Kansas Jayhawks
Former Kansas University All-America basketball power forward Wayne Simien and Cindy Self, wife of KU coach Bill Self, are fourth-year co-chairs of Sunday and Monday fundraisers for Lawrence’s Family Promise.
“I’d like to say how pleased we are at the support from the community that we are continuing to get,” Simien said Thursday, referring to Monday’s scramble golf tournament at Alvamar and Sunday’s auction party at Maceli’s.
…“Cindy has been very involved, and, with that, coach Self is involved and aware of what is going on,” Simien said. “He lends his support as well. Their hearts are embracing this community over the last 10 years they’ve been here. It’s meant a lot to these families.
“They are doing more than just helping win basketball games. They are helping serve a lot of people in need.”
LJW
Kansas 2012-13 Schedule
Big 12/College News
The Big 12 Conference, ABC/ESPN and Fox will announce a 13-year media rights deal Friday worth $2.6 billion, an average of $200 million per year and worth $20 million per school, industry sources told ESPN.
ESPN spokesperson Josh Krulewitz declined comment.
The Big 12's board of directors unanimously OK'ed the new deal Friday morning, approving the package that will run through the 2024-25 school year.
ABC/ESPN and Fox will share the league's football inventory, while ABC/ESPN will be the exclusive provider for Big 12 men's basketball.
The new deal includes grant of rights, meaning if a Big 12 school leaves for another league in the next 13 years, that school's media rights, including revenue, would remain with the Big 12 and not their new conference.
The "grant of rights" agreement is huge for the Big 12's future stability. Just last year, it appeared the league would implode by losing Texas and Oklahoma to the Pac-12. However, both schools stayed. The Big 12 did lose Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC, but replaced them this season with West Virginia and TCU.
The Big 12's $20 million per school average is slightly behind the Pac-12's $21 million per school media rights deal and on par with the Big Ten's per school average. The Big 12's new deal also will rank ahead of the SEC and ACC's per school averages -- at least for now. The SEC is expected to have a more lucrative deal in the coming months.
The Big 12's new deal means the Big 12 and Pac-12 are the only two conferences with telecast agreements with two over-the-air national networks in ABC and Fox.
The Big 12 joins the Big Ten and Pac-12 as the only conferences with "grant of rights" media deals.
ESPN
The NCAA and the men's basketball selection committee have discussed the possibility of moving the Final Four out of a dome and into an arena in a major metropolitan city.
The Final Four, booked through 2016, hasn't been played in an arena since 1996.
The chances of that changing remain a longshot, but it was brought up at the selection committee's summer meeting and again last week at the National Association of Basketball Coaches meeting by new NCAA executive vice president for championships Mark Lewis.
Lewis told ESPN.com on Thursday that when he was hired earlier this year, he took out a United States map and saw that both coasts are largely left off from hosting the Final Four.
"I don't know where this will lead, if anywhere, but the right thing is to sit down and have these conversations and see if we want our championship in more than eight cities or do we like playing exclusively in domes," Lewis said.
"None of the cities where we play our championship is named New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago or Miami," Lewis said. "We don't play on a campus. We play in professional football arenas."
ESPN
A hospital spokesman says Texas Tech coach Billy Gillispie has been discharged from the hospital after a six-day stay amid an investigation into alleged player mistreatment.
University Medical Center spokesman Eric Finley says Gillispie left the hospital sometime after 3 p.m. Thursday. Messages were left seeking comment from Gillispie and athletic director Kirby Hocutt.
AP
Calhoun is back at work in a limited capacity, knowing that the clock is ticking on not only his recovery, but also on a much larger issue: whether he will return to UConn for his 27th season.
Calhoun says that he has not made up his mind, but his manner suggests something different. He is more relaxed, at peace with what he has done and what he still wants to do.
"I would be very, very surprised if I didn't have something to say within the next two weeks,'' he said as he talks more about the past than the future. Calhoun said he has not decided whether or not to retire, but he sounds like he might be ready to step away. Although the competitive part of him thinks he could coach for another two years, the practical side realizes that this might be time.
"I could have walked away last year,'' said Calhoun, referring to when UConn won the national title in April 2011, the last crowning moment in a Hall of Fame coaching career that has produced 873 wins and three national championships, making him one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history. "But I walked off the stage [in Houston], there were 70,000 people and we had all those guys back. I couldn't do it. I thought we could do it again. We had the players. We had a team that won 53 games in two years. We've had 25 consecutive winning seasons. That's hard to do.''
He came back and the Huskies didn't come close to repeating, finishing with a 20-14 record and losing to Iowa State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Off the court problems only added to the misery. First, Calhoun was handed a three-game suspension by the NCAA for violating recruiting rules. Then, there was a bout with spinal stenosis, a painful arthritic condition that required surgery and forced Calhoun to miss several games in the middle of the season. Finally, the NCAA banned the Huskies from next season's NCAA tournament for poor academic performance. The Big East has added to the ban by barring the Huskies from the conference tournament in New York City, a decision that new UConn president Susan Herbst is quietly trying to fight.
SI
ESPN Tip-Off Marathon schedule
2012-13 Early Season Events List
Recruiting
Karviar Shepherd, a 6-foot-10 senior center from Prime Prep Academy in Dallas, will attend the Oct. 12 Late Night in the Phog as part of an official recruiting visit, Rivals.com reports. Shepherd, the No. 43-rated player in the Class of 2013, will visit TCU on Sept. 21, Texas A&M on Sept. 28 and Oklahoma on Oct. 19. He also has Texas on his list. Other recruits to attend Late Night: Tyler Roberson, a 6-8 senior small forward from Roselle (N.J.) Catholic, who is ranked No. 29 in the country; and Chris Jones, 5-10 sophomore point guard from Northwest Florida State College.
Young in-home: James Young, a 6-6 senior shooting guard from Rochester (Mich.) High School, will hold an in-home visit with KU’s coaches, Rivals.com reports.
Randle update: Julius Randle, a 6-9 senior forward from Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas, will visit Kentucky Sept. 15 and Florida on Oct. 5, Rivals.com reports.
LJW
Lee and Gordon both visited Cal with Bird this past weekend, but Bird still has a lot of work to do to get either to join him in Berkeley. Lee has drawn scholarship offers from the likes of Louisville, Indiana, Duke and Kansas. And Gordon has been thought to be very high on Washington for a while.
"I don't think Marcus had shown a lot of interest in Cal, but they're definitely on his radar now," Bird told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Aaron will make his own decision, but I know he was impressed."
Cal may not have long to persuade Lee to shun some of the high-profile schools recruiting him and remain close to home for college. Phillips said Lee is hoping to take his official visits in the next couple months and make a decision prior to the start of Deer Valley's high school season.
Yahoo
This weekend it's the elite basketball duo of Anthony "Cat" Barber and Marcus Lee that has everyone buzzing.
Barber, a five-star prospect, is currently the highest-rated point guard in the class of 2013 still considering Louisville, and has become one of the top priorities for the Cardinal staff. He visited Kansas last weekend, but left Lawrence without making a verbal commitment. Barber will visit Alabama on Sept. 18, and he is also still considering N.C. State.
Lee is a 6'9 big man from the 2013 class whom Rick Pitino is reportedly very high on. He's also already set official visits to Kentucky for their Midnight Madness event and Indiana the weekend after that, so making a big first impression is key.
Card Chronicle
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