Bball guy, all of his AAU teammates love it. Jealousy stings. Chip wonders why a guy from ATL plays for a MEM TRAVEL team. These guys aren’t playing AAU hoops at the highest level. Nothing strange other than the fact that since he didn’t go to Tech or UGA it must be fishy.

BTW, Memphis is not on probation. In the end the wins will not be vacated. Listen to Jay Bilas, Dickey V, Bob Knight. They all say it is a disgrace what the NCAA is trying to do to Memphis. Rose was cleared to play by the NCAA clearing house 2 additional times during the year. As soon as Memphis started kicking BCS schools ass in the big dance, here came the NCAA again. Once again he was cleared to play by the NCAA. No proof has been presented other than one persons opinion. If the NCAA wins on the appeal, Memphis should sue them and refuse to return the money from the tournament. Then let the real story hit the fans.

BTW, what ever happened to : 1) USC, Reggie Bush’s umemployed parents living in a $500K condo in LA. 2) USC, OJ Mayo getting cash from the coach Tim Floyd. 3) UCONN, Jim Calhoun program paying players? BCS conferences buired the issues.

Just to make sure these guys know…Pastner has played and coached under Lute Olson since 1996. He was an assistant on Calipari’s staff for a grand total of one season.

Memphis enjoys a lot of advantages; fan support, and NBA arena, and the support of Fedex…but I don’t think anything illicit is going on post-Calipari.

Go Tigers!

Just to clarify one point that seemed to irk you both – Jelan was NOT on an official visit to Memphis this weekend. He went on his official visit to Memphis Madness in October. He was coming to Memphis this weekend to attend a Memphis Magic AAU team banquet and decided to go ahead and pull the trigger and commit and sign while he was in town.

And if ANYONE wants to question Josh Pastner’s ethics, they better bring it! Do your homework on the guy and you’ll find that there’s no one more ethical in the business. Granted, he’s young and unproven on the collegiate level, but he was recruiting for and coaching a Houston AAU team when he was 16!! What were YOU doing at 16?! And, oh, that team he was coaching . . . they won the AAU national championship. So there’s some evidence there that he can indeed coach.

Memphis plays in the Fedex Forum -18,500 capacity…and it’s the toughest ticket in town. Watch this year. Calipari took all our 09 recruits, and we won’t be as good as in recent years…but every game will be a near sellout.

An assistant under Lute Olson and the son of a Houston AAU veteran…Josh Pastner has alwasys been known as a relentless recruiter.

The recruiting guru gets his first shot at coaching a team that has been the most dominant college basketball program over the last 4 years.

Remember, these kids are young. Their memories are short. When Jalen Kendrick was 12 or 13, Memphis was making deep runs into the tournament. Regardless of Calipari’s undoubtedly shady tactics, they remember the name on the front of the jersey.

Kids play AAU ball in other cities all the time, by the way.

A signed LOI on the official visit? That is *old-school* and sounds downright Caliparian.

Somebody check Jelan’s bank account.

Memphis will be back in the final four in 2011…and this time it won’t be vacated. No Calipari, no problem

From Wiki:
Bisher was born in Denton, North Carolina, and was a 1938 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Memphis native here and just wanted to shed some light. Jelan played on the Memphis Magic AAU team this past summer and I think they won some tournament or something. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that three other players from that team-Joe Jackson, Chris Crawford and now Tarik Black, all committed to the Memphis Tigers. It makes sense to me that he wants to play with guys that he knows and have bonded with. Also, Will Barton was recruited by Josh Pastner before Calipari left. After Cal left, Barton and his brother decided to commit to Memphis anyway to help rebuild. From what the Memphis media said Barton was doing his best to get Kendrick at Memphis as well. From what I understand Kendrick is familiar with Memphis, he’s familiar with 3 of his new teammates so I think he just wanted to go somewhere where he felt comfortable and could succeed. So you basically have 4 players from the Memphis Magic AAU squad(Jackson, Black, Crawford, Kendrick), one of the top shooting guards in the country in Will Barton, his brother Antonio who should be a good role player and a a big man role player in Hippolyte Tsafack. I think Kendrick and Barton just wanted to be a part of the top recruiting class in the nation. That’s one heckuva a perimeter with Jackson, Barton and Kendricka nd then Crawford (a pure shooter) more than likely off of the bench.

As far as the Tigers probation, that’s really just in name only. The Tigers didn’t lose any scholarships and they are not banned from any post-season play. All the probation says is that for the next 3 years the NCAA will be watching Memphis closely to see if they violate any rules. If they do, then they can get serious penalties. If they don’t, it’s business as usual. With Cal gone, I’m not worried about that “probation” at all.

Since you have to be politically correct, I’ll say it for you.

To all you whinning arse Tech Fans:
When you prove to be able to sell out a 55,000 seat stadium, the local paper will give you some press. Tech fans need to face the facts that your fan base is just not passionate and accepts substandard results. (See the Chan Gaily and Paul Hewitt Years as examples.)

P.S. I have seen Chip have 2 articles on Jason Morris. Kendrick happens to be the best player in the state of Georgia this year. It’s a shame he didn’t give the triangle offense at UGA a try. Fox is a WINNER.

Chip, wiley was out of bounds on his remarks. I am a Tech fan & read every word you write. It is hard to write about something that is not happening. And recruiting for football 2010 is over & recruiting for 2009 early is probably over for BB – when is the last day. You have been doing a top notch job on football recruiting for 2011. I know that is where the action is now – and the Tech coaches are out this week doing 2011.

I honestly don’t see how Hewitt can help but win 20 games. Should he fail to do so a Congressional investigation is warranted.

Chip may be a graduate of The University of Georgia, however I have yet to see antything akin to “homerism” by him. One certainly cannot say that about the Sports Editor Emeritus of this newspaper, Furman Bisher. ‘ol Furman is a virtual one man PR firm for GT in his promoting all that is Yeller and Black to the point of proclaiming Paul Johnson the greatest college coach in the game and placing him among the immortals and above Bear Bryant and Vince Dooley. And you try to call Chip a homer for the Dawgs. I don’t think so he’s an inexperienced amateur compared to Furman.