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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Thursday / December 19.

  • STORRS, Conn. (AP) — The University of Connecticut says the NCAA has found eight violations in the school’s men’s basketball program.

    The alleged violations include improper phone calls and text messages to recruits, and giving recruits improper benefits. Coach Jim Calhoun was cited Friday for failing to “promote an atmosphere of compliance.”

    Calhoun, who turned 68 this month, has had several health problems. He led the Huskies to two national championships and recently signed a five-year, $13 million contract.

    UConn was 18-16 last season. Calhoun took a medical leave of absence in January, missing seven games with an undisclosed condition.

    Austin Rivers won’t visit UCLA on Monday as originally planned. But he plans to visit UCLA at some point and says he’ll take his five officials to Duke, UCLA, Kansas, Florida and North Carolina and then decide in August.

    Rivers is a rising senior at Winter Park (Fla.) High and ranks as the No. 2 shooting guard in the Class of 2011.

    He verbally committed to Florida but his AAU coach Therion Joseph recently said Duke “would be the leader” now.

    Here’s an excerpt from Rivers’ diary entry in Dime Magazine:

    Dwayne Mitchell, the new head coach at Manhattan Rice High School, confirms that 6-foot-9 senior forward Kadeem Jack will head to  South Kent (Conn.) next year and not college.

    “Right now, I just know Kadeem is committed to going to South Kent,” Mitchell said Thursday night. “Until he’s there and he’s going to class, he could change his mind. But right now that’s where he said he’s going, South Kent.”

    Reached earlier this week by text, Jack confirmed that he would indeed spend a year at prep school.

    “Yea,” he wrote.

    Jack will be joined at South Kent by Forest Hill (Queens) High junior wing and UConn commit Maurice Harkless, who also announced his intention to play at the school.

    UConn is holding a press conference at 10 a.m. on Friday to announce an update to the NCAA investigation of its men’s basketball program.

    What the press release from UConn announcing the presser did not mention — and what The Hartford Courant first reported — is that assistant coach Pat Sellers and director of basketball operations Beau Archibald have resigned from the staff in the wake of the investigation.

    Sellers did not immediately respond to a text message and a voicemail seeking comment.

    GREENBURGH, N.Y. Keith “Tiny” Gallon says his mother needed $3,000 from a former Merrill Lynch financial adviser to get his high school transcript released so that he could attend Oklahoma University.

    “Oak Hill wouldn’t release my transcript under no circumstances and my mother had to do what she had to do,” Gallon said Thursday following a workout with the Knicks at their training facility.

    “It wasn’t an agent, it was a financial adviser. She got the money from him, got my transcript out of Oak Hill Academy. I got a single mother. When she got the money, she paid the financial adviser back through my freshmen year.”

    TMZ.com broke the news in March that financial adviser Jeffrey Hausinger last August wired $3,000 into a joint back account owned by Gallon and his mother, Sylvia Wright.

    GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Having played in the Ivy League, Jeff Foote can’t quite imagine getting LeBron James as a teammate.

    But if the 7-foot Foote gets drafted by the Knicks and New York lands LeBron via free agency, it will be a whole new world for the Cornell product.

    “It would be a different experience going to a lockerroom having LeBron James or Dwyane Wade sitting there, Dirk Nowitzki or Chris Bosh,” Foote said, referring to the top 2010 NBA free agents. “It’s just a lot of excitement.

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