BASKETBALL Archives - Page 91 of 91

IOWA – It’s a Saturday morning in Iowa, and Cejae Ceasar shares a picnic table at the park with his old man – Clarence Ceasar III – in a tiny Louisiana town not far from Lake Charles.

‘Feel Good Friday’: Take a look at UL’s athletic fields from the air

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The father played basketball under Dale Brown at LSU, a teammate with Shaquille O’Neal who has used personal experience to shape his son.

But to Clarence the story belongs to Cejae, who committed to play football for the No. 21 Ragin’ Cajuns in July and picked UL – where he also plans to run track – over Tulane.

“It’s not about me, man,” said Clarence, who played on back-to-back Tigers NCAA Tournament teams, the first as a freshman in 1991-92.

“I just love sitting in the stands watching this guy (Cejae) go. And when I

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Silvio De Sousa steps away from Kansas basketball program with Bill Self’s ‘support for his decision’

October 21, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

Kansas senior forward Silvio De Sousa is stepping away from the Jayhawks’ basketball program “to focus all of my energies on some personal issues,” he wrote in a message posted to Twitter on Friday. De Sousa played a key role during the team’s 2018 Final Four run and was projected to contribute off the bench this season, but his tenure at Kansas has been filled with “ups and downs,” as he noted in his statement.

“I have made the difficult decision to opt out of this season to focus all of my energies on some personal issues,” De Sousa wrote. “I have a lot of things weighing on my mind and need to address these by taking time for myself and stepping away from basketball. I do not know what my next plan will be right now, but I will decide that when the time is right. This was not

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This Article Is Not About Basketball

October 21, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

When 2020 kicked off, if you’d told me about everything that was about to go down this year, and then said that I’d spend several months pretty much locked inside a bubble in the middle of Florida….

I would’ve thought you were absolutely insane.

No way I would’ve believed that.

And look, when it actually happened, yes absolutely I was dreading living inside that damn bubble as much as anyone.

No family? No outside friends? No … home-cooked meals?

Umm….

I was totally ready for it to suck, I’m not gonna lie. But you know what?

The bubble, it actually turned out to be … pretty damn great.

Not the food, necessarily, or the atmosphere, or us not winning the whole thing in the end, but just the actual bubble part of it — the quiet.

I wasn’t expecting it, but after only four or five days down in Orlando, … Read More

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Newcomer Impact Rankings – Which college basketball freshmen, transfers will lead teams in 2020-21?

October 21, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

Up until now, most preseason player rankings have been separated into categories. Best graduate transfers, best sit-out transfers, best freshmen, even best junior college transfers. But with roster turnover at an all-time high and transfer waivers being granted left and right this fall, it’s time to put all of these players on a level playing field.

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There are a couple of things to note. One, this is a ranking based purely on the impact during the 2020-21 college basketball season. Not recruiting ranking, not pro potential — impact during the upcoming season. For example, North Carolina freshman Caleb Love was ranked behind teammates Day’Ron Sharpe and Walker Kessler in the ESPN 100 for 2020, but Love is expected to be the Tar Heels’ starting point guard this season, while Sharpe and Kessler are going to start off as reserves behind established starters Armando Bacot and Garrison Brooks.

Two,

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Four-star Texas A&M basketball pledge Manny Obaseki transfers from Allen to TAPPS 6A state champion John Paul II

October 20, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

Coming off a 40-1 season and TAPPS 6A state championship, the Plano John Paul II boys basketball team has added one of the top recruits in Texas.

The school said Monday that four-star recruit Manny Obaseki, who is committed to Texas A&M, has transferred from Allen to John Paul II. That gives John Paul II two of the top four recruits in Texas in the Class of 2021.

The 6-4 Obaseki is ranked as the third-best overall recruit in Texas and the fourth-best combo guard in the nation and the 26th-best overall player in America in the Class of 2021 by 247Sports.

Obaseki was an all-state selection and the District 9-6A MVP last season. He averaged 12.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists for a team that was No. 5 in the final Class 6A state rankings, but lost in the second round of the playoffs.

He joins a John

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Queen Latifah Gets Drafted to Adam Sandler’s Basketball Film Hustle

October 20, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

It’s going down the court, Netflix just passed the ball to Adam Sandler and … slam dunk. That’s how good the cast announcement for his upcoming basketball movie Hustle is. Sandler stars as a scorned basketball scout who discovers a talented player with a questionable past abroad and decides to bring him to the U.S. to make them both NBA stars. Hip-hop pioneer and actress Queen Latifah, seven-time Academy Award nominee Robert Duvall, Spanish NBA player Juancho Hernangómez (who had to miss three weeks of Timberwolves practice to shoot this), Ben Foster (Leave No Trace), Jordan Hull (The L Word: Generation Q), Maria Botto, Ainhoa Pillet, and sports commentator Kenny Smith join Sandler for the Taylor Materne and Will Fetters–written drama. Jeremiah Zagar (We the Animals) directs. The movie is produced by basketball legend and soon-to-be Space Jam 2 star Lebron James’s company with

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9 men’s college basketball coaches who could be the next to reach 800 wins

October 19, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

Just nine men’s college basketball head coaches have compiled at least 800 wins in their career, led by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski at 1,157 entering the 2020-21 season. Coach K is one of four active coaches who have reached the exclusive club, along with Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, North Carolina’s Roy Williams and West Virginia’s Bob Huggins.

The three ACC coaches mentioned above are all inductees into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Huggins was on the ballot for 2020. The five former head coaches who have cracked the 800-win mark have all been inducted — Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Jim Calhoun, Adolph Rupp and Eddie Sutton — so the wins milestone is nearly synonymous with a Hall of Fame career.

There are a few active coaches in men’s college basketball who are within shouting distance of 800 career wins, and one coach could join the club during the 2020-21

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Top Five Basketball Recruiting Classes Under Thad Matta

October 19, 2020 - by [email protected]_84

As Chris Holtmann and the Ohio State men’s basketball program attempt to make an upward push in the recruiting rankings, we take a quick look back and some of the best overall classes since the turn of the century.

Former head coach Thad Matta led the Buckeyes from 2004-17, racking up some stellar seasons made possible by hard work on the recruiting trail. Talent that he and staff assembled helped the program earn five Big Ten regular-season championships, four Big Ten Tournament titles, two NCAA Final Fours and other notable accomplishments.

Here are the top-five recruiting classes from that era according to BuckeyesNow, based on how the groups panned out once in Columbus, with individual player rankings in parentheses per the 247Sports database.

1. 2006 – Greg Oden (1), Daequan Cook (14), Mike Conley (22), David Lighty (33), Othello Hunter (3).
Labeled the “Thad Five,” this group was the No.

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