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 STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Parrish: “I Don’t Really Love Sports Anymore”

If you’re anything like us, there was one great mystery left unsolved in CBS’ decision to let Billy Packer go out to pasture – how on earth were they going to hold onto the dour curmudgeon demographic? Sure, the 18-24 kids are the advertiser’s wet dream, but a network like CBS can’t ignore its base of tapioca slurpers, can it? Without Packer, where were these viewers going to get the “darn kids these days” coverage they crave?

We should have known the network brass were smarter than us. Just like their ad revenue, CBS is simply moving their crass, disinterested reporting online, in the form of Gary Parrish. From an Q&A with 35S favorite A Sea of Blue:

I mean, sitting courtside at this years [sic] national title game [as a life-long Memphis fan] should’ve been one of the highlights of my life. But it wasn’t. I was indifferent to the whole thing, and I don’t say that in an attempt to prove I’m impartial. It kinda makes me sad, actually, because the main reason I wanted to be a sports writer was because I loved sports, and I don’t really love sports anymore.

Bravo, CBS. Bra-f’in-vo. Somewhere in LA, Bill Simmons is mouthing “I told you so”. Gary, put on some Eddie Vedder and let the indifference set in.

Three more headlines, including some Grade A fan gouging, 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.

We’re not sure what is in the water in Lexington, but something about ties to Kentucky makes a coach yearn for the company of barely adolescent boys. After current UK coach Billy Gillespie’s child-chasin’ forced the National Association of Basketball Coaches to “strongly” encourage college coaches to stop seeking and accepting commitments from players before they finished their sophomore year, current Florida coach (and former UK assistant) Billy Donovan accepted the commitment of a player who just finished his freshman year.

In fairness to Donovan, the newly-tagged Gator in question is hardly the type of spring (swamp) chicken the recruiting covenant was meant to protect – he is Austin Rivers, the youngest son of one Glenn Anton “Doc” Rivers of Boston, Mass., formerly of JustwontheNBAtitle-ville. Still, Donovan essentially pooped in the hat of the NABC by hitting the candy store recruiting trail only two weeks after the NABC’s decision came down.

But because he’s Billy Donovan and has won two national titles, and you are not, no criticism for the blatent flimflamming has come his way. Needless to say, the Kentucky faithful are less than pleased at the double standard, after taking more than their fair share of crap for Billy Clyde’s junior high skeeziness.

It’s really too bad that the NABC has no teeth whatsoever. We would have paid good money to see JTIII enforcing the new policy in a very NSFW fashion upon Messr. Donovan.

I’m thrilled, just thrilled, to announce that I’ve signed a contract extension to stay at UCLA through the 2014-15 season. It’s a real honor to be able to stay on here in Westwood, even after three straight Final Fours, given the way things started out here. And yes, before you can ask … they did right by me with the figures. I’ll be financially secure while remaining a Bruin, and that’s very comforting for my family and me.

But, frankly, $2 million a year was just frosting on the cake. Rich, delicious frosting to be sure, but that wasn’t why I signed the extension. I could get money coaching on the street. (And I have!) But what really made this deal special for me, as a native Californian, was that UCLA showed that they truly want me to feel like a part of the community here in Los Angeles.

And offering me my own gang – well, that was just a special, make-you-feel-at-home offer I couldn’t refuse.

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THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Wait a second … that doesn’t seem right after several days off … let’s try that again:

ALL THE CRAP THAT’S HAPPENED IN THE LAST WEEK

That’s better. Quick roundup of the biggest stories, with a little link love for our brother blogs:

Paul Hewitt Stands Tall, States the Obvious

At last week’s meeting of the Knight Commission (the body studying academic standards for NCAA athletics), Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt earned a lot of press by voicing controversial, even shocking, opinions about all that is wrong with the current student-athlete model. Radical stuff, like “Eligibility rather than academic growth has become our biggest concern”, and “Agents are turning college campuses into the Wild West.” Whoa, whoa, Paul … drop one bomb at a time, baby, we weren’t prepared. Hang on, we’ll sit down. OK, go on:

“While I like to see everyone who reaches college earn a degree,” Hewitt said, “we need to find more effective ways to achieve our goals. I do have a problem with putting numbers out there, saying ‘Meet these numbers or else. You’re turning education into a race.”

Phew … radical, radical man. You’re lucky you didn’t lose your job for saying crazy stuff like that.

Of course Hewitt is right, and we all know he’s right – it’s just that no one in the powers that be care, since they can’t hear him over the sound of cash registers. And Hewitt had some thoughts about that as well:

[Hewitt] said he’d like to see basketball become a one-semester sport and that coaches overall would like to see a shorter schedule, but he admitted it’s “not going to happen” because of the lucrative television money that comes from playing more games, even in early November.

Whoa, Paul – we were with you right up until you suggested cutting games. We have a habit to feed, you know. Crazy talk like that will get us back on the harder junk.

A friend gets an apartment. The apartment is in a shitty part of town, in a way-too-old-but-still-miraculously-meets-code building. Your friend KNOWS its a dump, but can’t stop talking about how good of a deal he got on the rent, how easy it is to park there, and how close it is to the subway. And, for that matter, the Subway, because that’s the only place to eat within a ten-block area.

Even McDonald’s got the hell out of here.

How do you handle this? You don’t want to avoid the friend – but you sure as sin avoid the apartment. “Come over and watch the game? Why don’t we try the new place downtown? Oh, and you are hosting a party? Yeah … I’m gonna be out of town.” And so forth. After a while, your buddy starts to wonder what’s going on. He might even get a little annoyed about it.

But then, eventually, he moves … maybe because the management encouraged him to leave, because he gets a little loud when he gets drunk, and he gets drunk a lot … and, voila! Suddenly, you’re back on his couch like a blonde co-ed looking for extra credit in Philosophy.

Transform into – COLLEGE BASKETBALL ANALOGY!

Bob Huggins spent two seasons in Columbus as an assistant coach for the Buckeyes. A few years later, he took over as head coach at Akron, and would occasionally schedule a game against his old employers. Then he took over at Cincinnati – and for sixteen years, no games between his squad and tOSU. “But, hey, maybe next weekend? Actually … wait, I’ve got conference games … well, we’ll figure something out.”

But Morgantown? Now that’s a neighborhood that Columbus can relate to! Sure, we’ll come over and watch some rasslin’! And come on over tonight … bring the new girlfriend.

Cincinnati – consider yourself insulted. In the meantime, it goes without saying that police in both states have already penciled the scheduled game dates into their calendars.

Final update of the day, but we start it with a pop quiz, because we’re feeling all multiple-choicy today thanks to our bar studies:

Three major players are left to decide their draft status. (A) is slated to go in the late first round. (B) is projected to go in the early in the second. Most analysts say (C) will go undrafted. Only one of them decides to return to school. Who would you lay your money on to return to school?

If you guessed (C), you would make a logical choice. But the draft, much like the bar exam, has absolutely nothing to do with logic – which is why the correct choice is (A), and the correct player is woulda-coulda first rounder Chase Budinger of Arizona.

Budinger was leaning towards going pro as late as last night, but apparently had a change of heart. Score this as a huge get for Lute Olson and the Wildcats, who now return an experienced squad with the only major change being the swap of one freshman point guard (Jerryd Bayless, a secure Top-10 pick) for another (All-World recruit Brandon Jennings). But damn if it doesn’t seem strange.

As for the two going pro, the first off the decision block was Cal’s Ryan Anderson, who DraftExpress has going in the early 2nd round. It stands to reason that Anderson felt his stock couldn’t go much higher, considering he led the Pac-10 in scoring and nearly averaged a double-double in his second season.

For expert, non-race neutral advice!

Anderson’s decision to turn pro was evidently finalized after a family movie night , featuring “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”. In case you are unfamiliar with the movie – and golly, why wouldn’t you be? – IMDB sums up a key plot point:

Eddie shows open disdain for [his father's new girlfriend], solely because she has squinty eyes like all the “bad” girls in the comic books.

See? The movie told Anderson learned that Asian people are bad, so he needed to get out of the Bay Area as fast as possible! It all makes sense now!

Oh, 1960s culture – how we miss your blatant use of stereotypes to make a joke AND a point.

[/sarcasm]

Our final early entrant from the major programs – Luc Richard Mbah a Moute of UCLA, who will reportedly remain in the draft and hire an agent this week. We report this with no shortage of regret, because as Mbah a Moute will likely go undrafted and had a great gig back in Westwood, we meant to write a Profile in Hubris on him last week. Considering that every other player so treated dropped out of the draft … well, damned if we won’t feel a bit responsible if next Thursday is a long night for Luc. Bruins fans, feel free to blame us. (Once you are done blaming SMQ, anyway.)

With the 5pm deadline now in the rearview, all other players are presumed to remain in the draft, and are therefore dead to us. Below, the list of players continuing their college careers:

Definitely Returning to School

A.J. Abrams, Texas
Josh Akognon, Cal State Fullerton
Antonio Anderson, Memphis
Chase Budinger, Arizona
DeMarre Carroll, Missouri
Josh Carter, Texas A&M
Darren Collison, UCLA
Lee Cummard, BYU
Wayne Ellington, UNC
Alonzo Gee, Alabama
Danny Green, UNC
Stefon Jackson, UTEP
Ty Lawson, UNC
Leo Lyons, Missouri
Jerel McNeal, Marquette
Josh Shipp, UCLA
Ronald Steele, Alabama
Robert Vaden, UAB
Lorrenzo Wade, San Diego State

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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Hey, Gary? Can I have a word?

Hey, Gary? Yeah, it’s Tom Crean. Good to talk to you too. Oh, yeah, Joani is great. Looking forward to getting out your way this fall to see her brother with the Ravens. We should get together for dinner or something. Sure, Phillips would be great. Joani loves crabs!

Look, Gary, that’s actually not why I’m calling. I wanted to touch base after I heard about all the stuff you’ve been going through – the bad recruiting moves, the players transferring away, the struggles to make the tournament. Gosh, Gar, the local media really seems to be making a “woe is me” story out of this for you. And I just have to say – God, quit your f***ing whining.

Now, Gary, I hardly think that kind of language is called for. Hear me out.

You know how many players I have left from last year’s team at this point? TWO. And only one of them is on scholarship. I’m having to recruit members of the water polo team to fill out my roster. Water polo, Gary. Don’t bitch to me about needed to get guys from jucos.

And boo hoo, your athletic director doesn’t like the players you recruit. I JUST GOT HERE and the program is probably about to get slammed with sanctions because of the dickhead before me. I had to cancel a damn father-son camp so I could drag my ass out to Seattle for the compliance hearing. Gary, I don’t need to tell you that those camps are the best part of my job. The hours are light, the participants are all happy and grateful … it almost makes the rest of the job tolerable. And I had to cancel it. Did you have to cancel any of your camps, Gary? Huh?

You know what? Maybe you should go get crabs by yourself. And by that, I mean, go sleep with a hooker and get VD.