phog, and more now on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/kcjcjhawk
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