If so, please let me know. My company, Litmus Media, is looking for a couple good PHP/MySQL/.js guys. The Kansas City Business Journal named us the fastest growing company in KC for 2005, and we’re moving to brand new offices in the Crossroads Arts District this week.

If you need to know more, please drop me a line at phogblog (at) gmail.com. If you or someone you know is interested, please forward resume, etc to me and I’ll coordinate from there.

Both positions are immediate hires.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

Thanks to PB reader Ehren for this one:

The big scorers for the West were, not surprisingly (based on their performances during practices Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning) were Darrell Arthur and Kevin Durant

While continuing to play as if he fancies himself the tallest high school guard in the country, Durant got many of his 20-plus points from the perimeter – often the deep, deep perimeter – and off the dribble.

And, often treating passing as an afterthought in the first half, Durant did a better of getting teammates involved after intermission.

One thing that has been confirmed this week is that – with the obvious exception of Greg Oden – Arthur is the best “finisher” in the class.

Anything within eight feet of the basket for Arthur is either an assault on the rim or a layin in which the ball is on the glass before a defender can react.

Read the whole thing here.

According to Channel 8 in Dallas-Fort Worth:

South Oak Cliff’s Darrell Arthur has been named to the 50th Parade All-America boys high school basketball team, which will officially be released Sunday.

Arthur, a 6-9 forward, is the 15th Dallas-Fort Worth area player to earn the honor. Skyline’s Calvin Miles and Lincoln’s Byron Eaton were named to the team last season. Arthur is scheduled to play in Wednesday’s McDonald’s All-American Game in San Diego.

I wish that my work contract *required* me to make excuses for the folks that depend on me. Actually, that would probably breed mediocrity, so I don’t *really want it. But it would be nice to have in the back pocket I suppose.

Here’s a list of some of the bizarre requirements contained within Anderson’s contract with Mizzou:

_”maintain a mature and rational attitude, keep emotions in control and downplay defeats”;

_”establish and maintain a frequent and systematic program of personal communication with the university’s administration, faculty, staff and student body”;

_make a minimum of 30 public appearances at booster lunches, alumni dinners and similar community events.

Whose standards are we using to define “mature and rational?”

I didn’t see this coming:

Oklahoma’s Kelvin Sampson is expected to leave the school to become the next head coach at Indiana, multiple sources told ESPN.com.

Sampson already told OU athletic director Joe Castiglione of his plans and was scheduled to meet with the Sooner team Tuesday afternoon.

A news conference announcing his hiring at Indiana could take place as early as Wednesday afternoon in Bloomington.

The Big 12 will be a different place next year - 5 / 12 head coaches turning over in a year. Boy, that’s worse turnover than you get at Hardee’s.

Here’s some more information on the potential infractions:

Sampson’s hiring comes while Oklahoma is waiting to hear from the NCAA on a potential April infractions hearing involving excessive phone calls. The university said in January that from April 2000 to Sept. 2004, members of the men’s basketball program made impermissible calls to 17 prospects and made three impermissible in-person contacts with recruits, improperly giving a T-shirt to a recruit and a parent.

The NCAA also said Sampson failed to monitor the staff’s phone calls to recruits during this time. The university self-imposed a two-year probation from July 1, 2005 to July 1, 2007; reduced scholarships from 13 to 11 for 2005-06 and 13 to 12 from 2006-07; reduced the number of phone calls coaches could make to recruits; limited off-campus recruiting from July 2005 through the 2006-07 academic year; cut paid visits down from 12 to nine for this past season; froze Sampson’s salary increases and postseason bonuses for a two-year period.

Here’s the Link to Andy Katz’s article on the subject.

It seems the BCS conferences have gobbled up all the 2006 McDonald’s All-Americans.

ACC - 7
Big 12 - 5
Pac 10 - 5
Big 11 - 3
Big East - 2
2 undecided - Come on Darrell!

East
Earl Clark (Louisville)
Mike Conley (Ohio State)
Javaris Crittenton (Georgia Tech)
Wayne Ellington (North Carolina)
Gerald Henderson (Duke)
Tywon Lawson (North Carolina)
Vernon Macklin (Georgetown)
Greg Oden (Ohio State)
Scottie Reynolds (Oklahoma)
Lance Thomas (Undecided)
Brandan Wright (North Carolina)
Thaddeus Young (Georgia Tech)

West
Darrell Arthur (Undecided)
D.J. Augustin (Texas)
Chase Budinger (Arizona)
Demond Carter (Baylor)
Sherron Collins (Kansas)
Daequan Cook (Ohio State)
Kevin Durant (Texas)
Spencer Hawes (Washington)
James Keefe (UCLA)
Brook Lopez (Stanford)
Robin Lopez (Stanford)
Jon Scheyer (Duke)

Here are some quotes from the West team’s coach, Harvey Kitani:

“I’ve known Sherron from the Nike camp. He’s every bit as good as the top point guards in the country,” Kitani said of Collins, the 5-foot-11 playmaker out of Crane High in Chicago. “I think (KU has a) future All-American.”

While Collins has Kitani’s respect, Arthur has him in awe.

“Tremendous athleticism,” Kitani said, echoing the murmurs of many bystanders who have honed in on the 6-foot-9 forward from South Oak Cliff High in Dallas at practice this week. “I think his potential is so far from being even tapped into. Once he gets everything together, it’s going to be scary how good he’s going to be.”

Collins did not fare too well in the festivities last night. He came in last in the team ball competition going 2-7 from the floor and failed to advance to the next round in the dunk contest.

It’s not much of a race, folks, but the Pick’em is updated. Follow the link to your right.

KU and UT are grappling again, it seems…this time for the services of big man Darrell Arthur out of Dallas:

“She liked Kansas and Texas. She wanted me to go to either of those two schools,” said the 6-foot-9 forward following his initial workout Sunday as a McDonald’s High School All-American.

“So those two schools I’m really looking at the most, and I’ll probably make my decision based on those two schools.”

Link.

Friend of Phog Blog Scott put together this great tribute to this year’s Hawks and he was nice enough to grant permission to post it here. As is made clear by the pictures, it was a truly wonderful year. You might want to get out a box of Kleenex though if your eyes wet easily. Image credits to the Lawrence Journal World.

Enjoy and feel free to share with friends.

Or UAB has approved the initial conversation:

The University of Missouri has been given permission to speak with UAB basketball coach Mike Anderson about Missouri’s head coaching vacancy.

Meanwhile, back in Columbia, unhappy with the jobs that Mizzou loyalists Sunvold and Link were doing looking for a coach, the powers that be have opted to bang pots and pans together in the hopes that somehow, mysteriously, a coach can be coaxed from the earth.

Why is there a cork on the fork? Because at this pace, someone will lose an eye. Or both eyes. Incredible:

Gary Link and Jon Sundvold apparently will have no further say in who will be Missouri’s new head men’s basketball coach.

Mike Alden, MU’s athletic director, has told Link and senior associate Mario Moccia that neither they nor Sundvold will be part of meetings between Alden, UMC deputy chancellor Mike Middleton and consultant Bob Beaudine aimed at selecting the man who will replace Quin Snyder.

“That’s accurate,” Link told The Star on Thursday morning.

Said Sundvold: “Our job, it appears, is over.”

Did anyone else notice that two of Mangino’s best high school recruits are from Dallas South Oak Cliff High School, the same school where basketball recruit Darrell Arthur roams the halls?  Anthony Webb and Xavier Rambo are fellow seniors at Arthur’s school.  Maybe we could have those guys put in a good word for the Jayhawks!

Multiple sources are reporting that K-State offered its basketball coaching job to Bob Huggins. The Wichita Eagle announced on its web site yesterday evening that Huggins accepted the job. According to Gregg Doyel, a news conference is expected today.

Wow did I have this pegged wrong. I thought that KSU would go with one of its own (mostly because I didn’t think a major college coach would consider moving to Manhattan and trying to recruit kids to play there). I was sure that Mark Fox, Barry Hinson, perhaps Steve Henson, were on the top of the list.

The question now is whether OJ Mayo and/or Bill Walker will follow Huggy to the greener pastures (??? shameless, I know) or bolt for a more prestigious program. I predict the 7′ 2″ center out of Florida announces his K-State LOI on Friday, but I think that Mayo and Walker will both take a long, hard look at the situation. One thing’s certain, Huggins will improve Wildcat recruiting . . . as long as we don’t worry about who or what he does to get it done!

UPDATE (from JC):

Mayo says he may follow Huggins:

“That could be right,” Mayo told the Associated Press about joining Huggins. “At the same time, we don’t want to go to a raw program. We have to see where he ends up, what the school’s fan base is like, see what the fans think about him, and make sure everything is great.”

I think this is great for the Big XII conference. Any time you can add a big-name coach to the fold, it’s good for everyone. It will certainly elevate the level of play, and that’s good for fans.