Saturday, August 22, 2009

Elliot Williams Cleared To Play In 2009-10

Elliot Williams is cleared to play this coming season, assuming you believe Foxsports.com, where they somehow managed to misspell his name (it's "Elliot", not "Elliott"). I know that I occasionally make goofs like that, but a big money operation like Fox Sports should have editors...

Anyway, I spoke about the '09-'10 chances for Memphis in this post a couple of months ago, when Williams first declared his intent to transfer there. As I said then, the signing of Williams makes Memphis a legitimate contender for the Top 25. They are also now clearly the favorite in Conference USA. There won't be another BP65 for close to two months, and things might change between now and then, but right now I'd place Memphis somewhere around a 7-9 seed in the 2010 Tournament.

That said, even with the Williams signing, Memphis is going to be very thin. By my count they've got nine scholarship players that will be enrolled when the fall begins. Tulsa was a borderline bubble team last season, and should be even better this season, so one or two injuries could knock Memphis right out of the top spot in Conference USA. The margin is just much thinner than it was when John Calipari was around.

This season will be very important for the future of Memphis recruiting: they've got to prove that they can continue to be a national contender out of a mediocre conference without the recruiting prowess of Calipari.

No comments: