WEDNESDAY

LJW photo

Refreshed after last week’s golf excursion to Cabo San Lucas — and energized after watching three of his Kansas University basketball players graduate on Sunday — an upbeat Bill Self returned to work bright and early Monday.

“I love it here,” Self said Tuesday afternoon, acknowledging he’s eager for his 10th season as Jayhawk coach to officially begin with the start of summer school classes on June 5.

He’s not the only member of his family rather fond of KU.

Self on Tuesday was pleased to report that his youngest child, Tyler, will join daughter, Lauren, as a member of KU’s student body. Free State High graduate Lauren is a senior-to-be; fellow Firebird Tyler an incoming freshman.

…Tyler, a starting guard on the FSHS basketball team, may yet join KU’s team as a walk-on.

“I’ve opened the door for him to do that, but he hasn’t made a decision yet if that’s what he wants to do or not,” Bill Self said. “I like the fact he would even consider it. At this point in time, he doesn’t know. He is going to be a Phi Delt. He wants to be a normal college kid. If he wants to come and walk on, he may have to adjust that a little bit. As of right now, he’s not decided to do that (play for KU).”

…Self has an opening on his staff for director of basketball operations.

“I haven’t interviewed anybody, but I do plan on giving it some attention and hopefully get something done in the next couple weeks,” Self said. “I’ve got a guy or two in mind that I think would fit our needs and provide some things that would benefit our staff. It’s going to be a situation I’ll definitely hire somebody that I know.”

He said Brennan Bechard (assistant director of basketball operations) and Jeff Forbes (video coordinator) would return “in a similar capacity that they are at present.”

…It’s believed former KU guard Terry Nooner will soon be named assistant coach on Bonnie Henrickson’s KU women’s staff. Nooner worked last season as an assistant at Southern Illinois. KU had no comment on the matter Tuesday.
LJW


Kansas men’s basketball has numerous current streaks and for the 26th-consecutive year the Jayhawks have led their conference in home attendance as the NCAA recently announced its final attendance figures for the 2011-12 season.

Dating back to the 1986-87 season, Kansas has led the Big Eight/Big 12 in men’s basketball home attendance. This past season, KU averaged 16,445 fans per home contest, which ranked 10th nationally. This average included 16 games in historic Allen Fieldhouse with a home average of 16,300 and one game at the Sprint Center in Kansas City which had 18,757 fans witness the KU-Davidson meeting in the M&I Kansas City Shootout on Dec. 19, 2011. The event is part of the KU home ticket package, hence is added to the home attendance average. KU has led its conference in home attendance average for 31 of the last 35 seasons dating back to 1977-78.

Since the 1977-78 season, the Jayhawks have ranked in the NCAA Division I top 10 on 18 occasions and 31 times in the top 15.

For all games (home-away-neutral), Kansas ranked sixth in 2011-12 with 682,680 fans attending contests, also first in the Big 12. Included was Kansas’ single-game record of 73,361 in the NCAA semifinal against Ohio State in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on March 31, 2012.

 Here are some of KU men’s basketball current impressive/mindboggling streaks:
--KU has led its conference in home attendance each of the last 26 seasons, dating back to 1986-87.

--Since 2004-05, the Jayhawks have won eight-straight Big 12 regular-season titles, the longest active streak in NCAA Division I.

--KU has sold out of 180 consecutive games in Allen Fieldhouse, which started the second game of the 2001-02 season.

--Kansas’ 23 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, from 1990-2012, is the nation’s active longest streak.

--KU has won 23 or more games each of the last 23 seasons dating back to 1988-89.

--Kansas has won 10 or more conference games the last 18 seasons, starting in 1994-95.

--Each KU four-year senior has won at least 100 games for his career since the 1986-87 season, a span of 26 years. The 2012-13 class of Elijah Johnson, Travis Releford and Jeff Withey enters its season with a 100-13 record. Note: Kevin Young will also be a senior in 2012-13 but is a transfer.

--Kansas has gone 243 games without consecutive losses, the longest streak in the nation. The last time KU lost consecutive games was during the 2005-06 season.

--Under head coach Bill Self, Kansas has won more conference championships (eight) than lost home games (seven). Kansas is 145-7 (95.4 percent) in Allen Fieldhouse in the Bill Self era, since 2003-04.

--Kansas posted its 17th undefeated season in Allen Fieldhouse by going 16-0 in 2011-12. The Jayhawks have had four undefeated home records in the last five seasons.
KU AD


If I had to guess on next college coach to coach Olympic Team, it would be KU's Bill Self. Excellent coach, master-button pusher & motivator
https://twitter.com/#!/franfraschilla/status/202495510970507264

ESPN photo

Sitting at his locker after the 78-75 loss to the Pacers, Heat point guard Mario Chalmers felt that Darren Collison clipped him on the arm on the potential game-tying 3-point attempt with three seconds left.

"I had a good look at it," Chalmers said. "I felt like I was fouled on the three that I shot but they didn’t call it. Darren got me for sure. It is a shot I usually knock down."
ESPN


“I said to Markieff this is the most important summer of his career,” said president of basketball operations Lon Babby. “He’s got to come back a better player. If he doesn’t come back a better player than he left than that’s on him, but it’s also on us to give him that kind of development.”

Head coach Alvin Gentry gave Morris an average of 19.5 meaningful minutes per game and that experience should go a long way toward his first true offseason as a professional where his development as a defensive specialist could blossom.

The skill set is just icing on the cake.

While Morris averaged 7.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game, it was his effort on the defensive end that stood out.

During his rookie campaign, Morris was third on the Suns team in defensive win shares and second in defensive rating, according to BasketballReference.com.

“I definitely think I can be a great defender in this league,” Morris said. “I just want to be a part of this team, come in with energy always.”
Link


Members of the Missouri House of Representatives have passed a bill that would prevent efforts to create a Missouri license plate with the University of Kansas Jayhawks logo without the approval of the Legislature.

An effort has been under way to create a license plate featuring the Jayhawk. Supporters said many University of Kansas graduates live in Missouri and would want to show their school pride.

Existing law allows for an administrative process to create new license plates. Critics said the long-running rivalry between the Kansas Jayhawks and Missouri Tigers means that a Jayhawk plate would be unpopular in the Show-Me State.

"The athletic rivalry between MU and KU has been very important to both states and especially the Kansas City region," said Rep. Steven Webber, D-Columbia. "It is a shame that KU leaders have chosen to abandon more than a century of tradition by refusing to compete against Mizzou for the foreseeable future. This snub makes now the absolutely wrong time for Missouri to honor Kansas with a specialty license plate."

Webber said his provision has been attached to Senate Bill 563 as an amendment. The bill goes back to the Senate for further consideration.
KMBC

Big 12/College News

The Longhorns took in a little more than $150 million in 2010-11, the most recent year for which public schools' filings with the NCAA are available. That outdistanced second-place Ohio State by $18.5 million. The 'Horns' outlay for football and 19 other varsity sports was $133.7 million, almost $11.5 million more than Ohio State put into its 36 teams.

Texas' program is one of only 22 across Division I that operate in the black — it generated enough revenue to cover athletics expenses — an increasingly touchy issue in times of shrinking state allocations and economic stress in higher education. Moreover, the Longhorns kicked $6 million back to the school's academic side a year ago. For five years, half of the take from their new statewide, 24-hour cable television venture, the Longhorn Network, is earmarked for academics.

The school's unabashed athletics growth comes, however, as the NCAA continues to preach fiscal temperance, particularly to schools spending beyond their means in the chase for athletics success. Their bar — for coaches' salaries, for cushy facilities — is ever higher.

And the Longhorns underscore a long and growing criticism of major-college athletics, that it's more big business than ancillary educational activity. Ten programs, all anchored by football, made or spent better than $100 million a year ago, USA TODAY Sports' findings show. Nearly two dozen topped $80 million on one side of the ledger or both.
USA Today


NCAA college athletics department finances database (Revenues & expenses 2006-2011)


 The (NCAA) rules committee recommended “more stringent adherence to officiating guidelines regarding bench decorum by coaches and bench personnel next season”. What does that mean? The committee wants to see more technical fouls for things like cursing, prolonged arguments, threatening or derogatory remarks and references to the integrity of the official.

- Also, the committee wants to see officials eliminate “running or jumping ‘in disbelief’ over a call/non-call” and “emphatically removing one’s coat in response to a call/no-call”. Priorities, you know.

- The committee believed that the block/charge call was missed on too many occasions. Some of the guidelines they approved to improve the impact of the call are expected, but the most important is this: “it appears that a defender is being rewarded solely for being outside the arc, without considering the other aspects of the rules.” The implementation of the three-foot arc resulted in referees focusing on the defender’s feet more than whether or not he was actually set to take a charge.

- Perhaps the most interesting discussion revolved around allowing coaching staffs to have mobile devices — i.e. laptops, iPads or other tablets — on the bench. On the one hand, it would make it easier for those staffs to chart statistics and call out plays. On the other hand, it would allow teams to break down what an opponent is doing during the game. It is not difficult to pull video from a internet stream of the game, which means that if, say, a particular defense is bothering a team, they would be able to watch it over and over on film on the bench.
NBC Sports


Nebraska men's basketball coach Tim Miles has announced that Terran Petteway (tur-RAHN PET-eh-way) is transferring from Texas Tech to play for the Cornhuskers.

Petteway will have to sit out this coming season and then will have three years of eligibility.

Petteway played in 27 games at Texas Tech as a freshman, making 11 starts and averaging 3.3 points and 2.1 rebounds. He had a season-high 13 points in 15 minutes against DePaul.

Petteway was suspended for one game in January for elbowing Kansas' Conner Teahan and getting ejected.

Petteway was ranked among the top 10 prospects in Texas when he was a senior at Galveston Ball High School.
AP


Brad Korn, a former player and assistant at Southern Illinois, has officially joined Kansas State's basketball staff as director of operations.

"Brad is a terrific young coach and a great addition to the staff," coach Bruce Weber said. "Brad played for Matt Painter and me at Southern Illinois and then got his start in coaching as an assistant to Chris (Lowery)."

Korn, a 6-foot-9 forward, was part of three straight Missouri Valley titles as a player at SIU from 1999-2004. He then spent the next eight years as an assistant under Lowery, now Weber's top assistant at K-State.
TCJ


VCU President Michael Roa says the university Is leaving the Colonial Athletic Association and will join the Atlantic 10.

The president said at press conference Monday to announce the move that "premier universities are premier across the board and that include athletics.''

Roa says the switch will take effect in all sports on July 1, 2012.
AP


With fans, media and an ill-informed board chairman parsing the ACC’s new media package with ESPN, a network executive chimed in Tuesday.

“Over the weekend, there was widespread speculation and confusion regarding ESPN’s recent rights agreement extension with the Atlantic Coast Conference,” Burke Magnus, the network’s Senior VP for college programming wrote online. “In response, we want to take the opportunity to explain a few key facts related to our ACC agreement.”

Magnus debunked Florida State Board of Trustees chair Andy Haggard’s angry assertion that the ACC had ceded third-tier football rights to ESPN while retaining them for men’s basketball. Magnus also confirmed what sources told me Sunday, that escalating payments, a back-loaded contract as many described, are commonplace.

“This arrangement is not unique to the ACC,” Magnus wrote. “The pre-existing agreement between ESPN and the ACC (that carried through 2023) had an escalating rights fee schedule and the deal we announced last week contains a similar schedule. There is nothing unusual about how ESPN is paying the ACC over the life of this deal. It’s the industry standard.”

The 15-year ACC-ESPN contract, which gooses conference schools’ average annual media revenue from $13 million to $17 million, took on a life of its own Saturday. That’s when Haggard, in an interview with Warchant.com, cited it as reason Florida State should consider leaving the ACC for the Big 12, casting a cloud over this week’s ACC spring meetings.

Regional and national media pounced, and FSU president Eric Barron took to email in defense of the ACC.  Odd doesn’t begin to describe.

Magnus adds to the strange narrative. With investments in the ACC, Big 12 and other major conferences, ESPN figures to tread lightly in realignment matters. But given the just-completed agreement with the ACC, you have to believe the network would prefer the Seminoles and their football program, in decline of late but still a national brand, remain part of John Swofford’s posse.
Daily Press


Former Kentucky starter Michael Porter -- who was with the team from 2006 to 2009 -- was arrested early Tuesday morning and put into a Lexington jail on charges related to sex acts with minors. The information is still coming out, so the story is in its initial stages, but what we do know, according to Lex18.com, is that the 25-year-old Porter allegedly was inappropriate with a 15- and a 14-year-old girl.

He met the girls while doing community work at a church. He was a "group leader," which sends a shiver down your spine.

Porter was charged with six counts of sodomy and two of outright sexual abuse, per Lex18.com.

Porter averaged 4.1 points and 2.5 assists per game while at Kentucky, like that matters at all with this story. He wound up leaving right before John Calipari started coaching the team, ironically citing the desire to spend more time with his wife and child.
CBS


ESPN: A final ride on the coaching carousel


2012-13 Early Season Events List

Recruiting

Marshall senior guard Milton Doyle was prepared to commit to Kansas on Tuesday, but he was told to hold off because the Jayhawks are still waiting on the status of other recruits, Doyle’s mother said.

Doyle, a 6-foot-4 guard, made an official visit to Kansas on Monday and Tuesday and is set to return to Chicago on Tuesday night. He met with Kansas coach Bill Self on Tuesday afternoon.

“They told him they were waiting on other recruits and whether they would qualify,” Doyle’s mother Lisa Green said. “He’s disappointed. We have no choice but to wait because it’s late in the game. They told him they’ll let him know by Friday. We will be talking to other schools.”
ESPN


Why no offer to the unranked Doyle? KU will likely have no scholarship space if former South Carolina forward Damontre Harris chooses KU over Florida sometime this week. KU currently has 11 players on scholarship, not counting Justin Wesley, who received a scholarship last year because one was available.

A commitment from Harris, combined with an oral commitment from Anrio Adams, a 6-4 guard from Seattle who has not yet qualified, would put KU at the NCAA maximum 13 scholarships. It’s believed Adams will not sign a letter-of-intent today — the final day of the early signing period — as he and the Jayhawks await his test scores. One does not have to sign a letter to play college ball.
LJW

Amile Jefferson might have been the highest-ranked player yet to make a college decision -- but that changed when he announced for Duke on Tuesday afternoon.

Once Jefferson made his choice, Devonta Pollard was immediately the next one on the clock. The 6-foot-7 forward from Kemper County (Miss.) is ranked No. 22 in CBSSports.com's Top 100, and he is still taking his time. The four finalists for Pollard are: Alabama, Texas, Georgetown and Missouri. However, Missouri doesn't have any scholarships at this point, and Georgetown assistant coach Robert Kirby is leaving for LSU, which could hinder the Hoyas.

Big man Chris Obekpa, a 6-foot-8 shot-blocker from Our Savior New American (N.Y.), is still considering Oregon, Providence, DePaul, Cincinnati, St. John's and Connecticut. The Bearcats have been considered the leader, but Oregon is making a push as well. The other Big East schools on his list are still involved as well.

Former Virginia Tech signee Montrezl Harrell has been one of the hot names in the recruiting world since the Hokies made a coaching change. Once he officially is released from his letter of intent, expect schools to heat up their pursuit of Harrell. Kentucky has been one of the schools linked with him in the past couple of weeks.

The other top-100 recruits available -- Norvel Pelle, Michael Chandler, Torian Graham and Savon Goodman -- might need to reclassify and take a prep year to clean up any academic hurdles. Former top-100 prospect Nino Jackson is back on the AAU circuit and is exploring prep school options, but junior college might have to be his route.
CBS

The “best high school player since LeBron James” places more than a little pressure on Parker’s 6-9 shoulders. SI reserves its cover for pros and the occasional phenom. (Bryce Harper was one a few years ago.) To associate his name with LeBron ensures everyone’s already high expectations for Parker rise even more among hoopheads.

Meanwhile, this is certainly the first time most casual fans will have heard of him. Some will shrug off the LeBron association. But most will automatically expect Parker to be that good.

(Not to mention the wrinkle that Parker, a Mormon, may leave for a two-year mission when he’s 19.)

It’s not quite the same loaded headline LeBron received (“The Chosen One”) but it’s plenty. Saying Parker’s better than Anthony Davis, Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, John Wall, Derrick Rose (or take your pick of any other touted prospect since 2004) is a strong statement. Sometimes, the comparison backfires.

Hope Parker’s ready for it.
NBC Sports


Ernest Lorch, the founder of the prestigious Riverside Church Hawks basketball program whose legacy was tainted by sexual-abuse allegations, died Sunday at Sunrise Senior Living in Yonkers, N.Y., according to a female staff member at the assisted living facility.

David Sullivan, the Northwestern (Mass.) district attorney who prosecuted Lorch last year on a sexual abuse charge, told the Daily News his office received a call Monday from Lorch's attorney, Fred Cohn, and Cohn said Lorch had died.

…Lorch was once known as the most powerful man in New York City basketball, a youth coach with deep ties to St. John's and other schools who could get a player a college scholarship with a phone call or two. Dozens of his players — including Mark Jackson, Chris Mullin and Ron Artest — became NBA stars. Scores more played for top Division I basketball programs. Lorch helped launch the Riverside Church Hawks in 1961 as an outreach program for underprivileged kids. Lorch's program was known for decades as a high-class organization in an amateur basketball world filled with struggling community center teams and bandit street agents.

"Riverside was the yardstick we measured ourselves against," AAU coach Gary Charles said. "Mr. Lorch was a pioneer in this AAU thing. They don't make guys like him no more."

The wealthy corporate lawyer was the go-to guy for hoops players who needed cash, and supporters say Lorch was a benefactor for kids from New York's poorest neighborhoods, a father figure who paid for sneakers, coats and rent for scores of needy families.

"I grew up in the projects and (Lorch) had me coaching in Paris, France," said Kenny Pretlow, a Riverside assistant coach for 15 years. "I'll never forget the influence he had on me. He taught me about responsibility and how to talk with people."

Lorch was also known as a passionate supporter of the St. John's basketball program and frequently sat behind the university's bench during home games at Madison Square Garden. Former St. John's player Erick Barkley was suspended in 2000 after the NCAA ruled that Lorch's $3,150 payment for Barkley's prep school tuition violated its rules.
NY Daily News


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