No Friday slacking
June 20th, 2008, 2:12 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Mark Heller
The 6-foot-3 Brandon Jennings was rated as the No. 1 guard in the country, but the Arizona recruit has hired a lawyer to explore overseas options if test scores prevent him from going to Tucson.
Some actual news going on in the college basketball world in late June.
The 2008 Anaheim Classic field has been locked up. Arizona State knew it was a part of this back in April, and the Sun Devils will be joined by the likes of Baylor and St. Mary’s (NCAA tournament teams), Cal State Fullerton, Providence, Charlotte and Wake Forest.
Matchups haven’t been determined yet for the three-day tournament, but it’s a solid non-conference tournament. The schedule will be followed by matchups against San Diego State (No. 82 in final RPI), Pepperdine (No. 204 in a down year), BYU (No. 25) and Nebraska (No. 96), plus a few also-rans.
Remember, though, the Maui Invitational last year had a group featuring Duke and Marquette, but ASU wound up with Illinois and Louisiana State, which didn’t do the Sun Devils favors in strength of schedule.
But the big tidbit for the moment comes from Tucson, where Andy Katz of ESPN.com says Brandon Jennings is looking at playing overseas if Arizona doesn’t pan out. Jennings is the All-American prized recruit of the Wildcats, and while he plans to play at UA and is qualified, red flags went up after he took two standardized tests with widely varied results, so he’ll take a third test and learn its results next week.
Jennings also said he’d likely have gone pro if not for the NBA requirement of either playing one year in college or being 19 years old within the draft’s calendar year.
He’s likely to be this year’s Jerryd Bayless anyway, especially since Chase Budinger will also likely go pro next summer. Still, Arizona believes he’ll qualify and everything will be fine, and though it could set an interesting benchmark of American kids going from high school to Europe to the NBA, my money says he’ll be a Wildcat this fall.
Speaking of age requirements, the National Association of College Basketball Coaches wants to put the collective foot down when it comes to recruiting. USC coach Tim Floyd has been a key figure in this (though hardly the only one), since he’s offered scholarships to at least two 15-year-olds in the past three years. One, Ryan Boatright, chose USC before he knew what high school he’d attend.
This all makes sense for obvious maturation, development and academic reasons. The question is whether coaches will ultimately heed their own preaching.
Kevin O’Neill has found a new home under former Suns assistant Marc Iavaroni in Memphis. Nice to see he found a job (though that wasn’t going to be too tough and he’s always wanted to return to the pros), we’ll see how well he holds up in NBA purgatory.