basketball

Just more confirmation that Coach Beilein has the program headed toward a national championship sometime in the near future. Irvin now a 5 star/#22 and Walton upgraded to #30.

http://espn.go.com/colleges/basketball/recruiting/school/_/id/130/class/2013 

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130423/SPORTS0602/304230096/Morgan-Burke-Sandi-Marcius-has-not-burned-Purdue-bridges?odyssey=obinsite

For the TL/DR crowd, Purdue's AD has flat-out told the press that if Marcius transfers, he has to pay for his summer school (which he needs to graduate in order to avail himself of the grad year exception) himself.  This is about $7K.  If you come back, all is forgiven!  School is free again!!  Plus you get to cuddle with AJ Hammons in the low post for another year!!!

"Burke told Marcius that he has endeared himself to the fan base and that a permanent affiliation with Purdue will help him in the business world."

Wow. Now, I'm certainly not arguing that universities should have to actually care about the welfare of their student athletes, at least if they're ceasing to be their own, but let's look at this critically, shall we?  

It's one thing to make this "offer" (in fact, it's fairly understandable) but quite another to make it public.  What does that gain Purdue?  Other basketball players have ears, and all this story needs is a little traction and then you have Bo Ryan / Jarrod Uthoff v2.0.  Then Purdue will WISH they'd just paid the $7K and saved the face.  Then, even if he DOES come back, what have you won?  A year's worth of Sullen Croatian?  (And the paper, to its credit, does bring up the fact that they have paid for others in the past...)

I'm thinking this is the NCAA equivalent of "don't break up with me or you owe me for the tux i rented for prom".

Other things we can learn from this:
1)  Never, ever, trust a dude named "Morgan".
2)  Huge universities can indeed act like a jilted sorority girl even when dumped by a single one of their 40K+ students.
3)  One would have thought that in "leaving Croatia behind" you'd perhaps have also left behind "getting suspended by your thumbs under questioning by the authorities".  Welp.
4)  Matt Painter has been listening to the Eagles' "Hotel California" on repeat play on his iPod ('you can check out any time you like...')
5)  If your coach looks like a used-car salesman, he will probably act like one too.
6)  Don't go to Purdue.  Just don't.

Per a Detroit News article, Michigan has offered 2014 Justin Tillman, a 6'7" (per Rivals) PF out of Detroit Pershing (may be a bit taller now per the article).  Rivals doesn't list any offers, only interest from Xavier. 247 lists offers from Oakland, Indiana St, BGSU, and Detroit, and interest from a handful of other, higher ranked schools.

Not sure I believe that this is a committable offer, but it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I assume he's visited, a Beilein pre-requisite to an offer, since he's from Detroit but I'm not sure I believe they're ready to move on from Vince Edwards and/or Trevon Bluiett yet.

Among others, Robinson is listed as one star that can improve his game. The major points are that he needs to work on using and reading screens since for the most part, he was a garbage man last year (crashing the boards and getting open for easy looks after Burke's drive). Also, it is mentioned that despte poor shooting from the 3-point line, Robinson has a shooting stroke that can develop into one of the Big Ten's best (making him one of the best players) thanks to Beilin being able to teach shooting like few other coaches.

This seems to be dead on to me, personally. I'd love to see Robinson take a bigger role in the offense and work on improving his shooting game.

Link to paywalled article if you have insider.

ESPN released their list of too early All-Americans. Highlights are that McGary is listed as a first team and that Payne and Harris are on the second team. (Robinson was listed as a very promising sophomore but didn't even make the honorable mention list).

Link? Link

I am strongly considering* buying both a Final Four tee shirt an some shorts from the MDen website.  However, I seem to remember comments on the board about MDen stuff running either large or small.  Do you, dear reader, have any insight into this?  I would especially appreciate thoughts on shorts, as I usually just hold prospective shorts up to myself and give them the eyeball test...I thank you for your help and note that I post this in the hope that it might save myself but also some other poor soul(s) from shorts-related angst.         

*Assuming my mom is cool with it.