Young, who helped lead Yates to the state championship, was hoping to get out of the letter of intent he signed to play at Providence College because of a desire to stay closer to home and to the ailing aunt who helped raise him.

Providence refused an initial request. Young’s family then went to the governing body of the National Letter of Intent program, which denied their appeal on Tuesday.

Young’s father – former professional player Michael Young – is upset. ”I’m really disappointed and so is Joseph,” Michael Young told Fox 26 sports in Houston. “The NLI (National Letter of Intent) system is crap.

“I think the whole process is unfair.”

I think Texas Southern University is calling!

Tom Guilmette does a fantastic job of breaking the whole process down

{props}

I read an article about Syracuse junior forward Wes Johnson deciding to forego his senior season and declare for the NBA draft (Orange fans I hope you weren’t surprised by this decision). The 6-7 swingman had a breakout season and should be a lock for a lottery pick. However, as I scanned a list of early entrants on CNNSI.com as of April 13, 2010, I began to shake my head and wonder to myself, “Why are so many of these players declaring?”

The reality is that many of these players are either not ready to make the jump yet or are simply not NBA material. What motivates some of these players to make such a bad decision? Is there an unscrupulous agent buttering them up, telling them they’re the next big star? Maybe they have real life financial difficulties, as is the case with a number of college athletes, and see a NBA paycheck as relief from these challenges. Regardless of the motivation, I’m 100% positive that a number of players on this list will fall into the following categories:

1)      Will not get drafted at all and will end up on a NBA Summer League team, eventually getting cut.

2)      Will get drafted in the 2^nd round, play on the Summer League team, and get cut before the season starts. Second round players rarely make season opening rosters.

Many in these categories will either end up on a D-League roster or ply their trade overseas, which can be financially rewarding if you end up in the right situation (See Trajan Langdon- CSKA Moscow).  Not only are these early entrants competing against a growing list of early entrants and graduating seniors, they’re battling for roster spots with seasoned and raw European players and domestic free agents still desperate for a chance. 

Players like John Wall, Evan Turner, and DeMarcus Cousins should be out shopping for a Park Avenue tailored suit because they are guaranteed to be on draft day “Green Room” status, shaking hands early with David Stern. But, the majority of these players will be watching from someone’s living room at home, just hoping to hear their name called by an NBA exec not named David Stern in the 2^nd round. 

The sad reality is that history repeats itself and they’re will be some early entrants declaring next year that have no business making that decision. I understand the NBA is any basketball player’s ultimate goal, and it should be. However, it’s important that these college players have people in their corner that are going to be honest with them and say “You’re not ready.” More importantly, I hope the player listens.

Obama could easily out hoop any ex-prez!

You know USA, you have one cool ass President. President Obama and Clark Kellogg play HORSE (PORTUS in this case) and talk college basketball.Obama has a nice left jumper reminiscent of Tayshaun Prince, and is the best basketball playing President ever. The White House basketball court is pretty nice, too. Notice the Presidential seal on the ball, and on the goal padding. By the way, Clark Kellogg’s voice haunts my dreams. I’m to blame for playing hours of NBA 2K10 and hearing his voice say the same things over and over. Unfortunately he is the voice of the NCAA Final Four, and I have to hear more of him.

Why do we love the NCAA Tournament? Because, it’s so unpredictable. Every year, like many Americans, I print out a gazillion brackets and put on my Jay Bilas-esque analysis hat and start making my picks. I arbitrarily pick a handful of upsets in the first couple of rounds because it’s pretty much guaranteed there will be upsets; 13s shocking 4s, 12s beating 5s and so forth.

And, as expected, the 2010 Tourney has been no different, already ripe with a number of shockers, including Georgetown losing to Ohio, Vandy falling to Murray State, and relatively unknown St. Mary’s knocking off #2 seed Villanova in the second round. However, these upsets pale in comparison to Northern Iowa’s surprising victory over the #1 overall seed Kansas, a team many “experts” had picked to win it all.

Cinderella shows up every year to add suspense and excitement, fueling the “Madness”.  And, CBS gets a nice return on their multi-million network rights investment with high ratings from these fairy tale teams knocking off perennial basketball powers and making magical runs in the tournament.

People naturally root for the underdog, no matter what sport it is. We love to see David slay Goliath. The NCAA tournament is no different. For example, I fell in love with the George Mason team that beat storied programs Michigan State, North Carolina, and Connecticut en route to an improbable Final Four appearance in the 2006 NCAA Tournament. That simply was a great story.

However, I’m sure CBS doesn’t want the final rounds to be a big glass slipper affair, with a heavy dose of unknown, mid-major Cinderella teams. I commend these teams for their unlikely successes, but would you want to see a Northern Iowa vs. St. Mary’s championship game? Seriously, imagine if the Final Four was Cornell, St. Mary’s, Butler, and Northern Iowa. You couldn’t pay me to watch any of those matchups. I’m sure ratings would not be as high as they would if a Kentucky or Syracuse were one of the opponents.  David vs. David matchups are not as intriguing as David vs. Goliath matchups. There is no upset potential in these types of contests. So, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that at least a one or two seed makes it to Indianapolis.

Going forward, I’m excited to see what other surprises this 2010 version of March Madness has to offer. Parity is good for the game and it’s always fun to see some unexpected teams crash the party. However, if some of you Cinderellas decide to stay until the end, I hope at least one of your bigger, more known stepsisters shows up too. Otherwise, someone will have to spike the punch for me to hang around.

President Barack Obama predicts Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky and Villanova to make the men’s basketball Final Four.

Obama filled out a bracket for ESPN for the second straight year. This time, he’s also making picks for the women’s tournament, selecting Connecticut, Notre Dame, Stanford and Tennessee. ESPN will reveal the full brackets Wednesday. His interview about the men’s tournament will air that day during the 11 p.m. CT SportsCenter, with the discussion of the women’s tourney broadcast Friday during the 8 a.m. show. Last year, Obama correctly picked North Carolina to win the national championship. His bracket ranked 903,125th overall, just above the 80th percentile in the ESPN’s online contest.

Here is our official bracket. If you would like to test your bracket against ours, head over to http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/frontpage and fill out your bracket.