Clement to NC Central

Former Spartan guard Landon Clement has transferred to NC Central according to both the News & Record and NCCU's athletics website. Central's new head coach, Levelle Morton is Clement's former AAU coach and high school coach. Clement averaged 6.7 points, 1.3 rebounds and 0.4 assists in 18 games for UNCG this season. Clement shot over 30 % from behind the arc and 82% from the free throw line. Landon will have to sit out this upcoming season, per NCAA transfer rules.

SoCon Looking at Options (Updated)

The Southern Conference will decide whether or not to alter the format of its men's and women's basketball tournaments at the conference meetings in Hilton Head (SC) this week.

Here's an article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Iamarino said the three major options that will be discussed before the athletic directors’ vote Friday are leaving the tournament the way it is, including every team but playing first-round games at campus sites and limiting the fields to the top eight teams.

“I do think there’s a consensus about one thing,” UTC athletic director Rick Hart said. “We’ve tried all 23 teams in one venue and it doesn’t work.”

The schedule in that case is too crowded, leading to playing six games on the second day, starting at 9 a.m. The full schedule also limits the amount of practice time teams have on the arena floor.

UPDATE: The SoCon has decided to use two venues from 2012 and beyond (next season will be played in Charlotte and 2011 in Chattanooga). This will limit future sites moving forward.

While no bids are presently on the table for 2012, among the Southeast cities with two suitable venues that could be good fits are Charleston, Birmingham, Winston-Salem and Greensboro, N.C. For cities such as Charleston and Birmingham to host, that would likely require the use of on-campus venues, such as the College of Charleston’s new Carolina First Arena or Samford’s Pete Hanna Center.

Eargle Leaving Greensboro

I'm sure most Spartan fans figured out that there was going to be one more player leaving the program (in addition to Oliver and Clement). It was confirmed yesterday by Fox's Jeff Goodman that Damian Eargle would be that player.

This shouldn't come as much of shock to most fans as it was discussed on a UNCGfans.com thread several weeks ago. This is just the first official confirmation that I've seen. Without knowing anything about the situation, I just want to wish Damian luck and hope he finds future success.

UNCG Passes APR Test

UNCG received passing marks in all sports for this year's APR Report. Last year, men's basketball and baseball fell below the magic "925" mark and were assessed penalties. This season was much improved.

On this year’s report, men’s baseball has a score of 937, while men’s basketball has a score of 930. Last year, both of those program’s had good eligibility scores, but were hurt by retention rates. In fact, UNCG’s men’s basketball four-year score is now nearly in-line with the national average of 933."

You can find individual APR scores for all schools here.
Here is the list of penalized institutions. You'll notice SoCon men's basketball teams from Georgia Southern & UT-Chattanooga on the list of penalized teams.

Bobb Steps Down

UNCG Athletics Director Nelson Bobb is leaving his position. Here is the article from UNCG athletics website. I'm behind on this one as I've had a lot going on this past week. My thoughts are coming later.

Hoffer Commits (Updated)

Taylor Hoffer (North Kitsap, WA) has committed to UNCG according to this article. Hoffer is a 6'-7" Forward that Rivals lists as a "3 star" prospect. He was selected as a 3-A All-State player.

I went looking for some more videos. Not sure if the first one is Hoffer. Since it's too grainy to really tell, we'll just assume it is Taylor. The second is a highlight of a North Kitsap game with some Drowning Pool dubbed over.

Video 1


Video 2 - Hoffer is #24


- Taylor has played on a good AAU team.

Hoffer's gone to great lengths to improve his game and draw interest.

The past few years, he's played his select ball with the Portland Legends. Three times a week, Hoffer would make the drive to Portland for practice, doing his homework on the way down and sleeping on the way home, often arriving at 1 a.m.

The team was good, boasting two standout guards from Bellarmine (Avery Bradley and Abdul Gaddy) and DeAngelo Castro, who led Ferris to state title.

- Hoffer was ranked #23 in the state of Washington according to this site. when you look at this site, remember that there is no distinction in class (Senior, Junior, etc.) and Washington has the top player in the class of 2010 & 2011.
- Taylor was being looked being looked at by Pac-10 schools Stanford, Oregon Sate & Washington State. Also Cornell showed some interest.
- According to this article, Taylor had received an offer from D1 transitioning Seattle University (coached by former UCLA standout Cameron Dollar).
- Just like the other 3 UNCG recruits, Hoffer was nominated for the McDonald's All-American game.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the UNCG website article announcing Taylor's signing.
UPDATEx2: News & Record article.

Welcome to the Spartans, Taylor !!!

Links & OOC Scheduling

Now that I have some free time for the next couple of months, I'm going to try to exchange links with a few more college basketball websites. Feel free to send me sites that you think I should check out. I'm going to start by contacting websites of teams that UNCG is playing this upcoming season.

Which brings me to my to my next point. I'm adding a new space for confirmed out of conference opponents. I'll use this post to point out where I found these teams from. Hopefully by the time the real schedule comes out, we'll already have a good portion of it figured out. If anyone comes across a link or knows something that they'd like to share, email me.

- NC State, ECU & Princeton - We've known about these 3 for a while. All three games will be at the Greensboro Coliseum.
- Duke, Clemson, Maryland, Virginia Tech & Wake Forest - The article points out that the Duke game is in Cameron (11/14). Other than that game, it's unknown where the rest of these will be played.
- NC A&T (rumored) - I'm going to leave this one off the list because the article only vaguely says that the series will be restarted.
- Richmond, VCU & Charlotte (rumored) - The article just says Barakat is working on these teams. I also believe these are the same teams he mentioned at the press conference in December.