Archives

The high school basketball weekend . . . a preview:
• I’ll be at the Arizona Premier Basketball Academy in Gilbert for the 13th annual Arizona Preps Fall Showcase Saturday and Sunday. Be sure to check in regularly on BurlisonOnBasketball.com for updates. Many of the state’s best players are expected to participate.
• The HAX (in the Los Angeles suburb of Harbor City) will play host to the Phiten Super-16 Tournament, which begins Saturday at 2 p.m. and wraps up with the championship game at 2:30 Sunday afternoon.

[Click to continue reading]

And the Oct.  28 winner is . . . the UCLA Bruins.

The Bruins received 14 of 38 first-place votes from the media for Men’s Basketball Media Day in L.A. to finish with 421 points.

Cal (13 first-place votes) was second at 405, followed by Arizona (11) at 404, Washington at 355, Oregon at 282, Stanford at 255, USC at 194, Oregon State at 188, Arizona State at 148, Colorado and Washington State at 119 and Utah at 74.

My picks were Cal (in my mind, an easy choice), Washington, UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Stanford, USC, Oregon State, Colorado, Arizona State, Washington State and Utah.

[Click to continue reading]

Reactions to the Thursday decisions by the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors that will impact the college basketball scene:

• Conferences will have the option on voting to add $2,000 “spending money” to an athlete’s annual scholarship package.

It’s hard to find fault helping athletes navigate the “true cost of attendance” while attending class and playing sports – assuming a healthy portion of that 2K does not go to, say, iPhones, tattoo parlors or down payments on sweet rides.

But it does serve to create an even wider gap between the “haves” (aka, BCS members) and the (relative) “half-nots” (athletic departments from conferences not wading knee-deep in BCS and mega-media rights contracts cash) that can’t afford the $2,000 bump all male and female scholarship athletes would get.

[Click to continue reading]

Jim Harris died Sunday evening at age 67 after a short battle with cancer.

But he looked like he was 47 and exuded the passion and enthusiasm of a 27-year-old given the first opportunity to coach his own basketball when I last saw him during the first week of July, during a tournament in the Dominguez High gymnasium in Compton.

During his 33 years as the coach at Ocean View High in Huntington Beach, Harris evolved into one of the “faces” of high school basketball in Southern California.

[Click to continue reading]

Thoughts on the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Top 25 released on Thursday:

• The first four – North Carolina, followed by Kentucky, Ohio State and Connecticut – was no surprise.

The Tar Heels got 30 of 31 first-place votes from the coaches – a solid definition for “overwhelming choice”.

But reasonable strong cases could be made for each of the three to be No. 1 going into the season. I tabbed the Buckeyes (in Lindy’s Preseason Magazine).

• I wouldn’t have had the teams in the same order, but the only substitution I would have made in the next six picks to round out the Top 10 would have been Pittsburgh (No.