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Had the old rules still been in place allowing early entry prospects to withdraw up to 10 days before the NBA draft, Washington's Isaiah Thomas says he probably would have merely tested the waters this year.

Instead, the junior guard is entering the draft without a safety net because he doesn't believe he can get sufficient feedback by the new accelerated May 8 deadline.

Thomas said Thursday he will not hire an agent immediately but cautioned that's merely a formality. Asked on a conference call with reporters if he had definitely played his final game in a Washington jersey, Thomas unequivocally said that he was leaving and that this was his "goodbye."

"I don't think testing the waters gives you enough time to focus on doing the best job you possibly can do," said Thomas, who is two quarters shy of graduating and plans to one day finish his degree. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get to the NBA, be really focused and have no distractions."

While most mock drafts project Thomas

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One day after PBS skewered the NCAA for not sufficiently compensating the players who help make March Madness profitable, NCAA president Mark Emmert said it's time his organization reassess its stance on that oft-debated issue.

Emmert told USA Today that he sees merit in increasing the value of players' scholarships by a few thousand dollars to pay for travel, laundry and other day-to-day expenses that currently aren't covered. He isn't guaranteeing anything will change, but he said that he'll bring up the idea at the next set of NCAA board meetings in April.

A small extra stipend certainly won't satisfy critics who suggest top players should be paid lavishly for their role in raking in TV rights money and merchandise sales, but it does represent a departure from the NCAA's previous stance. The NCAA has long maintained that to protect the principles of amateurism, college athletes should not be compensated aside from scholarships that cover tuition, room and board, and little else.

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If Butler star Matt Howard's parents and nine siblings make it to Reliant Stadium to watch him make his second appearance in a Final Four on Saturday, it will be with an assist from the senior's hometown.

Residents of Connersville, Ind., have been raising money to help the family pay for tickets to the game, transportation to Houston and hotel accommodations. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay tweeted Wednesday that he has also contributed to the Connersville fund after the NCAA struck down his initial plan to fly the family to Houston on a private jet and pay for tickets to the game for the family.

"We so appreciate the offers and generosity of everyone," Linda Howard, Matt's mother, told the Connersville News-Examiner. "But for us, it is paramount that Matt gets to play and that Butler gets to keep anything that it wins. We're not stepping over any boundaries.

"Everything that we have been offered we have checked out with the NCAA compliance office. We really don't want to take any

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With the Final Four set to begin on Saturday, here's a list of the starters on each of the teams ranked from most valuable to least valuable:

1. Kemba Walker, G, UConn: All the All-American point guard has done is average 26.8 points and 6.8 rebounds in the Huskies' four NCAA tournament victories, leading them to a fifth Final Four.

2. Brandon Knight, G, Kentucky: Had Knight not made a game-winning layup against Princeton or a tie-breaking 16-footer against Ohio State, Kentucky might be home watching this Final Four instead of playing in it.

3. Matt Howard, F, Butler: There are certainly flashier, more talented players below Howard on this list, but nobody has played a bigger role in his team's success. Howard is averaging 16.3 points and 7.0 rebounds per game in the NCAA tournament and made a game-winner against Old Dominion.

4. Terrence Jones, F, Kentucky: Maybe the most amazing part of Kentucky's run to the Final Four is that Jones hasn't scored more than 12 points in any of the

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From crazy upsets, to buzzer beaters to nail-biting finishes you'd have to see to believe, the 2011 NCAA tournament has been one of the better ones in recent memory. Now that the madness is winding down, The Dagger thought we'd celebrate by picking 68 things we've loved about the 2011 NCAA tournament.

1. The sign in Richmond hung by VCU fans telling Dick Vitale to "Eat Crow, Baby!" (Jeff Eisenberg)

2. The split screen with President Obama and the Oakland-Texas game. The president is addressing the situation in Libya, Oakland is trying to upset Texas. You decide which is more important. (Graham Watson)

3. John Calipari's kiss planted on the sweaty forehead of DeAndre Liggins. (Ryan Greene)

4. Ohio State and Kansas playing flawlessly one night, establishing themselves as the tournament's prohibitive favorite and then laying an egg the next time they stepped out on the court. The beauty of one and done. (Chris Chase)

5. Shaka Smart ticking down the major conferences VCU has toppled on

Fullscreen capture 3292011 104436 AMIf Virginia Commonwealth alums and fans want a T-shirt to commemorate the 11th-seeded Rams' miracle run to the Final Four, the school has given them plenty of options from which to choose.

No less than 30 T-shirts are now available for purchase on the school's website this week, one of which is one of the coolest tourney shirts we've seen and should be an especially hot seller. The T-shirt features a crumpled piece of paper and a VCU logo on the front with the slogan "There goes my bracket!"

Related: Buy your Final Four gear here

It's safe to say that nobody will accuse VCU of false advertising based on that motto.

With its shocking 71-61 upset of top-seeded Kansas in the Elite Eight, VCU became only the third double-digit seed to make the Final Four, joining George Mason in 2006 and LSU in 1986.

Less than 3,000 of the three million entrants in Yahoo! Sports' NCAA tournament Pick'Em game selected VCU to make the Final Four. Not one Yahoo! entrant had the correct four teams in the Final

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There's no downside to juniors seeking feedback from NBA teams on what areas of their game they need to improve, so Pittsburgh's Ashton Gibbs has decided to take advantage of the system.

Gibbs revealed Tuesday that he will enter the NBA draft, but he will not sign with an agent in order to preserve his college eligibility. The 6-foot-2 junior has until May 8 to withdraw his name from the draft and return for his senior season.

Before Pittsburgh fans get panicky at the thought of losing Gibbs a year earlier than expected, consider that the most likely outcome is he'll still be back on campus for his senior season.

Although Gibbs averaged a team-high 16.8 points per game this season for Big East regular-season champion Pittsburgh and shot a ridiculous 49 percent from 3-point range, there are concerns his game may not translate well at the NBA level. Not only does he struggle to get to the rim as easily as most pro guards, Gibbs also lacks the size NBA scouts look for in a shooting guard

uspw_5228526The lingering question in the wake of Tyler Honeycutt's announcement that he's declaring for the NBA draft and hiring an agent is how much the sophomore forward's departure will impact UCLA's fortune next season.

It certainly won't improve the Bruins losing their third-leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, but it's not the crushing blow some are calling it either.

Although Honeycutt is a likely first-round pick because scouts are tantalized by his long 6-foot-8 frame and sound mechanics on his jump shot, he never came close to achieving his potential at UCLA. He defended intermittently, he committed more turnovers than any player on the team and he shot only 40.6 percent from the field and rarely got to the rim.

There's no doubt Honeycutt might have made another huge leap had he stayed in college for one more season, but his departure doesn't really change UCLA's strengths and weaknesses going into next season.

UCLA will still have the Pac-10's best frontcourt and best perimeter