Early evening WAC basketball links

Tony Jones writes about what Nate Bendall brings to the Aggies, healthy or not.

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Jeff Portnoy looks at where UH hoops is today and also has a note about an injury to Hiram Thompson.

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Brian McInnis blogs at his Court Sense blog on Thompson's status and also provides a link to Coach Gib Arnold's ESPN chat.

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Chris Murray offers Coach David Carter's analysis that it was a frontcourt showdown last night and Nevada's was a MIA.

More from Chris Murray and also Tony Jones

Did you know that Chris Murray's middle name is Prolific? Actually, PTW is guessing but the evidence is mounting. Chris has an article up on a luncheon Q-and-A featuring Coach David Carter and another piece covering Wolf pack basketball subject matter.

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Tony Jones reports that Tai Wesley's nose collided with Brady Jardine's elbow and, yes, a break has occurred.

Monday and the world of WAC basketball

Utah State turned to Mr. T to slow down Weber State star backcourter Damian Lillard and the move paid off. Shawn Harrison has the details.

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Dayton Morinaga offers 25 photos from Hawaii's victory over Fullerton.

Brian McInnis serves up a game preview of 2-0 Hawaii facing Central Michigan. ESPN will televise it. Dave Reardon has posted a column looking at UH hoops to date.

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Jason Groves reports Coach Marvin Menzies wants more fannies in the seats this season and it starts tonight with a ring ceremony for the Aggies.

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AW Prince is all over tonight's Nevada-Pacific contest (at Pauley Pavilion), providing print, video and some extra crisp photos.

Chris Murray has game preview details here. Dan Hinxman shares some PP video and also that Coach David Carter wants to witness a mid-tempo style of play -- not death metal nor a dirge.

A pair of afternoon WAC items

seldomseensmith is reporting at the BlueAggies site that Utah State transfer Modou Niang has landed at Seattle Pacific. Gonzaga 'big' Andy Poling transferred there earlier this past season. Seattle Pacific is the current basketball champ of the great Northwest Basketball Conference.

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Chris Murray has Coach David Carter talking about the adios to the WAC from Boise State.

The How-Can-You-Miss-PTW-When-We-Won't-Go-Away edition

6-foot-10, 260-pound Antwond Roshell, out of John Logan Community College in Illinois, has landed at Louisiana Tech. In 26 games this season, he averaged 4.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game, shooting 55% from the floor and 52% at the foul line. He played his high school ball in Milwaukee.

Here's a link to more on Roshell.

We tip our hat to the Bulldog Barks and Bytes MB for alerting us to this.

Also, here is an interesting tidbit from Javier Morales in the Tucson Citizen on Roshell and a teammate at John Logan:

"...The two other prominent Division I prospects on Logan’s roster are 6-9 power forward Andre Clark and 6-10 center Antwond Roshell. Clark is being recruited by Alabama, Cincinnati, DePaul, Iowa State, Louisiana Tech and Providence. Roshell is being recruited by one of the Cinderellas in the NCAA tournament — Northern Iowa — and also Idaho State, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, DePaul, South Alabama and Tennessee Tech..."

 Earlier this month, Clark said he was down to Iowa State and Texas Christian so maybe LT shifted its focus then to Roshell.

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Joe Santoro talked with David Carter about the changing faces on the Wolf Pack roster.

Nevada lands a recruit

Not to be lost in all the Big Dance hoopla and the reports from yesterday's games is that Coach David Carter has landed a down-the-road new big but it may require setting up a tickler file for 2012:

Pack gets commitment from talented power forward
Chris Murray
Nevada Gazette-Journal
March 20, 2010

The Nevada basketball program took a step toward bolstering its frontcourt this week when it received a verbal commitment from 6-foot-9 power forward Phillip Jackson of Chicago.

However, it might be a little while before Jackson hits Nevada's campus.

Jackson's former high school coach, Todd Kelly, said Friday that his former player orally committed Thursday to play for the Wolf Pack...

Go here for the remainder.

Okay, the Pack has been thinned

With the posting of his latest, Chris Murray culls the herd so to speak -- it's Utah State finishing on top in the WAC. But first, read on about the second-place predicted program:

WAC preview: Top-heavy Wolf Pack among WAC's favorites
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
10/15/2009

No. 2 Nevada

Coach: David Carter (first season)

Last year’s record: 21-13 overall, 11-5 WAC (second place)

Returning starters: Three (Armon Johnson, Luke Babbitt, Dario Hunt)

Key losses: Malik Cooke, Lyndale Burleson...

Go here for the remainder.

A Yannick Atanga update

The Gonzaga site -- The Slipper Still Fits -- has a very informative update on southern California frontcourter Yannick Atanga. He's a Nevada recruiting target.

Here's a brief cut-and-paste featuring his high school coach: "He has visits setup to Santa Clara and Nevada-Reno. I hope and I think he will take all five visits at this point. He is planning on waiting until the late period to commit and sign, so I think he will have time to take all of his visits."

Go here for the full post.

Nevada scouting a junior college big

Melvin Grussing is back today with a brief entry about an Antelope Valley College big who is being eyed by Nevada. The young man played junior college ball in Illinois last year.

Go here for the post.

Here's Grussing with an earlier post on McGrew: "Antelope Valley College just picked up Chicago native, George McGrew, 6’8”, 225, forward. He played for Oakton Community College in Des Panes, Illinois last season where he led the team with 9.9 rebounds, 2.6 blocks per game and second in scoring with 12.2 ppg. McGrew averaged 61.9% on 2 point shots."

Jeff Goodman talks to David Carter

Fox Sport's Jeff Goodman has posted a solid interview with Nevada's David Carter:

CARTER TAKES REIGNS IN RENO

The last time that Nevada decided to hand the baton to the next guy down the line, it worked pretty well.

Trent Johnson left for LSU and former assistant Mark Fox moved down a seat. He won an average of more than 20 games per season before leaving for Georgia in the offseason.

Now it’s David Carter’s turn – the former Johnson and Fox aide who has spent the last decade in Reno...

Go here for the remainder.

Nevada has offered a kid with a great name

Jerry Tipton, a recruiting guru who writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader, posted something today about a former Kentucky commit (to Billy Gillispie, not John Calipari) who is back in the barrel. The competition doesn't look fierce but how far is the 6-foot-7 youngster willing to be from home?

Euton mulls choices, eyes November decision
Jerry Tipton
Lexington Herald-Leader
August 4, 2009

Thanks to the coaching change from Billy Gillispie to John Calipari, former UK recruit Dakotah Euton is going through the recruiting process for a second time.

His father, Clay, sent an e-mail update on Dakotah’s situation on Tuesday...

Go here for the remainder.

Here's a dated ESPN evaluation of Euton.

Here's more including video.

Chris Murray with a lengthy David Carter watch

Chris Murray outdoes himself and 99% of other beat reporters with a pair of articles in today's Reno Gazette-Journal on Coach David Carter's recruiting activities this week in Las Vegas. What's really worth noting here is that it's a newspaper running this -- one not based in Lexington, Louisville, Lawrence or Charlotte. That is remarkable and great.

College basketball recruiting: The game within the game
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
7/26/09

LAS VEGAS -- His day starts around 9 a.m. with the thermometer already approaching 100 degrees. In this city known for its glitz and glamour, there won't be much of either today.

Instead, what lies ahead is 13 hours of basketball, traffic jams and overheated gyms. The mission? To evaluate as many high school basketball players as possible in a single day.

For the first time in his 20-year coaching career, Nevada's David Carter is making the rounds as a head coach. He is joined here by assistant coaches Doug Novsek and Keith Brown, and the Wolf Pack staff is canvassing the city, scouting as many players as possible.

In the first 10 days of the always-important July recruiting period, Carter visited Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Augusta, S.C., and Los Angeles twice. After spending five days in Las Vegas this week, he will head to Kansas City and Orlando before finishing the long month of recruiting back in Los Angeles.

But the center of the recruiting world right now is Southern Nevada, where a quintet of high-profile AAU tournaments have drawn hundreds of coaches and thousands of players to these Las Vegas gyms. So many coaches, players and parents are here that most rental car companies have run out of cars...

Go here for the remainder.

Chris Murray's Nevada recruiting list

Here's the companion piece to Chris Murray's lengthy article on Nevada's 2010 recruiting efforts:

Partial list of Nevada basketball recruiting targets
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
7/25/2009

Nevada basketball coach David Carter said his staff identifies between 20-50 prime recruiting targets per class. After shadowing him for a day and searching around the web, here is a partial list of the players on his team's board, with their size and school. You can also learn more about the player by clicking on their name and heading to their recruiting profile...

Go here for the remainder.

Trickery? Changing minds? One final yes-or-no look?

One other element that is brazenly on display this week in Las Vegas is the element of trickery. Not all coaches do it -- some don't have to. Actually, it's near impossible to tell when a coaching staff is modeling such behavior because obviously only they truly know.

How it works is a coach shows up at a game featuring a kid who isn't connected to the recruiting plans of that school. Fellow coaches begin to wonder. Why is Coach X here to see? Is he serious about Player Y?

Or is this a jab step -- a feint -- when the coach and his staff are really going in another direction but want to throw off would-be competitors? Maybe they have a sleeper in mind who plays the same position and want to give the impression that Player Y is their #1 target.

Hey, possibly they are there looking at a different player on display.

Now St. Mary's, Pacific, San Jose State and UC Davis have offered CA forward Josh Ritchart. A handful of PAC-10 schools are sniffing around. Rivals also lists Nevada. SCOUT has everyone already mentioned plus San Francisco and Santa Clara in the mix. Ritchart is painfully thin (something that can generally be remedied) but nicely skilled. He could break as a big-time player if and when he achieves physical maturity.

At one of the games featuring Team Superstar (Ritchart's club squad), David Carter was in the stands. This per SCOUT's Dave Telep.

So was Carter evaluating or re-evaluating Ritchart? Could it have been a make-or-break final look this week? (Ritchart scored two points and grabbed four boards) Was Carter actually checking out someone else on Team Superstar or from the opposing team? Or was he, to mix sports metaphors, throwing a curveball?

You can bet the other coaches in the gym would love to know. Of course, what were the reasons they were there? Yes, there are coaches who are friends but college basketball is a business and our sense if every single coach likes to pull a fast one if it is do-able.

All in all, it's a fascinating process.

It's Chris Murray's turn in the barrel

Oh this brings back memories -- up early (at least for us), going from gym to gym until late, more basketball than you could ever want to watch, wondering how Las Vegas residents manage the weather. Let's see if Chris WANTS to do this next time, let alone does it.

Best of recruiting Las Vegas with Coach Carter
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
7/23/2009

As many of you @PackHoops twitter followers know, I am in Las Vegas right now and shadowed Wolf Pack basketball coach David Carter Wednesday to get a taste of what a "day in the life of a recruiting college basketball coach" felt like. We will have a couple of stories over the weekend that better document spending a full day of recruiting down here is like, but I wanted to get something on the blog today. So, here is a "Best of" edition from our experience yesterday...

Go here for the remainder.

We are jesting -- repeat, we are jesting.

So has new Nevada mentor David Carter already proven to be ill-equipped for the position? Has sliding over that 18 inches on the bench put him in over his head? Is AD Cary Groth having second thoughts?

Well, before arteries and veins bulge to the point of bursting in Reno and the surrounding areas -- and in at least one household in Seattle -- we are being facetious.

We are actually a bit surprised that some anonymous poster on one of the Nevada sports message boards hasn't gone over the edge and proclaimed just what we suggested in the opening paragraph.

Because that's what fan-dom does best -- being over-the-top.

There are striking similarities between the number of sports acolytes of say college A whose 'camp' states that their team is the best, no ifs, ands or buts and the group within the supporters of college A athletics who insist that their Coach A is the worst, a disgrace, scum way past the point of proving his incompetence and someone who should have been replaced within the very first week of his hire. Maybe even fired before he was hired.

Each faction emphatically states its 'truth' and, if we are lucky, backs up assertions with 'distilled' facts highlighting their respective claims.

Then there are those fans -- the vast majority -- who understand sports are games, unimportant ones in the light of everyday life and utilize common sense and decency in their support.

So returning to our opening, why should the 'fire coach Carter-ites' be bleating their mantra?

We will imitate their nature:

Well, because Illinois backcourter Brandon Spearman recently chose to commit to Dayton over Nevada and some other contenders. This followed Philadelphia point Tyrone Garland's decision to commit to Virginia Tech in lieu of heading to Reno or elsewhere.

Is that evidence enough that Coach Carter can't recruit?

Oh, we're doomed.

Yep, failure is coming to Reno big-time. Anyone with half a brain can see this (editor's note: words three, four and five of this sentence being key)

But hey, the devout of our most righteous subsection already knew it was time for Carter to go. After all, wasn't the loss of Steven Bjornstad and Malik Cooke evidence enough?

Right on!

Let's get someone like Robert Montgomery Knight in here or if we want to slum a bit just lure Coach K away from rapidly plummeting Duke.

Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket.

Tyrone Garland to VT

Nevada apparently worked hard in becoming part of the mix for prep backcourter Tyrone Garland out of Philadelphia. However, it's not easy to convince a youngster to come 2,500 or so miles west when multiple options from much closer by are also available.

Garland chose to go with Virginia Tech of the Big East Conference.

Bob Zagoria had this:

Tyrone Garland, a 6-1, 165-pound point guard from Philadelphia (PA) John Bartram, announced his college choice at the Reebok Camp in a room full of family, coaches and friends.

“The school that I will be attending is Virginia Tech,” Garland said.

“The [other] schools I was considering were La Salle, Temple, Nevada and Nebraska but what sold me was a great coaching staff. It’s kind of quiet up there so you can focus on basketball. [It has a] good campus and new practice facility, too.”

Bartram coach James Brown said Garland was a “special” person.

“I say from day one that young man is special,” Brown said. “Not only do you have a great basketball player but you have a great individual sitting right there...

Here's another story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bjornstad officially freed

Now this is bizarre...or maybe not. It is difficult to believe that the Nevada athletics office was unaware of a new rule so we're going with the school of thought that the Wolf Pack was bigtime nyet at the time of the request but realized there was nothing to gain by drawing out the process.

Bjornstad released from his letter-of-intent to Nevada
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Jounral
6-15-09

Steven Bjornstad has been released from his letter-of-intent to play basketball at Nevada after a technicality freed him of his obligation to the Wolf Pack. Bjornstad, a 6-foot-10 center from Vancouver, Wash., asked for a release April 29, citing the Wolf Pack’s coaching change from Mark Fox to David Carter...

Go here for the remainder.

A (stale) crumb for Nevada basketball fans

UPDATE: The devil is in the details and we missed bigtime on this one as several readers have pointed out that the following article was dated in mid-May. So, nevermind and we'll get busy cleaning the egg off our faces.

LVN Sports Editor Larry Barker recently talked with new Nevada Coach David Carter. This snippet jumped out at us:

LB: “Overall is recruiting looking good right now?”

Coach Carter: “It’s looking very good. You’ll read about in the paper in the next week or so about more kids committing to Nevada.”

Go here for the full Carter interview and those of other Nevada coaches.

David Carter explained

Chris Murray has a fine feature on the newish Wolf Pack coach David Carter. This one will take some time to read so settle in and enjoy Carter's world from his early years in Los Angeles to the present. Nice guys can and do finish first.

Carter's path leads to top
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
May 31, 2009

When David Carter was a child growing up in Los Angeles, he would sit on the front step of his home and get lost in his own imagination, creating stories and friends that only existed in his head.

His mother, Mary, would watch her youngest son creating make-believe adventures. She always knew he was a dreamer.

"He would always just sit there and talk to himself," she said. "I would always say, 'Hey, (your brothers) Tom and Reggie are right here. Why don't you play with them?' But he would just be there telling his stories to himself. He would always have a smile on his face. I never knew the stories he was creating."

Chances are he wasn't charting his future, a journey that has taken him from Missouri to Los Angeles to the Bay Area and ultimately to Reno, with many stops in between...

Go here for the remainder.