ESPN.com presents Men's College Basketball Nation http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation 60 en-us Sun, 19 May 2013 00:21:30 webmaster@espn.go.com http://assets.espn.go.com/i/espn/teamlogos/lrg/trans/espn_dotcom_black.gif 110 110 Editor's Note: This month, ESPN Insider's college basketball and recruiting experts are teaming up to examine how 15 of the nation's best recruiting classes will fit in with their teams in the 2013-14 season. Today's featured program: Memphis , which Jason King delves more into here. Check out the Nation blog each morning for a corresponding post on the key returnee for each of the 15 teams. It's official, if it wasn't already: NCAA tournament wins are the most valuable commodity in college basketball.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84683/memphiss-key-returnee-joe-jackson Fri, 17 May 2013 10:00:44 EDT 84683 1. Kansas freshman Ben McLemore said Thursday he knew nothing about any payments that AAU coach Darius Cobb told USA Today he received from Rodney Blackstock, he founder and CEO of Hooplife Academy in Greensboro, N.C., to direct McLemore to an agent. Cobb said in the report that he took $10,000 in two separate payments. "I think this was just to attack Rodney Blackstock," McLemore said while he was watching the draft combine in Chicago. McLemore said he did not personally take any money and that he did not commit an NCAA violation.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84693/3-point-shot-duquette-faces-tough-road Fri, 17 May 2013 08:38:56 EDT 84693 In the fall of 2011, after Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced their intentions to leave the Big East and join the ACC, commissioner John Swofford held a conference call. On this call, the ACC commish revealed his league's interest in moving the ACC tournament from its traditional mid-southern location -- since 1954, the tournament has typically been played in North Carolina, in either Raleigh or Greensboro, with occasional stops in Maryland, D.C. and Georgia -- into the bright lights of Madison Square Garden.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84676/acc-still-targeting-madison-square-garden Thu, 16 May 2013 14:30:38 EDT 84676 Editor's Note: This month, ESPN Insider's college basketball and recruiting experts are teaming up to examine how 15 of the nation's best recruiting classes will fit in with their teams in the 2013-14 season. Today's featured program: Florida . Check out the Nation blog each morning for a corresponding post on the key returnee for each of the 15 teams. The aftermath of Andrew Wiggins’ announcement on Tuesday has been enlightening. Had he picked Kentucky, then many would have maintained their assumption the Wildcats would be the juggernauts of the 2013-14 season.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84660/floridas-key-returnee-patric-young Thu, 16 May 2013 10:10:03 EDT 84660 When people rail against the inequities of the NCAA, they're typically talking about money. A college basketball coach can make $10 million in a year because he generates that much value for his university, but also because that money has to go somewhere, and it certainly isn't going to the players. This strikes most as unfair, because it is. It's also obvious. Less obvious, at least to the layman, are all of the little injustices. Players have to be amateurs or the purity of the games would be corrupted; it's totally cool if coaches are professionals.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84647/st-louis-runs-off-jared-drew Thu, 16 May 2013 09:15:29 EDT 84647 1. The ACC coaches want to get the conference tournament in Madison Square Garden and discussed it at length during the league meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., on Tuesday and Wednesday. But whether or not they can pull that off is out of their control. MSG has long wanted a regular tenant, based on the busy March schedule with outside events, as well as primary hosts the Rangers and Knicks. The ACC is reviewing MSG's deal with the new Big East. MSG is unlikely going to go with a conference that would only make a cameo in the building every so often.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84656/3-point-shot-acc-and-msg Thu, 16 May 2013 05:00:07 EDT 84656 Coach Mike Krzyzewski makes a lot of money. That’s not surprising. Compensation for private-school coaches is not disclosed the way salaries are for coaches at public schools due to a bunch of legal stuff that I will not attempt to explain. “Private school” essentially means “we don’t have to tell you anything we don’t want to tell you.” So although we always assume coaches at private institutions make as much, if not more, than their peers at public universities, we’re never 100 percent sure.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84629/coach-k-made-nearly-10-million-in-2011 Wed, 15 May 2013 17:45:33 EDT 84629 The Champions Classic, a two-game, one-night November event conjured up two years ago, was pretty much always guaranteed to be a success. Indeed, it was just what the sport needed -- a big, marquee event featuring four of the game's best programs and coaches in the first week of the season, timed to remind casual fans there is more to college basketball than the gradually increasing attention spans of late February and early March. Two years later, the Champions Classic has already been an unequivocal success.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84618/the-champions-classic-worked-out-well Wed, 15 May 2013 16:35:33 EDT 84618 It seems like a lifetime ago. Before the phone calls and the sanctions that earned Kelvin Sampson a show-cause penalty, before proud Indiana fans were sent reeling, before Tom Crean was hired to pen a redemption song (a task he completed in five tidy years), Sampson's one unmarred season was punctuated by the signing of the kind of recruit that is supposed to keep a coach gainfully employed for quite some time. Sampson convinced Eric Gordon, Jr., who had previously verbally committed to Illinois, to leave the Illini and come to IU instead.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84614/gordon-family-returns-to-indiana Wed, 15 May 2013 15:05:19 EDT 84614 Kansas coach Bill Self dishes on Andrew Wiggins' decision to join the Jayhawks, Wiggins' potential, the one-and-done rule and more.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/84608/podcast-kansas-jayhawks-coach-bill-self Wed, 15 May 2013 13:10:39 EDT 84608