The Morning Dish – Friday, July 11th
Once again, Hoopville senior writer Jed Tai gets a mention in Mike Sullivan’s The Sporting News column. Kudos, Jed!
Taking the Metro Out: Georgetown has granted the request by freshman guard Brandon Bowman to be released from his scholarship. Bowman, from Santa Monica, California, averaged 7.6 points and 4.5 boards this past season as a freshman starter. This announcement marks the fourth player to leave the program. Michael Sweetney left for the NBA Draft, and guards Tony Bethel and Drew Hall left for NC State and Gonzaga, respectively. Six of the 14 players on last year’s squad will be back for the 2003-04 campaign.
More Iowa State: Well it only took two months to have this happen. In the July 9th issue of Pointblank Des Moines, there’s an advertisement for Autographs Rock’n’Roll Sports Bar and Grill in Urbandale. So what? you ask? The ad shows former Iowa State head coach Larry Eustachy cozying up to the bar next to . . . Cyclones’ AD Bruce Van De Velde, who called for Eustachy’s resignation. While hardly innovative, the ads aren’t sitting well with ISU officials. The bar has also published similar ads with George Bush and Saddam Hussein, and Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. So you’re pretty sure of what you’re getting there. Someone’s getting crazy with Photoshop.
Conference USA Moves: The CUSA Board of Directors held a teleconference to discuss realignment and protecting their own. The board voted to enforce a bylaw to preventing current member schools from leaving before June 30th, 2005, thus ensuring that the conference will fight to keep their members, who are expected to be objects of affection for the Big East. The conference also had preliminary discussions on options for co-existing with the Big East in football. The New York Times reported that the all-basketball schools in the two conferences could merge – thus Marquette, DePaul, St. Louis and Charlotte could join St. John’s, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, Villanova, et al. The same would happen with the football schools of both conferences. Lastly, Army has announced that they will leave CUSA football to return to being an independent. Army was an independent from 1890 to 1997, and has just completed its fifth (and last) season of conference play.
Collison the Man: Former Kansas star forward Nick Collison has been named the Big 12 Conference Male Athlete of the Year. Collison, who was drafted by Seattle with the 12th pick overall in last month’s NBA Draft, was chosen over Iowa State’s quarterback Seneca Wallace and Big 12 opponents Hollis Price (Oklahoma) and Naismith National Player of the Year T.J. Ford (Texas). Collison, a three-time academic All-American, was the NABC National Player of the Year, first-team All-American, the coaches’ Big 12 player of the year, and became the Big 12’s all-time leading scorer.
More Kansas: In an update to the Kansas season-ticket upgrade scandal, incoming AD Lew Perkins said that he had no knowledge of the plan to have 121 longtime season ticket holders donate $5,000 to ensure their preferred seats, but thought that the plan was “genius”. Perkins said that while the action was not popular, it was absolutely necessary to provide scholarships and maintain competitiveness – the current $27 million endowment has only had men’s basketball, women’s swimming and track provide success to the Jayhawks. The case, led by a Topeka-based attorney and season ticket holder, is still pending.
