Preseason honors keep coming
CBSsportsline.com on Tuesday named junior Brandon Rush first-team All-American with Derrick Rose, Memphis; Chris Lofton, Tennessee; Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina and Roy Hibbert, Georgetown. The Web site tapped the Jayhawks preseason No. 4 behind Memphis, UCLA and North Carolina. “Brandon Rush likely won't be ready to start the season. But by December he should be fully recovered from a torn ACL, and then the junior wing will be on his way to possibly lead Bill Self toward his first Final Four,” CBSsportsline.com’s Gary Parrish wrote. Also, SportingNews.com’s Mike DeCourcy has named Darrell Arthur the No. 1 power forward in the country, Brandon Rush the No. 3 small forward, Mario Chalmers the No. 7 shooting guard and Sherron Collins the No. 7 point guard. “He’s a few Lean Cuisines away from the top of this list,” DeCourcy said of Collins. Of Arthur, he said: “There’s no Julian Wright to get in his way now. Arthur will be the most reliable offensive weapon on a team that has many.” Last week, Sports Illustrated named KU’s backcourt the best in the country. KU coach Self, who today will join 11 other league coaches at Big 12 Media Day in Kansas City, Mo., said awards were meaningless until the end of the season. “We don’t talk about them. Those things mean as much as the paper they are printed on. That’s a good cliche nobody has ever heard before,” Self cracked. “The bottom line is, every time somebody gets honored and I’m asked, I say, ‘We have seven guys who deserve it (special mention).’ It’s true. It’s not a phony deal. We only talk about ‘us’ and ‘team.’ If we are able to separate the two, it all falls in place. If you are thinking about individual things, you will not reach where you want to be as a team.” • Thomas update: Quintrell Thomas, a senior power forward from St. Patrick High in Elizabeth, N.J., says he hopes to choose either KU, Rutgers, Maryland or UNLV by the end of the week. “Not yet,” he said Tuesday, asked if he’d come up with a decision two days after returning from his Las Vegas visit. “It’s a real hard decision. I’m really trying to decide. I hope to get it done by the end of the week.” How will he accomplish that? “I’m talking to my coaches and mom and will come up with a decision,” he said. Maryland received a commitment from 6-foot-9 forward Jim Soo Kim on Sunday and may receive another from Atke Majok, 6-10 from Australia. He visited last weekend. Thomas’ AAU coach told Adam Zagoria of the Herald News in West Paterson, N.J., no school had been eliminated. • Villanova trip possible: Marcus Morris said on Tuesday he and his brother Markieff, who have a final list of KU, Villanova and St. John’s, would probably not make a recruiting trip to St. John’s. They are still pondering visiting Villanova in two weeks. “We still have the visit scheduled. We are not sure we are going to take it or not,” Marcus Morris, a 6-7 forward from Philadelphia, told Rivals.com. • Little can play: Chicago Crane High School coach Anthony Longstreet watched future KU player Mario Little compete in high school. Longstreet, who coached KU guard Sherron Collins at Crane, coached against Little, who played at Washington High. “Mario is a guy that brings toughness to the table,” Longstreet said of the 6-5 forward from Chipola (Fla.) Junior College. “He can score many different ways. He can go to the rack, shoot the jump shot. I’ve not seen him play since he left high school. I go by what I remember two years ago. If he’s gotten bigger and stronger and not any better, I still know they got a good ballplayer. I assume he’s gotten better.”
Party photos make splash |
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