Technology is shaping the world we live in and the recruiting world can be bundled in with that statement as well. The text messaging of recruits has really picked up some publicity within the last year or two and now the NCAA has banned coaches from texting their recruits.

Coaches are reacting in all different ways from “I think we should be allowed to do it any time we feel,” to “Only on weekends,” to “The ban is a good thing,” to “I don’t even know how to work the damn phone.”

According to Andy Katz, Jamie Dixon feels each text message sent should count as a recruiting call. There is a limit of one call per week to a recruit so in effect you would be allowed to send one text per week to a recruit. Not a bad idea, but since the limit of characters you can send in a single message is around 160 characters then it makes much more sense to call the potential player.

That may have not been a bad route for the NCAA to take. The coaches that want to freely text message their players would see that with a limit, it makes more sense to call and texting would happen much less without placing an official ban on it.

I don’t think free texting should be allowed. Some of these high school kids want to live their lives and being constantly bombarded is unnecessary. If you can’t have unlimited phone calls and visits, who should texting be a free for all? I think I might also get creeped out if I’m getting a message every 5 minutes from an old man (read: 72-year-old Arizona coach Lute Olson).

Remember when Pitt made a run for Luis Colon out of Miami? Instead his AAU coach steered him to his good buddy Bob Huggins. Guess, we know why. He fit the system there a little better.

Kansas State freshman basketball player Luis Colon received an automatic one-game suspension for throwing a punch Wednesday in a game against California in Berkeley, Calif.

The suspension is Big12-mandated. So Colon, who is 6-10, won’t play Saturday when the Wildcats play against Colorado State in Fort Collins, Colo. Colon was ejected with 6 minutes, 39 seconds left in K-State’s 78-48 loss. He threw the punch at Golden Bears’ 6-10 freshman Taylor Harrison.

“Luis actions last night are inexcusable and will not be tolerated,” K-State coach Bob Huggins said in a prepared statement. “This is a tough game, and you have to be mature and maintain your emotions. Luis understands that he made a mistake and there are consequences for his actions. This cannot happen again.”

If it does happen again, the Big 12 has him done for the season.

Huggy-bear made Colon go the Cal lockerroom after the game and apologize directly. K-State lost the game 74-48

I don’t think the Pitt coaches will be counting on it to happen, but hey, it’s worth a shot.

Redshirt Senior OL John Simonitis will be applying for a medical redshirt.

He is now looking into the prospects of getting a medical waiver with the hopes of gaining a sixth year of eligibility but, according to Simonitis, that appears to a be a long shot.

“I’m going to try but it is not looking good,” Simonitis admitted. “The coaches don’t think it’s possible. I think I will be all right without it, I have enough game film and I have been a four-year starter. A lot of my coaches are going to help me out, getting me into some (NFL) camps.”

According to the NCAA, a student athlete has five years to complete four seasons of competition. The school must apply to the conference office, in this case the Big East to receive a medical waiver. The criteria for receiving a medical waiver is an athlete must suffer a season-ending injury. The injury must occur during the first half of the season and the athlete can not have participated in more than two games or 20 percent of the games during a season.

In Simonitis’ case, he played in five games, although he participated in just two plays against Cincinnati and one play in the Toledo game.

“The coaches have to petition the NCAA and give good reasons why I should be able to get the (waiver),” Simonitis said. “I already was redshirted and I never had a season ending injury before. If I had a choice I would go back for a sixth year and get another year of experience. That would probably help me in the draft. Whatever happens, happens. The coaches don’t think it’s looking good, there are a lot of circumstances and I think I have probably played too many games.”

As for his future, only time will tell. It all depends on how smoothly the rehab goes. Simonitis is still intent on getting to an NFL camp whether it be in 2007 or the following year. The Dolphins and Raiders are two teams that have visited the Pitt campus and relayed to the coaching staff that they liked what they saw in Simonitis. At 6-foot-5, 315 pounds, he has the size and footwork to make it in the NFL.

Even though his other redshirt was non-medical, the fact that he has already redshirted probably weighs heavier against him then playing in 5 games this year.

Man I hate it when the Graduation Success Rates come out. It’s such stale data.

The NCAA released graduation rates for Division I athletes yesterday, and Pitt’s rates improved, which continues a trend that began last year.

The report released yesterday is different from the federal graduation rate, called the Academic Progress Rate. The NCAA releases the graduation success rate or GSR, which, unlike the federal graduation rate, does not penalize schools for players who transfer from an institution in good academic standing.

The report does not reflect the current progress of student-athletes at the institutions. The report released yesterday instead reflects rates from 1996-99.

Pitt’s GSR for all sports is 77 percent, up from 74 percent a year ago. The football and basketball team improved greatly from the rates of a year ago. The football team increased from 48 percent to 54 percent, and the basketball team jumped from 29 percent to 57 percent.

…

To put the report into perspective, roughly half the Pitt football players represented in the report were recruited by Johnny Majors. The others were recruited by Walt Harris. For basketball, more than three quarters of the players were recruited by Ralph Willard, the rest by Ben Howland.

Long pointed out that the one-year graduation rate for the 1999 basketball class is 100 percent. The one-year rate for the football team is 67 percent.

Two head coaches later in football and basketball and we are still dealing with that dreadful period of Pitt athletics.

Several little things to pass on and clear off the browser tabs.

Brian Walsh a Moon Junior and player on the AAU Pittsburgh J.O.T.S.  had a very good AAU summer tournament season. Before, it was expected that he might be a MAC/A-10 level recruit. It has led to more offers than initially expected. This now includes Pitt.

Walsh, a 6-4 1/2 guard, met with Pitt coach Jamie Dixon Wednesday and was offered a scholarship. In the past month-and-a-half, he also received scholarship offers from Duquesne, Memphis, Xavier, Penn State and Maryland is very interested.

Walsh opened college coaches’ eyes with his performance at the Reebok ABCD camp this summer in New Jersey.

“When I came back from a few camps, I just started getting calls,” Walsh said. “I was kind of blown away by the Pitt offer. They’re going to be one of the top five teams in the country this year. For coach Dixon to think I can play at that level, is really something.”

South Carolina is out as Pitt’s opponent at MSG on December 21. Alabama might be in if they can move another game (Insider subs.).

South Carolina abruptly pulled out of a Dec. 21 game against Pittsburgh in the Aeropostale Classic at Madison Square Garden. The Pitt-South Carolina game was supposed to be the undercard of the headline game of Gonzaga-Duke. Well, according to multiple sources, South Carolina withdrew from the game because the Gamecocks weren’t getting any kind of financial guarantee. South Carolina picked up a home game against Baylor in place of Pitt. Now MSG is scrambling to find a replacement for the Panthers. Alabama is trying to get NC State to move a date so the Tide can take South Carolina’s place. Virginia Tech was interested, but couldn’t move a game. MSG is sending out feelers to loads of teams. Pitt is still committed to the game, but is getting nervous about an open date. The Duke-Gonzaga game is on ESPN, while the Pitt game would be on ESPNU. Alabama needs another home game, but is willing to go to New York.

You get to play at MSG. You get national exposure. You get to play a pre-season top-10 (and in some cases -5) team on a neutral court. And the concern is over a financial guarantee? Riiiiggghhhtt.

Andy Katz also has the news on a nasty bit of legislation that is pissing off the membership of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC).

Beginning Aug. 1, a school’s director of basketball operations (99 percent of the time a man, but there have been cases of a woman or two people holding the spot) will no longer be allowed to recruit. That means the person can’t write letters, make a call, pick up a player, nada, nothing, zilch.

“We were very opposed to this in the Big 12,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said Wednesday. “In the past, we’ve utilized the DOB with letter writing and that’s how you worked your way up. Usually, the DOB takes a second or third list and recruits off of that list.” The membership’s complaint is that if there were preexisting relationships with high school or AAU coaches, then how will the compliance staff be able to police whether the DOB is actually recruiting or just having a conversation with someone he knows?

Pitt will be in an interesting position since its new DOB, David Cox, has a lot of preexisting relationships with many players Pitt is now recruiting. Pitt is going to be very careful not to get tripped up by something like this.

While on the subject of dumb NCAA rulemaking, how about the re-institution of some dumb practice rules.

A lot of schools operating on the semester system begin classes in the next week or two, which means basketball players will be returning to campus. They’ll be allowed to head for the gym to work with their coaches. But heaven help them if the entire starting five winds up on the floor at once.

That would be a violation of NCAA bylaw 17.1.5.2.2.

This new rule declares Division I players starting school before September 15 can take part in their customary two hours per week of supervised skill work but says only four of them can be in the gym at any one time. After September 15, programs operate full-squad workouts.

A year ago there were no such restrictions. Skill workouts started when classes started, they ended when classes ended, and coaches could have as many players as they wanted in a session. That was the first year for this approach, which pleased college coaches, who had been stuck with the four-at-once limit since offseason workouts had been approved a decade earlier. Most hope one day to have year-round access to train their players, a scenario that would bring the United States in line with what young players around the world are allowed.

Why go back? Because schools that operate on the Quarter system — especially those in the PAC 10 — whined long and loud how unfair this was to them since they started later than September 15.

“The problem is, we had it right,” says Dayton coach Brian Gregory. “And we had an opportunity over the next year or two to show the NCAA we wouldn’t abuse that. And then you could go back in a year or two and say, ‘This really should be extended to year-round.’ ”

It’s only a few weeks we’re talking about here. It’s not a life-changing inconvenience. The NCAA was moving forward — slowly forward — on the issue of allowing coaches to make their players better. This should be among the foremost issues for college basketball coaches because it’s an essential part of improving the game in this country. It certainly should be of greater importance than petty, baseless, selfish concerns.

You expect coaches to risk any perceived disadvantage in the short-term? No matter how questionable?

As the NCAA continues its crackdown on the vital issues, it does so in its usual coherent, logical and reasonable manner. Especially if you aren’t a D-1 BCS school.

The NCAA has denied William & Mary’s appeal of a ruling that prohibits it from using its logo showing two Indian feathers at NCAA championship events or from hosting NCAA Tournament games where the logo would be displayed.

The news came Thursday in a letter from the NCAA Executive Committee, affirming a May decision that the green and gold logo is hostile or offensive to American Indians.

In that same ruling, the NCAA said William & Mary’s nickname, the Tribe, was not necessarily abusive, hostile or offensive, and therefore still could be used.

Oooo-kaaayyyy. This is the offending logo (at least most of it).

Yeah, that’s one to piss off people.

A little while back, in one of the blogpoll roundtables I averred that Oklahoma should be considered quite overrated. Now, I feel more confident in that prediction with this news.

Oklahoma starting quarterback Rhett Bomar will not play for the Sooners this season following an investigation by the team, according to a television report.

Oklahoma confirmed that two players had been dismissed by the team but did not identify them. The school said in a statement that the players violated NCAA rules by working at a private business and taking “payment over an extended period of time in excess of time actually worked.”

Oklahoma City television station KWTV reported that Bomar, who set an Oklahoma freshman record with 2,018 passing yards after taking over as the Sooners’ starter in the second game last season, was one of the two players who had been permanently dismissed.

“We spend a considerable amount of time addressing our players regarding their personal conduct and the NCAA rules,” head coach Bob Stoops said in a statement. “They know exactly what we expect from them. Ultimately, they have to make right decisions. The same holds true for our boosters. When they do not, the consequences are serious, and we will not tolerate this behavior.

“Our team and university actions are necessary because of the intentional participation and knowledge of the student athletes in these violations,” Stoops said.

Gee, who’d a thunk that Oklahoma would display higher standards than Ohio State in the new century?