College Basketball Betting News at BetLM

Top 30 Big Men: Lighter on His Feet, Sullinger Rules the Paint

By Matt Norlander We’ve come to our final list of posi­tional rank­ings for the 2011-12 sea­son. We wrap it up with the big boys today. (If you’ve missed any, we’ve got that handy link box to the left to guide you to all of our rank­ings. I’ve loved the cor­re­spon­dence on Twit­ter, by the way. Keep send­ing me your love let­ters and advice; some of these rank­ings are bound to be bru­tal by mid-February. I deserve the rib­bing, but send along your dis­ap­proval to the other guys too. Par­rish loves a good Twit­ter fight.) You might think I’m fool­ish for assem­bling... 

Skeptics Will Become Believers When Vandy Puts It Together

NASHVILLE — They have three future pros in the start­ing lineup — one who can shoot from any­where, another who can dunk from any­where and another who looks like he could bench press a prac­tice facil­ity. The point guard? He’s the same point guard who led the league in assists last sea­son. And the two top-100 recruits who enrolled pro­vide depth to a ros­ter that fea­tures a total of eight return­ing rota­tion players. So get out of here with your Van­der­bilt stereotypes. That’s what I’m try­ing to say. And that’s what Kevin Stallings is say­ing, too. “We’re... 

Missouri Curators Hold Off on SEC Talk

By John Hanna KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Uni­ver­sity of Missouri’s gov­ern­ing board opened a two-day meet­ing Thurs­day amid spec­u­la­tion that the uni­ver­sity is close to leav­ing the Big 12 Con­fer­ence for the SEC. Con­fer­ence affil­i­a­tion wasn’t listed on the agenda, which includes closed ses­sions Thurs­day and Fri­day. Uni­ver­sity spokes­woman Jen­nifer Holling­shead said the cura­tors do not plan to dis­cuss the topic until at least Friday. Steve Owens, act­ing pres­i­dent of the four-campus Mis­souri sys­tem, declined to com­ment about the... 

Kansas, Texas A&M Co-Favorites in Big 12

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Bill Self’s Big 12 col­leagues must believe him to be a genius. Kansas lost six key play­ers from last year’s squad and three of their most highly recruited fresh­men have been declared inel­i­gi­ble. Only eight schol­ar­ship play­ers are dress­ing to prac­tice in his­toric Allen Fieldhouse. Still, the league’s pre­sea­son coaches poll picked the Jay­hawks and Texas A&M as co-favorites to win the league this season. “I used to think coaches knew more about bas­ket­ball than the media, but now I’m not so sure,” Self quipped Thurs­day at Big... 

Bob Knight Involved in Lamar Violation?

BEAUMONT, Texas—Lamar is look­ing into whether new bas­ket­ball coach Pat Knight vio­lated an NCAA rule by allow­ing two recruits to speak with his father, for­mer Indi­ana coach Bob Knight. The Indi­anapo­lis Star reported that Indi­ana high school play­ers Don­nell Minton and Jason Smith, who both ver­bally com­mit­ted to Lamar, talked with Bob Knight by phone dur­ing a recent cam­pus visit. Pat Knight, who played for his father at Indi­ana in the early 1990s, was hired by Lamar in April after he was fired by Texas Tech. The Star reported that Pat Knight called his father,... 

New Faces Arrive in ACC Coaching Ranks

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Florida State coach Leonard Hamil­ton will miss see­ing Gary Williams on the side­line for Mary­land after his retire­ment. But Hamil­ton is too busy adjust­ing to a series of coach­ing changes in the league to focus on just one. “Well, unfor­tu­nately in the ACC, there are a lot of com­ings and goings,” he said dur­ing Wednesday’s ACC media day. “We need nametags now when we have meet­ings to make sure we don’t forget.” Only four of the 12 schools—Duke, Florida State, North Car­olina and Vir­ginia Tech—have had the same coach at least nine sea­sons.... 

After Shooting, Loss of Mom, a Slow Reentry for Arizona’s Parrom

Kevin Parrom’s last words to his mother likely came via text message. “She’s not able to talk,” Arizona’s junior told CBSSports.com just days before Lisa Williams’ death Sun­day night. “I text her every day.” It’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine what Par­rom has endured over the past month. A native of Bronx, N.Y., he was kept in the dark about the sever­ity of his mother’s ill­ness by his par­ents until just a few months ago, shortly after his grandmother’s death — also of cancer. “She told me, ‘I can’t hide it from you any­more,’” Par­rom said. “She told... 

Cal Coach Montgomery to Have Surgery

BERKELEY, Calif. —Cal­i­for­nia men’s bas­ket­ball coach Mike Mont­gomery is sched­uled for a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure Wednes­day that will include a short recov­ery period away from the team. The school made the announce­ment Tues­day night, pro­vid­ing no fur­ther details about Montgomery’s con­di­tion while ask­ing for pri­vacy on the matter. The school said assis­tant coaches Travis DeCuire and Jay John will run the team dur­ing Montgomery’s absence. Mont­gomery enters his fourth sea­son with the Golden Bears, who in his first year won 22 games and placed third... 

DePaul Freshman Clemons to Miss Season

CHICAGO —DePaul fresh­man Mon­tray Clemons is out for the sea­son with a rup­tured patel­lar ten­don in his left knee. Clemons was injured when he slipped dur­ing warmups at Friday’s “Blue Mad­ness” event and is sched­uled for surgery on Tues­day, with reha­bil­i­ta­tion expected to take six to eight months. DePaul announced the news on Monday. A Bal­ti­more native, he signed with DePaul in April after spend­ing a prep sea­son at Mack Acad­emy in Char­lotte, N.C. Clemons aver­aged 20 points, 15 rebounds and two blocks at Bal­ti­more Poly dur­ing his senior sea­son... 

Defending Champ UConn Opens Practice

STORRS, Conn. —Connecticut’s bas­ket­ball teams showed off their skills in front of their fans for the first time since the men brought home the program’s third national cham­pi­onship and the women returned from their 12th Final Four. Men’s coach Jim Cal­houn has said he believes his team may be more tal­ented than the one that beat But­ler in April. They showed off their ath­leti­cism Fri­day for more than 10,000 fans who came out to watch the school’s annual “First Night” show. Fresh­man guard Ryan Boa­tright, who is gen­er­ously listed in the media guide at 6-feet,...