Up for auction is the 2000 Final Four ring awarded to Tarheel legend Phil Ford in his final year as a coach at North Carolina. This is Ford's original ring that was given to him by UNC. 100% GUARANTEED. I purchased the ring earlier this year from David Gerald Timepieces in Chapel Hill. Ford had given the ring to a good friend (Bernard) as a gift several years ago. The friend ended up consigning the ring for sale with David Gerald in 2008. I have displayed pictures of the two cards I received from David Gerald Timepieces along with the ring. One reflects the purchase (I have obscured my last name, telephone number, etc. in the picture) and the other is a thank you note from David Gerald himself which references Phil Ford.

No doubt this seller is a huge Phil Ford fan. Why, look at the praise he lavishes on the man himself:

Many consider Ford to be the greatest player ever at North Carolina (sorry MJ).

High praise. You would think such a dedicated fanboy would want to keep an important part of Ford's legacy on hand, and not, you know, sell it on eBay. But really, whose fandom is worth more than $5,000? Certainly not mine. $5,000 is at least three or four tanks of gas. Turn that down? All because of "principle?" Pshhh.

(HT: The Fifth Corner)

Another one of the NBA's supposed vices is women. More specifically: groupies. The NBA groupie culture is legendary and probably a bit overblown, but it's there all the same.

Combine the two, and you get a recipe for either a really interesting night out that your girlfriend can never, ever, EVER know about ... or you get in really big trouble. Unfortunately for former Kansas Jayhawks Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur, they got the latter. And they're not even really NBA players yet! Y!'s Adrian Wojnarowski has the scoop:

Ex-Kansas Jayhawks teammates Darrell Arthur of the Memphis Grizzlies and Mario Chalmers of the Miami Heat were thrown out of the NBA rookie transition program on Wednesday for getting caught with marijuana and women in their hotel rooms, league sources said. “They will be appropriately sanctioned and have to repeat the program next year,” NBA spokesman Tim Frank said.

One league source said the players claimed the marijuana belonged to the women. Arthur and Chalmers, who starred in Kansas’ 2007-08 national championship season, were just starting a four-day life-skills orientation that the NBA mandates for all rookies. The two players are expected to be fined $20,000, and it’s possible that the league could fine the Grizzlies and Heat too.

It doesn't seem the players will be forced out of the NBA, which is good, because Bill Self has a busy enough schedule, what with laughing atop piles of money by morning and containing Niko Bellic wannabes with dorm-range BB guns by night. He doesn't need to add the perfect storm of marijuana and women to the Jayhawks. Because, of course, neither Chalmers nor Arthur, nor any other college player, ever partook in those sorts of things during their time in college. That would have been positively uncollegiate.

Still, there are some instances when sports can generate huge amounts of revenue for a city. These events are pretty much singular in nature: they are the Super Bowl and the Final Four. Anything else is just a pittance. San Antonio just added up how much the 2008 Mario Chalmers Commemorative Final Four generated for its economy and, unsurprisingly, the number is huge:

The NCAA men’s Final Four and some related events generated more than $47 million in economic benefits to the San Antonio metropolitan area. An NCAA survey showed almost 57,000 people visited the host city because for the three games played on Saturday and Monday. The average stay was 3.7 days, and visitors spent an average of $223 per day. The survey found 97 percent of the fans who attended the games were from out of town.

That's a lot of cash. I'd be interested in seeing what the numbers from visitors alone on a March weekend are in San Antonio when the Final Four isn't there. Small semi-touristy location that it is, I'm betting they're not half bad. But I'm also betting it's no $47 million, either.

Now, finally, San Antonio has the money to bulldoze that unsightly and gauche Alamo. Spanish mortar is soooo 19th century.

Now he's back in the good old U.S.A., and reporters are wondering just how his Olympic experience will change him. Has Coach K been rehabilitated?

Mike Krzyzewski always maintained that leading the U.S. Olympic basketball team would make him a changed coach. Sure enough, Coach K was there on the sideline in Beijing and he stopped himself from saying something he otherwise might have.

"Most of the time I was there," Krzyzewski said, "I was mic'ed."

Ah, yes. Those tyrannical Chinese Olympics authorities and their warrantless wiretapping -- all Coach K wanted to do was call one of the referees a c-------ing pile of -------- ----------. What's so wrong with that?

"Sometimes being here at Duke, because we've been very, very successful … they expect you to be perfect. They don't look at process anymore," Krzyzewski said. "It's like, 'What, we haven't gone to the Final Four? What, we didn't win the national (title)? Very spoiled, and it ruins it a little bit—really, a lot.

"Part of that then becomes, you win, and sometimes you're just relieved to win," he added. "I'm not saying that it happens all the time, but it happens. At the end of that Spain game, most people would say, 'Weren't you relieved?' No, I wasn't. I was exhilarated. It was euphoric. It was the way it should be. That's the way it's going to be for the rest of my career here at Duke."

It's nice to see Coach K's taken away some lessons from international competition. Really. I'm not being sarcastic. Any time you can absorb a lesson that will make your life a little bit happier, commendation is deserved.

That doesn't mean I don't think this whole "enjoying the moment" thing doesn't end immediately after Duke's first game by the time Krzyzewski reaches the locker room. I don't expect Coach K's usual tally of mouthed-swear-words-per-game -- which usually hovers right around 2,398 -- will drop in the slightest. Some things are meant to stay the same.

As you well know by now, Team USA -- the Redeem Team, if we must insist on using that silly but impossibly catchy name -- was victorious in its thrilling gold medal game against Spain late Sunday in Beijing. Though the team was not without flaws, especially in its last outing, a win is a win, and a victorious, NBA-style win, complete with Kobe Bryant and Lebron James and Dwyane Wade's swagger, is even better.

The team's overall campaign was impressive. They were in harmony not only on the court but off it, a testament to the desire of each star and to the organizational continuity of Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski. All around, it was impressive.

But how much credit does Coach K (the college tie that actually makes this fair game for me to write about; see BDL for your other post-Olympics needs) actually deserve? How much of that gold medal is his?

It's starting to seem evident that Coach K will get a disproportionate amount of credit from the college crowd -- except, of course, from those who hate the player AND the game -- for bringing "fundamentals" to those unwieldy NBA All-Stars. For example, this Rocky Mountain News blog post from over the weekend:

This is where Krzyzewski comes in and does what he does best. Teach. The NBA ought to pay Coack K to hold a clinic each summer, for players who have entered the league without a real understanding of the game's fundamental concepts. NBA head coaches don't always have time to teach. And those that do teach run into players who don't take time to listen.

LeBron James and Dwight Howard didn't attend college. They're listening to Krzyzewski. Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony, with one year of college before joining the NBA, are listening. Kobe Bryant didn't attend college. Even with three NBA championship rings, he listens to Krzyzewski.

This strikes me as pretty disingenuous. From everything I saw of the Olympics, it wasn't Coach K's patriotic motivation that suddenly turned world-weary NBA stars into team players. Those players -- Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Chris Paul -- wanted to do that themselves. They wanted to prove their brand of basketball was the best in the world, no matter what happened in 2004. So they did it.

What's more, I don't think Coach K could teach Kobe Bryant or Lebron James much about "fundamentals." These guys are the best basketball players in the world. Literally. The two best. You don't get that way unless you master the fundamentals at a prodigious age; from there, you begin doing the things that make you different from everyone else. Kobe and Lebron are way past that.

(Plus, for the last time, people: College coaches do not have a monopoly on "fundamental" basketball. They teach these things in pros, too.)

Where I do think Coach K deserves credit, though, is in his approach. I think he got it. He realized that his heavy-handed collegiate style wasn't going to work with grown men, so he laid off. He told them to run. Shoot. Have fun. He let them coach each other. He called timeouts when needed, and he developed a solid rotation, but more than anything he laid off.

He wasn't flawless, of course; his overplaying defensive style didn't work against the Spanish, who set enough screens to get in behind the U.S. defense time and again. And he should have played Michael Redd a bit more. His most notable slip-up actually came off the court, when he treated a foreign journalist with the same disdain he has for ACC beat writers. 

But overall, he was good, and that performance has nothing to do with fundamentals or motivation or forcing respect upon the unruly NBA morass. Recognizing his role and executing it -- that's where Coach K earned his ring.

And now, to relieve the tension, he gets to go back to Duke this season and scream at impressionable young people. In other news, everybody start sprinting. NOW.

Brandon Jennings is awesome. There. I said it. Not only did he have the onions to say goodbye to Arizona and college basketball and its relatively malignant control over young American basketball talent. Jennings -- through both academic inability and a desire to start making money -- chose Europe instead. That was awesome.

Perhaps even more awesome is having the confidence to unironically wear the hottest sunglasses fashion from like six months ago: Stutter Shades. Brandon Jennings has that confidence (HT: The Sports Culture):

Not just anyone can do that. For example, Luke Harangody. Great basketball player. Deserving talent. Goofy white dude unable to wear sunglasses without an Oakley label on them. Sorry Luke. I don't make the rules. I just blog about them.

...

You've got to be kidding me:

After being arrested in his family’s Minnetonka, Minn., home hours after the robbery, DiLoreto, a recent graduate of Hopkins High in the Minneapolis suburbs, waived extradition rights Wednesday and will be transported back to Wisconsin to face armed robbery and shotgun possession charges today or Friday.

He was less than a month away from moving to San Luis Obispo to start classes at Cal Poly.

Dude. OK, the Joker robs banks too, ha ha, very funny, but seriously: DiLoreto (allegedly) robbed a bank. A bank! That's what I get for using The Dark Knight references. They come a day too early, when the real sinister crime -- robbing a bank! with a shotgun! -- is right around the corner, just waiting to happen.

Self-interest aside, I highly recommend reading the story. The clear sense of confusion and madness brought on by all this is palpable:

When DiLoreto noticed the police presence, Roland theorized, he left the scene to make the two-hour return trip home without the 16-year-old, who allegedly took an undisclosed amount of money from the bank but was caught walking down the highway back to Minnesota less than an hour later.

The money was recovered. No one was hurt. And there are no other suspects.

Insane. It's all very high-drama. That a 7-footer with a bright collegiate future no more than a month away would toss it off by deciding to rob a bank, well, it's as inexplicable as it is enthralling. I really don't know what to say here. I do know one thing, though: Dark Knight jokes are a lot less funny (not that they ever were) when the crime is real and serious. Lesson learned.

Unless it's just a BB gun! Those things are barely even guns, anyway, right?

Markieff Morris, an incoming freshman basketball player at Kansas, is facing a battery charge after allegedly firing a BB gun from his dorm window. The 18-year-old, a member of coach Bill Self’s 2008 recruiting class along with his twin brother, Marcus, has been ordered to appear Sept. 10 in Lawrence Municipal Court, the Lawrence Journal-World reported Wednesday on its Web site.

Campus police said shots were fired about 11:15 p.m. Saturday from a room in the Jayhawker Towers. A 47-year-old Wisconsin woman was in the dorm’s courtyard about the same time and reported being shot in the arm with a plastic BB. The woman suffered minor injuries, according to the newspaper.

Morris is also suspected of using alcohol during the incident.

"Morris is also suspected of using alcohol ..." I would say that's a fairly safe suspicion. What else, besides hilarity, causes someone to shoot BB's at a 47-year old woman in a dorm courtyard other than alcohol. That's a plan no sober mind could ever hatch.

Still, it appears we've entered a new era of crime in Lawrence, Kansas, where crime is not performed merely by driving home drunk from the bars, or puffing the occasional marijuana cigarette. It's not about the money, or about partying with coeds, it's about ... sending a message.

Lawrence deserves a better class of criminal. And Markieff Morris' BB gun is going to give it to them.

Not pictured: Tom Crean, puffing cigar and laughing. 

It's been a big off-season for college basketball coaches looking to stack bread and/or cheese. First, UCLA coach Ben Howland got his money. Then Bill Self, avoiding the lure of T. Boone Pickens' money-burning wind turbine technology, won a national title and snatched a huge deal from Kansas.

Now, it's Tom Crean's turn. The coach just officially inked a wow-where-does-Indiana-get-that-money contract extension today, nabbing 10 years and $23.6 million from the beleagured school.

After taking over for the deposed Kelvin Sampson, Crean has been smiley, energetic, and altogether far too enthusiastic to deal with the still-unknown fallout of an ugly recruiting scandal. What's more, Indiana's situation has gradually worsened, as players have defected and poor grades have left others out in the cold. It's been ugly, and Crean is stuck.

But like any shrewd businessman, he used it to his advantage. The contract is a reward for Crean's dedication -- and the likelihood, barring abject failure, that he'll be at Indiana for a very long while. If the past four months don't make him want to quit, nothing will.

Anyway, I want to be a college basketball coach. They officially make more money than rappers.

You win, Derrick Caracter Saga. You win.

According to Card Chronicle, which has been, should we say, chronicling all things Caracter forever now, has a juicy rumor that should surprise nobody: Caracter has decided to leave Louisville once and for all. If that seems like a small deal, keep in mind that just a few weeks ago, Caracter wanted nothing more in the world than to be back at Louisville.

Rick Pitino struck a deal with the talented center, saying Caracter would be forced to spend a year fending for himself and paying for school and all of the things everyone doubted Derrick Caracter could actually do. Apparently Derrick doubts himself, too.

Where will he end up? Card Chron doesn't seem to know, though they do point to a rumor at Inside the Ville suggesting Caracter could end up at an NAIA school, somewhere he could play immediately. Which means, if any of the above rumors are true, that we are now at the point where Derrick Caracter -- a center once regarded as second only in talent to Greg freaking Oden -- won't even be playing Division 1 college basketball. And no one is even remotely surprised. Unbelievable.

That was a genuine issue, one that probably deserved to be talked about a little more. The new U.S. basketball team is supposed to be humble, and classy, and all of those things that people usually cite as the (silly) reasons they dislike the NBA. Krzyzewski's comments weren't any of those things.

Today, there's a new mini-controversy, though I'm not sure if it matches the one that preceded it. Judge for yourself: Coach K is aware that Duke-haters -- and they are legion -- are probably rooting against the U.S. men's national team. What does he think of such people? Not much:

Coach K: "I don't really care who people cheer for when I'm coaching Duke. I like to know somebody for who they are. But when you're representing your country, get real about things. Otherwise you're a very low-level, and they don't matter. It's the United States of America. These are your guys. What, are you going to root against Kobe because you're a Cleveland fan?"

Anchor: "Well, somebody will."

Coach K: "Well then those people are low-life people, and don't deserve to be thought of, you know. Let's think of the positive people who want their country to do well."

Always so diplomatic! Dad, I can't see real good -- is that Winston Churchill over there? (Waves glasses up and down, pulls up pants, etc.) 

While it's not a very nice way of saying it, Coach K isn't entirely wrong here. I just think he's missing the point.

Krzyzewski is an Army man. He seems like the kind of guy that harbors intense patriotism, and who is confused at those who don't. So it's probably hard for him to understand why petty rivalry would keep fans from rooting for their country in the Olympics. Fair enough.

But what Coach K doesn't understand is that the people who are supposedly rooting against him -- more than likely, those people wouldn't root for U.S. basketball anyway. If you hate Coach K enough, you're probably a die-hard college basketball fan, and a decent portion of such people will never like the NBA, or its players, or its style of play, or David Stern, or cornrows and tattoos, and so actually revel in the failures of those players on the international level. "They dribble too much." "They're showboaters." "They're not team players." "Not enough passing." And so on. It's not about God or country. It's about sensibility. Some people will never come around.

So if those people are rooting against Coach K, they're (probably) just using him as an excuse. The real hatred is for the players. The haters may be "low-life people," but if they are, they're a totally different breed of low-life.

National journalists get to experience it all the time. If you work for ESPN, USA Today, The New York Times, or any of the local papers that cover Duke and North Carolina, you've experienced the iciness in the room when Coach K needs to address an eager media. It's not pretty.

Along with (most) fans and players, those that haven't experienced it are foreign journalists. At the Olympics, though, they're getting a pretty good taste. The Kansas City Star's always-brilliant Joe Posnanski shared the following scene this morning, in which Generic Accented Foreign Journalist No. 1 tries to ask Coach K if his team was showing off by dunking repeatedly at the end of their rout. And cue:

“There was no showing off,” he said with an edge in his voice. “You dunk when you have to dunk. They have 7-footers. If you don’t take it hard, Yao would block it. He did block one. … I don’t know your definition of showing off, to me that’s hard basketball. I thought we played very hard. I thought we took it to the basket hard. Don’t confuse hard with showing off.” He then glared at the person who asked the question, a reporter with an accent. And he said: “Maybe it’s a difference in our languages. Maybe in your language playing hard means showing off.”

Ahh! Don't look directly at him or HE'LL DESTROY AHHHHH!! No! The power of gray tweed compels you! The power of gray tweed compels you!

...

Phew. That was a close one. And now you've learned, earnest foreign reporter: Never ask Coach K an honest or thoughtful question about the nature of his basketball team. Answering those does not sit alongside "filming AmEx commercials" and "wearing Duke polos" in his job description.

The police, being the police, wanted to know why. Why, Stanley? Why masturbate in the library? Why, that was merely how he "chills", according to Pringle. Not a great explanation. I kind of understand what he's saying, but hands + down pants + libary + female presence almost always = police. Life lessons, these.

Now, one of the great stories in the first season of The Dagger is back, sort of: Stanley Pringle will complete a rehabilitation program as part of his punishment. No word on whether the details of Stanley's progress in the program will be available for blockquoting, but we can hope:

As part of his acceptance into the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD), Pringle will receive one year of probation and be required to complete the program before he can request that his record be expunged, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira said. Pringle's acceptance into the program does not constitute a guilty plea, Madeira said. However, he described it as "punishment without a verdict." "I view ARD as accepting a responsibility for something," he said. "There needs to be a willingness to change your actions."

I agree. Willingness to not masturbate in front of others in a public library -- that's an important willingness. That's the sort of thing that, if you don't really want it, deep down -- if you don't really want to not masturbate in the library -- it might never happen. You could doom yourself to a life of chronic library masturbation, and a life of cat-and-mouse with the world's best regional investigate reporter. That's a fate I wish upon no man.

That's how good this thing is.

Remember Todd Bozeman? Of course you do: He's the former Cal coach that left the Bears in dishonor in 1996 after admitting to paying a recruit's parents $30,000, and was effectively banned by the NCAA with an imposed "show-cause order" until 2005. Bozeman spent the decade as an NBA assistant -- the preferred career choice of rulebreaking college coaches -- before landing a head coaching job with Morgan State in 2006.

All of that history is now moot, though, for Todd Bozeman has a blog -- "Blogging With Boze" (which I first read as "Blogging with Booze," and I must say I was immediately interested). Anyway, it's awesome. Take the eternal enthusiasm of Pete Carroll and add just a dash of Tracy Morgan's character in 30 Rock, and I think we're getting close. For example, in this post, Bozeman quotes Nelly before explaining the finer points of air conditioning at Morgan State:

"It's gettin HOT in here".....I wanna take my clothes off

It's just a line from a song folks....don't trip!

The air condition in the athletic department was off at the beginning of the week. Man, you talking about HOT! It was ridiculous! Fortunately for us it was turned back on or re-started by Wednesday morning. It felt like a sauna in there. People were working with the lights off, doors open fans blowing and it was still a sweat box! It’s back to cool now….Thank God!

And so on. The ensuing headlines read: "Rest and Re...laxation! Everybody needs some"; "I Want to Be FREE!"; and "Sleeping is Over Rated!" Like so many new bloggers, Boze is clearly enthralled with intellectual creativity at his fingertips -- that first surge of enthusiasm is really what blogging's all about. I assume Bozeman has yet to experience his first existential crisis -- why do I even do this? ANOTHER post about Erin Andrews?! -- but when it comes, we'll be the first to know.

(HT: HBCU Sports Blog)

Yesterday, Storming the Floor* posted this interesting little thought experiment: If the men's national basketball team was selected like it was 20 years ago, which college players would be picked? That's a great question (and timely; maybe you heard the Olympics were happening today?), and here's what they came up with:

The rules were simple. We dismissed all of the one-and-done players, and all of the incoming freshmen, and then set about to build a fairly balanced team out of what was left. This is what we came up with:

Backcourt

Ty Lawson, North Carolina: 5'11" Point Guard, Darren Collison, UCLA: 6'1" Point Guard, Nick Calathes, Florida: 6'6" Point Guard, Stephen Curry, Davidson: 6'3" Shooting Guard, James Harden, Arizona State: 6'4" Shooting Guard, Jack McClinton, Miami: 6'1" Shooting Guard

Frontcourt

Raymar Morgan, Michigan State: 6'7" Forward, Damion James, Texas: 6'7" Small Forward, Jarvis Varnado, Mississippi State: 6'9" Forward, Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina: 6'10" Power Forward, Jordan Hill, Arizona: 6'10" Forward, Blake Griffin, Oklahoma: 6'10" Power Forward, Omar Samhan, Saint Mary's: 6'11" Center

There's a case to be made for Chase Budinger, Kyle McAlarney, and maybe a couple of others, but mostly, STF nailed the roster. I think it's a good selection, and it makes sense all the way around.

But let's take this a step further. Could this team actually do any damage in the Olympics? Could a team of college players compete in the modern games?

The short version: no. Not really. The long version: maybe, but probably still no.

A few things to consider. One: These players, no matter their various skill sets, are eons and eons and eons less talented than the current NBA-populated national team. Words really don't even describe the gulf in talent. It's like the difference between T-Pain and Marvin Gaye. T-Pain is pretty great, and entertaining, but he's a dim light compared to this.

Everyone can probably agree on that. So if the college national team has the same limited practice time as the current men's national team, and the current team struggles with its foreign opponents, it stands to reason the collegians would struggle -- perhaps exponentially so. (That's the transitive property, and I learnt it in skool.)

Two: Things ain't like they used to be. College basketball players used to be among the best in the world; even if they were much worse than NBA players, that still made them among the top .01 percent in the world. No one else played basketball! Now, teams like Argentina, Croatia, Germany, Russia, Spain, teams that never used to have a prayer of beating the U.S, have plenty of successful NBA players on their rosters, and they treat Olympic Competition as a national duty.

Three: The international game is played above the rim, but it also requires balance and savvy. Argentina's lineup is full of sneaky veterans and versatile big men, the kind of team a greenhorn bunch like the U.S. collegians would be almost helpless against. The adjustment to the international game gets a lot of attention; for players without even NBA experience, it would be less an adjusment and more a whirlwind.

Still, the international game is in some ways more similar to the college game than to the NBA.The nebulous values of "playing the right way" and "teamwork" that people tend to ascribe more to college basketball have been cited as the NBA team's international downfall. The collegians could make up some ground on that front. Not much, but some.

And let's not forget that the above team is not filled with a bunch of slouches, either. On paper, they're better than Angola, Australia, China, Croatia, Iran, Russia, and maybe even Germany. A bronze medal wouldn't be out of the question.

But that's the difference -- when the U.S. sends its best players, it picks its All-NBA team, and a gold medal is not just hoped for but expected. If the "Redeem Team" fails to win most of its games by 20 points, people will be upset, and little children will cry, and the fabric of our nation will come into question. Those expectations -- and the team's ability to generate them -- are what sets the college team apart from the real thing.

Well, that and talent. Talent's pretty important too.

*This is the second thing I've linked by STF today, and that's because they're quite good. If you aren't reading, you probably should be.

I'm not taking that quiz. No way.

Sure, the NCAA's recruiting rules are draconian and confusing. That doesn't mean college coaches don't have to follow them ... um, or at least know what they are, so they know how to hide rulebreaking most efficiently. It's all about having that rulebook at the ready: Am I calling this recruit one too many times? Better text him and have him call me. What a genius workaround. 

Fortunately, now you can put yourself in Kelvin Sampson's distinguished shoes: Storming the Floor found the NCAA recruiting rules quiz, a handy way to test your knowledge of silly and outdated rules that no one pays attention to anymore. The men's basketball exam opens with this zinger:

In men's basketball, one telephone call per month is permitted to a prospective student-athlete beginning June 15 at the conclusion of the sophomore year through July 31 of the junior year, and twice per week beginning August 1 prior to the beginning of the senior year. True or false?

Neither I nor Sampson can answer that question. But perhaps you can.

What people, including myself, probably overlooked during those rumors was that hey, Kansas has some pretty deep pockets too. And they love their basketball. Couldn't Self just get a really big contract from Kansas?

That answer? Yes. Yes he could:

Bill Self, the Kansas basketball coach who guided the Jayhawks to their first NCAA championship in 20 years, signed a 10-year, $30 million contract Wednesday. The deal had been in the works since April, when Self’s Jayhawks came from nine points down in the final minutes to beat Memphis in a thrilling title game and he subsequently turned down an offer to return to Oklahoma State, his alma mater. Kansas and Self, 45, said in April he had agreed to the deal while the details were worked on. Kansas also agreed to big raises for his staff as well as improvements on the school’s basketball facilities.

In case my bold emphasis wasn't enough, that's 10 years, $30 million. To coach college basketball. It's at this juncture I'd like to point out that most NFL players -- even above-average, sturdy NFL players -- don't make $30 million in their careers. Bill Self will eclipse that number in a few years. That's insane.

So that whole time we were freaking out about Self bolting for OSU's big pockets, he was quietly working on a deal with Kansas to make him insanely rich. Then, he went out and won a national championship and landed another stellar recruiting class. Then he got that dough. Not a bad year, all things considered.

Surfing: Apparently they do this in Hawaii.

Great news, hoopheads: The Maui Invitational field, along with the fields for the Old Spice Classic and something called the Anaheim Classic, was announced yesterday. Sure, you're thinking, great -- a preseason tournament field. That's the best you can do for us, Eamonn?

Madam or sir, I beg to differ. First of all, tell me you didn't just get a little excited right now. I don't believe you. Second, the announcement of the Maui Invitational field means we're only like 100 days from the start of actual college basketball action, and if you carry the one and don't count the weekends and round up and divide the multiplier and other math stuff that's only like four days. We're almost there! Sort of!

So let's celebrate. Check below the jump for an entirely premature breakdown of the Maui.

North Carolina
Chaminade (Host)

The Maui is a tournament of upsets, perhaps even moreso than the NCAA Tournament, because teams are fresh and new and haven't played against live competition before, and anything can happen in those situations. Anything, that is, besides Chaminade beating North Carolina. I fear for little Chaminade's safety, actually. Chammers, buddies, if Tyler Hansbrough starts to grunts at you, be careful. That's his grit indicator level rising. Don't look him in the eye. Just ... slowly ... step away.

Oregon
Alabama

Two teams making their first apperances is Maui had better enjoy the scenery while they get a chance, because they're also on the same side of the bracket as UNC, and that's bad news for everybody. Still, a nice deep run in the tournament would help Ernie Kent get that fan base confidence back after a slip to 18-14 put him on the hot seat last year. Alabama will benefit from the late return of forward Alonzo Gee, who, like North Carolina's triumverate of unsigned guards, decided to test his draft status before heading back to school to make the fans happy. That is, he would have made the fans happy, but after finding out Gee can't play wide receiver for ROLL TAHDE, they totally forgot who he was.

Texas
St. Joseph's

The question for Texas is usually not whether there's talent waiting in the wings, but how. Scary freakish Kevin Durant talent? Or just slightly amazing D.J. Augustin talent? What's it going to be, Barnes? It'll take long than the Maui to answer that, but in the meantime, the Longhorns get to test themselves out against an OK St. Joe's team. Hey, remember when St. Joe's had, like, Delonte West and Jameer Nelson? And that one taller white dude? And they were really good? ... That was awesome.

Indiana

Notre Dame

For those unable to see Indiana's Midnight Madness (or "Hoosier Hysteria," as it's now called), this will be the first chance to glimpse just how awful the Hoosiers are going to be this year. Their best returning player is a 6'4 dude named Kyle Taber. Their best recruits are probably pretty mediocre. And they'll be facing a team with serious national championship aspirations and an All-American in Luke Harangody. Upsets can happen, but it'll be a shock if Indiana upsets anyone all year. Rebuilding is fun!

From the Boston Herald:

That Joanne Pitino, wife of former Celtics coach Rick Pitino, helped save the life of a passenger who had a heart attack on a plane. Our spies in the sky say Mrs. P helped administer CPR and assisted with the oxygen mask after the man sitting next to her collapsed. The plane made an emergency landing in Philadelphia and the passenger made a full recovery!

That's pretty cool. It's also not unlike what Rick Pitino keeps doing for Derrick Character -- one chance at life after another. Except instead of recovering fully, Character sort of sputters there, comes all the way back to life for a week or two, and then starts going back to his favorite corner booth at Dizzy Whiz.

-- Memphis = sketchy. Memphsketch? Memphis and John Calipari and their association with William Wesley -- it's always felt a little sketchy, even if there is no proof that Memphis is doing anything wrong. It's a little like certain steroid-using baseball players. All the signs are there, all the usual indicators, but sometimes the usual indicators are wrong so who are we to judge, right, I mean, I'm sure everything is totally legit because Coach Cal would never do that, right? Would he? Right.

It turns out (allegedly) there's a slight crack in Memphis' armor: FedEx CEO David Bronczek called one of his employees the other day, just to chat, which is really nice of him, and would be no problem if Bronczek wasn't a Memphis booster. It would also be no problem if the employee he just so happened to reach out to wasn't Oseye Gaddy, mother of Abdul Gaddy, the No. 9 player in next year's recruiting class. Coincidence! Total coincidence!

-- Jamar Smith is officially teamless. Wednesday, it was all but certain that Illinois coach Bruce Weber would have to kick Smith off his team for allegedly violating terms of his probation. Even the "allegedly" part of that wasn't enough to save Smith's spot: Weber kicked him off the team yesterday.

"Jamar's decision to violate the terms of our personal agreement for his potential return to our basketball program has left me with no other recourse but to rescind that opportunity," Weber said in a statement.

The decision -- which, again, Weber was literally forced to make, and which he probably should have made last year -- leaves the Illini in a bit of a lurch guard-wise. They'll be forced to start the season with the same corp of guards from last year's ugly 16-19 season. Kentucky transfer Alex Legion will be available in December. Which means Bruce traded one trouble-child for Legion's mother, another interesting soul. I, ahem, foresee hijinx.

-- College coaches are shady. Have you heard? We're all killing the offseason in our own little ways. ESPN is using Christopher Nolan movie titles to rank programs. I'm playing copious amounts of video games and posting footage of shots everyone has seen a million times. Gary Parrish is doing his thing, too, except his thing happens to be exposing some of the nastier, grimier aspects of college basketball. Only the most naive would be shocked by Parrish's primers, but it's good stuff anyway. For example, the cash-for-prospects give and take of summer "Elite" camps is especially tawdry:

It's an on-campus event run by a college program, usually reserved for about the best 10 or 20 prospects that particular program is recruiting. More to the point, it's a fine way for a school to exploit a loophole in the NCAA rulebook and funnel money to summer coaches who in turn use some of that money to pay for their best prospects to attend the Elite Camp of the school supplying the money. Schools are essentially paying summer coaches to gain influence and get prospects on campus in an unofficial capacity.

Right, John Beilein?

"I'm naive to that and how it happens," said the Michigan coach. "But people say it apparently happens."

John Beilein is interested by your ideas, but would like to clarify that he has NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. NO CLUE AT ALL. Right.

Depending on your perspective, Illinois coach Bruce Weber was either merciful or cowardly in his treatment of Smith. Instead of kicking the troubled player off the team, Weber chalked it up as a mistake (almost killing a teammate is, after all, just part of growing up), let Smith redshirt the 2007-08 season, and planned to utilize the guard's talents this fall.

Unfortunately for them both, a prosecutor says Smith was grippin' and sippin' last Friday night, a violation of his terms of probation. What's more is that the prosecutor doesn't even have to prove beyond a reasonable a doubt that Smith was drinking -- the burden of proof is merely that Jamar was "more likely than not" drinking ... on a Friday night ... at 2:30 a.m. ... at a bar ... in Champaign, Illinois. That sounds like a tough sell.

For the Illini, bad break. Weber gets a little egg on his face for forgiving Smith's first transgression; the team cuts ties with Smith; and the 2008-09 season progresses pretty much as expected. For Smith, the punishment is far more serious. At best, he loses his scholarship. At worst, he spends his next 14 years in prison. Ouch.

Mazzulla, a 6-foot-2 junior from Johnston, R.I., was charged with aggravated assault, hindering apprehension and underage drinking. Thoroughman, a 6-foot-7 sophomore from Portsmouth, Ohio, was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and underage drinking.

The 20-year-old players began arguing with police when they refused a request for identification, according to a criminal complaint. The officers said the two smelled of alcohol.

Thoroughman said he did not have ID, according to the report. Police said he lied about his age and threatened a security guard. Police said officers brought Thoroughman to the ground when he refused to put his arms behind his back. While Thoroughman was struggling with the officer, Mazzulla tried to grab his teammate and punched a police sergeant.

And the 10,000th person to type the words "Bobby Thuggins" in the comments will win a free toaster!

It's disappointing. There had never been any inkling that either Mazzulla or Thoroughman were the trouble-making types. And maybe they still aren't, as they haven't yet had a chance to give their side of the story.

Still, I can't envision Mazzulla telling any kind of a story that ends with, "and that's why I thought it was a good idea to punch a police sergeant," and agreeing with him. Unless he said that the cop had a look on his face like John Scheyer in the background of that picture. In that case, yeah, it might be hard not to punch him.

Bob Huggins says he'll let the judicial process run it's course, and then handle things internally. I suppose I should point out that neither were Huggins recruits. They were both brought in by the previous regime.

Yesterday, Rivals.com featured a pretty interesting conversation with one of college basketball's historic, but not famous, figures. They talked not to Keith Smart -- the Indiana guard that made a last-second shot in 1985 to win Bob Knight his third national title at Indiana -- but to the defender that tried to block Smart's shot, Howard Triche. It was kind of cool to read Triche explain what he tried to do on that play, and how there was really no stopping Smart's shot, and the whole description reminded me of just how good the actual shot was. Four seconds left, fading to the corner, super-high elevation, the back-rim near-miss -- the whole thing is utterly dramatic and joyful, as long as you're not Jim Boeheim.

Three things I noticed about the video above:

1. After the shot, Billy Packer just immediately starts squealing that "nobody stopped the clock!" Dude. Keith Smart just hit The Shot. People just call it "The Shot" now. You just got to witness it live. A little perspective, man.

2. Those Indiana shorts were short. I mean, even by the incredibly short-short standards of the mid-80's, those are tiny. Just looking at them, it's ... uncomfortable.

3. I understand Bob Knight has to go solemnly shake Boeheim's hand -- Knight handled that handshake in a classy way -- but after most coaches turn away from that postgame shake, they start screaming and running around with their players. Or they, you know, crack a smile. Not Bob Knight. He doesn't even look remotely pleased by what just happened. He looks, I don't know, relieved? Slightly angry? Borderline furious?

As long as I live, I will never understand Bob Knight.

Dudes of sportswriting -- columnists, bloggers, TV people, whoever -- stop fawning about Erin Andrews. Stop it. Stop. Please? Stop.

Whoa, you just said. Who is this dude to tell us not to talk about Erin Andrews? She's hot! Why does Eamonn get to play high and mighty? The answer is that I'm no one, really, just someone who reads lot of blogs and a lot of columns and watches a lot of college basketball, and in all that "research" I've learned one thing: there's nothing more played out, at this point, than breathlessly panting at every Erin Andrews item under the sun.

For example, The Sports Culture, who seem like decent gents, I guess, and whom I mean not to call out specifically but to provide an example of the sort of thing I'm talking about, had this yesterday:

Ever wonder how ESPN sideline goddess Erin Andrews likes it in bed? Sure you have. She recently told Sporting News that she can do without all the stuff that usually goes on beds — like pillows, the blanket and the comforter.

The writer, Lance, then reblogs a quote from the Sporting News where Andrews says, as a superstition, she takes all the stuff off her bed for Florida games. Pretty innocuous stuff, but it's BED plus ERIN ANDREWS, so you know what's coming next:

If she's this emotional in bed while watching sports, you can only imagine what goes on when she's in bed doing what she does best in bed during the night. … Sleeping. What were you thinking?

Get it? Of course you do. We all do -- and it's fair sport, sort of. I highly doubt Andrews cares too much what one blog does with her likeness, especially if it's a really unconvincing Photoshop of her sitting on a blank bed alongside some lame innunedo. All in all, The Sports Culture's post is relatively harmless, and again, I don't mean to call them out specifically, which is what I'm getting to right now.

A LOT of blogs still do this, and it is really played out. Why? Two reasons:

1). People have been salivating at Andrews since the dawn of sports blogging. If there's one subject more tired Ms. Andrews, it's the fact that Stuart Scott sometimes says "boo-yah." Comedy gets a pass in these sorts of situations, but it's getting really, really hard to be funny about Erin Andrews now, and really, really annoying to see people try. You have to be on point, and so few really are. (I certainly don't have the courage to try it.)

2). More seriously, posts like this contribute to this weird blogging (and column-writing, and TV bloviating) pack mentality that it's somehow in bounds to make backhanded comments about Andrews' appearance, looks, or whatever. One post isn't much, but it snowballs, and next thing you know you've got Rick Sutcliffe on air talking about how nice Andrews' skirt looks. It's incredibly demeaning. Noticing Andrews is fine; turning her into the mascot for every sports guy's pent-up sexual energy isn't.

So, bloggers and writers and TV people of the world, again, I beseech thee. Let's focus less on Andrews' appearance and more on her work. Maybe the two are too intertwined now, but if they are, let's find out, and let's fix it. We're all smart people, and this is getting pretty ridiculous.

Headline with apologies to Manohla Dargis.

Still, Dickey's defection is a small step in the other direction. Pressed by family concerns and given the opportunity to start making money, Dickey is forgoing his senior season at GT and heading to the Ukraine, where professional basketball plays you:

Hewitt, in Las Vegas recruiting, said Dickey's decision to leave the program was based largely on family issues. "We wish Ra'Sean well as he starts his pro basketball career," the coach said by phone. "He certainly has every intention on finishing college. We have all mutually decided that it is in his best interests to start his pro basketball career."

If the issue is with his family, and is money-related, it's not hard to see the correlation here between Jennings' decision to go pro immediately after high school. Sure, mediocre college players have long turned to Europe to capitalize on their talent, but most soldier on until their senior years are over. Dickey's decision is more urgent.

Ra'Sean Dickey may not be a major name, or someone any of us will remember in a year, but he is yet another casualty in the ongoing war between Europe and America. History books told me that the two sides were pretty much cool, but apparently not. Et tu, Ukraine?

Did I say "tremendous honor"? I meant "embarrassment." Sorry. (The jersey was quickly un-retired.)

Kevin Durant's situation is not quite that embarassing, but it is almost as confusing. Texas has announced it will retire the No. 35 Durant wore during his one season with the Longhorns, a year in which Durant was, admittedly, amazing, and was, deservedly, the consensus national player of the year. But his team only reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Durant only played one season. Does that resume merit a retiring of garments?

Marco at Storming the Floor proposes an unwritten rule about jersey retirements:

The STF ruling.....a player needs to play at least three seasons or lead the team to a national championship to have his jersey retired. Or make a gigantic donation to build a new athletic facility. That also works.

I'd agree with that. (Especially the last bit. Money talks, son.) Barring Carmelo Anthony-level success, one-and-done stars that missed out on team accolades probably don't deserve the symbolic retirement. Then again, who cares? Let each university do what it wants, right. It's not really worth getting too worked up over. It's just July, is all.

It holds a hidden gem, however, one The Wayne Fontes Experience found all the way back in November of 2007, back before any of us even knew who Stephen Curry was: Detroit's 2009 Final Four logo. I hadn't seen this yet, and you need to. I give you ... burning tire thingy!

Impressive. In one fell swoop, Detroit's logo people managed to take a proverbial bowling pin to the head of clean design AND allude to Detroit's sad metropolitan struggles. Hey, that tire's on fire! Just like the dreams of thousands of blue collar workers who once built autos for the whole world! Exciting.

Detroit 2009: Feel the crushing civic depression!

The decision was a smart one by the NABC. It allowed them to openly "ban" the practice and show the casual viewing public -- and bloggers that like to make fun of college coaches for generally being horrible people -- that they got it. Unfortunately, they have no way to enforce their decree, and Billy Donovan, after taking a commitment from ninth-grader Austin Rivers, is once again telling the NABC to shove it:

"I don't know if it really made a whole lot of sense," Donovan said. "Because one of the things they should be doing, at least from my perspective, is opening up the lines of communication more than closing them down. I think for the NABC just to mandate when we can offer scholarships and when we can't -- what we need to be doing is (exploring) how can we open up the lines of communication more to get to know these kids better. [...] But I think in certain situations if there's a real close relationship ... you know the person and you know the family, the kid has an idea of what he wants to do, where he dreamed of going to school -- it's up to the parents to decide whether or not they want to accept a scholarship and end the recruiting process."

Billy Donovan is a smart dude, and this is all really clever stuff. If people want to send their kids to Florida, he asks, why shouldn't they? Who am I to prevent the youngsters from donning the blue and orange? If the parents are cool with it, why shouldn't I be? It hints at "open communication," parental responsibility, and all sorts of other fuzzy things college coaches often pretend to care about.

The problem is that by openly accepting such young recruits, Donovan is willingly taking the kid's wishes out of the situation. It assumes the parents will always act in the best interests of their child. Anyone who has spent time around the parents of athletes knows this is often not the case.

If you disagree with that, if you think the child's wishes are always heard out in these transactions, then you assume a 14-year-old is capable of making life-changing decisions. How many 14-year-olds have you met like that?

Unfortunately, this isn't about opening communication and building relationships. It's more like gold prospecting -- a mad rush to claim the one scarce resource that really matters in college basketball: talent. Calling it anything else is disengenous. But then, at this point, what do we expect?

Since then, Caracter has staged something of a comeback. When he realized that no one in the NBA wanted anything to do with him, it seemed as if he would transfer, even as he was telling anyone who would listen that he was back on Louisville's team. (This was news to Pitino.) Now, it appears as if the two have worked something out -- Pitino will allow Caracter back on the team in 2009-2010 if Derrick can get his act together for a year.

This should be good.

From Pitino:

"Derrick has come to me repeatedly in the last two months asking to return to our team. I have encouraged him to choose a different path over and over. He came to me one more time and asked for any option available to get back on the team. I have given him the same option I gave Scott Padgett when he played for me at Kentucky. [...] If Derrick is willing to grow up in the game of life and we can help him realize his potential, then we are there to help him. But that's a big if. He will not be a part of our team next year. He will have to measure up in three areas - as a student, as a person and as a basketball player - before I will entertain the possibility of him returning to our team for the 2009-10 season. [...] We expect him to get a job, pay for school on his own, get in shape and abide by the other steps I have reviewed with him. If he measures up, then he can earn his way back. But that remains to be seen."

Translation: Derrick Caracter's chances of playing for Louisville in 2009-2010 are about as good as mine.

There is literally nothing in Caracter's past that suggests he'll be able to do any of the following: get a job, pay for school on his own, get in shape, stay out of trouble, maintain his living space, and so on. I don't want to be too hard on the guy, but he's, like, never done any of those things. Maybe he'll realize this is his last chance at making something of his incredible talent and will combine that talent with his homemaking skills -- maybe he'll become the hybrid of Greg Oden and Betty Draper -- but that seems incredibly unlikely.

Like I said: This should be good.

Goodness, this offseason is long. Have I mentioned that yet? The season has been over for a little while, and besides a smattering of stories here and there, the thing just marches on and never relents and COME ON IS IT BASKETBALL SEASON YET? No. No it is not. It's not even football season. Yikes.

But enough of my whining. It's hard enough for a college basketball blogger to make hay in the offseason -- it's going to be even worse for North Carolina, who are the hands-down favorites to win the NCAA title despite it not even being August yet. Expectations are bad enough in-season, but at the All-Star break? Good luck, kids:

It’s only July, yet the six players at Monday’s offseason interview session were already hearing questions about whether they can live up to the expectations and even whether they could go unbeaten. The players are quick to say they can handle all that even as they acknowledge the importance of keeping their focus amid the hype. “It’s going to be hard because everyone’s going to be talking to us about it and asking about it and pushing for someone to say they’re going to guarantee a national championship,” Frasor said.

Again, to reiterate: It's July. North Carolina is going to be very good. I'll go out on a limb here: North Carolina is likely to be good at basketball in the upcoming season. Billy Packer would like to remind you that they're from the ACC. I think we can all agree on these things.

But literally anything can happen before now and then. Tyler Hansbrough could get so gritty in a summer workout, his Grit Density Index could reach unsustainable levels, and he could implode and destroy the Dean Dome and thousands of innocent summer-school bystanders. Or ... finally driven into dementia, Gary Williams could sabotage the parquet floor with gallons of flop sweat. Have you ever seen a warped hardwood floor? It's terrifying!

All right, those are a stretch. Still, someone could get injured. Let's just calm down, OK?

But that comes to an end in 2009, as the legendarily grumpy Packer has been removed from CBS's NCAA tournament coverage. I don't know if they simply notified him with a phone call, or if it took a team of 14 angry lumberjacks to actually chisel his crusty old buttocks out of the chair, but he's out.

From the Miami Herald:

CBS has decided to replace Packer, 68, with studio analyst Clark Kellogg on its lead announcing team.

An announcement is expected Monday, but CBS representative Leslie Anne Wade confirmed the story Sunday night.

CBS believed the time was right for a change and that Kellogg deserved a chance to work with Jim Nantz on the lead team.

Packer says he's going to pursue "other projects in basketball," presumably, driving around to all of the mid-major programs in the country and punching their head coaches in the stomach.

I guess that's how Packer as a Final Four institution will be remembered; as a curmudgeonly fellow who didn't have a great amount of respect for mid-major programs, but made up for it with a more than healthy respect for the ACC. Honestly, I don't know of a lot of people who ever enjoyed his work.

That said, even if there was a little too much Archie Bunker in him, he was also very honest, blunt, and willing to share his knowledge of basketball. He taught the viewing audience about the game. And for anyone to hold down such a prestigious gig for 34 consecutive years is remarkable. That will never be topped.

Welcomed in to the seat next to Jim Nantz at the Final Four table is Clark Kellogg, who previously worked as a studio analyst through the NCAA tournament. It's unfair to judge Kellogg before he has a chance to actually do it, but I will say this: I've always found -- and I'm not alone in this -- CBS's NCAA tournament studio show to be bland, dry, unentertaining, and uninformative.

If it were up to me, they'd have sent Bill Raftery in, Jerome.

"It's a situation now that if someone's a 'one-and-done,' we're not going to pursue them anymore, no way," Olson said from his Tucson office.

[...]

Olson, 73, a basketball Hall of Fame member who guided the Wildcats to a 1997 NCAA title, labels the so-called one-and-done situation a "farce," and is pushing for reform as a member of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches.

Olson suggests that elite prep players be given a choice: opt to declare for the NBA draft immediately after high school, or be committed to spending a minimum of two years (Olson would prefer three) in college.

Tubby Smith, Tim Floyd, and Jim Boeheim are also quoted in the article, and they're all still salivating over one-and-done guys. When Boeheim was asked if he'd stop recruiting one-and-done players, he said, "Are you crazy?"

Lute isn't coping very well with losing Jerryd Bayless to the NBA Draft, either. And on this subject, he actually sounds far whinier.

"Jerryd said all along he wanted to stay here two years," Olson said. "But then you get the agents working on the kids and parents all year. You might have the kid in your controlled environment for some time, but when [outsiders are] on the parents, you have no idea what's going on."

I've got all the respect in the world for you, Lute, but come on. Your sour grapes are not necessarily an indication of a broken system.

Let's be realistic. Jerryd Bayless was a lottery pick. He went 11th overall, and could have gone much higher. Maybe the system we have isn't perfect, but it doesn't take some overwhelmingly powerful force of corruption to tell a kid that if he's going to be a lottery pick, that he should go. A lot of coaches give this same advice to players.

Myself, I don't see what's so terrible about the system. Would anyone argue that one year of Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and OJ Mayo was bad for college basketball? This last year was fantastic. Largely because of those guys.

At the end of the day, I'm afraid that what we have here is a coach who's frustrated by the fact that he doesn't have a point guard. I feel for you, Lute, but ... if you're looking for someone to blame, you can feel free to find a mirror.

If you're going to recruit a guy as talented as Jerryd Bayless, and another guy as talented as Brandon Jennings, who also can't make the grades ... you probably ought to have a back-up plan. If anyone's guilty of wronging the Arizona program here, it's the head coach who should have planned better. Things change, and you've got to change with them.

On the left: hopeful, fresh Teddy. On the right: ehhhh.

Weirdness of the day: Former Florida standout Teddy Dupay was charged a month ago for beating and raping a woman at a Utah ski resort. For his trouble, he got to pose for this brilliant mug shot, which, in case you're confused, is most definitely the photo on the right.

MJD's coverage of Matt Jones' mug shot today was spot on, and I thought it couldn't get any more disturbing than Jones' wide-awake, cocaine-infused eyes, but I dare say this Teddy Dupay shot wins the day. Seriously. That hair? Is this 1989? Is Dupay auditioning for a role in a Miami Vice spinoff?  What on Earth is going on?

Anyway, Dupay will be arraigned Monday, and the details of his case are sordid and damning. They involve marks on bodies and the words "got a little rough" and all sorts of other inferences one makes when discussing rape cases. It's probably best to not get into it here. I'd prefer to just stare into those haunting, pastel-enhanced eyes.

Pictured: Demar DeRozan, Jerime Anderson, Malcolm Lee and Greg Monroe

Those of us that follow college hoops have been falling over ourselves for the past day describing Brandon Jennings' situation as "trailblazing." In fact, while there's a chance Jennings' decision changes the way recruits look at their options, just as great is the potential that Jennings fails in Europe and scares away any potential second-wave Euro recruits. Anything could happen.

Still, as Pete Thamel wrote in the New York Times yesterday, other recruits are keeping an eye on Jennings:

One of the top players in the class of 2009 is Lance Stephenson, who has led Brooklyn’s Lincoln High School to three consecutive New York City championships. [...] Stephenson’s father, Lance Sr., said Monday in a telephone interview that he and his son would be following Jennings’s decision closely.

DeMar DeRozan, a U.S.C. signee, is considered the best scorer in the freshman class. [...] DeRozan has said he has not qualified academically to play at U.S.C., which Trojans Coach Tim Floyd confirmed. While DeRozan said he was solely focused on playing college basketball, it is plausible that Europe could become an option.

“It put thoughts in a lot of players’ heads when they see Brandon going over there and doing something like that,” DeRozan said.

It doesn't sound like either DeRozan or Stephenson are actually considering a trip to Europe, but it's bound to happen to someone eventually. When you consider Jennings' talent -- he's a lanky point guard that still needs to get stronger and more collected -- he's not nearly as league-ready as some of his counterparts. All it takes is for a more fully developed, academically ineligible player to come along, and we're one European recruit short of a trend.

Have fun watching EuroSPN or whatever floats over those ancient bloody airwaves. And remember, upon your return to Madison Square Garden for the second round of the 2009 NBA Draft, don’t forget your passport. Because Americans can travel without it!"

Jason Whitlock, FOX Sports: "In all likelihood, Brandon Jennings won't be the last big-time basketball recruit from the 2009 class to choose overseas money rather than the stereotypical, under-the-table college package. Why risk being the next O.J. Mayo, the USC one-and-done-er done in by sloppy ESPN reporting, a former, opportunistic friend/ex-drug-dealer and antiquated NCAA rules? We all (know) assume that big-time basketball and football recruits receive "illegal" benefits for pretending to be student-athletes at America's institutions of higher learning. We also (know) assume that journalists and news organizations can make names for themselves by exposing the fact that the kids and their parents/guardians are just as greedy as the constantly renegotiating coaches we put on pedestals. Brandon Jennings, a former Arizona commit, is smart. Why play the silly game?"