Here's the link to the story:

http://www.etsubucs.com/sports/wbball/re...E_ID=11546

Sounds like Karen Kemp isn't too happy with some of her players!

Wow! That shocked me. Karen Kemp doesn't mess around. She mentioned in a recent interview that she had some recruits visiting, so I guess now we have 4 scholarships.

Sounds like the first two wanted to leave, and maybe the last 2 just weren't good enough. This tells me that Kemp thinks she has some players she can bring in that are much better. We shall see.

Interesting - this team has kept it's core of talent (Evans, Davis, Belcher and Wiles are excellent, with White and Washington promising) and freed up scholarships to get some help. They could really use better perimeter shooting (they miss DeVault) and more size and physical toughness, if they want to step up to the next level.

Kami Phillips and Devin Thompson are no surprise. Tara Davis took the point away from Phillips, and Phillips has not bothered to hide her attitude about it. Thompson has been Kemp's favorite whipping boy - she's just too placid, and doesn't give the kind of aggressiveness and toughness that you need out of the post. Her minutes and rebounding have declined since her freshman year. If you can spot this stuff from the stands, I can only imagine how bad it must be in the locker room.

Both Phillips and Thompson have talent though, and might do better in a different setting. Daniels was injured all year and Treakle was unable to win significant playing time.

Kemp seems to have learned a lesson from two years of winning the A-Sun and getting thumped by bigger, tougher teams in the first round. Evans, Belcher and Wiles are seniors next year. Now is the time to make a mark, if she can give them a better supporting cast.

Two NCAA berths and solid prospects for next year ought to put her in an excellent recruiting position. Guess she's really decided to go for it.

As long as those four graduate...

Some may not like it, but this is often the nasty side of recruiting. If you believe you have 2-4 better players as recruits than what you currently have the roster often times some people get cut lose.

We could use a cut on the men's side, but that's a different story for a different day.

(04-07-2009 11:46 PM)BucNut22 Wrote:  Some may not like it, but this is often the nasty side of recruiting. If you believe you have 2-4 better players as recruits than what you currently have the roster often times some people get cut lose.

We could use a cut on the men's side, but that's a different story for a different day.

Who? I'll listen today.

I had thought that once you sign a player and that player wants to stay then you were stuck with him/her for four years. Is there a clause where they can be dropped? Just curious.

(04-08-2009 10:36 AM)bucfan81 Wrote:  I had thought that once you sign a player and that player wants to stay then you were stuck with him/her for four years. Is there a clause where they can be dropped? Just curious.

I'm not certain, but my understanding is that athletic scholarships, like academic scholarships, are renewable yearly--meaning that if the player doesn't perform up to standards, however that 'standard' is defined, they can be released. I too am curious about the specific stipulations of athletic scholarships.

Incidentally, Karen Kemp was on the morning monster. She was candid about the release of these 4 young ladies. She said that Thompson simply lost the passion to continue playing, and to her credit, asked to be released. She will remain at ETSU and graduate on time. Phillips, Kemp said, wanted more PT and has already found a D2 team to transfer to (In her home state of Ga. I think, but did not say what college). Daniels and Treakle were different stories, however. Though not specific, Kemp said that Treakle was simply not acting in a manner that was acceptable to Kemp. Daniels was not rehabbing like she should, on top of unspecified other matters, and Kemp decided to release her too. Daniels was a big time recruit coming in, getting offers from Clemson and Fla.State I believe.

In terms of new recruits, Kemp alluded that she may be signing a transfer who would have to sit out a year. I got the impression that this was a player from a 'major program'.

I trust and respect Coach Kemp's judgment and decisions. She's "upped" her recruiting in the last few years, and not coincidentally, raised the women's program's level of play too!

I do think it sucks that a coach can cut a player at will but a player has to jump though hoops if they wish to leave a program. If a player has a their scholarship taken away I think it sucks they still have to set out a year at another school, ala Tubbs.

(04-08-2009 11:31 AM)RodShaw2 Wrote:  I do think it sucks that a coach can cut a player at will but a player has to jump though hoops if they wish to leave a program. If a player has a their scholarship taken away I think it sucks they still have to set out a year at another school, ala Tubbs.

Great point.

"Cutting" is not the right word, encouraged to explore other options is a better way of looking at it. Often times a coach will sit down with players at the end of a season and talk about the programs future and how a player fits in(this happens a lot whether a player is leaving or not). If a player doesn't have a high chance at playing down the road, coaches will often tell them that, and "suggest" that it may be in the players best interests to look elsewhere(especially if scholarships are short and there are recruits that are wanted). I know after Tommy Amaker took over Harvard they cleaned out almost half the team and brought in almost a completely new starting 5.

Things are a little different at Harvard, though. Unless matters have changed radically from my day, there are NO athletic scholarships in the Ivies. Most scholarships are 'need based'. So when Amaker 'clean(s) out almost half the team', nobody loses a scholarship and everybody stays in school. Unless of course they choose to go elsewhere.

But even among the Ivies, Harvard stood alone in its imperious 'benign neglect' of athletics. While Yale would send, say, the linebacker coach to your house and do a little serious recruiting, the Harvard freshman football program, as of 1968, consisted of one head coach and one full time assistant, with a couple of part timers. I met Calvin Hill on a recruiting trip to Yale, and stayed with Don Martin, who had a brief stint with the Dallas Cowboys. Harvard, in contrast, had little idea of who the freshmen athletes that showed up on the field were (some of them quite good, from serious high school programs) except for the New England prep schools, and the practice equipment for freshmen was hand me down stuff that any self respecting Northeast Ohio high school football program would have burned.

I expect that times have changed, even on the banks of the river Charles - but Harvard is not a representative example to use when talking about college athletics.

P.S. I hope that Amaker has better luck than Bob Harrison, who was the hope to renovate Harvard basketball in 1969. Harrison "recruited" James Brown - you know him as a football announcer on television, but he was then a rail thin 6'5" high school All-American from the D.C. area - without ever getting to see him play. He was one of a class of 4 high school All-Americans that Harrison somehow brought in under those strange 'we're not really recruiting anyone' rules. But he was never able to do better than 15-11 with them. Harrison was 'old-school' - a former Minneapolis Lakers and Syracuse Nationals guard....real old school. But he never fit in on the Harvard campus.

(04-08-2009 11:09 AM)Bucfaithful Wrote:  I'm not certain, but my understanding is that athletic scholarships, like academic scholarships, are renewable yearly--meaning that if the player doesn't perform up to standards, however that 'standard' is defined, they can be released. I too am curious about the specific stipulations of athletic scholarships.

All athletic scholarships at NCAA schools are one year scholarships, which may or may not be renewed. However, a coach better have an air-tight reason and document it before not renewing or cutting a player because they can sue to get it back (and often win).

Quote:Incidentally, Karen Kemp was on the morning monster. She was candid about the release of these 4 young ladies. She said that Thompson simply lost the passion to continue playing, and to her credit, asked to be released. She will remain at ETSU and graduate on time. Phillips, Kemp said, wanted more PT and has already found a D2 team to transfer to (In her home state of Ga. I think, but did not say what college). Daniels and Treakle were different stories, however. Though not specific, Kemp said that Treakle was simply not acting in a manner that was acceptable to Kemp. Daniels was not rehabbing like she should, on top of unspecified other matters, and Kemp decided to release her too. Daniels was a big time recruit coming in, getting offers from Clemson and Fla.State I believe.

Phillips is transferring to Lander. I'd put money down that Tusculum, Carson-Newman or LMU (or all of the above) go after Treakle and Daniels since they could transfer to one of those schools (DII) and play immediately.

Actually, "cutting" is exactly the right word. I ran DI cross-country at William and Mary for 2 years (W&M is in the top 15 teams at nationals every year), and during my time there a half dozen kids who had been recruited, some on partial scholarship , were cut, and this is the exact word our coach used for it. In fact, do to my own injury problems (which eventually forced me to quit), W&M's coach told me that if I didn't get healthy, I would probably be cut as well. It's a nasty, but necessary side of DI sports. I hold no grudge against my former coach for this attitude, as a current coach myself I certainly see the necessity for it.

The school should honor the scholarship. The players are expected to honor their letters of intent, their commitment to that university and the university should be made to honor their commitment. If the player doesn't pan out that's fine, cut him or her from the team but the school should honor their commitments. And programs who are bad about running players/athletes off or taking away scholarships for the reason that they didn't pan out on the court is garbage. They are students first, and the coach/school offered them that scholarship. If the player is doing drugs, skipping class, or isn't committed to atleast attempting to get better, then that's different (as it sounds was the case of Devin Thompson).

Recruit from Science Hill signs with Lady Bucs:

Good decides to take ETSU scholarship
By Trey Williams
Press Sports Writer
twilliams@johnsoncitypress.com

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It was indeed a Good Friday for Science Hill and East Tennessee State, a day when Lady ’Toppers senior guard Johneshia Good received scholarship papers from ETSU.
The Northeast Tennessee player of the year plans to sign with Karen Kemp’s Lady Bucs on Wednesday. She was also recruited by Belmont, and thought enough of Milligan College coach Rich Aubrey to consider playing there if ETSU hadn’t offered.

The Lady Bucs were out of scholarships until it was announced Tuesday that four players were leaving the program.

Good averaged approximately 17.5 points, five rebounds, five assists and 2.5 steals this season for Darrell Barnwell’s Lady Toppers.

Good’s father (John) and late uncle (Andrell Anderson) each played for George Pitts at Science Hill. Good also assisted Pitts at King College before joining Ken Cutlip’s staff this past season.

Good’s mother (Tracy) played basketball at Science Hill for Greasy Leonard. She was team MVP and District 1-AAA tournament MVP as a senior in 1990.

Good has designs on becoming a pediatrician. Dentists are probably way down her list at the moment, because Good Friday also had its trying moments. Along with the ETSU offer coming in, she had three wisdom teeth taken out that day.

Anyone know who that really good girl from Morristown West is signing with, supposedly she's some kind of super recruit.