Quick hitters for Monday:
• Here's a trend that is hard to argue: Two players who had initially signed with Kelvin Sampson but pulled out of their commitments to go elsewhere have succeeded.
Scottie Reynolds (Villanova) and Damion James (Texas) are having solid careers after once signing with Oklahoma and then jettisoning themselves once Sampson bolted for Indiana.
The next beneficiary for this sudden trend should be Devin Ebanks. West Virginia landed Ebanks, a 6-foot-8 forward, on Sunday, and the expectation is that he will be a home run get for Bob Huggins (is there any doubt that Huggs wasn't going to get stud recruits in Morgantown?).
"He's pretty good," Huggins said from the Big East meetings Monday in Florida. "We'll be hard to guard. We've got a lot of balance."
If Joe Alexander returns for his senior season, then the Mountaineers will be extremely hard to guard. But Alexander is a serious candidate to stay in the draft since he's being considered for a lottery spot.
If Alexander doesn't return, Huggins said that Ebanks will get the majority of Alexander's touches. He also said that there are plenty of plays to run for Da'Sean Butler and Alex Ruoff, too, to make this team hard to defend.
Former Indiana assistant/interim coach Dan Dakich said Monday he went to see Ebanks once Sampson resigned in case Dakich was going to be the Indiana coach next season. That was before Ebanks got out of his commitment to go to Indiana.
"He has great hands, he can really score," Dakich said. "It's a really good get, early, late, whenever. It's a good get. He can score from the angles and rebound. He looks like he really likes to play."
Dakich said that when Ebanks came to Bloomington his visit, the Long Island native wanted to be in the gym as much as possible.
One assistant that was recruiting Ebanks said of him, "He'll have a major impact. He's a big-time scorer."
• Emmanuel Negedu still wants out of his national letter of intent after meeting with Arizona coach Lute Olson Sunday in New Hampshire.
"There is too much drama," Negedu said Monday afternoon. "[Olson] told me that I should come for a visit down there and I would change my mind. I'm not changing my mind. I don't want to go."
Negedu picked the wrong time to take his official visit to Arizona. He went to Tucson when Olson was on leave, and the Wildcats lost at home to rival Arizona State. He spent the entire weekend with assistant coach Josh Pastner, who has since left for a similar position at Memphis. Smith said he told Negedu that any time a team loses to its rival, the players aren't going to want to host a recruit. But Smith also said the change in the coaching staff -- notably the departure of Pastner, who was the first coach to contact him when he came to the United States from Nigeria -- made Negedu want to opt out.
"He would have helped them with his toughness and how hard he plays," said Brewster Academy coach Jason Smith. "He's got a high-level motor."
Negedu also said that if he doesn't get a release, he would go back to Brewster. But if he does get his release, then he could go anywhere.
• Memphis coach John Calipari said he's going to meet with junior Robert Dozier this week to see if Dozier understands that he has a chance that he could possibly drop to the second round or go undrafted.
"I want to make sure he's OK with not getting drafted," Calipari said.
Calipari said he told Darius Washington the same thing when the guard declared, but Washington stayed in the draft and ultimately went undrafted.
"[Dozier] could be top 15 next year," Calipari said. "But if he's OK that he could go undrafted and still wants to stay in the draft then fine, I'm OK with that."
Dozier probably would be in Orlando at the pre-draft camp May 27-30. Calipari anticipates that junior guard Antonio Anderson will return to school after declaring for the draft.
• Calipari may not make up his mind on whom to offer his other assistant job to prior to leaving for China next week. He's looking at Pitt's Orlando Antigua and Georgetown's David Cox. Calipari said Rod Strickland still needs to finish his degree requirements. He's close to doing that, but Strickland can't be promoted to a fulltime, recruiting assistant until then.
• Bucknell's search is winding down with Virginia's Bill Courtney and Williams College head coach Dave Paulsen deep in the mix. Courtney played at Bucknell and is highly thought of on campus.
• Brown is expected to start interviewing this week, with Brown assistant Jesse Agel, Illinois assistant Jay Price, Washington assistant Paul Fortier (a former assistant at Cornell) and Paulsen high on the list for the Bears' vacancy.
• The WCC is pursuing going to a Thursday-Saturday league schedule instead of Saturday-Monday. The league coaches are expected to welcome this because it would certainly help with missed class time and allow the traditional day off being Sunday rather than Tuesday.
• Santa Clara is in the Arizona subregional of the NIT Season Tip-Off. (In notable other matchups within the four-team pods, Davidson is at Oklahoma and St. John's is at Boston College.) Santa Clara coach Kerry Keating said the Broncos were contacted about hosting the losers bracket so that it can get two more games. The NIT said a year ago that it was moving toward a format that would guarantee four games for all 16 participants, not just the four teams that reach New York. But there at least one to three other sites will have to be determined.
• Keating, whose father is Kansas' associate athletic director Larry Keating, a former AD at Seton Hall, is also looking at innovative scheduling moves. He's putting together a format for 2009-10 to guarantee two home and two road games with four teams from four other conferences. His plan is to get teams from the Mountain West, Big Sky, Big West and WAC. The five coaches would agree to play two home games and two road games that would be arbitrarily drawn. No one would have to return the game the following season. This way a team can lock in two home games, especially since it's hard to get home games.
• I know there was a glut of talent at North Carolina, but losing Alex Stepheson, who is transferring, still hurts. Stepheson gave the Tar Heels a nice shot-blocking presence off the bench. I liked the way he had the potential to be difference maker off the bench. He had three key blocks to separate the Tar Heels from Washington State in the Sweet 16.
Andy Katz
