The Dagger

When I was a little kid, thumbing through the pages of Sports Illustrated on Saturday mornings, I used to be genuinely shocked by the magazine's weekly "Sign of the Apocalypse." Fan decides to eat nothing but pudding in protest of island NFL broadcast schedule? How ribald! You get the point.

As I got older, though, I realized that, yeah, you know -- those things really aren't that bad. Not nearly as bad as war, or genocide, or starvation. Those are all way, way worse than the fact that the U.S. has to send more soldiers to the Olympics than it does athletes. That's just sort of ironic, or quirky. Not really apocalyptic.

It is with that perspective that I present to you a genuine, real-deal sign our world is collapsing before our very eyes: Eighth-grader Michael Avery -- who, I might mention, IS IN EIGHTH GRADE -- has accepted a scholarship from Billy Gillispie and the Kentucky basketball program. Eighth grade, man. Eighth. Grade. Not a junior in high school. Not a sophomore. We're talking 'bout ... eighth grade. We're not talking about a senior. We talkin' bout eighth grade.

Whether or not this is a smart decision for either party is almost beside the point, but it bears a thought. For the kid, who may or may not be at his peak, I think it makes sense. To an eighth-grader, a scholarship offer is a virtual guarantee (though it's not written in blood), that regardless of what happens over the next four years, you have a place to play basketball. That sort of security is the thing most basketball-playing families dream of. For Kentucky, it's not outlandish either, because Gillispie wins a recruiting battle before it really begins, lines up talent for the future, and builds a player-coach relationship at a creepily young age.

Of course, that's the problem with all this. It's creepy. And exploitative. Think about when you were in eighth grade -- you were most definitely too busy playing Playstation to think about high school. Nevermind college. I worry for young Michael Avery, and not only because I fear he'll be dropped like a bad habit if Gillispie sees fit, or because this sets a pretty awful precedent for the future. I worry, because if I had to live with every decision I made in eighth grade for the rest of my life, well, yikes. I'd still be an (even more) uneducated glut, still thinking everything I saw in Sports Illustrated was a genuine sign of the apocalypse, when that title is worthy of far more unbelievable things.

Like, oh, I don't know ... when Billy Gillispie SIGNS AN EIGHTH GRADER. Stuff like that.

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There are those teams for which the cup runs over, and plenty of teams for which it is, I don't know, bare? The cupboard is bare. Not the cup. Now I'm confused. Anyway, these teams, for whatever reason -- transfers, the draft, a coach who just can't stop calling you -- are left with so little it's almost unfathomable to imagine them fielding a decent basketball team this fall.

Count Georgetown among them. After forward Vernon Macklin's departure in April, the Hoyas are losing yet another reserve, guard Jeremiah Rivers. Rivers has yet to announce his destination, while Macklin is taking his game to Florida. Reportedly, Macklin was interested in the Gators' youth, his chance to play right away, and Billy Donovan's immortal hair. Rick Pitino and John Calipari were unavailable for comment.

For real, though, this leaves Georgetown in a huge, Roy Hibbert-esque lurch. John Thompson III is now left with only four players that contributed anything to anything last year. Fortunately, that list includes Jessie Sapp. Unfortunately, it does not include either Hibbert or Jeff Green. You can see where this is going.

The good news is that five-star forward Greg Monroe -- along with three other four-star recruits, two of whom are tall, athletic gentlemen -- are on the way. Hoya fans better hope they're the real deal. Even so, it could be a long season.

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Respect knuckles go out to ESPN.com's Dana O'Neil for catching up with disgraced Baylor head coach Dave Bliss. Bliss, you might recall, once tried to convince the public that murdered player Patrick Dennehy was a drug dealer, in an attempt to cover up the fact that Bliss had illegally paid a portion of Dennehy's tuition.

After leaving Baylor, Bliss spent time volunteering with his son's high school team, and he gave some clinics in China. He coached for a year with the Dakota Wizards of the CBA (now an NBDL team), and now he works with Athletes in Action, an organization that uses sports to promote Christianity. At this year's Final Four, he spoke about -- get this -- ethics and the pressure of college basketball.

"I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem anymore," said Bliss, speaking recently by telephone from his Colorado home. "There are a lot of pitfalls out there, minefields. Look at me. I know. I've been on both sides."

[...]

"I was the frog that jumped in the box, and all of a sudden someone turned on the heat and gradually it got warmer and eventually it was too late," Bliss said. "It's a situation that defies much explanation, really. I got caught up, very frankly, in ambition, prideful reaction. And I made bad decisions, and the cover-up made everything worse."

Glib headline aside, I try to be a forgiving fellow, and I try to put myself in other people's shoes, but man ... this is a tough one. I can understand that the pressure to win at the college level is huge, and I can understand getting caught up in that and making bad decisions you might not otherwise make.

You want to win, you want to help a kid out, and you want to keep your job, so maybe you get sucked into bending some rules. Maybe you pay some bills you shouldn't pay, and maybe you overlook some discretions. That, I get. It doesn't make it okay, but I get it. I see how that pressure would make an otherwise good man do some bad things.

But scheming a plan to paint a murdered kid as a drug dealer, to cover your own heiney ... that's quite a leap from cutting a few corners to win, isn't it? It's kind of like the difference between smoking a little bit of recreational marijuana, or beating the hell out of a Salvation Army Santa Claus, so you can take his little change jar and go buy some smack, which you'd then give to a pregnant woman as a Christmas present.

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In keeping with the disproportionate amount of North Carolina news to hit college basketball lately, it was just a few days ago that we, like many others, posted photos of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama -- you may have heard of him -- playing his favorite sport, basketball, with the Tar Heels. It was a cool little stunt. Barack gets to show off his working-class bonafides (see, I like basketball too!), and UNC gets to hang out with Barack freaking Obama. Not bad.

Except, of course, for one little problem. The Tar Heels may have broken NCAA rules.

According to this story in the Raleigh News & Observer, because Roy Williams was on hand to watch the scrimmage take place -- which he clearly was, in trademark gray flannel no less -- the Tar Heels could be in violation of a rule that prevents coaches from viewing offseason scrimmages. Howeva, because the scrimmage wasn't just the average pickup game -- because it involved, again, Barack freaking Obama -- the NCAA is going to let it slide. Predictably, UNC haters are not happy.

Here's the thing, though: I'm proud of the NCAA. For a system that so often falls back on a ridiculous, byzantine, oftentimes hypocritical rulebook, and which usually enforces those silly rules to the point of no return, this is a step forward. Seriously. The coaches-at-scrimmages rule is a questionable one in the first place. In this case, it would verge on the hilarious.

So, NCAA, it's not something any of us get to say too often about you, but  ... good job. You managed not to make a fool of yourself. Hand slaps all around. Well done.

Now. About that whole BCS thing ...

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Last week, some pretty tremendous photos of Tyler Hansbrough surfaced. They depicted Hansbrough and shorter, less-skilled sidekick Bobby Frasor leaping from a second-story frat balcony into a giant pool while hordes of onlookers, ahem, looked on. Presumably, everyone was cheering and pounding beers and celebrating springtime on a university campus. The entire thing screamed COLLEGE, bro. (Needless to say, don't even think about trying this at home.)

Alas, some didn't enjoy the spectacle. Namely, anyone with a rooting interest in the Tar Heels, who would prefer their returning Player of the Year and probable starting point guard not injure themselves in silly, fratty fashion. As FanHouse's Sportz Assassin reports, the message board denizens are riled up:

Right now, they are getting a lot of heat (and some love) over the stunt on message boards and blogs. [...]

However, these two are in college because of their physical gifts. Seeing Frasor up there was puzzling. He missed most of the past season after tearing up his knee. If Ty Lawson stays in the NBA Draft, Frasor inherits this team and will be counted on heavily. Seems like jumping off a balcony and into a pool isn't the best way to rehab that injury.

College athletes often grasp at some semblance of a normal college lifestyle -- hanging out, partying, dangerously jumping off things, et. al -- but at the end of the day college athletes aren't, and never will be, normal college students. Most college students don't get a full ride to play a sport. Most college students, unless they're journalism majors, don't take laughably easy courses designed to keep their GPAs high. Most college students don't attain celebrity status, no matter what that latest "Van Wilder" spinoff told you.

So sorry, Tyler and short friend: You guys can't act like normal people. (This is where I should interject that only in college is jumping off buildings considered "normal.") It sucks, I know, but if you ever get frustrated and incomprehensibly angry, just blame your parents for everything. In that small way, you can be just like the rest of us.

(Photo credit: 850 the Buzz)

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Tired of losing coaches to Michigan and deeply in love with Bob Huggins, West Virginia signed Bob Huggins to a ridiculously long contract. The thing lasts until Huggins's 65th birthday, which, as Mike Casazza details here, makes it a 10-year contract worth at least $20.5 million, and probably much more.

Huggins actually coached his first year at WVU without having signed a formal contract. And despite having heard the same things from John Beilein and Rich Rodriguez, I do believe that Huggins is firmly committed to being a Mountaineer. Maybe this makes me a sucker. But if he was willing to leave Michael Beasley for Morgantown, he probably does want to be there.

The contract does come with a couple of peculiarities, though. A couple of the termination clauses written into the contract are sort of interesting. A .pdf of the actual contract is available here, via the Charleston Daily Mail. Huggs can be fired for:

2. Commission by Coach of a felony or a crime involving moral turpitude;

3. Substance abuse or habitual insobriety which affects his job performance;

Phew. So Huggs can be habitually non-sober, as long as it doesn't affect his job performance. So, at least theoretically, he can be on the bench with a bottle of scotch, as long as he says something like, "I just want everyone to know that I'm going to spend the last 5 minutes of the game running isos for Joe Alexander, no matter how much of this scotch I drink. Cool?"

Also, according to the Daily Mail's Jack Bogaczyk, the deal was made without the knowledge of WVU's athletic director. The university has some other problems, and it seems possible that the university president went straight to Huggins with the deal, because he wanted to get some good news about WVU out there.

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Gary Williams: Reach out and touch somebody. Preferably somebody good at basketball.

The past few seasons have not been kind to Gary Williams and his Maryland Terrapins, as Williams' program has turned from perennial national title contender to perennial NIT qualifier in the matter of four seasons. The issue, as is usually the case, is talent: Williams just hasn't had the same level of player he had in the Juan Dixon-Steve Blake-Chris Wilcox days, and it shows.

As Luke Winn reports in a really interesting story this week, that might be changing in 2008-09. Williams has effectively recruited junior college junior Tyree Evans, a Virginia prep legend who scored more points as a senior in high school than anyone not named Moses Malone or Allen Iverson. Evans is a baller. Shot caller. All of that stuff.

He's also 23, his age the product of numerous run-ins with the law, including a statutory rape and marijuana intent-to-distribute charges, and has been in a fight with a teammate, which is just naughty. And yet, Williams is taking a chance on him.

Which means Gary has officially pushed his chips to the middle of the table. The Dixon-Blake-Wilcox title -- as well as a follow-up act by one D.J. Strawberry -- have been enough to keep Williams gainfully employed and partially beloved among Terps fans. But if the now-well-behaved Evans backtracks, and his talent isn't enough to overshadow his off-court troubles, Williams will be forced to sweat it out. Given Gary's usual glandular issues, that's not something anybody wants to see.

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Who is Feinstein, and why should an NBA team draft him? Well, he's a 5'8" junior out of Washington University in St. Louis, who happen to be the 2008 Division III National Champions. So why should an NBA team draft him?

Well, they probably shouldn't. Because he doesn't play basketball.

But that didn't stop him from declaring himself eligible for the NBA Draft. He wrote a letter to the NBA, declared, and then filled out the necessary paperwork. That's all it takes. He is in the system and is eligible to be drafted. He documented the whole process here. He's even listed at NBADraft.net, as an "unknown individual."

What's he get out of it? Well, he got to create a nifty little website for himself where he listed his stats (Assists: I Work Alone, and BLK: WHTE). He got an envelope with the NBA logo on it. And he also gets ... well, attention, I suppose, from lonely college basketball bloggers like myself who have nothing else to write about this time of year.

I'm pretty sure he's not the first fellow to do something like this, but I like the lengths he went to, trying to create his own web-based "Draft Feinstein" movement. Still, I wouldn't be at all disappointed if this was the last time someone played this gag.

Gracias, Can't Stop the Bleeding.

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In an effort to make the long, scary college basketball offseason a little bit less so, we're going to be scouring the archives every day for great photos, videos, and stories from NCAA Tournaments past. Today: Stephen Curry.

Immediately after they're over -- just as soon as One Shining Moment begins to roll -- it seems like every NCAA Tournament has at least 100 moments to it, 100 times when you reveled in the joy of the game of basketball. (You should have been working, and not reveling, but I won't tell your boss if you don't tell mine.) Then, a few weeks after the tournament is over, like that nasty leftover Half and Half in the fridge, things begin to congeal. Smaller things get swept away. Only the definitive remain.

It could be argued, of course, that Mario Chalmers' championship game-extending three-pointer is that definitive moment from the 2008 Tournament, and I'd agree. It will stand the test of time. The one thing I'll never forget from 2008, though, is just how incredibly, oh-my-God good Stephen Curry was. For three rounds, he wasn't just interesting. He was utterly dominant. How often do you see dominance from spindly 6'1 shooting guards?

Anyway, the above video is the perfect mix of Curry and Gus Johnson, who didn't have to wait long in this game -- Davidson's easy win over Wisconsin -- for Son of Del to start making things look easy.

You can keep the rest of it; Stephen Curry was all things. He was 2008.

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