This is a really good article from CNNSI about the perils of playing basketball in the SEC West this season. As the article points out, we may have already missed our shot at getting into the NCAA Tournament considering how bad the West is this season. We currently have a 9-3 record and are 61st in the RPI. Usually this would be a good position to be in  heading into conference play.

CNNSI Article

Unfortunately this is not a rally-the-troops type of fanpost. Just passing along word that Johnny O'Bryant, 4-star big man basketball recruit from Cleveland, MS who was supposed to be an Ole Miss lean for the past year, has decided to commit to LSU. In typical Ole Miss fashion, our big recruiting class that was supposed to include  Ky Madden and Johnny O falls apart in a week's time. Wish both players the best of luck. Hopefully the sky is not indeed falling and AK can find some talent to bring in to the Sad Pad. You hate to go through the typical "We are Ole MIss" type of post after hearing this information, but it does make it hard to believe things will improve when you lose out on two kids that were heavy leans to your program (one of them living a mere hour or so from the school in the Delta) for a long time. On the bright side (???), this gives AK the opportunity to go out and find some under-the-radar talent that he can hopefully bring in and coach up.

Quick basketball recruiting update: Ky Madden was on campus this weekend, and apparently he really liked what he saw. He has cancelled upcoming visits to UCONN and Oklahoma and is set to announce his commitment this Wednesday. It appears as if he will be committing to us, which is huge news for the basketball program. I was fairly certain that he would commit to us after B.J. Young (a 5-star PG) committed to Arkansas, but it is nice to see that he enjoyed his time in Oxford and seems certain of his decision. You can read an article about his visit and potential commitment here: http://www.cuttingdownnets.com/2010/09/27/ky-madden-likely-to-ole-miss-does-obryant-follow/

I think it is important to mention the timing of his commitment (this angle is also discussed in the article above). He is set to commit Wednesday, and the coaching staff will be entertaining Johnny O'Bryant, the all-world center from Cleveland, MS on Thursday. I would imagine the coaches asked Madden to commit before they got O'Bryant on campus so they could use that as a selling point. It will be interesting to see how O'Bryant's recruitment plays out. We would be putting together one of the top recruiting classes in the country (gulp, uncharted waters for Rebel hoops) if O'Bryant joins Madden and Ladarius White on our commitment list. If we could somehow get David Gardner from Okolona to join them, they might give Rebel hoops fans a collective heart attack.

This is Kirk Herbstreit's preview article for the upcoming college football season. He hands out awards (that he cleverly calls "the Herbies") for various categories like undervalued teams, players poised to have a breakout season, etc. Our Rebels picked up five different awards. Masoli was ranked #4 for most explosive player, Bolden was #5 for players ready to take it up a level, our Rebels squad was #5 for most undervalued teams, and HDN took home two awards: #6 in candid coaches and #4 in underrated coaches. I am sure Arkansas fans let out a collective groan while reading the underrated coaches section, and somewhere Gonzohog is plotting how he can murder someone who would heap praise upon ole Houston Nutt.

You can check out the article in its entirety here: Herbies

It is nice to see some of our guys getting praise. I saw a couple Oregon games last year, and Masoli is definitely exciting. Nutt is certainly candid, and I would agree that he is often undervalued (especially with the recruiting class he is putting together). I also think it is fair to say our team is undervalued- in today's links, Ghost posted two other blogger's predictions for our upcoming season. One guy pegged us at 6-6, another had us at 7-5. I would be disappointed with either. Hopefully I am not drinking the kool-aid, but I think we have an easy enough schedule to get to 8-4 barring injuries. The one thing I don't quite understand is the Brandon Bolden selection as a guy ready to take it up a notch. Don't get me wrong, he is a nice guy and not a bad player by any means. I was, however, very underwhelmed with his performance last season. Maybe it was the added weight, maybe it was playcalling, maybe it was the fact that Jevan sucked, but it seemed like he was a lot more sluggish and slow than this freshman year. Hopefully it was just a bad year (and perhaps McCluster took carries away from him more than Bolden just gave them up because he was struggling). At any rate, if he does take it to the next level this year, we could have a special season.

Someone was asking about team recruiting rankings yesterday (I think), and I stumbled upon this on Rivals today. They list the top recruiting classes at this point, though there is a lot of time left between now and signing day in February. They have us ranked #10, ahead of such traditional recruting powers as USC and Notre Dame. We are also the fifth-highest class in the SEC, behind only Bama, LSU, Florida, and Georgia.

There is a lot of time left, and I tend to agree with the article when they say we may not stay in the top ten. However, if we could add Brassell and Singleton, I think we could easily finish in the top 15, which could potentially be our best class ever. I think Nutt's abilities as a recruiter have been underrated. The guy seems to continually put solid classes together year-after-year for us, and it will pay big dividends down the road. I think I am most excited about the possibility of having legit depth in the future- something we really have never had. We had a solid team of starters when Eli was a senior, but I remember seeing a noticeable dropoff whenever second-teamers entered the game.

I know some of you care about recruiting and others don't. I also know most of you don't care about Rebel basketball at all right now with football season starting up. However, I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight how our recruiting class is shaping up right now. To put it in one word: Excellent. This (potentially) will be the best signing class EVER at Ole Miss. Coach Torrey Ward and AK have done an excellent job bringing in talent during their tenure, and this year appears to be their best job yet. I will do my best to highlight who has already committed (and decomitted) so far, and then look at a couple of prospects we hope to bring in. Without further ado....

Committed:

1) Ladarius "Snoop" White   6'5" 200 lb. Shooting Guard from McComb HS in Mississippi

       -This kid is currently unrated by Rivals, mainly because he hasn't played on the national stage until this summer with his AAU team. I expect him to receive a three-star rating when they do get around to rating him. He is a versatile guard who is very athletic (sound familiar? AK loves guys like this). He should fit in nicely with the program and I think will end up being a very solid player for us during his career.

Continue reading this post »

I am not a big Gregg Doyel fan, and his disdain for all things Ole Miss is pretty well-documented. However, I think he makes some valid points in this article:    Oversigning

Now, I am not going to jump on the Houston Nutt hatewagon. We all know he oversigned kids, and we know they made the rule based on his actions. However, I think it is a pretty despicable practice. To my (limited) knowledge, Nutt has always followed through and given kids schollies if he promised it to them during an oversigning period. So, I give him props for that. But, the whole practice rubs me the wrong way. The Les Miles incident mentioned in the article is the most damning. Cutting a kid after he starts summer school and works out for a couple months on campus is atrociously evil. Somehow I wish the NCAA could make scholarships a four-year contract, that way kids couldn't be cut loose like that. It would also make schools become a whole lot better at evaluating talent. The flip side to this coin, though, is the fact that schools become the losers if a kid signs a four-year schollie and then bolts early for the pros. Either way someone loses. Thoughts?????

Rivals College Football Roundtable

This Rivals Roundtable focuses on where members of the Rivals staff think the Vandy head coaching job rates among the Big Six conferences. Most agree that Vandy is one of the toughest jobs in the Big Six due to  high academic standards and having to compete in the SEC. The funny thing to note is David Fox's answer. I will directly quote part of his answer:

"And I might rank Vanderbilt ahead of public school jobs with minimal tradition, such as Indiana, Iowa State and Mississippi State."

Ouch.

If you have been keeping one eye on the draft while you go about living your life like me, then you know Terrico has fallen out of the first round. He was drafted with the 36th overall pick (6th pick in Round 2) by the Detroit Pistons. I truly hate to see this happen. I liked Terrico a lot, and still think he has a great shot at being a very talented player in the league who got drafted in the second round (like native Mississippian and moped-rider Monta Ellis). Unfortunately, he will not be guaranteed a contract and will have to earn his spot on a roster. I wish him the best, and hope he can work out his passivity issues and go all-out on the floor in training camp for the Pistons. However, I have to admit I really wish he was coming back to help lead our squad next year. Let's hope his slippage motivates him to go out and prove the people who were questioning his "motor" wrong.

Rivals has released their football player recruiting rankings by state. Mississippi's top 25 players for the upcoming high school season can be found here-

http://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/rankings/rank-2686

The intereting thing to note is that we (apparently) lead for the top two players in the state, and have already committed the #6 and #18  players in the state. I will leave it to you to check out the rankings and see the players State has committed. I know it is early, and players can change their minds, but it would be interesting to see how someone like Mullen spins this recruiting season if players sign where they are expected to.

I have a couple thoughts on this situation from personal experience. Rather than making multiple replies (that are way too long) in various threads and articles, I thought I would just write them out in a fanpost. I know this makes two fanposts in one day. I apologize in advance for the frequency of my posts.

For starters, I played basketball in college (not at Ole Miss). Chill out, not bragging, just saying I have some firsthand experience. I use the term "play" loosely. Mostly I practiced and then sat on the bench. There have been a few things about this situation that I think most people don't understand:

1) Scholarships benefit the school more than the player. This is a concept most people do understand. Scholarships are renewable on a year-by-year basis, which I think is ludicrous. Most programs will keep a guy for four years, however, some programs (see: Ole Miss) don't have a problem cutting a guy if he fails to meet the expectations of the coaches when it comes to on-court performance. (Advantage: school). Sucks for the player, and to be honest, is not really even fair.

2) AK and the administration are just big, mean jerks who hate Murph and don't want him to "be all he can be" in basketball. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I don't know, but if I was betting, there had to be some reason the school wouldn't let him go to Clemson. I would guess Clemson was on him before he ever even talked with the coaches about transferring. When I played, there was a guy who played for a rival team in our conference. Our team was good, his not so much. He was all-conference and lit us up for 30+ points, however, we always beat his team and they usually finished near the bottom of the standings. Word got out that he wanted to transfer after the semester midway through the season that year. Guess where he ended up? Our school, and helped lead us to a conference title the next year. Our coaches let him know they would welcome him with open arms if he just happened to want to come play for them. Things like this go on all the time.

3) Murph will be stuck in the sticks playing for Low Country U and never get exposure now! Wrong, again. It was already announced today that he is going to SC. How could that happen? Well, he just has to sit out a year and pay his own way as a walk-on. Then, they can put him on schollie the next year. AK's hardcore blocking of those two schools really didn't do much at all now did it. What was all that hand-wringing about again? Seems like things ended up just fine. "But Murph comes from a family that can't afford to pay for a year of schooling at USC." Well, don't cry for Murph Argentina. It is well-known that athletes get plenty of perks. At our school, guys on the team could do work-study programs and make about ten bucks an hour doing things like "monitoring the athletic weightroom." Monitoring the athletic weightroom meant flirting with the women's volleyball team while they did pilates in spandex. Not to mention that most big programs have plenty of boosters that love helping meet the tuition (or frivoulous spending) needs of athletes. Murph will be fine.

4) But should schools really even be able to choose where a kid can transfer to? Yes, I think they should. Most schools are reasonable about this, and in my opinion, AK and Pete Boone were justified in their decision if they knew  Clemson had been on Murph early. If there was no tampering, then they look like tools. I think they had reasonable doubt, so they did what they should have. I am sure Murphy wants to help be their for his daughter- he always seemed like a real good guy. However, I think he wanted out of Ole Miss as well, for whatever he reason. Honestly, someone at Ole Miss would have a found a good place to put Murph, his child, and his baby momma up at if he had wanted to stay. Schools putting limits on transfers helps keep things from spiraling out of control. If the changes that a lot of the media are calling for were put into place (i.e. a kid could transfer anywhere as long as he had a reason that sounded legit- baby, family member in poor health, etc), a lot of star players would mysteriously start having some sick family members all over the place. I don't think we want to see a day where someone like Terrico can come in, play lights out for a year, then transfer to Memphis without any restrictions because Coach Pastner started calling him and telling him he needed to come play for him. The way it is now, a kid can still transfer, but a school being able to restrict where he can go will make them think twice about it.

Sorry this was so long. Just my two cents. I think the situation was handled well. Most Ole Miss fans, I think, are upset because we all loved Murph and had a sentimental attachment to him since he was the only one who seemed like he cared most of the time. I don't know all the details, but I imagine there was stuff going on behind the scenes that motivated the block to Clemson. It worked out in the end- he ends up at USC, which is closer to his hometown anyway. Eventually, Ole Miss took the worst of this, because we lost a solid post player AND will have to play against him in two years.

More attrition on the Rebel basketball team: it was announced today that Deangelo Riley will not return next season (not surprising at all). To replace him, AK signed a kid by the name of Steadman Short out of Chipola JC in Florida. I am not a big fan of bringing in Juco transfers for SEC basketball, especially Juco guys whose name makes it sound like they are a short, white guy who is a loan officer at your local bank. He is listed as a three-star prospect who measures out at 6'9".  He plays the power forward spot and supposedly had offers from Maryland and Marquette (he obviously likes schools whose names start with an "M").  You can check out his Rivals profile here:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/marshall/basketball/recruiting/player-Steadman-Short-102608

Friend? Enemy? Frenemy? of this blog, David Brandt, did a nice job analyzing the current situation for next year's Rebel basketball team. You can check it out here:

Brandt Write Up

Not that anyone cares, but I will provide a quick (and hopefully brief) assessment of how things look right now: NOT GOOD! Ha, only half-kidding. But, I think it is safe to say we can expect more of the same next season- bubble team for most of the year, only to come up short at the end and find ourselves in the NIT. Our main problem will be rebounding and post play (sound familiar?) We will actually have three solid players to rotate in and out at the two post positions in Buckner, Henry, and Cox. However, if any of those guys gets in foul trouble, things get dicey. I don't even know if Riley will be back, but he didn't do much to build up my confidence in his abilities when he did play. I know nothing about Massey (new recruit), but I don't see him being much of a factor. The guard positions will be about the same as they were this year. Warren is what he is- a shoot-first point guard who can score but leaves a lot to be desired on defense. You have to love his toughness though. Nelson I have seen play in high school, and he will be good with time and experience. He is an incredible athlete for being 5'10". I think we will see similar production from the SG position to what we saw this year. I AM NOT SAYING Nick Williams will be as good as Terrico, just saying that Terrico was inconsistent (not always totally his fault) and I think we can see similar productivity from the combination of Williams and Gaskins. Williams, if you happened to see him play while at IU, is a solid player. At the small forward, Zach Graham will finally get his chance to shine. To be honest, I never understood why we sat him in favor of EP. Eniel had his moments, but he really hurt us at times this year with his attitude and selfish play. Overall, solid starting five with good depth at the guard position. However, not much depth in the post, which will probably be our downfall again. I guess it is possible that we could find a way to sneak into the Dance, and we have seen AK do more with less talented rosters. More likely, though, we end up in the NIT again.

I think the best days for Ole Miss basketball are ahead of us (I know- our motto is always "wait til next year"). We supposedly lead for Johnny O'Bryant, a 6'11" center from Cleveland, MS. He is one of the top 10 prospects in the 2011 class in the country. He would easily be the best post player to ever walk through the hallowed (and dimly-lit) halls of Tad Smith Coliseum, and probably be our first one-and-done player. We also are in the final two for Ky Madden, another 5 star prospect who is a 6'5" point guard from Arkansas (take that John Pelphrey).  On second thought, he probably wouldn't fit in. We like our point men to be under 6 feet, in the mold of Warren and Jason Harrison. You have to give AK and Torrey Ward credit, they know how to recruit. And as John Calipari has proven time and again, talent trumps all- including coaching. So fear not Rebel hoops fans (all three of you), the proverbial sun is rising on the horizon of Ole Miss basketball (just not in the 2010-2011 season).