We know, we never post.  But seriously, nothing is going on right now.  It’s like exam week without the eligibility crises.

A STORY YOU MIGHT BE TALKING ABOUT: Oregon State Beaver fans: Help/Hope is on the way! this is a change you can believe in: Beavers coach Craig Robinson has landed what SI calls a “program-changing” recruit in Roberto Nelson.  Nelson turned down UCLA, Florida, tOSU and others to go to Corvallis.  How did Robinson land the kid?  After piquing Nelson’s interest by signing a Compton Magic teammate, Robinson used what some might call an unfair tactic: he acted like a decent human being.  Just speculating here, but Gary Williams is probably not impressed.

I’ve fired my assistants THIS MANY times since halftime!

OTHER THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED:

HE RECRUITS? ARP ARP ARP: Tommy Amaker has been cleared of recruiting violations at Harvard.  This is important, as he can now get back to the important business of making excuses and not getting anything out of those recruits.

NAMELESS RICHMOND ASSISTANTS NOT SO LUCKY: Some Spiders coaches have resigned due to text-y recruiting violations.  Former UR President Bill Cooper called the former assistants “mush” and recommended that the school deal with the problem by raising tuition 31%.

THIS IS AN ACTUAL MAJOR-CONFERENCE BASKETBALL STORY.  APOLOGIES.  Former Tarhole Alex Stepheson is a USC Trojan, and could play as early as this coming season.

UNC-ASHEVILLE WILL NOT BE MAKING A CLOVERFIELD SEQUEL: Reigning Big South Defensive Player of the Year (and just gigantic dude) Kenny George is probably out for his senior season with an infected foot.  While you and I might get an infected foot and spend some time off work playing Halo, neither you nor I are 7 feet 7 inches tall, so our feet are under considerably less stress.  This must be an infection of the Michael Crichton variety; 35S wishes a speedy recovery to George.

In closing: Don’t say there’s nothing to do in the doldrums.  It’s just. Not. True.

Thanksgiving in Maui – perfect.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Key Preseason Tournaments Announce Matchups

If the NFL preseason has taught us anything – unlikely at best, but roll with us for a minute – it is that “meaning” does not guarantee priority viewing. Preseaon NFL games may be both meaningless and poor in quality, but they’re still more entertaining to watch than Game #120 in the MLB season. (And, jeez, we actually like baseball.)

But that dirty secret is a double-edged sword, and it cuts football harshly around Thanksgiving. As anyone who has suffered through watching the Lions with a belly full of tryptophan should admit, the best sports on television during the Week of the Bird has nothing to do with a pigskin. Nay, it is the exempt preseason college hoops tournaments – they of the meaningless games and odd locales – that take the cake. And the pie. And whatever other deliciousness is left in the Thanksgiving cornucopia of metaphor.

The WWL released the schedules for three of this season’s premier exempt tourneys, and each features a few can’t miss early season matchups:

In Maui – Trendy pick Notre Dame faces off against Tom Crean’s Indiana(ish) squad, but undisputed preseason #1 North Carolina leads the field and will face host Chaminade in their first game. Given the air of infallibility surrounding this UNC team, pardon us if we cheer for the Silverswords to … ya know, pull a Chaminade.

In Anaheim – In its second year, tWWL’s own tournament might be labeled the Up-and-Coming Classic. Wake Forest, coming off a Top 10 recruiting class, will face the defending Big West champs and hosts Cal State Fullerton. The winner takes on a field consisting of former bottom-dwellers like Baylor and Arizona State, punched up with solid mid-majors like Saint Mary’s and Charlotte.

In Orlando – Also owned by tWWL but with two years of history, the Old Spice Classic pulls in an impressive field of solid teams from last year with major question marks. Tennessee post-Chris Lofton? Georgetown post-Roy Hibbert? Siena trying to become the new Gonzaga? Gonzaga trying to do better than … ya know, Gonzaga? This is literally anyone’s tournament. All we know is that Neil Patrick Harris better be there.

Three more headlines, including a lot more travel for teams and coaches, after the jump

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The mood music for this week’s final post, courtesy of Violent Femmes:

Sure, this might be a month old, but if Gary Williams lives by “better late than never”, then so shall we. While most teams are finalizing their recruiting Class of 2009 and getting started on 2010, Williams is still scrambling to find 12 guys to suit up for this season. Seems like he could just walk the streets of Baltimore with a pack of Cluck-U Chicken certificates, but what do we know?

Speaking of additions to the ACC, Raleigh jock-talk host Joe Ovies looked at the five-year results of the ACC’s expansion to 12 teams. Basketball? Meh. Profit? ¡Sí! Thanks to new football revenue, the nine pre-existing members of the conference can’t hear your complaints about the drop in basketball quality, what from all the money they are bathing in.

In a much more sad development, Jamar Smith has been kicked off of the Illinois basketball team after violating his probation. Eamonn reported Smith’s off-court woes with proper due diligence, but we’ll chime in to say that Smith appears to have a problem of some variety – might be booze, might be mental, might just be a case of incredibly immaturity. Whatever it is, we hope he gets help.

Meanwhile, his departure leaves the Illini in rebuilding mode for another year. Somewhere at New York’s offices, a emo-banged gentleman is crying in his drink.

Gin-and-tonic, or pure tears? Also, we actually believe he wears a tux to work now.

Wondering if a zebra is on the take? Our friends at A Sea of Blue point out that, with so many off-court relationships between refs and teams, you might be right – and the NCAA might be a-OK with the relationship. Nico Bellic doesn’t see what the big deal is.

Finally, Matt Smith at Bleacher Report believes he has found the evil among us, and it is a 17-year-old at a prep school in North Carolina. John Wall, previously known to college football fans as Mitch Mustain, is the number 1 point guard in the Class of 2009 – which makes his decision to attend Baylor make oh-so-much sense. Oh, wait, they hired his AAU coach as the “director of player development”? Must have been a coincidence.

Have a great weekend, folks, good to be back.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Sadly, the biggest – and, for the most part, only – story in college basketball today is actually a story about pro basketball:

How old school are we? 2006 old school, that’s how we do.

The draft is melancholy for us. On one hand, we will watch any draft of any sport because we are … how do you put this … addicts. There is something intensely interesting about watching the future unfold, not to mention that we, like Bill Simmons’ and his dad, roundly enjoy reviewing the suits each year. Plus, if you can’t enjoy watching Stephen A. Smith interview someone who doesn’t speak English – well, brother, we just don’t know what to tell you.

(Oddly, we now have a taste for cheez doodles. Which are delicious.)

On the other hand, however, the draft is where we bid a fond farewell to college players we enjoyed because … well, we just don’t give a damn about the NBA. We’ve tried, and we just can’t. It’s not because we think the quality of play is poor; we don’t think that’s true in the slightest (at least, not anymore). It’s not that we don’t find the games entertaining, or that we have a problem with the NBA “culture”. It’s that we have no blood on that field; we have no stake in what happens at that level.

We grew up as Cleveland Cavaliers fans, which was fun during the glory years with Mark Price and Brad Daugherty. (See, Carolina fans? We can let grudges go.) But then Daugherty got hurt and starting caring more about racing than playing. Price got traded. The Cavs acquired Shawn Kemp (and future negotiation rights with all 329 of his children), who promptly got fat and terrible. The team sucked. And then the 1998 lockout happened.

Even as college kids, there was only so much time we had to devote to following sports – there were things called “Goldeneye”, “beer” and “trim” to which we wanted to devote our attention. And at that time, with our team in shambles and the league thumbing its nose at its fans – well, we just couldn’t care anymore.

We’ve tried to go back to it – it’s not like we’re unaware that the Cavs have the best basketball player alive right now – but any devotion we may have had to our team is gone. As Simmons put it – like him or hate him, he sometimes finds a nut – when you cheer for a team these days, you are essentially cheering for laundry. And you know what? We just don’t care about that laundry anymore, because it’s so evident that those wearing it don’t care either. And without a rooting interest, frankly, just about any sport becomes difficult to follow with any sort of regularity.

Is it that much better at the college level? We’d like to think so – after all, a player chooses where to go to play his college ball, and part of us really wants to believe that players who choose to attend our alma maters share some of the same hopes and dreams we had when we first stepped on campus years ago. It can’t ALL be based on booster gifts, coaching personalities, and co-eds, right? (Though, in fairness, we had hopes and dreams for the same co-eds. We just had no chance.)

No one knows for sure, of course, and we’ll admit that our view is a rosy one, especially as it pertains to top level players. But we’d rather cast our lots with the guys who, at the margins, are playing for fun rather than the guys who are, at the margins, playing as a job.

So, we’ll be watching the Draft tonight – partly for fun, but partly to say goodbye to players that we won’t see or read much about again. It’s the cyclical nature of college sports, but it’s still kind of sad.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
IU Gets Their Day in Court, For Good or for Ill

Perhaps a little too far with the hyperbole, no?

The long-awaited trial is finally coming. For months, we witnessed the gathering of evidence, heard public statements from shady characters in the saga, questioned the competency of the prosecution, and wondered if the right verdict and punishment would be handed down. Yes, for months we watched a noxious stew of sports and justice with a tinge of racism.

But today is the day the trial of O.J. Simpson will finally start.

Wait, wait … damn Google News, why do you display stories that are 14 years old? Unlike Billy Clyde, we’re not interested in things born in 1994.

[adjusts tie] Ahem. Let’s start over.

All that stuff in the first paragraph? Still true. The only changes: the trial is before the NCAA Committee on Infractions, with Indiana University and Kelvin Sampson playing the role of the Juice. And don’t try to tell anyone in Bloomington that the stakes are lower. For Hoosier fans, this trial – considering all that has already happened and punishment likely to be levied – is about the murder of IU basketball.

Mark Alesia of The Indianapolis Star has an excellent summary of the charges against IU and the procedure for the hearing. His colleague Bob Klapisch does his best Daniel Day Lewis, predicting there will be blood in the Athletic Department in the fallout from the trial. And our friends at Inside the Hall will have open thread coverage of the hearing all day.

There is a silver lining to this – no Court TV, and no Nancy Grace. At least we hope not, since she doesn’t exactly have the best record on cases involves college athletics.

Three more headlines, including some mid-major love for the weekend, after the jump.

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No horns here – promise!

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
On Getting Off Lawns and Turning Down Music

Levels of pain for coaches when recruits defect:

Bad: “I just want to be closer to home.” A lie, but a plausible lie that has nothing (publically) to do with the coach.
Worse: “I think I’ll be a better fit elsewhere.” Closer to the truth, with a mild jab at the coach and his system.
Worst: “I feel they’ve lied to me all along about the situation.” Dead-on honest, with a laser sight on the man in charge.

Such is life in Arizona, where Lute Olson continues to give the Bobby Bowden treatment to the program he brought to national prominence. Emmanuel Negedu, a forward from Nigeria and Top-40 recruit, asked out of his LOI to Arizona, citing the … well, the batshit-craziness of the program right now, even after receiving a person visit from Olson begging him to stay.

U of A’s AD will decide today whether or not to release Negedu from his commitment – which he should, unless he actually wants publicity for the family-friendly thriller he’s ghost writing, about the white man who forces a man in Africa to Arizona against his will for physical labor.

While his new assistants are singing out of the Good Graces songbook in an attempt to restore trust in the program, one has to wonder if U of A will have the same patience as Florida State with a coach who is past his sell-by date.

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The off-season sometimes provides you with slim pickins – and when that happens, ain’t nothing you can do by ride that bomb all the way to the ground. Plus, real life has made strong demands on us today, so a-blogrollin’ we will go.

Today’s theme music – the exact opposite of how we feel these days as nuptials draw near:

Jarrett Carter may be our new favorite blogger, with two worthy posts at two worthy blogs – first, five reasons to keep the best D1 HBCU conference tournament in the Cackolack. We agree with him on all points, though we are saddened that the ACC Tournament won’t be in Greensboro, its rightful location. Atlanta is for bad traffic, gun crime, Tech fans, and SEC affairs – the ACC has no business dragging itself to such depths.

In worthy post #2, Carter asks if Gary Williams wants out of Maryland. Based on the offseason he’s had, as thoughtfully collected by the boys at DBR, who could blame him for wanting to get out with his reputation intact?

This is a bit old, but so is recruiting obsession – Mike DeCourcy breaks down the five spring signings that actually matter over at the SN. That one of said five impact players signed with Fresno Freakin’ State says all that is necessary about the current importance of the spring signing period.

In further evidence that as statistics increase, the result equals one, Yet Another Basketball Blog attempts to quantify coaching success based on recruiting and tournament play. Coach K underperforms! Tom Izzo does better than expected! Northwestern sucks! Oliver Purnell can’t beat competition with five breathing players! Surprises all around! (We kid. It’s a good piece that gives evidence to the conventional wisdom. But don’t expect a revelation.) (HT: RTC.)

Finally, while totally unrelated to college basketball, we love when two worlds collide – Above the Law, the preeminent blog in legal snark, links to Clay Travis, he of the CBS Spin on Sports column, as he gives law school selection advice. We link to this without comment, other than to say that given that Messr. Travis has abandoned the law to become a full-time sports writer, UVA Law should retroactively grant him admission.

Re-defining “big” in Durham.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Hey, Wojo? Maybe You Should Sit This One Out.

Coach K’s recent recruiting failures with big men – see Patrick Patterson and Greg Monroe – have sparked a chicken-and-egg argument. Are the trees not interested because no Duke big man has succeeded at the next level, from Jay Bilas to Christian Laettner to Sheldon Williams with every Cherokee Parks in between? Or is it because the coaching triumvirate of Dawkins, Collins and Wojociechowski (most recently in charge of post players) had no idea how to coach bigs?

Consider the egg scrambled – in the wake of Dawkins’ departure for Palo Alto, Coach K hired former Blue Devil forward Nate James to fill his spot on the bench. What remains to be seen is if this will have any discernible impact, as James comes in with no coaching experience. In fact, this resume looked better suited for reality television:

After graduating from Duke and playing in the Carolinas Basketball League, James spent parts of five seasons playing in Bosnia, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Poland and Russia.

While some might consider the career a world history tour, James didn’t exactly praise the vagabond experience. Instead, he talked about eating nothing but rice and noodles — with chopsticks only — in Japan for several months; playing in a freezing gym in Bosnia; and having to eat cow tongue in Russia.

So, future Blue Devil recruits, know what Duke can now offer. Even if your playing experience can’t get you in the NBA and your Duke degree can’t get you a job, Coach James can help you parlay your experiences in Durham into a spot on The Amazing Race.

TWO STORIES THAT INTERESTED US FOR NO GOOD REASON
Something is Afoot in the District

Player movements galore in our nation’s capital yesterday, as Karl Hobbs kicked two players off GW’s team. Role players, true, but two players nonetheless from a team that only managed nine wins last season. Which makes one wonder what “certain expectations” they failed to meet to warrant dismissal, since one could argue that Hobbs and all of his charges failed to meet the basic “certain expectation” of finishing higher than next-to-last in the A-10.

Meanwhile, further into the snooty part of the Northwest Quadrant, a second potential starter transfers away from the Hoyas. With the announced transfer of Doc Rivers’ kid, Georgetown will be down to four returning players with any significant playing time. Greg Monroe better be really, really good, or JTIII will need to bust out celebrity dance moves again.

Reeeeeemix!

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Second Verse, Same as the First

Honestly, we could cut and paste everything we wrote yesterday about Providence hiring Keno Davis, replacing “Providence” with “Oklahoma State”, “Keno Davis” with “Travis Ford”, “Big East” with “Big XII”, and … OK, that’s just a lot of replacements, so we’ll write something new.

Obviously, T. Boone Pickens (who should really go by T-Bone) wanted to land a name, and a name he landed, with the added bonus that Ford turned down two big conference jobs in the past few weeks before accepting this one. T-Bone likes it when you make his dick … erm, his alma mater … look bigger than it actually is. We find ourselves wondering, though – why didn’t the Cowboys go after Davis? Had Ford not already turned down the Providence job, we would suggest that Ford and Davis swap new jobs to stay within their recruiting territories. In fact, we’ll suggest that anyway.

No doubt that UMass to Okie State is a step up, but Ford will need to win and win fast. Pickens barely let Sean Sutton last two years, and Sutton had the advantages of a) being an alum and b) being the son of a school legend. Past service as Rick Pitino’s bucket boy won’t help Ford here.

NEXT YEAR’S ONE YEAR WONDERS

Who said anything about academics?

Just as another freshman announces his intent to head to the pros after one year in college, news came out of Philadelphia yesterday that Tyreke Evans, one of the top recruits available this year (#6 Rivals, #4 Scouts), would sign with Memphis. Except he didn’t. Evans announced his decision to “attend” Memphis, but put off signing a LOI for a little while – presumably to ensure that John Calipari doesn’t bolt for the NBA.

Over at The Dagger, MJD ponders why Evans chose Memphis over hometown Villanova, showing that Evans was interested in getting out of Chester after witnessing a gang-related murder. On the list of good non-academic/athletic reasons to attend one school over another, “not wanting to get shot” ranks high. Good luck to Evans with the Tigers.

And Because I Know You Are Wondering, Too …

While we are admittedly afraid to dip our toe into the murky water that is recruiting, we always say “in for a penny, in for a pound”. With that – Scouts’ and Rivals’ Top Classes of 2008 as of the end of the early signing period back in November. Both sites say that the rankings wouldn’t shift much in the spring due to so many top players signing early, so these are good to go for now.

We give these rankings with no commentary or insight at this time. Well, except for … Florida State? Really? And we thought the Harvard kerfluffle was just Brian Cook making shit up. Scouts actually ranked them #25? What’s next, Duke signing a big man? (We kid, we kid – that will never happen.)

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Having been all business and no play up to this point, we feel an obligation to bring you awkward Japanese reality show dancing. That’s just how we do.

The theme song for today’s coaching moves – only the finest slice of awful ’70s rock, reintroduced to us through the beauty that is Rock Band.

The big coaching story, of course, is where there was no change at all: Bill Self rebuffed his alma mater to stay at Kansas. We stated our policy on this earlier this week, so we say to Self that he had no wrong choices, and that if his heart told him to stay in Lawrence … well, then he must know something about Lawrence that we don’t. But, you know, championships are the best love like hunger is the best sauce. Rating: Chalky.

The biggest change, however, saw Trent Johnson leave a pretty damn good gig at Stanford to take over at LSU. We assume that Trent saw the Lopez twins head for the NBA, remembered he was at a school famous for its chemists and not its ballers, and took the all-expense paid trip to “Recruit Whomever the Hell You Want”-town. (We also don’t know what this says about the relative strengths of the conferences involved – is he leaving the ultra-competitive Pac-10 for calmer hoops waters, or does he view the SEC as a greater challenge?) Regardless of the reasoning, a strong move by an LSU program that has looked rudderless since making the Final Four in 2006 – kind of like it did for the fifteen years before that, too. Rating: ESS-EEE-SEE! ESS-EEE-SEE! WOOOOO BAYOU BENGALS WOOOOOO!

Because nothing says “opportunity” like “dump your new girlfriend for your ex-wife”, Mike Montgomery denied any interest in the new Stanford opening. Probably not a tough decision, given that Cal had literally just backed the Brinks truck up to his doorstep to sign him as the new coach of the Bears. While we understand angst over Cal’s decision to fire longtime coach Ben Braun, we can’t say we disagree with it. Home of hippies that it may be, Berkeley is the state flagship, and hates to lose ground to its little brother in Los Angeles in any category. You want to win big time ball? You hire big time coach. And Ben Braun seems like a nice guy, but not a big time coach. Rating: Golden.

Apparently learning a lesson from his own playing career, UMass coach Travis Ford turned down the opportunity to become a small fish in the Big East Pond at Providence to stay in Amherst. We know that the Friars were a founding member of the Big East, but the times seem to have passed them by, and we can’t help thinking time has come for relegation. That said … it was a Big East coaching opportunity. Ford reportedly passed up an interview with LSU as well, for a team that made the NIT finals. We’re going to work on the assumption that he knows something that we do not – either that his job is oddly secure at UMass, or he has a better grasp on his own Peter Principle than anyone we’ve studied. Rating: Feisty like an undersized point guard.

Recognizing that our Hoyas are the exception that proves the rule, it is never a good thing when you are having to poach from the Ivy League for your new head coach. It is worse when you are hiring an Ivy League assistant. But when you are the New Jersey Institute of Technology, oh ye of your 0-29 record – well, you take what you can get, even if that means hiring an assistant from Columbia as your new coach. So welcome, John Engles! And, for once we mean this with no risk of jinx – you can’t POSSIBLY have a worse year than the last guy. Rating: There can be only one – and the Highlanders would take even that.

0-29 is the new pink.