Kansas Jayhawks
The Nets may only be two days into informal team workouts, but Tyshawn Taylor is already getting treated like a rookie.
“I had to drive [Jerry] Stackhouse to the track today,” Taylor said Tuesday with a laugh. “It was just me and him in the car. He sat in the back. I started laughing and we had a good laugh.
“They’re cool, man … our vets are so cool. They just want to win. They come into work every day with a mission. They’re like, we start work early because we want to win, and that’s kind of the atmosphere around the team. It’s gonna be a fun year because we’re gonna win and be competitive, so everybody’s excited about it. It’s just a lot of fun in the locker room and stuff like that, so it’s fun.”
Taylor was in midtown Manhattan at an event for “NBA Baller Beats,” a video game featuring teammate Deron Williams on the cover. It was a short break for Taylor from working out with his teammates at the team’s practice facility. After Williams said that seven players, including Taylor, had been in attendance Monday, Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace were expected to arrive Tuesday.
“So far, so good,” Taylor said of the workouts. “As a rookie man, I haven’t felt much like an NBA player because I haven’t really been doing anything with the team. After Summer League, it was kind of just on your own until yesterday. It was good to get around the vets and starting to get a routine. It feels weird having so much free time.
“It’s good to have a routine, because I’ve been living on one in college the last four years, and to have so much free time is kind of weird. So I feel good to have a routine … it feels good to be around the older guys and just start learning and playing and being a team.”
NY Post
Kansas University has pulled out of a proposal to build a new sports complex on the northwest corner of Sixth Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway, and has proposed its own larger sports complex near the northeast corner of the intersection.
KU officials also have asked the city to bring its proposed $24 million recreation center and youth fieldhouse to the site, and Lawrence Mayor Bob Schumm said Tuesday night the city is interested in doing so.
“We have stated all along that we want to continue a relationship with KU, and that is still true today,” Schumm said. “This new site has a lot more acreage involved, and we think we potentially could get more uses out of it for the city.”
The new site is more than 87 acres of ground north of the proposed Mercato retail development at the northeast corner of Sixth Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway. The Journal-World previously reported city officials were exploring a possible purchase of the property, which is just north of where George Williams Way currently dead-ends north of Sixth Street. But in a letter to city officials, KU Athletic Director Sheahon Zenger said Kansas University Endowment Association has agreed to purchase the property.
LJW
A federal judge is refusing to throw out the sentence of a former University of Kansas assistant athletics director convicted in a $2 million ticket scalping conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Monti Belot on Wednesday agreed with prosecutors that Rodney Jones had filed his petition too late.
Belot denied Jone's request without holding a hearing.
Jones is serving a 46-month federal prison sentence in Oklahoma. He was among seven people convicted in a scheme to illegally sell Jayhawk season tickets.
In his filing last month, Jones had claimed his lawyer did a poor job. He had argued his defense attorney prevented him from cooperating with an internal university investigation. Two defendants who did cooperate received probation.
KMBC
Kansas 2012-13 Schedule
Big 12/College News
Jim Calhoun is leaving Connecticut the same way he coached it to three national titles - on his terms.
The 70-year-old Hall of Famer scheduled a news conference for 2 p.m. Thursday to announce his retirement, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because Calhoun's move had not yet been made public. WVIT-TV in Hartford first reported the expected announcement.
Assistant coach Kevin Ollie, who played for Calhoun and was his hand-picked successor, will be introduced as the Huskies' new coach. The person familiar with the deal said Ollie will receive a one-year contract.
…Ollie has never been a head coach at any level. He played at UConn and spent 13 seasons in the NBA before being hired as an assistant in 2010.
Calhoun, the state's highest paid employee, signed a five-year, $13 million contract in 2010.
Under that deal, once he retires he is due either a $1 million cash payment or another 5-year job in the athletic department with a $300,000 a year salary.
AP
The worst part of Jim Calhoun’s story is that there was a time when he actually stood for something.
Of course, this was before he cashed it all in to turn the University of Connecticut into a quick-and-dirty basketball factory – ethics, morals and good academic practices be damned. In the end he got his rings. He got his banners. He got the Hall of Fame. But somewhere along the way he lost a piece of what made him unique in a world that swirled with ugly.
Yahoo
The latest scandal confronting North Carolina's flagship public university has led a second fundraiser, the mother of a former basketball star, to resign over travel spending.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said Wednesday that Tami Hansbrough had resigned. The school suspended Hansbrough with pay this week as it looked into possibly improper travel spending using donated money.
AP
The attorney for the New York jeweler suing former Duke basketball player Lance Thomas says his client isn't interested in speaking to the NCAA.
Mike Bowers says an NCAA official contacted him Monday to see whether someone from Rafaello & Co. would agree to be interviewed. The firm has filed a lawsuit claiming Thomas purchased nearly $100,000 in jewelry while playing for Duke's 2010 national championship team and still owes $67,800.
The Dallas attorney says he told the official that the company is declining to cooperate because of the pending litigation.
AP
"Some other coaches out there were really wondering, 'What does the future hold?'" Brey said in a phone interview on Wednesday night. "I never worried that much about it. I felt like we were going to land in a solid place."
Brey is giddy at the ACC opportunity, calling it a "great fit." Its also a familiar one, like a favorite game-day mock turtle neck, considering the Irish will be renewing acquaintances with old Big East sparring partners Syracuse, Boston College, Miami, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh.
Brey's also happy Notre Dame avoided landing in the Big 12, which is no slight to the caliber of hoops played there. Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick masterfully played the Big 12's courtship as leverage and conceded very little -- Notre Dame was playing four ACC football games in 2015 anyway -- to find the right geographic and philosophical fit for basketball and Notre Dame's other sports.
Brey saw the Big 12 as an odd fit for recruiting, as the Irish have rarely pointed southwest for players over the years.
Brey is an East Coast guy to the core, as he's a graduate of DeMatha High School in the Washington, D.C., area, played part of his college career at George Washington and began as a head coach at Delaware. He's also an ACC guy at heart, considering that he grew up near Cole Field House and learned the trade under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke after serving as an assistant to Morgan Wootten at DeMatha.
The same way it's difficult to imagine Notre Dame aligned with Memphis, Houston and Central Florida, it was difficult to believe that the Irish would be playing hoops in Ames, Lubbock and Stillwater.
SI Thamel
Notre Dame reportedly had also been in negotiations with the Big 12, so it's a blow to the league that the Irish ultimately chose the ACC. Worse yet, the news that the ACC upped its exit fee for members to $50 million may put any Big 12 expansion hopes on hold for the foreseeable future. Florida State and Clemson reportedly were expansion possibilities for the Big 12, but would either of them pay that kind of penalty to leave the ACC? Probably not, especially when their ACC TV deals should get even sweeter with the partial addition of the Irish. That makes Louisville maybe the best potential option for the Big 12 if it were to decide to add members in the near future.
Yahoo
Rather than establish its own 24/7 television presence — a la the controversial Longhorn Network — the University of Oklahoma will show its athletic programming through already existing outlets.
OU and FOX Sports announced Wednesday the creation of “Sooner Sports TV,” blocks of OU sports programming totalling at least 1,000 hours annually across various FOX Sports outlets, including Fox Sports Oklahoma/Fox Sports Southwest, Fox College Sports and Fox Sports Plus.
The 10-year deal means the programming — coaches' shows, game replays, press conferences and more — is immediately available to 9 million homes in the Oklahoma-Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana region. Select programming from Sooner Sports TV will be made available nationally, on Fox College Sports through cable providers or via satellite on outer market regional sports packages.
The initiative launched Sept. 1, before OU's first football game of the 2012 season at UTEP. The partnership will also include an online, “all-access” component featuring more, untelevised content, such as live streaming and archived games.
“We examined the amount of programming that we would have available to us, so getting at least 1,000 hours of programming in a multi-platform network was really exciting for us,” said OU athletic director Joe Castiglione.
“This is at least 10 times the amount of programming OU has been able to offer previously to our fans.”
Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
The Oklahoman
Butler coach Brad Stevens says junior guard Chrishawn Hopkins has been kicked off the team for violating team rules.
Stevens issued a statement Wednesday saying he was "sorry" to take the action but explained playing for the Bulldogs comes with a responsibility of meeting the team's rules. The dismissal, Stevens says, is a "consequence" of failing to meet those standards.
Stevens didn't say what rule Hopkins broke.
Hopkins, an Indy native, was one of four returning starters from last year's team. He finished third in scoring with 9.1 points and third in assists (56) in 2011-12 after playing a key role in the Bulldogs' run to the 2011 NCAA championship game.
AP
ESPN Tip-Off Marathon schedule
2012-13 Early Season Events List
Recruiting
9/12/12 4:09 PM
Anyway! In home visit with Kansas tomorrow...excited to see my coaches.
https://twitter.com/b_greene14
Hampton guard Anthony Barber plans to wrap up his recruiting visits the weekend of Sept. 22nd and make a commitment by the end of October, according to Crabbers assistant coach Walter Brower Jr.
Barber, the Group AAA Player of the Year as a junior, has already taken an official visit to Kansas and is headed to N.C. State this weekend. His final visit will be to Alabama the following weekend.
Barber also has visited Louisville, but recruiting analyst Dave Telep tweeted Tuesday that the Cardinals are no longer interested in him. Brower said he doesn’t know where Barber stands with Louisville.
“They’re still in consideration with him,” Brower said, “but I don’t know if that’s reciprocated.”
Barber had an excellent summer with Boo Williams’ AAU team but sustained a hairline fracture in his right (shooting) wrist last month. Brower said Barber’s wrist is fine and that he worked out with the team Tuesday night.
Daily Press
Just leaving @J30_RANDLE and his mom. KU had an impact. Bill Self's straight shooting approach resonated.
https://twitter.com/JayJayUSATODAY/status/246083239620513792
9/12/12 4:57 PM
Orlando Antigua of UK, Joe Dooley of KU, G'town and WVU expected tomorrow for 2013 F Tyler Roberson of Roselle (NJ) Catholic
https://twitter.com/AdamZagoria
9/11/12 5:26 PM
2014 PF Leron Black was visited by Kansas Bill Self today in Memphis. #Future150
https://twitter.com/Future150
Florida coach Billy Donovan met with Chicago Simeon's Jabari Parker on Tuesday, and DePaul's Oliver Purnell was scheduled to meet Wednesday with the nation's top-ranked senior.
Kansas also will be one of the first schools to meet with Parker and his family.
The 6-foot-8 Parker released a list of 10 schools he was considering in July. His list featured BYU, DePaul, Duke, Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina and Stanford.
Florida did not make the original list, but Donovan continued to recruit Parker and was able to secure the in-home visit.
"I hope other people take notice of that," Simeon coach Robert Smith said Wednesday. "(Other schools) may have opportunities. You kill your opportunities if you don't try. Florida was there. I don't think (the Parker family) is going to waste anyone's time now. Anyone who gets in with the home visit, they have a real big chance of getting an opportunity to be looked at."
Illinois also did not make Parker's initial list, but Smith said Illini coach John Groce has continued to recruit Parker. Smith was unsure whether Groce would be given an in-home visit.
Purnell will make his pitch to Parker and his family Wednesday. Smith thought what DePaul had especially going for it was its location.
"You never know," Smith said. "He loves the state of Illinois."
Kansas coach Bill Self will make his visit Friday. Self has had success in the Chicago area in the past decade by recruiting Dee Brown to Illinois and Julian Wright and Sherron Collins to Kansas.
ESPN
Aaron Gordon on Kentucky, "I never really thought I wanted to go out to Kentucky. I like the idea a lot more now."
https://twitter.com/UKBIGBLUENATION/status/246054234099949568
My 2012 KU Alumni games, 2011-12 Border War, Legends of the Phog, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos and more now on YouTube
RSS Feed