Phil had the opportunity to sit down with new Colorado Buffalo Xavier Johnson, who will be joining Tad Boyle's Pac-12 Champion squad this fall. Thanks for doing this, Phil and X. - Jon

Everyone follow X at @XtheCreator on twitter. I can't find him on Facebook, but if you can - he would like you to hit him up there as well. I can't express my thanks to X enough for helping me with this interview.

You’re a top 100 recruit, and a lot of CU fans are really excited for you to come to Boulder and play, but most of them haven’t seen you play a lot. Give us an idea of what we can expect to see, as far as your game is concerned.

You can expect a lot of versatility, and being able to shoot the basketball, ability to bring the ball up the court and rebound, also just be a strong leader.

Other than coach Boyle, was there a particular assistant who you connected with who was your primary recruiting contact?

Yeah definitely Coach Abatemarco, he really kept after me hard, recruiting-wise, and he kept me interested in Colorado, mostly, and he's a great coach

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The game just got started. We've got Ryan Miller and Tyler Hansen in the game. Ryan Miller is listed as a tackle. Reports I read on him during the week were less than kind. Didn't see anything on Hansen, either positive or negative.

The East starting off with the ball, so we'll see how the West's lineup shapes up here in a minute.

We also had Rodney Stewart in the Casino Del Soul game last week. In the one series I saw where he got extended time, he looked only OK, and so, so small. Looked good catching the ball though, and scored his team's first TD on a plunge.

If anything interesting happens, I'll update until the basketball game starts. At that point, the TiVo gets fired up. What the hell is the minimum word count here? Jesus.

What else s going on? Oh, tennis opened the season with a win over Air Force. There, happy FanPost word counter?

Front-paged because I have now realized that we need an Animal-Style t-shirt. Help me with some designs ladies and gents - JW

I coined this nickname for Andre Roberson because he is a double double machine. Double doubles are a popular hamburger option for popular left coast hamburger chain In-N-Out. It means double meat and double cheese. Animal style is the most famous of the secret menu items for In-N-Out. An animal style burger is the "burger of your choice with hand-leafed lettuce, tomato, a mustard cooked beef patty; add pickle, extra spread, with grilled onions." But really, it's all about the animal fries, which add melted cheese, spread, and grilled onions to their admittedly mediocre regular fries. They are fantastic.

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So we're starting a new conference, minus Nebraska. That means we need a new Thanky G rivalry. Enter Utah. I know we have no real reason to hate them, but I can find reasons to hate anyone. So, manufactured as it is, let's send the wheels in motion, embrace this manufactured rivalry, and find reasons to hate the hell out of Utah.

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The ladies look good, albeit against Northern Arizona. I can see them struggling against better competition, though. The post players aren't particularly athletic. They basically did their thing just by being bigger. Chucky Jeffrey is awesome though. She's an insanely smooth athlete, and can legitimately guard anyone on the floor. Brittany Wilson is a bulldog driving the lane. Absolutely fearless. The freshmen looked solid, especially Lexy Kresl who can-and will- shoot from anywhere inside the half court line. But, there were some really bad turnovers. Telegraphed passes that just shouldn't be made against anyone. Ever. And we've got some work to do on the boards. Hopefully that gets cleared up when Arielle Roberson comes back from injury. Now- MEN DO GOOD BASKETBALL STUFF.

So most know the story of our outstanding men's basketball class. We signed Xavier Johnson (4 stars), Josh Scott (4 stars), Wesley Gordon (4 stars, Scout), Xavier Talton (3 stars, Rivals), and Chris Jenkins (3 stars, Rivals). That was good for the 18th ranked class by Scout (3rd in the Pac 12) and 21st ranked class by ESPN, neither of whom have yet given us credit for Talton. I'd guess we also came in 2nd in the nation in total number of Xaviers signed (behind Xavier, duh). Now, that's likely to trend downward as some of the top prospects commit and sign in the spring, but shut up about that - it's being called the best class in CU men's basketball history.

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Okay, it's not really from Stanford, since I'm back in LA, but shut up about that. 

Let me say- Stanford has a fantastic stadium. I mean they have bleachers and whatever, but more importantly, their tailgate area is gorgeous (note- their cop cars are painted black and gold). Lots of giant eucalyptus trees for shade, a terrible parking crew that parks cars haphazardly, which allows for lots of tailgate (and bocce) space, and a garbage fanbase, so most of us were from CU. I sang the fight song no less than 10 times. It was literally CU fans 360 degrees around us. It did suck getting out, but we should've just hung out for a few more hours. Stanford is my new favorite tailgate location. You've been challenged, Ucla!

Oh, and then there was some football. Blah blah blah our team sucks. Back to the tailgate!

In an earlier thread, when discussing the bricks being brought back, I wondered whether or not Embree would consider adding bricks retroactively for the Hawkins era. Not content to just speculate, I asked Dave Plati. I thought I'd pass along the answer. Below are my exact question with his response:

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CU commit Ty Henington is on ESPNU this afternoon w/ Mullen playing Cherokee Trail

Xavier Johnson, a 4 star wing from Santa Ana Mater Dei is taking an official visit this weekend. X is a terrific athlete, but he plays a little too AAU oriented- meaning get up and down the floor and dunk a lot. Haven't seen a lot of him in the half court, and he needs to extend his range. Still would ge a huge pickup, but might be tough to pry away from SDSU, where his dad played. Coach Abetemarco said that there were multiple officials this weekend, but I don't know who the others are. (edit- I found another one- Buddy Hield, 4 star shooting guard from Bel Aire, KS)

We've also got  visit scheduled in October for 4 star PG Tyrone Wallace. He's 6'4", so good size, and it looks like he's an AAU teammate of Spencer Dinwiddie. I also noticed that we offered a scholarship to 6'8" power forward Rosco Allen from Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas. I saw him last year, and he can handle the ball really well for his size. He's a lot like Johnson- his team loves to run, so it's tough to evaluate in the half court. He's got offers from pretty much everyone, and has already taken visits to Stanford and UNLV. Still, getting guys like Johnson and Allen would be major, because they're from consistent national powers. And Wallace plays for a high level AAU team.

I'm off work today and bored, so here's this dumb thing. The NCAA just ruled that high school games can't be shown on school (Longhorn Network) or conference (Pac 12 Network, Big Ten Network) run channels because it's an unfair recruiting advantage. I sort of understand the rationale behind this decision, but it also strikes me as kind of silly.

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http://vmedia.rivals.com/uploads/894/1116687.mp3

some takeaways, if you can't/ don't want to listen:

Orms left with a calf cramp

Bryce Givens is officially gone

A little dig at Hawkins- "I don't want a guy in the locker room say he ain't playig because the coaches screwed him over. They here a guy get called out 3 or 4 times, they'll know why he ain't playing." (or close to that)

Liked the DBs- Sandersfield, Olotoye, Orms before he got hurt. Also liked the freshmen. Had to get on Henderson once. 3 picks, no dropped INTs. Mentioned that Perkins got everyone lined up right.

Said there was a logjam at RB, which is why they moved Cordary Allen, which doesn't really make sense, since he's such a different body type. I think he just wasn't good enough. He'll be playing the "move" TE position, which has a lot of similarities to fullback

also some notes from Allbuffs:

http://www.allbuffs.com/showthread.php/63773-Afternoon-practice

http://colorado.scout.com/a.z?s=148&p=8&c=1&nid=4869

He jumped ship to Oklahoma State. I've said this before- beware the Texas commit without offers from the Texas/ Oklahoma BCS schools. This is the 3rd I can think of to flip when offered by a school closer to home. I'm not saying to not be happy when we get a guy. Just take it with a grain of salt. Texas might consist primarily of wild fires  and oil fields, but there's a strong regional identity that's tough to compete with.