Kansas seniors Carolyn Davis and Angel Goodrich were two of the 25 NCAA Division I women's basketball student-athletes to be named to the 2012-13 State Farm® Wade Trophy Watch List, as announced Tuesday by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA).
Kansas is one of only six schools to have multiple candidates on the watch list, including Baylor, Duke, Nebraska, Penn State and Connecticut, which has three contenders. This marks the second-straight season that Davis has been recognized on the preseason watch list for the Wade Trophy.
"First and foremost, I'm so proud of Carolyn and Angel and how they have been able to elevate themselves as two of the elite players in the nation," Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "In addition, this is a statement on the type of program we have in helping student-athletes achieve their goals and developing our players."
Davis led the Jayhawks in scoring last season with 16.9 points per game, while becoming the 23rd Jayhawk to score 1,000 career points. She was named 2012 WBCA All-America Honorable Mention and earned All-Big 12 First Team honors, despite only playing in 23 games after suffering a season-ending knee injury at Kansas State.
Goodrich led the nation last season in assists per game (7.4) and paced KU with 14.0 points per game as she guided the Jayhawks to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, their best postseason run since 1998. Goodrich was named All-America Honorable Mention by both the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and Associated Press. She also broke a Kansas and Big 12 Conference record, tallying 250 assists on the season.
KUAD
The 2012-13 Kansas women's basketball team will have three league home games featured on the Big 12 Conference's telecast schedule on FOX Sports Net (FSN) this season, as released by the conference office Tuesday.
"It's great to have this kind of national exposure and to have these nationally televised games played in Allen Fieldhouse," Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "This platform allows us to showcase our program, our facilities and our fans, while allowing Jayhawk fans around the world to follow our program."
The three televised home games by FSN include Baylor (Jan. 13), West Virginia (Feb. 9) and Texas Tech (Feb. 24). The Baylor game is scheduled to tip at 1:30 p.m. CT, while West Virginia and Texas Tech will have 2 p.m. CT and 12 p.m. CT start times, respectively.
KUAD
Kansas University’s Terry Mohajir, a senior associate athletic director for external relations, has emerged as a finalist for the vacant athletic director job at Arkansas State and may be the favorite.
Officials at Arkansas State confirmed to the Journal-World late Tuesday that a news conference to introduce the school’s new AD had been scheduled for 10:30 this morning, and sources close to the Arkansas State program said Mohajir fit the profile of what the school was looking for in its next leader of the athletic department.
Mohajir graduated from Arkansas State with a major in sports management and a minor in marketing in 1993 and was a starter on ASU’s football team.
LJW
Kansas 2012-13 Schedule
Big 12/College News
While presenting a unified front publicly and in the courts that athletes are being treated fairly, NCAA leaders privately agonized over the growing use of athlete images in commercial products, with one senior executive proposing to drop the term "student-athlete" after a half century of official use.
The philosophical divide emerges in depositions and frank emails unsealed this week in a class-action lawsuit by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon and other players who challenge the NCAA's licensing of their images to video games manufacturers and other third parties.
In one internal email sent after the lawsuit was filed in 2009, University of Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman wrote to then-Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe that he disagrees with the NCAA's legal defense that it can sell publicity rights without any compensation to the players.
"This whole area of name and likeness and the NCAA is a disaster leading to catastrophe as far as I can tell," wrote Perlman, a former member of the NCAA Board of Directors and law professor specializing in intellectual property. "I'm still trying to figure out by what authority the NCAA licenses these rights to the game makers and others. I looked at what our student athletes sign by way of waiver and it doesn't come close."
Objecting strongly to Perlman was Chris Plonsky, a longtime University of Texas administrator who oversees women's sports for the Longhorns. She wrote that athletes "voluntarily" sign the standard release waiver that is required for participation in NCAA sports.
"We're like a version of the Army," Plonsky wrote. "We have certain things we have to do a certain way to raise funds and pay for the scholarships and other things s-a's (student-athletes) and their parents expect."
…An NCAA spokesman did not respond to an ESPN request for comment on the legal disclosures, and how they might affect the viability of the NCAA defending itself in the case. The O'Bannon case is scheduled to go to trial in early 2014, pending a judge's ruling on class certification.
…In his interview with ESPN, Hausfeld characterized the documents released by his legal team as insightful into the NCAA's business model, as a trade organization for member colleges.
"For the first time, we are getting behind the veil of the so-called principle of amateurism," he said. "The principle is being tested by what was known by the NCAA and what they did to address its challenges."
ESPN
Billionaire Philip Anschutz said he planned to sell his Anschutz Entertainment Group, manager and operator of the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
Anschutz Co., AEG’s Denver-based parent, hired Blackstone Advisory Partners to assist with the sale, according to an emailed statement Tuesday.
It wasn’t clear how far along the company was in the sale process or whether it had entertained any offers. But the price for AEG could be well into the billions.
AEG has a major presence in Kansas City, having provided the key private financing for the Sprint Center. In return for its $53.2 million investment, the entertainment giant received a 35-year contract to manage and operate the facility which opened in October 2007.
Los Angeles-based AEG is second to Live Nation Entertainment Inc. in the concert business, with venues ranging from London’s O2 stadium to the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, home of the Lakers NBA team and the Kings NHL franchise.
Given AEG’s size and global reach, there are few potential buyers, said David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
“The number of suitors would be small,” Carter said. “It’s hard to tell who could step up to this size of a deal.”
Led by Chief Executive Officer Tim Leiweke, AEG developed L.A. Live, a hotel and entertainment complex adjacent to Staples Center. It owns and operates 100 venues on five continents, as well as holding interests in the Lakers, the Kings and the L.A. Galaxy professional soccer team.
The company’s proposal to build a $1.2 billion NFL stadium next to Staples Center received city planning approval last week.
Bloomberg
ESPN Tip-Off Marathon schedule
2012-13 Early Season Events List
Recruiting
Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self, who on Tuesday held an in-home recruiting visit with the mother of four-star shooting guard prospect Wayne Selden in New Hampshire, today visits five-star James Young in Rochester Heights, Mich.
Selden, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound senior from Tilton (N.H.) School, who is ranked No. 23 nationally by Rivals.com, has a list of KU, Florida, Missouri, Ohio State, Syracuse and UCLA. He told Jayhawkslant.com he’d like to make a recruiting visit to KU.
“I’ve just become very fond of the Kansas program over the years,” Selden said. “The staff sees me as a guy that can come in and play the one (point guard), the two (shooting guard) or the three (small forward)."
LJW
During a visit to Roselle (N.J.) Catholic High School Tuesday night, Kentucky head coach John Calipari and assistant Orlando Antigua offered 2013 forward Tyler Roberson a scholarship.
“They did offer,” RC coach Dave Boff told SNY.tv. “They extended an offer to come down and take an official. Tyler will make that decision in the coming days as to whether or not he’s coming down there.”
The 6-foot-8 Roberson currently has officials set up to SMU, Syracuse and Kansas, but has yet to decide on the other two.
Florida coach Billy Donovan comes in Friday to watch him, and then Roberson will likely decide on his final two visits.
…Kentucky is involved with several other forwards, including Marcus Lee, Jabari Parker and Julius Randle, among others.
“They explained that they recurit a handful of guys in each class,” Boff said. “The reason why it takes longer for them to offer kids is they only recruit a handful of kids each year.
“It’s a longer process for Kentucky because of the way their team is made up, because they have to make sure they get the right kids.”
Zag's Blog
Forty-six of the nation’s best young high school players have accepted invitations to attend the 2012 USA Basketball Men’s Developmental National Team mini-camp on Oct. 6-7 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The USA Basketball newcomers will be directed by lead clinician Don Showalter (Iowa City H.S., Iowa), who has captured four straight gold medals as head coach of the USA Developmental National Team from 2009-2012. Invitations were extended by the USA Basketball Men's Developmental National Team Committee.
The mini-camp, which will be utilized to help USA Basketball train and evaluate members of the classes of 2015 and 2016 in preparation for upcoming Developmental National Team events, will include four training sessions – at 9 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (times listed are MDT) on Oct. 6 and 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 7.
USA Basketball
Sam Davis, the father of Xavier recruit Myles Davis, has hired an attorney to battle the NCAA after his son was declared ineligible for the upcoming season.
Sam Davis told SNY.tv he has retained Stuart Brown of Ice Miller LLP in Indianapolis to handle the case.
“We have retained a law firm to see if could do something about this decision by the NCAA,” Davis said. “This firm has dealt with issues in the past against the NCAA and they feel that there be a chance to change the ruling.”
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