School: UCLA, Junior.

Basketball Position: Wing (SG/SF).

Life Position: Wingman.

Vitals: 6′5″, 220lb., 23 years old. We understand redshirting and everything, but doesn’t 23 seem old for a junior who isn’t a refugee or a past missionary? Or are we just out of touch?

2007-2008 Statistics: 12.2 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 1.1 RPG, 1.3 SPG. Understandable stats considering the talent all around him, but he did finish in the Top 10 in the nation in minutes played, and the Top 25 in 3-pointers attempted. So, he stayed healthy, and launched a lot of shots while he was out there. That’s not necessarily a net plus.

Pros: Solid shooter from long range if he gets a clean look. Above average ball handling and passing for a wing. Rotates well away from the ball on defense and clogs up passing lanes. Good athlete who runs the court well, despite hip surgery two years ago. Capable of making illegal incredible shots to win games.

Cons: Squishy shooter from long range if he doesn’t get a clean look. Scoring is somewhat inconsistent, as he got shut down late in the season by good defensive teams. Weak man-to-man defender. Is essentially the same player he was when starting college in 2004 – solid but unremarkable.

Projected Draft Position: Undrafted (Draft Express), Undrafted (Inside Hoops), Undrafted (NBADraft.net), 2nd Round / Undrafted (My NBA Draft), 2nd Round / Undrafted (Chad Ford / tWWL), 2nd Round / Undrafted (HoopsHype).

Backup plan: Shipp saved himself from a Profile in Hubris by withdrawing from the Draft last night. With Shipp and fellow declaring/withdrawing senior Darren Collison, UCLA will have one of the most talented and experienced backcourts in the nation next year. Suddenly, the Bruins making a fourth consecutive Final Four sounds like a realistic proposition even without Westbrook and Love.

Backup backup plan: After all the references to his winning shot against Cal as a “circus” shot, Shipp could decide to fulfill every child’s dream by running away to join the circus. Cirque de Soleil is all the rage these days, but making the acrobat squad would require an incredible amount of patience and practice for Shipp – and, perhaps, man lust.

WINNAR.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Dear Cancer: Die. Love, Coaches

We normally struggle to make light of potentially fatal diseases – even we have depths to which we won’t stoop, much to the surprise of our wife – but we do call the lede “the story everyone is talking about,” and the news late Friday that UConn coach Jim Calhoun once again had cancer qualifies for such title.

Calhoun had already beat cancer twice – prostate cancer in 2003 and skin cancer in 2007 – by catching it early (good for cancer and chicken pox; bad for gonorrhea). This time, he alerted his doctor to a growth on his neck that was determined to be squamous cell cancer. Growth removed, radiation administered, and four weeks later, scans show his lymph nodes and skin to be cancer-free.

Upon hearing the news, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski expressed relief – not only that his colleague was safe and would return to the sidelines, but also because Cancer’s third consecutive loss to Calhoun in a championship round gave it a slightly worse record than Coach K’s own 0-2 against Calhoun in games that count. (Not that we’re bitter.)

TWO STORIES THAT CAUGHT OUR EYE FOR NO GOOD REASON
Bowl Game Wins Not Required

When we saw the headline “It’s Official – Kevin White is Duke’s New AD” on DBR, we did a double take. Wait, Notre Dame’s Kevin White? The guy with a list of management and publicity blunders we can’t begin to list? A guy whose departure has Irish fans dancing in the streets? THAT Kevin White?

And then we thought about it some more, and it all makes sense. White’s three main attributes: a talent for developing non-revenue sports, cowardice and subservience to coaches of the school’s most powerful teams, and totally incompetence in football program development. My God, he’s PERFECT for Duke!

Hired on Name Recognition Alone

We had no similar surprise when Jeff Goodman broke that Billy Donovan was once again down one assistant coach at Florida – when you win two titles, your assistants tend to be a hot commodity. When Donovan filled the position within three days by poaching Shaka Smart, the lead assistant and recruiting director from Clemson … well, color us impressed. No indication that Smart will bring any talent with him to Gainesville besides his completely awesome name, but a solid hire by UF all the same.

FOUR STORIES WORTH ONE LINE APIECE

Anecdotal Analysis Always Right – We’re not saying the San Francisco Chronicle is wrong when they claim that former college stars rarely make good college coaches – but a little data would be nice, guys. Blogs can do it, so can you.

Does This Mean We’ll Start Outsourcing Mid-Majors? – Team China punishes Team Conference USA by 23 points in an Olympic tune-up, giving our future overlords three straight wins over the all-conference-well-sorta-cause-nobody-in-the-draft-was-there team.

We Wouldn’t Do That If We Were You – Rutgers extends head coach Greg Hill through 2012 based not on his on-court performance (20-39 in two years!) but on one good recruiting class. You would think a Jersey school would be more wary of awarding a no-show contract.

Mormons Get Dirty and Freaky – A Utah TV reporter’s mailbag contains some strong language from Ute and Cougar fans, but also a link that burned our corneas, so now we pass the pain along to you, fair reader.

Nightmare. Fuel.

It’s a big honor to be inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame – truly, I’m honored to be here. When you are the coach of a Division III program, you have to keep your expectations realistic. Can’t get ahead of yourself.

Good buffet here tonight. Don’t see too much todo like this at Guilford.

Anyway, thank you for the honor, but I don’t know about this “overcoming all odds” talk. It’s not like I’m that Pistorius guy.

Sure, I recruited three future NBA players to a small, NAIA school in central North Carolina, and won a national title in the ’70s. But every squirrel finds a nut – and let me tell you, World B. Free was one hell of a nut. But it was a different era. You could convince a guy to leave the big city for a small school without handing over tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payments. Didn’t have that kind of money at Guilford. All we offered was good coaching, a great education, and all the moonshine and co-eds you could handle. It was a simpler time, really.

And yeah, I coached a couple of teams to golf national championships as well, even though I don’t know much about golf. Doesn’t seem like a big deal. Guilford needed to cut the budget, so I tried to help out where I could. I always say that a good coach can coach anything. Tried to prove it once by taking over a cock-fighting ring during a mission trip in Guatamala a few years back. We were only there for a few weeks, but with tough practices and good motivation, I had Señor Garra winning every match he fought. It’s just a matter of getting through to the kids – or animals, whatever.

So yeah – proud to be here tonight, but I just took what life gave me. You can do the same.

(Ed. – In all seriousness, coaching two sports to championships at any level? What a badass. Read the profile.)