Adam Zagoria is reporting that Lance Stephenson's choices are now down to Arizona and Maryland. This isn't a huge surprise, as those were two of the key schools I spoke about in my long rundown on the Stephenson situation here.
What I've found interesting is that neither Arizona or Maryland fans seem all too excited about the prospect of this kid. So I don't think either program will go out on a limb to get the kid just to appease the fan base.
I honestly don't see any reason why Maryland would want him after the issues with Under Armour. Gary Williams has always run a very clean program, and has often missed out on top recruits because he doesn't want trouble makers, and he's been there long enough and has enough of a track record that he's not going to take a recruit he doesn't want just to make his school administration happy, especially after the way he fought back on this very issue a few months ago (see here and here).
As for Arizona, I spoke about their issues in the aforementioned Stephenson post. I argued that Stephenson doesn't help that program in the long run, because it's very important that Sean Miller sets a positive tone from day one at Arizona. If he has behavior problems and personality clashes right from the start it could take a couple of years to recover. And there's no big pressure on him to win right now. Miller's huge success at Xavier, along with Arizona's massive loss of players to the NBA Draft, means that nobody is going to call for him to be fired if they miss the Tournament next year. Of course, I can understand why Miller doesn't want to be the coach to break that Tournament streak (I believe it's up to 25 straight years now), and if he believes that Stephenson could be the difference between sneaking into the 2010 Tournament or falling short, and that there isn't a lot of risk of Stephenson poisoning the program going forward, Miller might take that chance.
But despite the reports, I continue to believe that Memphis is a logical location. They are without a doubt the most desperate team for a star recruit to prove that there will be life after Calipari. They are for the first time in their school history in a conference that just stinks from top to bottom, and they no longer have Calipari to grab top recruits. If they can nab Stephenson then that will be a huge sign to 2010, 2011 and 2012 blue chip recruits that they should still be seriously considering Memphis. And with so much experience on the team (unlike Arizona, which will be very young and without a clear team leader), they will be better equipped to handle a Freshman with a huge ego.
Of course, it's possible that this situation can continue to drag on for a long time, so don't expect any resolution in the next few days. But at least it does seem like we have narrowed down the options somewhat.
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33 comments:
Looks like the MFM (Morons From Memphis) are back... The captain has turned on the Comment Moderation light.
I live in the Memphis area and while every city has people who they would rather not claim, most of the people who live near me are quite intelligent. When you categorize all the people from one geographical area negatively, Jeff, you end up sounding like, well, a moron.
As I've said every time that the Memphis blogs and message boards have riled up their fans against me: I am well aware that these morons don't represent all of Memphis. And as I've said, it's a very sad representation of the city, and I'm surprised that some of the more intelligent fans don't come on here and disown the rampant personal attacks and foul language. This is actually a positive post about Memphis, but it doesn't matter, because if I type the word "Memphis" in a post I'm going to get attacked no matter what I say.
Memphis has a lot of wonderful people, and a lot of wonderful fans. But unfortunately none of those people are coming over here to defend the city against the morons from TrueBlueTigers and the Dockery-Finch Tigers Sports Forum.
Sounds like you enjoy riling up people or you wouldn't have mentioned two places where Memphis fans go to read about all things Tigers. And quit removing relevant posts, just because you delete them for pointing out your stupidity does not mean that it isn't noticed.
Jeff, how do you expect Memphis fans to react? You call Memphis "desperate," say Lance is not a good fit at MD b/c they run a clean program, or at AZ b/c Miller needs to set a positive tone, thus implying Memphis is not clean or positive. Then you call our conference total garbage from top to bottom, and then call us morons for coming on here and questioning the accuracy of "one of the best predictor sites on the web." Please, give me a break.
I never ever remove posts. One of the things I pride myself on here is that anybody can read any post I have ever written, without any editing for comment. I've certainly made some guesses that ended up being wrong, but by keeping myself accountable it makes me better in the future. I'm right much, much more than I'm wrong, and I continue to improve.
My positive, knowledgeable and polite readers help me with this by giving me information that I didn't know. Unfortunately the human refuse coming over from these Memphis sites have a vast inferiority complex that forces them to create a bad name for good Memphis fans everywhere.
I'm still waiting for the Memphis fan to come over here and defend Memphis fans by saying that most of them aren't likely to go on a blog and call that blogger a "c*** sucker" just because he dared to predict that they're still in the fight for a top recruit.
Just stop posting here, guys, okay? I'm tired of the fact that I can't make any post that involves Memphis without an obnoxious post on Truebluetigers and a sneering thread on Dockery-Finch Tiger Sports Forum that leads some of the refuse of the universe to come over here and just post personal attacks and foul language.
This is a college basketball blog: I've got to be allowed to write about Memphis. If you can't handle that then stop coming here. I have a lot of loyal readers, and I don't want them to have to read some foul, disgusting posting. Just stop reading if you can't handle any non-Memphis fans writing honestly about Memphis basketball.
If you still want to read, then just control yourself: Don't type anything on here that you wouldn't be proud to show to your wife, daughter or mother.
Jeff, maybe if you made a comment about Memphis that was actually accurate, and not derisive for the sake of being able to type what you want without any research, you wouldn't get such a negative response from the Memphis fan base, and you could actually live up to your website's tag line.
Oops, small error. I mixed the service provider with the IP. You want me to reveal your information? The reason you're posting as anonymous is because you're embarrassed by your behavior.
Maybe better to reveal privacy than shut down posting for everybody - that way everything isn't ruined by one person.
So how's the weather in Brighton?
I will add that I also won't hesitate to report your IP address to the ncaabbs.com moderators, so they can decide whether they want to ban you from posting because of the way you are embarrassing the forum with your behavior.
Hopefully the fear of being banned from your forum and having your identity information revealed here will get you to shut up and stop this.
Your IP address has been sent to the moderators at ncaabbs.com. I have encouraged them to take action against you.
I will not hesitate to actually publish your IP address publicly if that's what it takes to get you to stop defacing this blog.
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