Florida lookout Nick Calathes is in Athens this week.
June 30th, 2008 Posted in NCAA basketball news, NCAA college basketballFlorida protector Nick Calathes is in Athens this week.
No, he’s not considering a removal to Georgia. Instead, the expanding sophomore is in Athens, Greece, attempting to make the Greek National Team. If he does, and word is he has a keen chance, he’ll compete for his heroic-grandparents’ inherent republic in an upcoming Olympic Qualifying Tournament in the of making it through to the Olympics in Beijing that start Aug. 8.
“They e-mailed my dad and asked what I assumed just about trying out because they saw me play this year,” said Calathes, a former five-star prospect who led the Gators in scoring (15.3 ppg) and led the SEC in (6.1) this past season. “We talked nearby it. It’s a remarkable opportunity for me and for my grandfather (John), who away (in May 2006). If he saw me do this, he’d be very prominent.”
The qualifying tournament takes habitation July 14-20. Along with host Greece, other countries participating are Brazil, Lebanon, Cape Verde, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, Slovenia, Cameroon, Croatia and Puerto Rico. The top three early payment to Beijing.
Calathes said the Greeks by this time have a “really good head guard,” so he sees himself in a backup role if he have a duty to make the team.
“I think I have a good casual. I just have to go and play,” he said.
The dream, of course, would be to meet up with the U.S. team at the Olympics.
“That’s all I think near,” Calathes said. “It be so cool to go on the floor with those guys. They’re obviously the best in the globe.”
The Gators had been the best in the college area for two a month of Sundays before Calathes’ arrival, prepossessing consecutive state titles. But with the departures of Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer (all NBA risk ) and further starters Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey, UF fell flat last season. The new-look, inexperienced Gators went 8-8 in the SEC and were relegated to the NIT.
Coach Billy Donovan was less than pleased. He in shreds the fresh team after it was eliminated from the SEC tournament in the first round, expressly the freshman class Rivals classified No. 1 in the fatherland. “I’m not necessarily really that nervous not far off guys being , to be honest,” Donovan said then. “I don’t think folks difference a uncut lot, and I don’t think you’ve seen the team alteration at all this year. So it’s hard for me to get exaggeratedly pleased or upset.”
Calathes is mindful of his instructor’s comments. He believes belongings will cash in 2008-09.
“I think we’ll come in with a not the same mind-set and be operational hard in practice each day to be the best we can be,” Calathes said. “We don’t want a season like we had last year.”
No one associated with the word processor does.
“In exercise we didn’t have the kind of viewpoint that Joakim and Al and those guys had,” Calathes said. “Sometimes we took off training and didn’t go the way we wanted to go.”
Calathes said he and classmates Chandler Parsons, Jai Lucas, Alex Tyus and Adam Allen have hard in the weight room to get ready for next season. Word is Parsons, another five-star prospect, has put on some much-needed weightiness and could be ready to have a breakout season.
Donovan also will calculation on another greatly class. The Gators welcome a five-man class hierarchical 10th nationally that includes four four-star .
“We’re going to need some of the new guys to help us,” Calathes said. “The will have a big role.”
So will the sophomores. No one is intellectual home designation, but no one was sophisticated it approximately when a relatively party of led Florida to the federal championship in 2006.
TRANSFER WINDS UP AT OREGON STATE
Providence transmission Dwain Williams took a rather twisting direction to Oregon State, where he’s now enrolled.
Williams, who averaged 11 points per game last season for the Friars, had signed with Long Beach State more or less a week before zigzagging up in Corvallis.
Williams told the 49ers there had been a “miscommunication,” the Long Beach State leisurewear word headquarters said.
New Beavers teacher Craig Robinson was conscious of Williams. Robinson at Brown last season; Brown also is set in Providence, R.I., and the played each new Dec. 9. Robinson was linked to the Providence job after Tim Welsh was fired, but the Friars went with Drake’s Keno Davis and Robinson powerful at Oregon State.
“We are eager to have a actor of Dwain’s capability come to Oregon State,” Robinson said. “I had an opportunity to coach against him at Brown, and I came away very impressed. He’s a talented protection and the type of competitor who can arrange for an instantaneous impact and can help us body as a brochure.”
In a issue from Long Beach State, apparently put out before the “miscommunication,” Williams was quoted as saying, “I felt that Long Beach was the best site to go in that coalition. It’s close to my mum and I have a unmarried maternal, raising five kids on her own. To come back home and be near my everyday and help put Long Beach on the map were the main reasons I chose Long Beach State. Coach (Dan) Monson and the teaching staff are a good quartet of guys and good recruiters. They told me I’ll have an opportunity to come in and be a superior on the team and bring my ‘A’ game every one nocturnal and to preparation all day and bring governance. They were really real. Everything was up front. They are a good assembly of guys, and my mom adored them.”
Williams will have two ages of suitability remaining when he takes the court again in 2009-10.
TIP-INS
Connecticut familiar Stanley Robinson (10.4 ppg, 6.5 rpg) has every single intention of returning to play for the Huskies, his former AAU trainer said. Norm Williams dyed-in-the-wool to Rivals.com that Robinson is home in Birmingham, Ala., tending to respective . UConn tutor Jim Calhoun told The Day paper of New London, Conn., past this month that Robinson “has got some effects that he’s got to prove to us much the same as, reasonably frankly, Curtis (Kelly) and Doug (Wiggins).” Kelly and Wiggins have since . “Right now Stanley is in the process of (shaping) if he requirements to be part of the performance,” Calhoun told The Day. “It’s the same package as the another kids with a combination of academics and social, and being on time and being staunch to the software package. He has time to show us that he wants to do the stuff that we him to do. There is an opportunity. He certainly could have a UConn uniform on again.” Williams said he has vocalized to Robinson and that the play-actor did not talk going on for transferring.
South Florida has sent paperwork to the NCAA in hopes of gaining close worthiness for presumptuous Gus Gilchrist, a former four-star prospect who transferred from Maryland. “The puzzle is starting to fit in adequately,” USF teacher Stan Heath told Rivals.com. “Gilchrist is a boundless adding for us. I think he has the unabridged package. He’s an outstanding talent and can help put USF on the map in the Big East in a big way.” Whether or not they get Gilchrist, the Bulls will have Georgia displacement Mike Mercer offered this season.
Georgetown security Austin Freeman weighed in at 241 at the Nike Paul Pierce Skills Academy in Los Angeles. The Hoyas’ rota last season registered Freeman who is 6-4 at 210.
UCF recently Steve DeMeo as an vice-. He had spent the earlier 12 as an assistant to Tim Welsh, including the past nine at Providence. DeMeo was titled one of Rivals’ top 25 before last season.
Brian Carlwell, the Illinois performer gammy in an auto accident in February 2007 in which colleague Jamar Smith at the end of the day pleaded guilty to aggravated driving under the inspiration of alcohol, has transferred to San Diego State. Carlwell, a 6-11 center, is a former four-star prospect.
