WDRB College Basketball Notebook: U of L left out, UK No. 2, IU - WDRB 41 Louisville - News, Weather, Sports Community

It's what you might call a "dead period" for college hoops news this time of year. Coaches are sneaking in a last bit of vacation before players arrive for classes. Recruiting isn't hot and heavy. Things were going pretty smoothly in compiling the weekly notebook until I, (notebooker Eric Crawford) made the mistake of reading a Bleacher Report listing of the most hard-core fan bases in college basketball. The traditional beginning of this notebook, as a consequence, must be pre-empted to set the record straight.

WHO HAS THE 'BIGGEST DIE-HARD FAN BASES?'

Bleacher Report contributing writer Colin Kennedy tabbed Duke as the biggest die-hard fan base in college basketball (though surely the emphasis was on die-hardness and not bigness). Among his supporting arguments:

"If you've ever seen a Tar Heel inbound the ball from the sidelines of Coach K Court, you can understand why the Blue Devils have earned the title of college basketball's most diehard fanbase."

Whistle. Foul. In fact, double-foul. First, Duke does not have a big in-person fan base. While the Cameron Crazies are great (I like Duke, I have nothing against Duke, it's a classy outfit, and I thought the fans were great in the game I covered there last season), there just aren't that many of them. They're a made for (by?) TV phenomenon. They're a little smarter and more creative than most student sections, and a whole lot better marketed, but they certainly are not bigger, nor any more intense than you'll see in a great many places.

And second, they aren't die-hard. If you're a die-hard fan base, you don't have popping about how student attendance at Duke games is in a five-year decline, and that they were averaging about 650 undergraduates a game as of late January, and were resorting to selling student tickets to the general public. On the list? Sure. Duke deserves it. But at the top? Please.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think if you're going to be called a "die-hard" fan base, then painting your face and screaming is secondary. You should, at a minimum, fill your arena in good times and bad.

Kennedy ranked Kentucky's fans at No. 2. As soon as Big Blue Nation finds out about it, he'll find out why the UK fan base is No. 1. Even fan bases that don't like Kentucky pretty well acknowledge that its fans are off the hook. Their students don't just camp out for tickets, they camp out for the spots to camp out to get tickets. They lead the nation every year, up or down. All right, they failed once in the past 17 seasons to lead the nation in attendance. But only once. They led the nation when Billy Gillispie was coach. They occupied Vanderbilt's College GameDay. It's not even really worth arguing.

Kansas is third on the list and Indiana No. 4. I think Hoosier fans might deserve to be higher. But I won't quibble. North Carolina is at No. 5. And I'm not sure about that. There have been plenty of empty seats in the Dean Dome in down years, and the Tar Heels, who had a top 5 team for most of last season, dropped below Louisville in total attendance last season. U of L was third nationally, with Syracuse second.

In fact, where is U of L on this list? The writer gives IU credit for being in the top 15 for 40-plus seasons. U of L has ranked in the top 5 in attendance in each of the past 29 seasons. Maybe they need to go get the Cameron Crazies' marketing people.

Now, on to the rest of the Notebook.

LOUISVILLE
 
Former U of L target Rodney Purvis waiting for liftoff
 
Once upon a time Rodney Purvis was a talented high school player from North Carolina who was going to follow University of Louisville assistant coach Tim Fuller to town. He was a big deal, the next big-time shooting guard.
 
Then Fuller left for Missouri. And Purvis decided he was going to reconsider his options. He chose to sign with North Carolina State – and not follow Fuller to Missouri.
 
Will Purvis play for the Wolfpack?
 
Stay tuned. He has not been cleared for eligibility yet by the NCAA, which is looking into his high school – Upper Room Christian Academy in Raleigh, N.C. His college basketball future is on hold, just like two other high-profile recruits in the 2012 class – Shabazz Muhammad of UCLA and Ricardo Ledo of Providence. In fact, UCLA decided not to take Muhammad on a trip overseas.
 
The waiting game seems to be weighing on Purvis. Last week, he tweeted: "I can't attend them!" when somebody asked why he wasn't in class.
 
INDIANA
 
Crean takes a break – to help Dwyane Wade
 
Indiana University basketball coach Tom Crean doesn't take many breaks from his job in Bloomington. In 2011 he had a swimming pool installed in the back yard of the family home because he didn't plan to take a vacation until he was certain the Hoosiers were tracking for a winning season.
 
Crean turned IU around last season, and the Hoosiers figure to start the new season ranked in the top five in most pre-season polls. Classes start at IU Monday and Crean's players have reassembled in Bloomington. But Crean left town for a special trip on Thursday – he is serving as guest counselor at Dwyane Wade's fantasy basketball camp in Miami Beach, Fla. The camp ends today.
 
Wade tweeted to his 3.7 million followers that he had his coaches – Crean and Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat – with him.
 
Spoelstra also served as a counselor as did former Western Kentucky coach Darrin Horn, who moved his family back to Lexington in July after he was dismissed by South Carolina at the end of last season.
 
Horn told The Notebook that he plans to attend games in the Kentuckiana area this season as he decides if he will return to coaching.
 
Tough IU tickets have gotten tougher
 
Assembly Hall rocked on Friday as the incoming freshman class gathered for an orientation session in the basketball facility. Crean sent out a picture of the gathering on Twitter.
 
For the freshmen, getting into Assembly Hall won't be as easy once basketball season begins. The IU athletic department announced that all 12,400 student season tickets had been sold for the 2012-13 season.
 
IU reserves seats for the largest student section in the nation – 7,800 for games when school is in session. Demand for tickets this year means that students who have purchased tickets will have seats for 10 of Indiana's 16 home games. IU students have also purchased 13,000 season tickets for football.
 
NATIONAL
 
Hold Those Eastern Michigan Resumes
 
For several days last week it appeared the coaching merry-go-round was going to make one final spin before the start of the 2012-13 season. Eastern Michigan coach Rob Murphy was reportedly on his way to the Orlando Magic to work in the scouting department. Maybe the losing tradition at EMU, one winning season in the last decade, had already gotten to Murphy, a former Syracuse assistant.
 
The trickle-down effect from that decision had some potential local implications. U of L assistant coach Kevin Keatts was mentioned in the Detroit-area media as a possible successor to Murphy as was former IU guard Dane Fife, one of Tom Izzo's assistants at Michigan State.
 
Now it appears that Murphy is staying at EMU. He has 210,000 reasons not to leave. The school reportedly told Murphy he was responsible for the $210,000 buyout in his contract if he left after only one season.
 
Thamel's New York Times farewell is a doozy

New York Times' college sports writer Pete Thamel knows how to leave a room. On the way out the door for a new job at Sports Illustrated, Thamel published his final Times piece -- a sad and winding tale of basketball star Jonathon Hargett, who went from phenom to prison inmate on a drug conviction, along the way alleging that he was promised $20,000 to play for West Virginia before receiving far less.

Dan Dakich, who spent eight days at WVU after replacing Gale Catlett as head coach, told The Times, "What I found was a culture of dishonesty and that had been there for a while."

While there's little here that the NCAA can use so many years after the fact, it's nonetheless a rare glimpse into a dark side of college basketball, and a troubling cautionary tale. Read it here.

Bo knows college basketball

And finally, lest anyone ever be tempted to tell Dr. Bo that he doesn't know what he's talking about in a college hoops discussion, proof here that he knows a thing or two. Evidence: The sports page below from the Monday, April 4, 1983 edition of The Louisville Times, wherein Bozich picks N.C. State to upset Houston in what would become one of the great upsets in NCAA Tournament history.

THE LIST
 
Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com needs to move from Philadelphia to Kentuckiana because he loves college basketball as much as folks in this area do. Lunardi filed an updated look at the 2013 NCAA Tournament bracket last week on ESPN.com's bracketology site.
 
Here are Lunardi's top four seeds in the four NCAA Tournament regionals
 
INDIANAPOLIS
1. Louisville
2. Michigan
3. N.C. State
4. Ohio State
 
WASHINGTON D.C.
1. Indiana
2. Syracuse
3. Florida
4. Duke
 
 ARLINGTON, TX.
1. Kentucky
2. Kansas
3. Wisconsin
4. Memphis
 
LOS ANGELES
1. UCLA
2. Michigan State
3. North Carolina
4. Baylor