The big news of the day is that Big East commissioner John Marinatto is stepping down at the request of the school presidents. He was in charge of the conference for just three years, after being voted in by a unanimous decision, yet spent much of his time dealing with conference realignment. While he wasn’t the primary problem the Big East had to deal with, his reign did symbolize a problematic era. The Big Lead puts it best: He was not a good commissioner. A good person, yes, but not a good commissioner
- The Wall Street Journal reacts to the change. As does Pat Forde
- Matt Norlander is right, the next commissioner has to be of the “basketball-first” mindset
- The timeline of Marinatto’s reign as Commissioner of the Big East
- +100 to Voodoo Five for their fantastic “Office Space” reference
- We still don’t know if Jim Calhoun will return to the sidelines for UConn next season, but the school is assuming that he will be. The school also refuses to tag anyone as “coach in waiting”
- A cute baby in Louisville posed for a remake of Anthony Davis’ “wingspan portrait”
- Some terrible news out of Southern California. Former-UCLA Bruin Gavin Smith, the father if current-USC forwaqrd Evan Smith, has gone missing and has not been seen in a week
- Andy Glockner provides a succinct recap of the off-season coaching carousel
- Early Monday afternoon, Jeff Goodman wrote that the Illinois State paper The Pantagraph was reporting that the school would name assistant coach Rob Judson as their new head coach, replacing Tim Jankovich, who left to take the “head coach in-waiting” job at SMU. But late Monday night, news broke that Illinois State would in fact hire Vanderbilt assistant Rob Muller, a former redbird player
- Indian’s Matt Roth, a fifth year senior guard who led the Hoosier’s in 3-point shooting, is without a scholarship for next season. Jerod Morris explains why Roth’s scholarship should not be in question
- I always love it when a school rewards a scholarship to a player for hard work and effort. Montana is doing just that with walk-on forward Nick Emerson
- John Calipari addressed the criticism of his nontraditional scheduling that he is imposing for next season. As you may have already heard, the Wildcats won’t be playing Indiana or North Carolina in non-conference affairs. As Andy Katz explains in “The Daily Word”, Calipari is looking to establish more neutral-site games. Despite the lack of big time games, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhardt is confident that Rupp Arena will host at least one marquee non-conference game
- If there is one thing we can be sure of with Calipari’s fresh squad next season, it’s that they will play great defense
- As discussed in the previous weeks and months, it would make sense for CAA schools like VCU and George Mason to make the leap to the Atlantic-10. But in order to do so, they would have to be willing to spend a lot more money
- Anthony Bennett narrowed down his list to just Oregon and UNLV. Eamonn Brennan details the impact he would provide at the two schools
- The Ivy League is looking to improve its public profile, and will sign a major network deal with the NBC Sports Network. John Templon of Big Apple Buckets wonders what the league’s next step is
- The Big-XII has verbally agreed to a new ESPN/Fox deal
- Former-Marquette commit Aaron Durley has decided to attend TCU. With Trent Johnson at the helm, the Horned Frogs will look to make an improvement both on the court and on the recruiting trail
- Tulsa-transfer Jordan Clarkson, who was initially given stringent transfer-restrictions, has decided to attend Missouri. He will be the fifth transfer to join the program since Frank Haith took over in 2011
- Former-Ohio State guard Jordan Sibert will transfer to Dayton