basketball

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

Kentucky, Duke, Arizona, and Michigan St at the 1 line

Michigan and Ohio St - 2 seed

Indiana - 4 seed

Wisconsin - 5 seed

Iowa - 7 seed

Illinois - 11 seed

Okay, so I know we are still 11 months away from Selection Sunday, but I still find them interesting to look at.  

@WojYahooNBA: Michigan junior Tim Hardaway Jr., will enter the NBA draft, sources tell Y! Sports.

Best of luck to him.

As Brian noted on the front page yesterday, Tom Crean is currently oversigned for next year. Six players are coming in, and only five are leaving (Zeller, Oladipo, Hulls, Watford, and Elston). Conveniently, Indiana announced for Remy Abell that he was going to leave Remy Abell announced that he was leaving in order to get more playing time somewhere else.

Howeva, now his mom is involved and it looks like she wants him to stay. No word on how Remy feels about this, but this could get very interesting if there is pushback from a player and his mom as Crean is trying to push him out the door to make scholarship room.

Also, IU is still recruiting Jaren Sina, a PG/SG that Michigan was hot on about a year ago. Obviously, a coach is wise to recruit all the time since circumstances are so fluid in CBB these days, but it just looks bad at this point.

This is the video they showed last night at the basketball banquet. It's 17 minutes long, but definitely worth the watch. Puts a nice wrap on a season we won't soon forget.

Is it dusty in here?

I didn't see this posted anywhere else, but according to Freep, THJ is supposed to annouce his decision today at 3pm

http://www.freep.com/article/20130417/SPORTS06/304170008/Michigan-player...

http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/columnists/jim-peters/jim-peters-chesterton-michigan-grad-novak-hooping-in-holland/article_66128833-0203-50bb-b0f9-9d3f3c9cdb3a.html

Mostly fluff (and known fluff at that), but still some nice quotes in there.  Great to see him reclaiming his scorer's mentality.  Also a reference to "Chicks Dig Scars" (an aneurysm of salesmanship? ;).

The only big-name player to come out of Chesterton High before Novak was IU's Matt Nover, who people my age will remember as "oh that white dude from Blue Chips", but after Mitch people have been paying more attention to CHS, or at least wanting to, judging by numerous comments made on the site.

Unfortunately, their two star 2015s (rising juniors) are leaving The Cheese: Matt Holba because his parents are moving to Indianapolis, and Chris Palombizio because his dad, himself a former Indiana Mr. Basketball who left Purdue for Ball State, thought he was being underused (shockingly) and is sending him to one of those basketball academies (albeit one without the East Coast location or reputation).  The good news is Mitch McGary left CHS and got even better, so there is hope.

Here's a UMHoops article on Holba from last August to refresh your memory.  And a scouting report on Palombizio, who camped with UM last summer.  (Both grew up idolizing Novak, and he couldn't even watch them play at camp.  Thanks, NCAA.)

While it's doubtful either will receive their offer in mid-June when the first round are extended, we shall see.  But just like with GRIII and Spike, there's also plenty of other great talent and teams in Northwest Indiana.  Two area targets who will likely get offers:  Hyron Edwards is at East Chicago (alma mater of E'Twaun Moore and ) and Ryan Fazekas at Michigan City Marquette.  Holba, Edwards, and Fazekas were all Second-Team All-Area as sophomores; Palombizio an honorable mention.