'10 Offseason News Thread

NCAA to expand March Madness from 65 to 68 teams

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ap-ncaatournament

 

UConn's Calhoun signs new 5-year deal

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, coming off a year marred by health problems, an NCAA investigation and a disappointing performance on the court, has signed a 5-year, $13 million contract.

The deal announced Friday will pay the Hall of Fame coach $2 million retroactive to last season and $2.3 million next season.

Calhoun, who turns 68 on Monday, had been making $1.6 million under a previous contract that was set to expire on June 30.

Calhoun has won two national championships at Connecticut and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5170571

 

Walker to work out with Cards players

Former NBA All-Star Antoine Walker is eyeing an NBA comeback.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino says Walker will work out with several Cardinals during the next few weeks. Walker hasn't played in the NBA since 2008 and has suffered legal and financial woes since stepping away from the game.

Walker agreed to pay three Las Vegas casinos more than $900,000 to settle three bad-check charges last fall.

Pitino, who coached Walker at Kentucky in the 1990s, said he also hopes Walker will talk to his players about the temptations that come with life as a professional.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5167188

 

McCamey, Davis Will Return To Illinois

Demetri McCamey and Mike Davis just announced their intention to return to Illinois for their senior seasons.

McCamey worked out for the Houston Rockets on Friday while Davis flew out to Portland for a workout there, so they received at least one opportunity to showcase their wares in an NBA-like setting.


http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/4024

 

I agree with the idea that he is unlikely to coach an extra five years. From a recruiting standpoint though, its important for a program to show signs of stability especially in the head coach as a lot of athletes will chose a school based on the coach. Its one of the reasons we extended Mark Turgeon's contact for what we did at Texas A&M a few weeks ago.

 

Attendance drops slightly in college basketball

College basketball fans are still flocking to men’s games by the millions.

They’re just not setting records.

With 334 men’s teams playing 5,251 games last season, both all-time highs, more than 27 million people attended Division I games—the fourth-highest total ever but a slight decrease from 2008-09.

Some of the numbers released by the NCAA on Wednesday looked familiar.

The top five home drawing cards were Kentucky, Syracuse, Louisville, Tennessee and North Carolina. The Wildcats had an average attendance of 24,111 at 18 home games in John Calipari’s first season. Syracuse was next at 22,152 in 19 home games.

Either Kentucky or Syracuse has led the nation in home attendance for each of the past 34 seasons, but Kentucky has been No. 1 each of the past five seasons and 14 times in the last 15. Kentucky also led the nation in total attendance at home, road and neutral court games, playing 38 times in front of 724,145 fans.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ap-ncaa-attendance

 

Pitino extortion trial won't be moved

A federal judge has denied a request to move the trial of a woman charged with trying to extort $10 million from University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino.

U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III ruled Monday that Karen Cunagin Sypher couldn't show that pretrial publicity warrants the unusual step of relocating the case.

Sypher is accused of trying to extort money from Pitino and lying to the FBI. Her trial is set to start July 26.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5215048