SUNDAY SALUTE TO THE GRADUATES!

Kansas Jayhawks

LJW image

Former Kansas University basketball guard Billy Thomas is one of 63 KU athletes who will take part in graduation ceremonies on Sunday in Memorial Stadium.

Thomas, who played at KU from 1995-98, will receive his degree in African and African American studies. Also, former KU center Cole Aldrich of the Sacramento Kings will graduate. Thomas, who had a long professional basketball career, has coached boys basketball at Barstow School in Kansas City, Mo., the past two years.

Draft picks Whitney Berry (soccer, FC Kansas City), Maggie Hull (softball, Chicago Bandits) and Angel Goodrich (women’s basketball, Tulsa Shock) will also be on hand. Joining Goodrich from the KU women’s basketball team will be fellow 1,000-point scorers Carolyn Davis and Monica Engelman.

Kansas men’s golfer Chris Gilbert, who is currently participating in an NCAA regional, will also receive his diploma on Sunday, while KU’s No. 1 starting pitcher Thomas Taylor will also earn his degree as the Jayhawks play a three-game nonconference series at Utah.

Second-team All-Big 12 honoree Bradley McDougald from the KU football team will also participate in the ceremony, along with four-time Big 12 Conference long jump champion Francine Simpson.

A complete list of graduating KU student-athletes:

Baseball - Jordan Dreiling, Thomas Taylor

Men’s Basketball - Cole Aldrich, Elijah Johnson, Travis Releford, Jeff Withey, Kevin Young

Women’s Basketball - Carolyn Davis, Angel Goodrich, Monica Engelman

Football - Tunde Bakare, DJ Beshears, Justin Carnes, Randall Dent, Gavin Howard, Prinz Kande, Dexter Linton, Christian Matthews, Bradley McDougald, Chris Omigie, Toben Opurum, Tyler Patmon, Nick Sizemore, Huldon Tharp, Kevin Young

Men’s Golf - Chris Gilbert, Alex Gutesha, Paul Harris

Rowing - Danielle Adam, Molly Boehner, Olivia Catloth, Katy MacCormack, Amber Malone, Paige Stephens

Softball - Morgan Druhan, Maggie Hull, Rosie Hull

Soccer - Whitney Berry, Nicole Chrisopulos, Amy Grow, Kat Liebetrau, Sarah Robbins

Swimming & Diving - Brooke Brull, Svetlana Golovhun, Danielle Herrmann, Iulia Kuzhil, Alyssa Potter, Brittany Potter, Cora Powers, Erin Savas, Madison Wagner

Tennis - Vika Khanevskaya

Men’s Track & Field - Isaac Bradshaw, Kevin Hays, Kaman Schneider

Women’s Track & Field - Tessa Cole-Turcotte, Sara Hedberg, Kathryn Lupton, Rebecca Neville, Francine Simpson, Kathleen Thompson

Volleyball - Morgan Boub
LJW

https://twitter.com/KUrob45/status/327581149918547968/photo/1

5/16/13, 11:28 AM
Kelly Olynyk on Andrew Wiggins to Kansas to @ESPNAndyKatz "He's amazing...Canadian basketball is on the rise."
@AdamZagoria


Just 15 minutes after Andrew Wiggins completed his Tuesday ceremony and interviews following his announcement that he would attend the University of Kansas, he sat and stared at his phone in the office of Huntington Prep basketball head coach Rob Fulford.

He was silent at first with his eyes glued to the screen. Then, as he scrolled some more he kept reading and even muttered some things aloud.

"Wow, this is bad," Wiggins said while still scrolling through his phone.

These weren't congratulatory texts he was receiving.

They were Tweets -- or messages sent through the social media site Twitter, for those who aren't aware of the latest craze in interactivity.

And, these messages directly attacked Wiggins, wished him personal harm including death and also called him a plethora of racial and socially unacceptable terms.

Unfortunately, it is a growing trend in recent months and years involving athletes.
Herald-Dispatch: Scary effects of social media


When Wiggins shocked a lot of people by signing with Kansas instead, many reacted as if he had just passed up an opportunity to win a national title. How could he be so selfish as to pick a school where, God forbid, he would be the clear-cut star instead of sharing the spotlight with arguably the finest freshman class ever assembled?

The college basketball-watching populous — particularly those in Lexington, Chapel Hill and Tallahassee — has to wake up to the fact that Wiggins isn’t exactly joining a batch of scrubs in Lawrence. In fact, even before Wiggins signed with the Jayhawks, they already had the second-best haul in the land.

While Kentucky’s recruits were grabbing all the headlines, Bill Self and his staff had to “settle” for four recruits ranked 34th or higher nationally in the Rivals150. Even if Wiggins had gone elsewhere, that’s worth popping champagne for. And yet … how often have you heard pundits and fans salivating over them, particularly in comparison to the new Wildcats?

Here’s all you need to know about Kansas’ “other guys.” If they join forces with Wiggins to lead the Jayhawks to great heights, don’t act so surprised.
Lost Lettermen: Kansas has Fab Five Potential

Kansas University basketball players/fantasy-camp assistant coaches Andrew White III and Landen Lucas have been more than willing to offer their input in one-on-one conversations with members of “Team Vaughn” during this weekend’s Bill Self Basketball Experience.

They’ve been pretty silent during huddles, however, letting former Wake Forest, Loyola and Army head coach Dino Gaudio orchestrate the offense and defense.

“It’s fun because he is coaching it seriously. He is drawing up plays in the huddle. He’s getting on guys, benching guys, so it’s for real,” said White III, KU’s freshman forward from Richmond, Va.
White said Self’s fantasy camp, “is fun just because they (players 35 and older) are so competitive.
Everybody is taking it seriously. I’ve gotten to know all the guys by name. We know who does what well. We’re undefeated, 3-0 right now, just trying to win the championship.”

This is the first year White and Lucas have worked the camp. Gaudio, an ESPN color announcer, also was here a year ago.

“They are in the huddles,” Gaudio said of White and Lucas, a 6-foot-10 freshman from Portland, Ore. “I think what’s good is when they hear me telling our guys what we need to do, I’m certain it’s the same thing coach (Bill) Self is telling them in those huddles and environment.

“Hearing it from someone else (can be a positive),” he added. “Like when I was coaching, I’d love to bring other people in so they (players) were not listening to the same voice all the time, namely me. When they hear things from other people who have been successful, I think that’s good as well.”
LJW


Will be in Lawrence June 2nd
Needed my number #34 but Perry got it so i decided to take #21
@jojo_embiid


I need to get stronger Is coach @A_Hudy ready for me? Or the real question is Am i ready for her? She might kill me. I might cry too
@jojo_embiid


#smartwork @jojo_embiid let's get this rockin!!! Can't wait
@A_Hudy

H/T jhawk0505

Victor Oladipo said he measured at 6-4 1/4 with shoes. Ben McLemore told me he was 6-3 without shoes
@GoodmanCBS


He spent the last several months lobbying through actions, with his play as a Kansas shooting guard, and then Ben McLemore finally said it.

He is the best player in the draft.

“Deep down I think I am,” he told NBA.com as the pre-Draft combine got underway with physical testing in advance of most players, but not McLemore and other top prospects, taking the court Thursday and Friday. “I have that mindset that I am. Just going out there and showing my abilities.

“People know what I did in college and know what I can do throughout my career. A lot of people know I really haven’t reached that point in my basketball life, so I know deep down inside that I have it in me. I’ve just got to keep working.”

The pre-Draft combine will be televised on ESPNU (10 a.m.-2 p.m. ET) and ESPN2 (2-3 p.m. ET) on Thursday and again on Friday at the same times and on the same channels.

Whether McLemore is actually first off the board on June 27 will depend partly, if not largely, on the results of the lottery – the winner will likely go for Nerlens Noel of Kentucky if it needs a big man and for McLemore if it needs a shooting guard. Neither has distinguished themselves enough to be the dominant figure of the Class of 2013.

Some teams might take Noel regardless of position because of the value of a defensive-presence at power forward or center, but others could be scared away by the risk of using the No. 1 choice on a player coming off knee surgery. On health reasons, McLemore is a safer bet and has a lot of upside as well.

“I think it’d be important to me, especially being the No. 1 draft pick and that a shooting guard [hasn't] been a No. 1 draft pick for a while, for years,” McLemore said. “It’d be very important to me to make history to me. It would be great to be No. 1, being able to help my family out.”
nba.com (Video at the link)

"Generation after generation rock chalk !!" via @Trobinson0 #kubball @KUAthletics

Feels great to be back in Kansas. Missed this place.
@colea45


Lawrence this summer can't wait
@joshselby32


When KD had 25 in12min n AFH..Coach Self called a TO & ask staff wht we should do Coach Manning said "I dont know but thats a bad boy". lol
@brettballard3


KUAD Throwback Thursday: Terry Nooner

@hrhawkins1 and I with Cindy and Coach Self at the Rock Chalk Ball! #BothCouplesClean

It looks like late basketball great Wilt Chamberlain could have his photo on a United States postage stamp according to an article in the latest edition of Linn’s Stamp News, the world’s largest weekly stamp newspaper which covers the postal service, stamp collection and stamp information.

Chamberlain, a former Overbrook High and NBA legend, could join a number of well known public figures the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee is scheduling for 2014 according to the story.

The list tentatively includes Chamberlain along with R&B singer James Brown, jazz singer Sarah Vaughn, the Beatles, actress Elizabeth Taylor, Apple’s Steve Jobs and others. These were some of the proposed selections from the CSAC meeting according to the committee’s minutes from the Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 meetings that were obtained by Linn’s Stamp News from an anonymous source.

Chamberlain is tentatively slated to receive a stamp in his honor in February 2014, which happens to be Black History Month, along with Ralph Ellison, author of “The Invisible Man,” and The Beatles according to the story. Of course, the official announcement has to come from the U.S. Postal Service.

“The subjects are not final until they’re announced by the postal service,” said Roy Betts, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service.

The official announcment will come later this year.
Philly Trib

The University of Kansas Historic District is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service has announced.
 
The district comprises the heart of the Lawrence Campus and was added to the Register of Historic Kansas Places in February.
 
The only campus historic district in Kansas, it covers the period of 1863-1951. The district includes buildings such as Watson Library, landmarks such as the World War II Memorial Campanile and landscapes such as The Hill, which graduates walk down during Commencement.
 
“This national designation reflects the historic importance of Mount Oread as a center for teaching and scholarship. It will also help preserve the campus for future generations of Jayhawks who will call KU home,” said Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little.
Link

Big 12/College News

The inaugural Big 12/SEC Challenge is a combination of existing games already scheduled along with new matchups created for this event during November and December. The two conferences and ESPN will attempt to schedule matchups over consecutive days in future events.

“The ability to showcase SEC basketball in this kind of conference competition makes this a unique and exciting event for our coaches, student-athletes and fans,” SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said. “We are pleased to be able to work with the Big 12 and ESPN to highlight the sport of men’s basketball.”

Here is the schedule of this year's games, with times and networks to be announced later:



Thursday, Nov. 14    

Texas Tech at Alabama



Monday, Dec. 2        

Vanderbilt at Texas

Auburn at Iowa State



Thursday, Dec. 5    

Ole Miss at Kansas State

West Virginia at Missouri

TCU at Mississippi State



Friday, Dec. 6            

South Carolina at Oklahoma State

Kentucky vs. Baylor (Arlington, Texas)



Tuesday, Dec. 10     

Kansas at Florida



Saturday, Dec. 21     

Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma (Houston, Texas)
Link


Note from MBB coaches meeting today - #Big12 had more of its regular officials work NCAA regionals, Final Four than any conference
@Big12Conference


Kansas State has played a nonconference basketball game at the Sprint Center in each of the past six years, but that streak is unlikely to continue.

On Wednesday, Bruce Weber said the Wildcats are close to finalizing their 2013-14 schedule. And their first trip to Kansas City won’t come until the Big 12 Tournament.

“Part of the problem with Kansas City is, if you are going to go there you want a good game,” Weber said by phone. “What happens the year after? You have to go on the road and play a quality opponent. Next year (2014-15) we have the Maui Invitational and the Big12/SEC challenge on the road. We already have some road games and a tough tournament.

“That was part of our dilemma. We looked for maybe the possibility of some teams playing us in Kansas City without a return, but we just couldn’t find a good enough opponent. I don’t think that is going to happen.”
KC Star


For the second time this week, a Baylor Bears player has decided to transfer.

A source told ESPN.com that point guard L.J. Rose asked for and was granted his release during a meeting with head coach Scott Drew on Tuesday afternoon.

Rose's decision comes 24 hours after sophomore guard Deuce Bello informed Drew of his decision to leave the team.
ESPN


Texas guard Julien Lewis has been granted his release and will become the third player to leave the Longhorns since they finished a disappointing season 16-18 and missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in 15 years.

The school announced the departure Tuesday.

Guard Sheldon McClellan, who led Texas in scoring most of the season but clashed with coach Rick Barnes, left the team earlier this year. Myck Kabongo, who was voted the team's most valuable player despite sitting out a 23-game NCAA suspension, left school to enter the NBA draft.

Lewis started 21 games and averaged 11.2 points. Texas is now without its top three scorers from last season.
AP


Fred Hoiberg gets new contract


Texas Tech men’s head basketball coach Tubby Smith spoke about his new job and how he wants to build the men’s basketball program Wednesday before he met with about 500 Texas Tech boosters at the Tri-State Expo.

Smith, who won the 1998 NCAA national championship with Kentucky, was fired from his head coaching job at Minnesota at the end of the 2012-13 season. He succeeds interim coach Chris Walker. Walker replaced Billy Gillispie, who quit in September.
Link


It was nearly 40 minutes of classic Calipari. There were challenges to his players and fans. There were swipes at Louisville and Indiana without either school ever being mentioned by name. And there was the tone set for the next edition of Kentucky basketball, which is as bold as any he’s set forth before.

Kentucky coach John Calipari sat down with the media Wednesday now that all matters could be discussed, given that the final recruit the Wildcats were pursuing, forward Andrew Wiggins, on Tuesday chose to play college basketball at Kansas.

“We’re chasing perfection. We’re chasing greatness. We’re chasing things that have never been done before in the history of this game,” Calipari said. “It’s never been done … in the modern era.”

…“You have to have more than eight scholarship players,” Calipari said. “I was trying to protect players in the program. What you learn is you can’t protect players. They don’t have to play 30 minutes to reach their dreams. If I had to do it over again, we would have had a couple more players.

“I don’t have any regrets where I gave guys more than one chance to make it and it hurt our team. It’s about each individual player. I can tell you, guys got the full season to prove themselves. If I’m going to err, it’s going to be on the side of the player. If it were your son, what would you want me to do?”

Calipari was asked how he’d handle the overwhelming expectations that will be accorded the Kentucky team, including the suggestion the Wildcats should just be handed that title. That’s a hard notion to quantify; they are only a 4-1 favorite to win the title, according to Linemakers, which hardly is prohibitive.

“I don’t buy into any of that. If anybody thinks this is easy, we’ve got a lot of coaches that have taken the elite prospects, and it hasn’t worked out,” Calipari said.
TSN


The Trojans made one big splash this offseason, signing Andy Enfield fresh off a trip to the Sweet 16 with the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles. Now, the men’s basketball squad has secured a bid to participate in the “Battle for Atlantis” non-conference tournament, which awards schools $2 million for their participation in the event.

The tournament will take place from November 27th-December 1st on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The field will feature Kansas, who is coming off huge news after signing the nation’s top recruit Andrew Wiggins. Tennessee, Villanova, Xavier, Iowa, Wake Forest are among the other participants in this years bracket.

The most intriguing matchup however, would square the Enfield’s-led Trojans against a former coach of USC, and head man who expressed interest in running the program this spring, in Tim Floyd and his UTEP Minors.
Link


CBS Sports and Turner Sports have announced the programming schedule for their exclusive joint television coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship in 2014 and 2015. In each of the two years, TBS will televise the NCAA Final Four national semifinals and CBS will broadcast the NCAA National Championship game.

Additionally, beginning in 2014 through 2024, coverage of the Regional Semifinals and Regional Finals games will be split by TBS and CBS.  Earlier round coverage of the tournament will continue to be televised across four national television networks — CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV with the First Four airing exclusively on truTV.

In 2010, Turner Sports and CBS Sports entered into a 14-year exclusive media rights partnership with the NCAA to present the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship from 2011-2024. As part of that agreement, CBS Sports and Turner Sports will alternate coverage of the Final Four national semi-final games and National Championship game between TBS and CBS. The rotation begins on TBS with the network televising the Final Four and National Championship in 2016 with CBS broadcasting the games in 2017.
NCAA


So when the NCAA rules committee met in Indianapolis last week, they had the chance to make a real difference. And there was buzz. In an ESPN story preceding the gathering of the brain trust, it was reported that the committee would "vote on moving the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds." Not a cure-all, of course, but a great start. The article polled 37 coaches, and the majority were in favor of shortening the shot clock, including — are you sitting down? — WISCONSIN'S BO RYAN. That just about staggered me.

So what happened in Indianapolis? Well, let's allow yesterday's headline to speak for itself:

Panel votes for late-game replays

Wait, what?

What?

Surely you are playing a grand jest on us, Andy Katz, you inveterate, unrepentant prankster!

Because college basketball is in crisis, and the rules committee can change the rules only once every two years, so surely the main thing they accomplished this week wouldn't have been something that actually fucking prolonged the game, right? RIGHT?!

But no. That's what they did. Their big change was that refs can now go to the monitor in the final two minutes to review out-of-bounds calls or shot-clock violations. And instead of waiting for a TV timeout, they'll now be stopping the game in its tracks in the final four minutes if someone makes a shot and they can't tell if it was a 2 or a 3.

To get metaphorical for a second, imagine college basketball were a man in tattered clothing, crawling in the desert and dying of thirst. The rules committee recognized his suffering, dropped in from a helicopter, and offered him a cupful of salt.

But what about the shot clock? Wasn't there supposed to be a vote? Surely there was a reason why it never even made the committee's agenda. Let's see what they had to say about that:

Rules committee chair John Dunne, the head coach at St. Peter's in New Jersey, said Thursday after concluding the three-day meeting in Indianapolis that surveys of coaches in Division I, II and III failed to bring a consensus on whether to change the shot clock.

"There wasn't a vote taken since it was a 50-50 split, so we felt it wasn't the right time to go in that direction," Dunne said.

Right, right, that makes sense. It's a divisive issue, and at least half of all surveyed coaches (and way more in the initial ESPN survey) were in favor of changing the clock, so the logical thing to do is not have a vote. I get it.

OH WAIT, NO I DON'T. I DON'T GET IT AT ALL.
Grantland


If Josiah Turner thought the low point of his basketball career was being asked to leave Arizona last spring amid drug and alcohol problems, the highly touted point guard quickly learned things could get tougher.

The Hungarian pro team he originally signed with last fall housed him in a filthy, bedbug-infested apartment so dilapidated his agent removed him from the team after only one month. The Canadian pro team he joined after leaving Hungary informed him in January his services were no longer required after he repeatedly clashed with the head coach. And even after a successful second-half of the season with another Canadian team, Turner still had to return to Arizona and serve two days in prison as a result of a DUI charge from the previous year.

"Everything I've been through has served a purpose because it has humbled me and forced me to mature," Turner recently told Yahoo! Sports. "I'm more focused and disciplined now. I'll never go down a bad path again."

"He has an uphill battle for sure," an NBA scout familiar with Turner said. "Lot of baggage with him and not sure the talent level trumps it either. Maybe a second-round pick for someone but he will need to prove he has been humbled."
Yahoo Sports


2013-14 Early-season events schedule

Recruiting

Brewster Academy (NH) 2014 SG Jared Terrell scored two major offers from Kansas and Florida;

Kimball Union Academy (NH) 2014 PF Abdul-Malik Abu has added offers from Kansas, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Minnesota, Marquette, Florida State, and Texas;
New England Recruiting Report


I had a really good talk with Coach (John) Calipari about a week ago. Kentucky has been hitting me up a lot lately. The talk with Coach Cal was cool. He was telling me about how he felt about last season and how that went. Then he was telling me about how he gets disrespected by a lot of the other coaches in recruiting, which is actually true because I've heard a few things myself.
He really explained a lot to me and I learned a lot.

I talked to Coach (Bill) Self two nights ago and I talked to Coach (Tom) Izzo the other night too. I love talking to those guys. It's always a cool conversation.

Coach (Mike) K (Krzyzewski) text me on Sunday on Mother's Day and that meant a lot to me because he was checking on me because he knows that my mother passed. I thought that was really cool of him.

All of the coaches at Duke hit me up; Coach (Jeff) Capel and Coach (Steve) Wojo. Ohio State coaches (Thad) Matta and (Jeff Boals) checked on me too. That definitely meant a lot to me to have them take time out of their busy days and check on me.

Of course I heard the news about Andrew Wiggins signing with Kansas and I really liked that move for him. He wouldn't be there if I was to go there but that still makes them really attractive.

A lot of people say that Kansas doesn't want a freshman to just come in for a year and have a huge impact then leave. I've never believed that, but I know Andrew will prove that it's not true so that's why it's big.

I'll definitely be watching close to see how they handle a player of his talent level. I know Coach Self will do a good job with it.

I thought Andrew handled his whole recruitment really well. He took his time and made the right decision for him. I do think I'll end up committing much sooner than he did though.

I've got a pretty full summer ahead of me.

In June I'm headed to Team USA Camp in Colorado. That means I'll miss most of the skills camps in June, but I can't wait to play in Czech Republic. Me and Tyus will team up there so, like I said, that will be a better experience.
Other than that school is going pretty well. We get out June 24, but I'm gonna take my finals a little earlier because of the Team USA obligations. I talked to my teachers and they're all OK with it so that's good.
USA Today Jahlil Okafor blog


Recruiting Calendar


2013 Spring/Summer AAU & Camp Schedule


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