Unverified Voracity Snaps Back

A quick look at Pennsylvania's top ten next year shows Michigan in like whoah. Though QB Terrelle Pryor and DT/OL Lucas Nix are long shots, Michigan is in on eight of the top ten according to the plugged-in Chris Dokish. Offers are out to the top six, and #10. #7 is CB Jared Holley, a guy who will get offered sooner or later.

The LA Times has an epic article on Jack Johnson.

All Hail English. Rivals declared him the Big Ten's best recruiter after his Lazarus job with Donovan Warren. Also on the list is Scot Loeffler.

Interesting bit from the Sports Economist on college basketball recruiting, which anyone will tell you is sleazy as all git out. It references this WaPo article on AAU teams, which increasingly structure themselves as non-profits and accept tax-deductible "donations" from boosters:

"You say, 'Let's talk,' " the college coach said. "You keep it going as long as you can until you can figure out a way around it or until you decide to donate maybe less than what they want just to stay in the equation. As soon as you say, 'No,' you are out. You have to do what you have to do to get the player."

Further evidence that Sonny Vaccaro should be shot into the sun:

Sonny Vaccaro, a prominent shoe company representative who helped create the current youth summer basketball league system nearly two decades ago, confirmed that the practice is popular, calling it "brilliant." "It is a unique, newer and cleaner way of getting money to people who have players who may or may not end up at your school," said Vaccaro, who now works for Reebok.

You can feel the slime oozing off the screen. Do not be alarmed. The Sports Economist makes a good point of its own:

it also is interesting evidence supporting the economic prediction that changing the rules about who gets the money doesn't change anything about whether or not it gets collected by somebody. I always find it interesting that people supporting the NCAA amateur requirement would rather see the money go to recipients like these "talent collectors." But that's just me.

OH SNAP. Chicago Tribune curmudgeon Sam Smith on blogs:

How is it I can work for decades developing contacts around the NBA and traveling regularly around the NBA and talking with the decision makers and some guy in his basement in his underwear is writing something that has credibility? As close as I can figure, these bloggers are the electronic version of the neighborhood tavern. You used to go in and hear people wailing about sports or politics and offering opinions on all the major issues. We did our man in the street interviews when such issues came up. Now, these people we used to ask for opinion started these blogs and are supposed to be experts. How can that be? I never see any of them, I never hear the coaches and general managers and players I talk to saying they talked to them. So where do they get their information?

People often doubt the traditional media, but we are out asking questions, developing sources of information and interacting with the participants. What are these bloggers doing? I'm fortunate on some level to be getting close to retirement because if these blogs are credible sources of information, there's no point in spending all the time on the road that I do.

Smith invokes MSM Media Fallacy #6 here: "blogs are trying to be just like newspapers because newspapering is the only thing that is valuable," but whatever. Then Smith wrote an article on the upcoming NBA trade deadline that featured not one but two quotes gathered by bloggers and failed to provide attribution. One of the liftees was Dan Steinberg of the DC Sports Bog, who noticed and... well... OH SNAP.

Etc.: Carty on potential Big Ten scheduling changes; Statistically Speaking takes a look at the Big Ten through the lens of some interesting statistical measures.