McAdoo Withdraws From Norfolk Christian

Unless your head has been in the sand over the past two weeks (if it has, I sincerely apologize), you have heard about the grumblings of James McAdoo enrolling a year early at Carolina. McAdoo is officially a rising senior, and is ranked as the #2 PF in the class of 2011, and was scheduled to enroll at Carolina after he graduated from high school this upcoming school year. But, it seems that McAdoo only needed three courses to graduate from high school and make the leap, which lead to some speculation that he would graduate early and aid Carolina's ailing front court after the surprise transfer of the Wear twins to UCLA.

Today, it was announced, by Norfolk Christian, that McAdoo had withdrawn from the school, increasing speculation that he will indeed enroll early to play for the Tar Heels. According to the article on nbebasketball.com, McAdoo would need three courses from Norfolk Christian, but only needs one English class to qualify for a GED, which would gain him acceptance into North Carolina in the fall. Keep in mind that McAdoo is a huge cog in the USA U-17 national team wheel, and taking three classes as opposed to only one, would leave little time for him to travel this summer with the national team. The move to withdraw and obtain a GED seems to have been made to open up space in his schedule to complete the required course and play USA basketball.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad for the kid, but I am happy that Carolina's front court depth issues seemed to have been solved by Justin Knox's addition (which is still pending), and McAdoo's apparent decision to make the leap.

Remember how things looked just a couple of weeks ago? Have a look at the new kid on the block:

2010-11 Roster

So after the addition of Justin Knox, it looks like Roy Williams and co. are done recruiting for the upcoming season. Kadeem Jack is said to be headed back to prep school, and I haven't heard word about Kevin Noreen over the past week, or two. So, with all that being said, here's what the Carolina line-up shakes out to be next season (in order of class and minus walk-ons):

PG - Larry Drew II, Kendall Marshall
SG - Justin Watts, Dexter Strickland, Leslie McDonald, Reggie Bullock
SF - Will Graves, Harrison Barnes
PF - Justin Knox, John Henson
C - Tyler Zeller

As we can all see, we're a bit light in the frontcourt. Zeller has been injury-prone since getting to Chapel Hill, so it's difficult to believe that this year will be any different. If Zeller, Knox, or Henson go down, look for Barnes and Graves to split time at the four, just to cover the bases. I bet we'll see Graves pick up more minutes at the four anyway, as he was a complete defensive liability last year on the perimeter.

I'd imagine that the starters at the beginning of the season will be: Drew, Strickland, Barnes, Henson, and Zeller. But, look for Reggie Bullock to push hard for the starting 2 guard spot, especially since he's 6'6", and a good rebounder. Kendall Marshall might even give Larry Drew a go at the point, but I bet Drew remains the starter throughout, with Marshall picking up more and more minutes as the season progresses.

New Harrison Barnes Highlight Reel

Basketball should be this easy to everyone.

Surprise, Surprise

As if everybody didn't know how much of a snake John Calipari was already, here's a little more fuel to add to the fire. In a Lexington Herald-Ledger report, the UK men's basketball team posted a cumulative team GPA of 2.02, worst of the nine SEC teams that reported their GPA's to the newspaper. Two players on the team had GPA's of 1.67 and 1.76, and two other players were either at 2.0, or below. UK mandates that athletes at the school must have a cumulative 1.8 GPA at the start of their sophomore seasons, so it only makes sense that the players with 1.67 and 1.76 GPA's were freshmen. Keep in mind that four of the five freshmen on this year's team made themselves eligible for the upcoming NBA Draft. Jon Hood will be back for his sophomore season, and Calipari stated that John Wall had all A's and B's during the fall semester, so that leaves Eric Bledsoe, Daniel Orton, and Demarcus Cousins. Only two players posted a GPA of higher than 3.0.

Sandy Bell, who is UK's senior associate athletic director, stated that the switch from Billy Gillespie to John Calipari as head coach, and the adjustment process of coming to college was the reason behind the low team GPA. I guess classes got much, much harder when Calipari came to town. Come on Sandy, who are you trying to kid here?

I did a little research of my own, and I found that UK is rated by US News as the 128th best university in the country in terms of academics. Is a GPA of at least 2.5 that difficult at a school that accepts 78% of applicants? And, remember that athletes on track for an NBA future don't exactly get too involved in genetics, chemistry, or hard-core business courses. If this isn't another reason to get rid of the bulls*** NBA one year rule, then I don't know what will force the NCAA's hand in speaking up. But, John Calipari has seemingly come out clean in every instance of NCAA investigations, so it appears that nothing will change anytime soon.

Charlotte, I love you

Charlotte has become my new favorite NBA team, and not for the fact that I grew up in North Carolina. I know they were just swept and totally over-matched by Orlando, but Bobcats fans made me damn proud to be a Tar Heel last night.

The reason?

If you watched the game, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Every single time JJ Redick touched the ball, he was booed like Kobe was when he played in Denver back in 2004. You would have thought Redick murdered some Charlotte natives by the way the crowd gave him the business last night. It reminded me of my time in the student section at Carolina, when Redick received his fair share of words that I can't mention here, or risk my mother flying to Florida and pulling me by my hair and taking a switch to my rear end. But, even though Charlotte is out of the play-offs and that pansy flopper is still playing, I'm happy to say that four years after he left Duke, North Carolina still hates JJ Redick.

Is Calipari bad for college basketball?

It's a question that I've been racking my brain about over the past few weeks, especially after Kentucky was smoked by West Virginia in the NCAA tournament. The issue is the incredible number of one-and-dones that he's coached over the past few seasons. The kids that have turned pro after one season of playing for Calipari since 2008 are Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, John Wall, Demarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, and Daniel Orton. Keep in mind that Bledsoe and Orton haven't officially signed with agents, so they may return to UK for another season. But that's highly doubtful considering the influx of protential one-and-done talent that Calipari has again filled his roster with, namely Brandon Knight, Enes Kanter, and Doron Lamb. Calipari may still have signatures coming in CJ Leslie and Terrance Jones. Knight, Kanter, Leslie, and Jones all have the talent to declare for the draft after the '10/'11 season ends. But, is this whole process bad for college basketball?

Coming from North Carolina, I am a college basketball purist. I grew up in the southeastern part of that state, which is fully entrenched in college sports. My hometown is about four hours from Charlotte, so it's difficult for me to relate to professional sports. Therefore, I believe that college sports are sacred, and I'm sure that this has a lot to do with my views on Calipari and his methods. First off, I understand that college athletes are the D-I level generally have the goal to play professionally in their chosen sport. It's the same as a kid who goes to school to one day have a job in a chosen field. And, it's difficult to blame a basketball player for turning pro early in order to make millions, because I know that if some chemical company had offered me a multi-million dollar contract after my freshman year of college, there is no chance I would have attended another class at Carolina.

But, I digress.

I know I'm being hypocritical here by criticizing the one-and-done rule, but I love my college basketball, and I think Calipari consistenly recruiting players that have the idea of turning pro after one season is bad for NCAA hoops. One reason is that Calipari has won nothing as a head coach. Sure, he owned C-USA for years at Memphis, and he won the SEC this season. But, in terms of the national stage, he's only made two trip to the Final Four, and has ZERO national titles to his name. Also, he's left smoke at UMASS and Memphis in terms of NCAA violations. Another reason is the increased chance of NCAA violations following some of these players. Who would be more likely to have hangers-on in their camp, Derrick Rose or Tyler Hansbrough? John Wall or Kyle Singer? All four players are supremely talented, but nearly everyone knew that Rose and Evans were gone, while Hansbrough and Singler may both end up being four year players. John Calipari has essentially become a babysitter for the NBA. He makes nearly $4 million per season to have an NBA holding tank. He's the highest paid recruiter in the world, with little substance as a head coach. Does anybody honestly think that Roy Williams, Tom Izzo, Coach K, or any other elite coach couldn't have won the national title with the roster that Calipari boasted this season?

Overall, I believe that Calipari doesn't care about winning. He cares about "nurturing" NBA talent for a year, and then stocking his cupboard again during the next recruiting period. Calipari was the person that leaked Patrick Patterson was going pro before Patterson had even announced his decision. Why? Because with Patterson gone, Calipari had an opening that he could fill with another five-star recruit. A pretty dirty ploy, but again, look who we're dealing with. Sure, you can say that he is playing by the rules, but it still doesn't make it right for someone who loves college basketball.

UPDATE: This isn't necessarily related to Calipari, but it is related to the risk of recruiting one-and-done players. Josh Selby, who committed to Kansas last night, is driving a Mercedes. In a NY Times story, it mentioned that Selby's mother's last two jobs have been at McDonald's and K-Mart. Explain to me how a single mother working at either McDonald's or K-Mart can afford to buy her son a Mercedes.

Oh yeah, Calipari heavily recruited Selby. Bill Self better make sure this one has no skeletons in his closet.

Try not to laugh out loud....

...but Marcus Ginyard won the third Defensive POY award of his career at the Carolina basketball awards banquet. If this award was based on the media, then maybe Ginyard wins the award since he's been deemed a "great" defender since his sophomore year at Carolina. I was personally hoping that John Henson would take the award, with the number of blocks that he piled up with increased minutes after Ed Davis' injury. But, other than Henson's blocks, Carolina played zero defense all season, so maybe the award should have been wiped-out altogether.

Other award winners were:
MVP - Deon Thompson (chuckle)
Most assists - Larry Drew II
Highest field-goal % - Ed Davis
Highest free throw % - Will Graves
Scholar-Athlete - Tyler Zeller
Most Improved - John Henson
Most inspirational player - Justin Watts


The most inspirational player award also made me laugh, since Justin Watts has been rumored to be transferring. Maybe he was so inspirational because he's the one with the right idea! Sorry, I'm still bitter about this season.