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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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Sunday / December 22.
  • Former Missouri coach Mike Anderson is officially the new head man at Arkansas.

    The former Nolan Richardson assistant will reportedly receive $2.2 million per year over seven years. Arkansas won the 1994 national title with Richardson as head coach and Anderson as an assistant.

    “We are extremely excited to welcome home Mike Anderson to the University of Arkansas as our new head men’s basketball coach,” Arkansas AD Jeff Long said. “Mike is one of the outstanding head coaches in college basketball. His teams play an exciting brand of basketball that has already proven successful at both UAB and Missouri.

    When Jim Hart first saw Jimmer Fredette as an eighth-grader, he wasn’t exactly blown away by the kid’s athleticism.

    Fredette stood 5-foot-6 and 110 pounds.

    “He was a little chubby guy then playing for his Watervleit Arsenal Athletics mom and pop team,” Hart, the coach of the Albany City Rocks AAU team, recalled Wednesday by phone.

    Hart’s impression of the young man changed dramatically when Fredette scored 51 points when the City Rocks beat Arsenal Athletics, 102-101 in overtime, in an AAU Nationals qualifier in Albany.

    “It was Jimmer and a bunch of guys that weren’t that good,” Hart said. “Jimmer almost beat us by himself.”

    Kyrie Irving will come off the bench and see “significant minutes” Thursday night when Duke meets Arizona in a West Regional semifinal, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Tuesday.

    After missing 3 1/2 months with a right big toe injury suffered Dec. 4 against Butler, Irving came off the bench to score a team-best 14 points when Duke routed Hampton, 87-45, last Friday. The former Elizabeth (N.J.) St. Patrick star then hit a critical late basket and scored 11 points in 21 minutes in Sunday’s win over MIchigan.

    “We’re good with who we’re starting,” Krzyzewski said, according to the Charlotte Observer. “We should have at least eight people feel like they’re starters on this team, with Andre [Dawkins] and Ryan [Kelly]. We’ve had nine people start on this team, so that’s an advantage.

    Former Fairfield coach Ed Cooley was officially named the new coach at Providence on Tuesday.

    A press conference will be held Wednesday at 1:30 at the College’s Mullaney Gymnasium in Alumni Hall.

    A Providence native, Cooley guided Fairfield to a school-record 25 wins and a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season title this past season.  He was named the 2011 MAAC Coach of the Year.  He also earned United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) District I Coach of the Year honors.  His 2011 squad finished the season with a 25-8 mark (15-3 MAAC) and advanced to the second round of the NIT.

    “We are very excited to have Ed Cooley coming to Providence College to coach our men’s basketball team,” Providence president Reverend Father Brian Shanley said. “I have had the opportunity to spend some time with Ed and I believe he is the right person to lead our men’s basketball team.  We conducted a thorough search and during that process Ed Cooley was the coach that consistently met our selection criteria.”

    Brandon Mobley is down to Auburn, Seton Hall and DePaul and hopes to decide after taking an official to DePaul in early April.

    “Yes, sometime within the next two weeks,” Mobley said Tuesday by phone. “I’m actually going to visit DePaul as soon as I get off spring break.” He said the DePaul visit was set for April 8-9.

    The 6-foot-9, 215-pound power forward from St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisc., has already taken visits to Auburn and Seton Hall.

    As for Auburn, he said, “I like the facility, the campus. It’s a brand new arena. I like the team and it being closer to my home.”

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