Mason Plumlee is one of several local players who will participate in the NBA Combine. Credit: CHUCK LIDDY
All three Duke players eligible for this year's draft—seniors Mason Plumlee , Seth Curry and Ryan Kelly —have received invitations to the NBA Combine, the league announced Thursday night. Curry and Kelly, both recovering from offseason surgeries, will not participate in workouts.
Here is a list of all the ACC alumni headed to the May 15-19 workout in Chicago:
Friends of former Chapel Hill High School assistant basketball coach Gus Fraley should be able to get a glimpse of him tonight on TV.
Fraley is in his first year as an assistant at Tennessee State University, and the Tigers (14-11 overall, 8-4 OVC) will host Ohio Valley Conference rival Belmont (20-5 overall, 11-1 OVC) at 7 p.m. on ESPNU.
RALEIGH — N.C. State's marketing campaign proclaims, "This is our State."
After Saturday's six-years-in-the-making win over North Carolina, it's at least the Wolfpack's Triangle. N.C. State handled the Tar Heels 91-83 in front of an electric, sold out crowd at PNC Arena.
With 20 points and 11 assists from junior guard Lorenzo Brown, No. 18 N.C. State ended a 13-game losing streak to the Tar Heels (13-6, 3-3 ACC), who had entered the game with 19 wins in 20 games in the series under coach Roy Williams.
Rasheed Sulaimon felt like he couldn't miss in Saturday's win over Maryland. Credit: CHUCK LIDDY
DURHAM—Rasheed Sulaimon had hit a wall after the holiday break. The freshman, who had been a constant presence for Duke on both sides of the ball, struggled to make shots and defend effectively.
And in the opening minutes of No. 1 Duke’s 84-64 over Maryland, it appeared like his struggles may continue. Dez Wells, Suliamon’s defensive assignment, pulled down three offensive rebounds and scored his team’s first seven points, and head coach Mike Kryzewski took Sulaimon out and voiced his unhappiness.
“He really got on me,” Sulaimon said.
His response, though, couldn’t have pleased his veteran coach more.
Due to the fatal wreck that took the lives of two Orange High School students, Friday's basketball games between Orange and Chapel Hill High School have been postponed and rescheduled for Thursday, Jan. 10.
As our Sunday story reported, we now have the data from UNC-Chapel Hill regarding how many former athletes were among the students enrolled in the 54 suspect classes in the academic fraud case. The former athletes bring the total percentage of athlete enrollments in the classes to 64 percent, or nearly two of every three seats.
You can find the data at the end of this post.
There is one element missing in this data that the university had provided in the past and that's a breakdown of how many football and men's basketball players are among the former athletes. University officials said they could not make that information public because the numbers may be small enough -- say, one former basketball player in a particular class -- that it might identify that person.
The university is citing a federal law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which often is described as FERPA, for denying the information. You can read about FERPA here.
One of the more interesting findings in our story is that athletes, including former athletes, on average took more suspect classes than nonathletes. The ratio was roughly 2 classes per athlete, and one per non-athlete.
After seeing that, I took another look at former UNC-CH football player Marvin Austin's partial transcript. We had reported the B-plus he received in one suspect class, but the transcript shows he was also signed up for another: AFRI 520 -- Southern Africa, in the first summer semester of 2009. The transcript does not show a grade, possibly because he had not taken the class yet.
That class had six enrollments. Of those, five were football players, the other a nonathlete.
Tyler Zeller mentioned on Twitter that he had a good time filming an episode of How to be Awesome.
What's so awesome about the 7-foot former UNC basketball star? His rebounding skills and outlet passes, which he demonstrates with host Carlos Knight.
Watch the episode below (or on YouTube), and follow Zeller's exploits with his new NBA team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, from his Twitter account.
Football and basketball players accounted for nearly four of every 10 students enrolled in 54 classes at the heart of an academic fraud investigation at UNC-Chapel Hill, according to figures released Monday.
The classes were all within UNC’s Department of African and Afro-American studies. An internal probe released Friday produced evidence of unauthorized grade changes and little or no instruction by professors. Forty-five of the classes listed the department’s chairman, Julius Nyang’oro, as the professor. Investigators could not determine instructors for the remaining nine.
University officials say they found no evidence that the suspect classes were part of a plan between Nyang’oro and the athletic department to create classes that student-athletes could pass so they could maintain their eligibility. They said student-athletes were treated no differently in the classes than students who were not athletes.
But the high percentages of student-athletes in the classes suggest to some that academic advisers, tutors and others in the athletic department may have guided them to the classes.
Click here for a link to the full story, and here for Friday's story, which includes links to the internal reports.
Duke women's basketball coach Joanne P. McCallie sign copies of "Choice Not Chance" — her first book — from 4 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday at the Gothic Bookshop in Duke's Bryan Student Events Center.
Ravenscroft had a hard time scoring Thursday against an exceptional Rockville (Md.) Montrose Christian club and lost 64-48 in the first round of the ESPNHS National High School Invitational basketball tournament in Bethesda, Md.
