clarkwgriswold

Nooooooooooooooo!!!!! Say it ain't true! The next thing you're going to tell me is that John Calipari cheats. I gave up when North Carolina and Saint Roy Williams walked away from that academic scandal unscathed.

Great. Kansas and that cheating Bill Self win a national championship while the NCAA plods through one of its interminable investigations. I'll bet the Adidas money train is happy along with the Kansas administration that gave Self what is essentially a lifetime contract in the midst of the investigation. Better yet, they win it over a school with a history of cheating.

Exactly. It is similar to the recruiting process where you have to wait to see how the top kids are going to pan out before the other kids settle into their new schools. I did an informal study and found that 97.8% of college basketball players are unrealistic as to the level of their talent and the quality of schools that might want them.

How is Thad Matta only 54 years old? I'd have bet he was 60 plus. I was thinking the Butler made a mistake by hiring an old fogy.

That's as close as I have seen to a compliment for Dakich!

That NC/Duke game was outstanding.

Eff LSU. Bunch of damn cheaters. The school even let its cheater coach keep coaching when there was clear evidence he was a cheater.

Yep, the only way that works well is if Freeman extends his range or the other big guy is like Xeyrius and can play away from the basket.

Good luck to Boals. Seems like a good coach and a good guy, just the kind of coach I would hope for an archrival to lose.

It happens. Arizona State football had a kid who went in, then committed to return then went back in and transferred. It's all nuts.

Only if he plays 6 games then bails.

I believe Alex Abreu was inducted into the DEA and United States Postal Service Halls of Fame.

Our old friend Bob Huggins is reportedly going to be one of this year's inductees into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Congrats Bob. Well deserved.

Clearly, the Zips are in a worse position than they were 2-3 weeks ago, however, the only relevant point of comparison is 2-3 weeks ago versus next March.

A MAC regular season championship makes for a really nice banner and little else.

He's certainly not a program changing loss. They'll find a replacement without much difficulty. In the portal he'll be seen as a 7 footer who is generally able to get down the floor without tripping on his own feet and some coaches will remember the old maxim "you can't teach height."

I'm thinking I should have started a thread "The Next Shoe to Drop- losses to the Transfer Portal" where we could all make predictions as to our next defection.

What many of these kids need to understand is that a person at the talent level to be an average or above average MAC player isn't going to draw any NIL money anywhere.

I think Aziz could have developed into a reasonable contributor. I don't think he was never going to be All-MAC but I could see him as a 20- 25 minute a night guy averaging 8-10 points and 5-6 rpg. He was also a possible solution to facing larger lineups as with development he could be on the floor more with Freeman. Who knows what goes through the head of a 21 year old kid from Senegal in a distant land where he's learning English as a second language. It seems like staying would be the most comfortable option but maybe there's a better choice for him out there somewhere. I hope he's not being sold a bill of goods.

Good call. I miss getting to know the kids through 4 years of watching them grow up in a program.

I'm a little surprised/disappointed that in nearly two pages of posts on Ali's departure no one has stated "good riddance" or "don't let the door hit you in the...." You're slipping gentlemen. LOL.

If Ali and his family think that going elsewhere is in his best interests so be it. It's no different really than someone taking what they perceive to be a better job. However, I think he's going to find that being a minor player playing 10 to 20 minutes on a p5 team isn't nearly as rewarding as being a major player on a competitive MAC team for a coach willing to overlook your flaws.

That post was much more mature than my rejected teenage boy like "I never really liked you anyway!" response.

This one pi$$e$ me off a little so I am not going to sugarcoat it. Here is a kid that was recruited by a single D1 school. That school allowed him to get on the court early and when he made obvious mistakes the head coach stood up and praised him to the press. He's now obviously been sold a bill of goods by hangers on and other programs and rather than stick by those who have stuck by him he is buying the the unwarranted perception that he's an NBA prospect. Let's be honest. NBA prospects dominate the MAC as freshman or sophomores, they don't enter their 4th year in a MAC program as a "nice" MAC player.