My Sports News Digest

MADISON (CBB/Wire) – Wisconsin will allow freshman forward Jarrod Uthoff to transfer to any school outside the Big Ten, hoping to defuse a situation that has drawn national criticism. The school said Uthoff asked for permission to contact 16 schools and the Badgers rejected four of them. Uthoff appealed over three of those schools and met Thursday with Athletic Director Barry Alvarez and associate AD Justin Doherty. The two officials then met with coach Bo Ryan and decided Uthoff can contact any school he wants to outside the Big Ten. The school said in a release that “Ryan wanted the [...]

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Posted: 08:17 PM ET April 15, 2012 By Matt Norlander | Senior College Basketball Blogger Dwayne Schintzius, one of the biggest characters in Florida basketball history, died Sunday at 43, according to Tampa Bay Online. He battled cancer in recent years, but it was respiratory failure that wound up taking his life. Schintzius was picked by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the 1990 NBA Draft, and play off and on for six teams in the league until 1999. Prior to his NBA career, Schintzius led the Gators to their first three NCAA tournament appearances in the [...]

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Posted: 12:36 PM ET April 17, 2012 By Matt Norlander | Senior College Basketball Blogger Quick note here on the coaching front. Florida coach Billy Donovan will coach at the FIBA Amercias U18 Championship this summer. He’ll lead the U18 team and have Mark Few and Shaka Smart on his staff. Florida announced the news on Tuesday. The competition will be held in Sao Sebastiao do Paraiso, Brazil, from June 16-20. “It’s always an honor to be selected to represent your country, and I’m incredibly thankful for this opportunity to be a part of USA Basketball,” Donovan said in a [...]

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DALLAS (CBB/Hawkins) – Larry Brown is returning to college to get back into coaching. The 71-year-old Hall of Fame coach was hired Thursday at SMU. It is his first college job in nearly a quarter century, and comes with a struggling program that is headed to the Big East after next season. “It’s a challenge like everything. The greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity,” Brown told The Associated Press by phone from his home in Philadelphia. Brown, the only coach to win both an NBA championship and NCAA title, hasn’t coached since leaving the Charlotte Bobcats in December 2010 [...]

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MILWAUKEE (CBB/Rivals) Jarrod Uthoff is scheduled to meet with Wisconsin officials on Thursday, hoping to resolve a dispute over restrictions the school has placed on the freshman forward’s list of potential transfer destinations. Uthoff said school officials have notified him that he is not allowed contact with several of the high-profile programs he had hoped to speak to about a potential transfer. Uthoff is appealing the school’s decision. “I just want to explore my options,” Uthoff said Wednesday evening, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Uthoff’s dispute with Wisconsin took an odd turn Wednesday when The Gazette of [...]

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RALEIGH, NC (CBB/Rivals) – Basketball standout C.J. Leslie is returning to North Carolina State for his junior season, a decision that will make the Wolfpack one of the favorites in the Atlantic Coast Conference next year. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged a team-best 14.7 points and was second with 7.3 rebounds per game. The deadline for players to declare early for the NBA draft was April 29. “I wanted to take my time as much as possible,” Leslie said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “I knew I had time. It’s one of those things you can’t help but to think [...]

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TOLEDO (WIRE/CFB) – Ohio The Toledo men‘s basketball team will be banned from next year’s postseason because of past academic problems after the NCAA denied the school’s appeal. The ban stems from several years of below-standard scores on the NCAA’s Academic Performance Rate that a year ago cost Toledo three scholarships. The NCAA earlier this year banned Connecticut’s men’s basketball team postseason because of several years of low scores, leading two members of Congress to say that the system used to enforce the NCAA standards appeared to be arbitrary and unfair. Toledo argued that the NCAA should consider its most [...]

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COLUMBUS (RIVALS/CBB) – Ohio Sophomores J.D. Weatherspoon and Jordan Sibert have notified Ohio State that they will seek transfers and leave the Buckeyes. Weatherspoon, a high school teammate of NBA-bound former Buckeye Jared Sullinger and Michigan point guard Trey Burke, played in 25 games last season as Ohio State went 31-8, shared the Big Ten regular-season title and made it the Final Four before losing to Kansas, 64-62. The 6-foot-6, 215-pounder averaged 3.0 points and 1.4 rebounds a game while shooting 62 percent from the field and 58 percent on free throws. The 6-4 Sibert also scored 3.0 points a [...]

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