http://www.yardbarker.com/content/team/814 Recent articles about the St. John's Red Storm en-us This is the time of the year that Lenny Cooke comes back into the basketball lexicon - as a cautionary tale and a light on the underbelly of amateur basketball. Nobody was used more than this kid and he believed the lie all the way until it cost him his future. For those that don't know, Cooke was a NYC phenom with ridiculous court vision for a 6-6 player who could score at will at the amateur level. He was the top ranked player at the ABCD camp in 2001 yet got shipped around from high school to high school not unlike the Amare Stoudemire story. Mike Jarvis (then at St. Johns) took him under his wing and was heavily recruiting him while also serving as a father figure, but in 2002 , he made the jump to the draft and came up empty. With no college eligibility, he went up to Rucker and started building again from scratch but has not had a shot to break to the NBA. Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:34:46 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/235146 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/235146 Which Big East team is best? Syracuse took a hit with the loss of Eric Devendorf (ACL) and Villanova will struggle to replace Cassiem Drummond (broken foot). Pittsburgh has suffered some injuries, too, but I think they were overrated to start. Louisville has been a disaster. ESPN.com's Andy Glockner gives the nod to Georgetown and Marquette while giving bottom-dweller status to Cincinnati, Rutgers, DePaul and Cincinnati. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:02:00 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/58586 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/58586 On August 12th, we ran a similar story, highlighting college baseball programs. At that time, we asked, Does USC Have The Best Collegiate Baseball Program? AskMen.com has come out with some new stats for us to analyze, this time dealing with the world of basketball. So… Are you a basketball player who has some talent and wants to go to a top college basketball program that will give you a good chance to make it to the league? Or are you an agent who wants to know which colleges produce the most NBA talent? Either way, there is an article that hopes to guide you in the right direction when it comes to scouting the most successful programs (in terms of having its players make the NBA). [Top 10: NBA Colleges] Here is an abbreviated version…because I know all of you have a standard case of the Monday's: 1. UCLA - 98 NBA draft picks, 70 NBA players. 2. University of North Carolina - 94 NBA draft picks, 69 NBA players. 3. University of Kentucky - 91 NBA draft picks, 65 NBA players. 4. Indiana Universty - 69 NBA draft picks, 51 NBA players. 5. Duke University - 73 NBA draft picks, 48 NBA players. 6. University of Kansas - 64 NBA draft picks, 46 NBA players. 7. St. John's University - 60 NBA draft picks, 48 NBA players. 8. University of Notre Dame - 58 NBA draft picks, 48 NBA players. 9. University of Louisville - 61 NBA draft picks, 42 NBA players. 10. University of Illinois - 68 NBA draft picks, 39 NBA players. Personal Notes: * Numbers-wise, it seems that UCLA, UNC, and Kentucky have really set themselves apart from the rest of the competition in the past. There is a large drop off in numbers from the #3 slot to the #4 slot. * Just because these schools have notoriously been very successful placing players into the NBA, do not forget about schools like Florida, that are not listed on this sheet. In fact, last year alone, 5 players from Florida were selected in the 2 rounds of the NBA draft. * St. Johns kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. St. Johns has not been on the NCAA Basketball map since the days of Ron Artest. * UCLA is the only team to be listed on this post and the Top 10 baseball program post (where the school is ranked #5). What are your thoughts? -Darren Heitner Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:29:10 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/25030 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/25030 The Adidas It takes 5ive Classic opened up play yesterday in Cincinnati at the Fifth Third Bank Arena on the Cincinnati campus, featuring many of the best travel teams that Adidas has in its stables, playing under the watchful eyes of such coaches as North Carolina's Roy Williams, Ohio State's Thad Matta, UCLA's Ben Howland and new Kentucky head coach Billy Gillispie. Some of the other head coaches in attendance that caught our eye were Leonard Hamilton (Florida State); Kelvin Sampson (Indiana); Willis Wilson (Rice); David Odom (South Carolina); Skip Prosser (Wake Forest); Paul Hewitt (Georgia Tech); Matt Painter (Purdue), Mick Cronin (Cincinnati); Todd Lickliter (Iowa); Sean Miller (Xavier); Bobby Huggins (West Virginia); Jim Les (Bradley); Brad Brownell (Wright State); Norm Roberts (St. John's); Bill Self (Kansas); and Herb Sendek (Arizona State). Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:12:59 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/19005 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/19005 Editor's note: This Top 10 list is an aggregate of the individual ballots from five ESPN/ESPN.com basketball experts. The experts' ballots can be found here. How do you define underachieving? It's more than being consistently bad -- there are plenty of programs in Division I that can claim that dishonor. Much like Larry Brown's Knicks, it has more to do with grossly underperforming, given the resources poured into the endeavor and the relative opportunity for success. The schools that made this list meet that definition. While most of them have faced some sort of bump in the road (academic issues, off-court indiscretions............................. Thu, 10 May 2007 21:01:24 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/13867 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/13867 For the east coast college basketball junkies out there, this Saturday at MSG a number of Rutgers, St. Johns and Seton Hall recruits will be on display at the Jordan All-American Classic. Zagsblog explains what the tourney is all about and who will be on display. Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:33:07 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/12389 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/12389