March 2017 | Page 19 of 34 | Zagsblog
Recent Posts
Arizona State, Roselle Catholic
Kentucky, Michigan
About ZagsBlog
Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
Follow Zags on Twitter
Couldn't connect with Twitter
Contact Zags
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Advertising
Connect with Zags:
Saturday / November 23.
SECTION
logo
mobile-logo
Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, UCLA

A Pac-12 team hasn’t advanced to the Final Four since UCLA in 2008, but this year three teams from that league could make a deep run.

Arizona, which won the Pac-12 Tournament championship over Oregon, is the No. 2 seed in the West, UCLA is the 3 in the South and Oregon the 3 in the Midwest.

“I’ve been impressed with all three of those teams,” Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley said on The 4 Quarters Podcast. “I think any one of those three can make a deep run, a Final Four run. If I had to choose one, I’d probably choose Arizona just because of how they defend and the balance that they have on their team.

Kentucky, Recruiting

Kentucky-bound big man Nick Richards of The Patrick School (N.J.) and future Wildcats guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander highlight the 12-member World Select Team for the 2017 Nike Hoop Summit.

The 20th annual Hoop Summit will take place at 7 p.m. (PDT) on Friday, April 7 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon.

The 6-foot-11 Richards is also a McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American, and his team is currently in the New Jersey Tournament of Champions, a six-team event featuring each of New Jersey’s public and non-public group winners.

The 6-5 Alexander, meantime, expects to play for Canada this summer in the U19 World Championship, where he could face his future coach John Calipari, who is coaching the U.S. team. He averaged 7.8 points and 5.4 assists for his country at the FIBA Americas U18 Championship this past summer.

NBA Draft

By LARRY LAGE

(AP) — Marcus Keene, the nation’s leading scorer, is entering the NBA draft, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement had not been made.

Keene scored 30 points per game at Central Michigan this season, the highest scoring average by a Division I player since Charles Jones averaged 30.1 points for Long Island University during the 1996-97 season.

The 5-foot-9 point guard was born in Germany, where his parents were employed by the U.S. Air Force, and raised in San Antonio. Keene spent two seasons at Youngstown State before transferring. After sitting out last year as a redshirt, he was a scoring sensation this season as a redshirt junior.

Iona

When Jordan Washington was arrested in September 2014 for allegedly shoplifting less than $20 in DVDs from a Walmart in Iowa, he wasn’t sure he would ever play college basketball again.

Washington was committed to Arizona State at the time, but they soon parted ways with him.

“When I had that at junior college, I honestly thought that my basketball career was over,” the 6-foot-8 Washington said Monday as his Iona Gaels, the No. 13 seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament, were preparing to face No. 4 Oregon on Friday in Sacramento, Calif. “I thought nobody was ever going to take the chance on me ever again.”

But Iona head coach Tim Cluess, along with assistants Jared Grasso and Brock Erickson, are known for giving second chances to talented, troubled players. Washington, who won two New York Public Schools Athletic League Class B titles at Pathways Prep in Queens, fit that mold.

Breaking News, Rhode Island, St. Anthony

At about 11 a.m. on Sunday, an hour and a half before Rhode Island was set to meet VCU in the Atlantic 10 championship game at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Bobby Hurley called his little brother Dan to check in.

This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. The two brothers generally speak twice a day during the college basketball campaign. And so it only seemed natural to do it before the biggest game of the season.

“It’s a difficult job, with a lot of demands,” Dan Hurley said Monday on The 4 Quarters Podcast, less than 24 hours after his Rhode Island team secured the school’s first NCAA Tournament bid since 1999 by winning the A-10 championship. The Rams were seeded No. 11 in the Midwest Region and will face No. 6 Creighton, the Big East Tournament runner-up, in a first-round game in Sacramento, Calif., on Friday.

“The highs and lows you go through, to have a brother and a best friend that understands you and understands the job, you tend to lean on each other a lot,” Dan Hurley added. “We just have that type of close bond, whether it’s recruiting, coaching or just personal stuff.”

Copyright 2016 Zagsblog. Partner of iOne Digital / Cassius Network
X