Whether it’s one and done or four and out, the NCAA Tournament can either confirm what we know about players’ college credentials or burnish new ones entirely. It’s the ultimate job fair, but this one doesn’t involve schmoozing or hors d’oeuvres and is televised to millions (hope you wore your best suit, er, sneakers). Read More »

Players get to pick their own entrance music for Countdown to Craziness, Duke’s version of Midnight Madness. Austin Rivers entered the spotlight to “I Do It” by Big Sean, which starts fittingly with: “I waited my whole life to be the man of the hour…” With Friday’s CBSSports.com report that Rivers will leave Duke for the NBA, that mentality has never been more apparent. Read More »

Austin Rivers, we hardly knew ya.

The freshman Duke guard is reportedly hiring an agent and going pro, reports CBSSports.com. Despite Duke losing memorably in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Rivers had a solid year: 15.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists. He didn’t blow people away like many suspected he might after a fabulous high school career, but he showed his potential as a scorer and as a clutch player. Read More »

Since he watches so much college basketball, you’ll be pressed to find someone besides Doug Gottlieb with a better handle on which NBA Draft prospects will succeed and which ones will become busts. With that, we give you an exclusive conversation we recently had with the ESPN analyst. In part one of this conversation that we ran Sunday afternoon, Gottlieb broke down the tournament and college basketball in general, speaking on parity and the notion that recruiting has drastically changed in the past few years. Read More »

The college basketball scene has seen this story too many times. Scratch that, the basketball world has seen this story too many times. The mystery surrounding Baylor, Connecticut and Illinois makes us wonder one thing: What is going on? These three teams all have one thing in common – one very talented big man. Perry Jones (Baylor), Andre Drummond (UConn) and Meyers Leonard (Illinois) all seem incapable of consistently leading their team to success. Read More »

If you thought this year’s class of point guards was strong, think again. In fact, go back three years to 2009 to find a draft class deep enough to hide the Hulk. Eight of the point guards drafted in the first round are now starting in the NBA, and while none of them can boast the star power of Derrick Rose or the potential of John Wall, they can all play. As offenses have slowed to a crawl this year, and with shooting percentages melting, having a point guard that can make plays and create for others is almost a necessity. Read More »

So they think they need a committee to study this stuff huh? It shouldn’t take a genius or even a formulation of a number of basketball minds to figure this one out, but as Yahoo! Sports is reporting, the NBA and the Player’s Association are discussing whether to form a committee to study the age minimum for the NBA draft with “the possibility that no immediate changes to the ‘one-and-done’ rule will come in the finalization of the new collective bargaining agreement.”

Good. Maybe they’ll finally discover what I’ve been saying all along. Read More »

One thing was clear coming into this season of college hoops: the excitement was at a high not seen in about five years. For the first time since the 2006-2007 season, college basketball has a collection of talent that rivals nearly any other time before it. That season, talents like Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and Mike Conley all played their obligatory one year of college basketball before entering the NBA.

This year we have an impressive group of freshmen starting that same journey and numerous key figures from last year all returning for another year on campus. All of this talent has scouts flooding gyms across the country to see who is going to be the right guy for their team in the upcoming draft. Read More »

At this point in the year, there is no way to tell who will be the surefire first pick in the NBA Draft. Shoot, we do not even know what the 2012 NBA Draft will look like with all of the bad NBA lockout news and rumors going around. At this point, there’s superstar talent littered throughout the college game, and NBA scouts – with nothing to do other than go to college games – are working harder than ever. Right now all we can do is speculate, but there are some interesting story lines to follow. Read More »

Lost amongst the back and forth of the lockout, the BRI, the mid-level and the luxury tax is a “system issue” with the chance to change the landscape of professional basketball. It’s hardly mentioned and yet has more potential to affect our game than 51/49 or three-year mid-level contracts instead of five years. The age rule. One vs. two years. High school prodigies and seasoned college vets. It might not happen, but we know the owners and David Stern want it: to increase the already restricting age limit to 20 years old, or two years in college. Read More »