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Bill Self Signs New 10-Year Deal With Kansas



I think that (a) winning a National Championship and (b) crushing Roy Williams in the process does call for a new contract at Kansas.

And that happened for Bill Self, who signed a new 10-year deal to stay in Kansas through 2008. The deal is reportedly worth $30 million.
"This will take me to 55 if both parties want to continue, which hopefully will happen," Self said in a phone interview with The Associated Press while playing golf at Pine Valley in New Jersey. "I like to think I'll still want to keep coaching when I get to 55. But if we continue to do our job, this will get us close."

If you remember, Self was being heavily pursued by Oklahoma State during the Final Four -- a job Self turned down. Remember that last year, Florida's Billy Donovan won the title and actually left the Gators for the NBA's Orlando Magic before eventually coming back to Gainsville and signing a new deal.

Self and Kansas agreed to the deal in April, though it wasn't completed. This contract is retroactive to April 1.

ESPN Ranks Duke as Top Program; Screws Up North Carolina and Kansas' Rankings

During their down time, ESPN loves to do rankings to see who is the best/worst/whatever at something. Since college hoops is in their dead period, they decided to rank the top 300+ programs since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams (1984-1985 season).

They have finally gotten to the top and ... to no one's surprise ... it was occupied by Duke.

By any measure of success, Duke is king of the hill in college basketball in the 64-team era of the NCAA tournament. Besides the three national titles, Duke is No. 1 among all basketball programs with 69 NCAA tournament wins, 12 first team All-Americans, 11 top-10 NBA picks, 10 No. 1 seeds and seven title game appearances. An easy selection in any format for No. 1.

Now, ESPN used some sort of formula to come up with these rankings, so it is a numbers thing and not a "they love Duke" thing. No one has won more NCAA Championships, Final Fours, Sweet 16s, NCAA Tournament wins, first team All Americans, 30-win seasons, #1 seeds or top-ten NBA picks in the time frame.

The rest of the top ten: 2-Kansas, 3-North Carolina, 4-Kentucky, 5-Arizona, 6-UConn, 7-UCLA, 8-UNLV, 9-Syracuse, 10-Georgetown.

Oh, and there is a bit of a oopsie in regards to Kansas and North Carolina after the jump ...

Sherron Collins Won't Be Prosecuted for Allegedly Flashing a Woman

If there was one player the Kansas Jayhawks can't afford to lose for any serious time this season, it's Sherron Collins. Title defense aside, because it's a longshot, if Kansas wants to have a decent season Collins, as the lone returnee and only experienced player, will have to play a major role. So it must have made Bill Self's heart skip a beat or two when word broke that Collins faced criminal charges of exposing himself and rubbing himself against a woman.

If Collins were to find himself convicted of a crime, Self would almost certainly have to suspend him and jeopardize the chance of a winning campaign. Self can exhale, though, and get back to planning for the upcoming season. The Douglas County District Attorney decided last Friday that there wasn't enough evidence to file charges against Collins. They can still change their minds if more evidence comes to light but, for the time being, the Jayhawk is in the clear.

Collins still needs to sort out a $75,000 default judgment from a civil case stemming from the same alleged incident in May 2007. He never responded to a communication from the court but his lawyers are arguing that it was sent to the wrong address. Happy though Collins must be, I wonder if his ego stings at all after his flashing case ended because of insufficient evidence?

(H/T The Big Lead)

Losing Wendell Barnhouse

The Big 12's gain is the loss for a lot of college sports fans.
"After 36 years, 23 Final Fours, all 10 Bowl Championship Series title games and a half-dozen laptops, I'm done," he writes.

"I will begin working as a writer/blogger for the Big 12 Conference web site (so I'll need laptop No. 7). The Big 12 wants its web site to convey information about its schools in both video and story form. I'll be somewhat involved with the former and heavily involved with the latter. It's a great opportunity that I'm lucky to have considering the death spiral of major newspapers."
Barnhouse had been the national college football and basketball writer/columnist for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Barnhouse's national reach, reputation and popularity grew as the internet allowed more readers access. His columns were considered required reading by many college sports fans. Barnhouse was also one of the few national college sports writers at a newspaper. Not at a national paper, magazine or TV/internet operation.

The Star-Telegram benefited from his reputation, but the actual value to the paper was low. The national following added little to their subscription base. This led the paper to decide to eliminate the national college beat. Offering Barnhouse the choice of a buyout or assuming role of Texas A&M beat writer. As Barnhouse wrote, "Nothing against the Aggies, but it was clearly time to bail out."

Sherron Collins Has No Clue About the Court

Specifically the court system. Here's a free tip. If you receive an envelope stamped by the clerk of courts naming you in a lawsuit, it's a good idea to get a lawyer and respond. Regardless of whether it is criminal or civil.

Kansas point guard Sherron Collins now has a $75,000 default judgment entered against him from a civil suit.
Jessica Brown, 35, accused Collins of exposing himself and rubbing against her on May 18, 2007, in an elevator at Jayhawker Towers, where she worked.

Collins had 20 days to respond to the lawsuit, filed May 14, 2008, but he did not.
The criminal investigation is still an open one. Apparently the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is still waiting for test results from potential evidence. There is something of a backlog. There was an initial test last June, but the results were incomplete.

Collins has maintained his innocence, so without any witnesses or any evidence it is unlikely charges could be successfully brought against Collins.

Even without any criminal charges, Ms. Brown has the right and did file a civil suit for "humiliation, mental anguish and severe emotional pain." Collins claimed he didn't understand the legal responsibility for responding and the outcome of ignoring it.

It's very likely that Collins will be able to get the default judgment vacated and reset for trial. Still, the whole issue (and potential stain on the old credit report) could have been avoided.

Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series Set for 2008

The Big 12 and Pac-10 go into their second year of their cross-conference competition, and have announced this year's slate of games. Most of the games take place in the first weekend of December. Since there is an imbalance in the number of teams in each conference, to allow all of the Big 12 teams to play a Pac-10 opponent, Arizona and Stanford are doubling up and 3 games will be played outside of the series window.
BIG 12/PAC-10 HARDWOOD SERIES

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Oklahoma State at Washington
UCLA at Texas
USC at Oklahoma

Friday, December 5, 2008
Arizona at Texas A&M

Saturday, December 6, 2008
Baylor at Washington State
Oregon State at Iowa State

Sunday, December 7, 2008
Kansas State at Oregon
Nebraska at Arizona State
California at Missouri

Outside the four-day series window
Colorado at Stanford (Sat., Nov. 29, 2008)
Kansas at Arizona (Tue., Dec. 23, 2008)
Texas Tech at Stanford (Sun., Dec. 28, 2008)

The big games are clearly UCLA-Texas and Kansas-Arizona. The latter being a rematch from last season when Kansas pulled off the win in overtime (to say nothing of the 2003 NCAA Tournament meeting to put Kansas in the Final Four).The Baylor-Washington State game looks like a very underrated match-up featuring two of the best young coaches. Oregon State-Iowa State, however, could be painful on the eyes.

No More Flirting for the NBA Draft

Today's the day. No more maintaining eligibility and torturing angst-ridden college basketball fans. Today's the drop dead date for either pulling out of the NBA Draft or staying and committing.

So, since last night three more names have unsurprisingly decided to stay in the NBA Draft.

West Virginia's Joe Alexander finally made it official. This was no shock, as Alexander's draft stock soared to the point where the junior is expected to go anywhere from 8th to 13th in the draft. It's unlikely he would move that much further up the draft board if he stayed for his final season. He's only the second Mountaineer player to declare early for the draft. The unforgettable Gordon Malone was the first.

J.J. Hickson from NC State is staying in the draft. He gets to add his name to the list of one-and-dones. Not a surprise, but a bit of a comedown for Hickson. He came to the Wolfpack expecting to win and then go in the first round. He didn't win at NC State and is a likely pick in the second round (end of the first, at best).

Mario Chalmers becomes the 3d Jayhawk to stay in the NBA Draft. There is a chance that all 3 players could go in the first round. The only mystery surrounding whether Chalmers would stay was because his father is Director of Basketball Operations at Kansas.

Ol' Roy Discusses Kansas Debacle

It has been six weeks since Kansas spanked North Carolina in the Final Four, but Tar Heels' coach Roy Williams isn't done talking about it. He's taken a lot of heat over not using time outs to stop the bleeding of an early collapse, not (apparantly) having his team prepared and wearing a KU sticker two nights later to the title game.

Well, Ol' Roy has something to say to you:

"Only two games in my entire career have I looked back on and wondered what might have happened had I done something different. But was we did in preparation for that game was exactly like Louisville. Washington State, Arkansas and everybody on down the line. And I've talked to my players and they felt it was the same preparation so ..."

"No, you know people ask me about that a lot but, my god, we had a timeout at 16, 12, 8, and 4. If we didn't have timeouts, yeah, I'd probably take them but, my gosh, timeouts are so dadgum long I can't think of stuff to talk about for that long anyway. ..."

Now, I understand what he's trying to say ... but, he's not going to win anyone over by saying it. Nowadays, most fans, coaches and players expect timeouts to come to halt an opponent's run. Sure, it may be the same way you did things against Louisville, Washington State and Arkansas, but none of them were as good as Kansas. None of them were slapping the Heels up and down the court.

Kansas' Darrell Arthur Faces Allegations of Improper Academic Assistance

Dallas/Ft. Worth television WFAA is reporting that Kansas University forward Darrell Arthur had grades changed while at South Oak Cliff High School.
But transcripts obtained by News 8 raise questions about whether he was actually making the grade in the classroom during his junior season, specifically in math.

His transcripts show he received no grades at all his fall semester. His final grade was changed to a 70 in September of 2005 with no explanation of why.

If in fact Arthur had failed math that fall, he would not have been eligible to play basketball, and many of his team's victories in that championship season might have to be forfeited according to University Interscholastic League standards.


According to the report, math teacher Winford Ashemore notified the principal and basketball coach that Arthur was not only failing miserably, but not even giving an effort to try. When told that Arthur would receive a failing grade, he was abruptly dropped from Ashemore's class and given a grade of 70 ... which was passing.

It is also reported that the principal signed off on another changed grade in the spring of 2003.

Kansas Lands a Late Addition

After Tom Crean left for Indiana, he wasn't able to keep players like Terrell Holloway and Devin Ebanks to stay interested in attending Indiana. Crean's old school didn't fair much better with the top player from its recruiting class, Tyshawn Taylor.

While Marquette hired assistant Buzz Williams in part with the hope of preserving the recruiting class, ultimately they acquiesced to Taylor's demands to be released from his Letter of Intent. Taylor looked at Georgia Tech and Kansas. Ultimately, Taylor went with the national champs.
Taylor said he's looking forward to the opportunity to contribute next year, something he was worried about at Marquette with its logjam of guards.

"I'm going to have to compete for minutes. They see me playing like a Russell Robinson-type of player. I can defend bigger guards. I can also handle the ball or play off the ball when Sherron Collins is at the point."
The Jayhawks now have a recruiting class with 5 players in it -- 4 are from New Jersey schools. They will be over their scholarship limit if Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur return. Which means the Kansas coaches are rather certain both will be staying in the draft.
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