The Jimmy V Classic is most notable because, if you have any sort of heart and happen to be in front of the television the night it’s played, you have to watch Valvano’s 1993 ESPYs speech.

Earlier today, the games on display were announced. It will Butler, a team who should dip slightly, will play against Georgetown, a team that’s lost its identity in less than 20 months. The other game will showcase scholarship-depleted Indiana trying to avoid embarassment against Pittsburgh, which will also be in the midst of a rebuilding year. {AP}

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith will have the unenviable pleasure of being pestered by pundits for three days following Selection Sunday in 2011. {Columbus Post-Dispatch}

Brennan worked at ESPN for four years following his 19-year coaching career at Vermont.

Unfortunate, because he was an affable on-air guy, but with one year remaining on his contract, The Juggernaut did not pick up the former terrific AM radio jockey’s contract for next year.

If you caught a decent amount of college ball on the weekends last season, you saw Doug Gottlieb and Brennan deliver some good give-and-take during halftime and highlight shows. This is all part of an announcement earlier in the year from ESPN, in which the company said it would be firing at least 100 employees.

Per usual, Brennan was classy and endearing, even in the aftermath of a firing.

“They are not renewing me. I kind of knew that I might not continue. I knew I was on the bubble,” Brennan said Monday…. I had four years. It was a long time. Every time I went there I pinched myself. Just to be part of that, they are so professional. It was wonderful.”

While certain big-namers like Vitale, Phelps, Gottlieb and Davis aren’t likely moving anywhere, ESPN could’ve picked a few other members of its college basketball analytical team before they showed Brennan the door. The airwaves are a little less loose without Brennan chirping in.

ESPN, Brennan part ways {Burlington Free Press}

(H/T: Awful Announcing)

McManus admits to being a bit of a control freak -- in the office and in the control room.

Part two of CHJ’s interview with Sean McManus focuses more on the college basketball and general sports-covering realm of his job. He opens up about Billy Packer, the choice of Clark Kellogg and his worries about ESPN’s ambition to perhaps steal some early-round games away from CBS. (You can read part one here.)

During the tournament, are you the one who is making the decisions and saying, for instance, ‘OK, let’s give this region this game now.’ Or are you observing?

SM: In the end, yes, I am making those decisions. There are three or four people who make those decisions on the fly, too, and you make hundreds of them on Thursday and Friday to start the tournament. It is the single most complicated day in sports television. … You’re constantly switching back and forth to eight separate parts of the country. The country is divided into four different regions of four different games, and within each of those regions there’s always a region that always sees a “constant” game. But you’re always moving around and everybody second-guesses what you do because no matter what decision you make, you’re going to annoy some people. It could be a 40-point blowout with Duke beating Richmond, and you could take that game out of a market and put in a buzzer-beater, and Duke fans will be, “What is CBS doing?” We’ve got it down to a good science; we actually made a couple of mistakes this year. Continue reading »

Former Dookies Christian Laettner and Brian Davis got greedy and tried to profit bigtime in the business world. They now reportedly owe $6 million to “friends and associates.” {Charlotte Observer}

McManus became the VP of programming at NBC Sports when he was 27. The youngest ever.

It’s entirely possible you don’t know much about Sean McManus. But the son of Jim McKay (yes, that one) was kind enough to give me an hour out of his ridiculously busy schedule.  McManus is in charge of CBS News and CBS Sports. The only other person to hold two such positions at once? Roone Arlidge. The interview was so long, I figured it would better suit the reader to break it up between basketball and non-basketball talk. We’ll go with the latter first. Below, McManus talks tons about his father, his hatred of losing and his fear of not having a CBS camera in sight the day bin Laden is caught.

How often do you get to communicate with big-time sports figures who live so close to you? Namely, Chris Russo, Mike Lupica, George Bodenheimer and NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer.

SM: Frequently. … The world of sports television is a very small, almost incestuous group. We are competitors, but, first and foremost, we are friends. It’s ironic that the president of the three East-Coast-based sports divisions all live within four miles of each other. It’s a small, tight-knit group.

Talk about your childhood, if you could. It certainly couldn’t have been normal.

SM: I had an unusually blessed childhood. Since I was 7 years old, I traveled with my dad to a lot of sporting events, including great ones like the Indianapolis 500, the U.S. Open golf championship, the Kentucky Derby … and some not-so-great events like the World Barrel Jumping Championships, the World Synchronized Swimming Championships, in Albany, N.Y., and my favorite, the World Dogsled Championships in Wannalancit, New Hampshire. So I had a great introduction and grew up among the men and women who creating sports television at ABC, who were the standard for sports television excellence. By the time I was 12 years old, I knew what I wanted to do in life. My mother wasn’t so sure — she wanted me to be a doctor or a stockbroker — but I knew I wanted to be a producer of sports television. Continue reading »

Where should we start?

Let’s go with the allegations against John Calipari’s former team, Memphis. It’s alleged that, in all likelihood, Derrick Rose had someone else take the SATs for him. Yes, I agree: it’s rather frightening to imagine that Derrick Rose didn’t think he was capable of getting into Memphis without any outside help. Then again, he did admit to falling asleep with a knife earlier this season.

The allegations include “knowing fraudulence or misconduct” on an SAT exam by a player on that season’s team, which finished runner-up in the NCAA tournament, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis reported on its Web site. The university received the notice on Jan. 16. … Because of privacy laws, the player’s name was redacted in the report, which was obtained by the newspaper through the Freedom of Information Act.

What does this have to do with Kentucky? Nothing, really, except a little bit of a sour waft floating their way from Memphis. When Kentucky is cruising in January, this will mean zilch.

However, it adds another for all those out there who doubt every single thing John Calipari does outside of a basketball arena. And if the NCAA finds evidence that supports the allegations, Memphis’ record-breaking 38-win season and Final Four appearance will — gasp — be taken from the sacred college basketball record books. No coaches or players will face punishment from the NCAA, even in the worst-case scenario. Continue reading »

At this point, even Barack Obama must be in envy of John Calipari’s ambition and deal-closing abilities.

This morning, it was reported that Kentucky snatched the final piece of its recruiting puzzle: dynamic point guard John Wall.

Wall, ranked the No. 1 point guard, No. 5 overall, on the ESPNU 100, informed Miami coach Frank Haith Tuesday morning that he had committed to Kentucky. The reasoning, according to a source, was because he just wanted to play for Calipari.

Of course he does. Is it possible Calipari has been able to recruit so many talented athletes on his words alone? A topic for another time.

And what if Jodie Meeks returns? (Will he want to with so much PT to go around?) Kentucky should already be a preseason top five team, and it will certainly be the most anticipated team to see come November.

Sources: Wall picks Kentucky {ESPN}

Always up for a little controversy: The top 10 most scandalous coaches. Hard to argue No. 1, though I bet it wouldn’t be one of your first three guesses. {Lost Letterman}

It’s sometimes impossible to ignore the symbolism in life.

As one great Oklahoma Sooner prepares to enter into a life in the spotlight of the NBA, another, who stepped away from it some time ago, has left the mortal coil.

After a battle with cancer, Wayman Tisdale died, as you’ve heard by now, Friday morning.

I never got to see Wayman Tisdale play. But he’s one of those college greats who you just know was as good as those who watched him play say he was. Yeah, I’ll take their word for it, but the three All-American nods also lend some credibility. As does his still-standing records at Oklahoma for points and rebounds. For as powerful as Griffin was this season (and last, really), I get the feeling his presence won’t be as strong as the positive one Tisdale’s left in the mid-’80s.

Like Tisdale, I also play music. Like Tisdale did, I love it. To paraphrase the man with one of the best smiles in the history of sports, music was never a fight with him. While he always had a talent for the game of basketball, he sometimes had to work through it. Not with music. He was just drawn to it; it was what he always wanted to do with his life. And that’s what so damn terrific about Tisdale, and why it’s all the more sad he lost his battle with cancer. Tisdale didn’t allow the sport he happened to be pretty damn good at get in the way of what he really wanted to do: funk the hell out of whatever room he was in.

Tisdale was a pretty damn good bass player, and for as worse off the sports world is without him, the music world is even more silent.

NBA Draft deadline is switftly approaching (it’s Sunday), so the last-minute decisions should be coming in waves. Jarvis Varnado, a junior out of Mississippi State who broke the SEC’s single-season block record previously held by Shaq, will do some water-testing; not sign with an agent. {Clarion Ledger}

You Been Blinded swiped a nice video, a news report (that goes well over three minutes; how different television coverage is there compared to here) on Bobby Knight’s tutelage of the tall Dutch players and how they’ve become better people because of him.

But it’s not all sunshine with Mr. Knight, as you could imagine. Skip on ahead to the 2:30 mark if you want to get to the good stuff. It’s nice to hear Knight cursing without the bleeps.

Ah, it’s good to know he’s still got a part of that charm in him.

Curry just announced at his press conference that he’ll be bypassing that rare opportunity to play a senior year at Davidson to make the jump to the NBA.

The draft looks to be extremely guard-heavy this year, but Curry is certainly a better prospect than a lot of names out there. It’s a relatively weak draft, and it’s hard to believe this pure shooter will fall further than 15th.

While hoopheads like myself, who would love to see him stay one more year, are let down by losing another star, it does make sense.

This is the world we’ve lived in for a decade now.

Coach Bob McKillop was notably upset and struggled with this ordeal; can you blame him? His program will flutter back off into obscurity now, most likely. Video of that when it comes available.

Scottie Reynolds will throw his name into the NBA draft. A list of who is in, who has signed an agent and who has said they’ll return will be coming in the next couple days. {AP}

And is kind of refusing to wear shirts in public when it’s not deemed necessary.

Looks like Calhoun did us all a favor and decided to do what’s best for his program and college basketball.

Originally, it was believed Calhoun might leave administrators and players twisting in the wind for a couple months before deciding what he would do, but that won’t be the case. In a statement, Calhoun announced late yesterday that he’ll be back next year to have his arms folded and look disgusted on the sidelines, talk down to the media after a tough loss and try to one-up Jim Boeheim in the W column.

“It is my full intention to return for the 2009-10 season,” Calhoun said in a statement. “I look forward to coaching next season and to continuing as the head coach at Connecticut into the future. In many ways, the journey of this past season has made me realize how much I love coaching this game, how much I love my kids and how much I enjoy being at Connecticut.”

This could begin a kind of Brett Favre saga for x amount of years. Annual April speculation as to whether that year is Calhoun’s last year. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Jim Calhoun will return to UConn in 2009-10 {Hartford Courant}

Siena is trying to lock up its coach by throwing as many years and dollars at him as possible. Fran McCaffery just signed an eight-year, $4 million deal, which is absolutely gargantuan for a school like Siena. But if the Saints win 25 and get another Tournament win under their belt next season? McCaffery will be snatched up by someone else in a buyout. {Albany Times Union}

In a surprising move to many, Daniel Hackett won't even test the draft waters — he's already looking to hire an agent.

It’s getting chaotic in the draft pool.

This was just released less than an hour ago, but Paul Harris, Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf are entering the draft. It’s not yet known if any of them are going to hire an agent. It would be incredibly dumb of them if any did. All should come back next season, without question.

DeJuan Blair (who I think is a man but not NBA ready, believe it or not) is gone. Blair is looking for a man in a nice suit to say good things about him to other teams, so he won’t be playing for Pitt anymore.

Arizona’s trio of stars — Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger and Nic Wise — are gone.

The best future pro of them all, James Harden, is hiring an agent and putting his name into the draft.

As for USC, Daniel Hackett is just up and leaving (?), while DeMar DeRozan and Taj Gibson are going to see how this whole testing-the-infamous-draft-waters thing turns out.

In the ACC, specifically, Wake Forest, Jeff Teague (dude, what the hell are you doing?) is going to see about the draft, but not hire an agent. The same can’t be said about James Johnson, who wants nothing to do with Wake Forest ever again! Wake just fell out of next season’s top 25.

Oh, and we still don’t know what the hell Stephen Curry is going to do.