Bradshaw peaces out

Can't even pretend like I'm not mind blown by this one, but Riley Bradshaw has left the Utah State basketball team. After a whole year of hype, tweets about excitement in coming to be an Aggie, a summer's worth of work, two weeks of practice and eight whole minutes of exhibition action, Bradshaw apparently felt that was enough of a sample size to know this wasn't the right place for him.

Speculation is that it is due to homesickness, which can be tough for any freshman. Others think it has to do with the fact that he likely wouldn't have played much at all for this year and the next one. Or it could be because he wants to play point guard, but has Marcel Davis in front of him at that position.

 - If it's homesickness, it'll pass. Logan can be a tough adjustment for an 18-year-old, but once you're here for a bit, it becomes a part of you that is impossible to leave behind.

 - If it's not playing for the next two years, look at what a year of sparse playing time followed by a redshirt season did for Preston Medlin! Bradshaw would have been a clear favorite to start at shooting guard as a redshirt sophomore after Medlin graduates, and with two years of work under Stew Morrill, he probably could have been a borderline all-conference threat by then too.

 - And if it has to do with playing point guard, well... Then maybe that one actually makes sense. I always imagined Bradshaw as more of a shooting guard, but if he has dreams of being THE guy to bring up the rock for the bulk of his college career, then maybe this is the right move.

Recapping basketball's first look of 2012-13

I can't help but speculate that at least some part of the reasoning for scrapping the Blue and White game this year has to do with some guys getting over-hyped from a good showing in a lowly scrimmage. First impressions go a long way, and those scrimmages were often the forum for those first impressions. So when a guy makes a great first impression, it's going to get talked about and that performance will often be referenced throughout a season by sites like this one.

Can't really fault Stew Morrill for wanting to keep those first impressions limited to at least an actual game situation... But that's not going to stop anyone from giving thoughts on everyone's performance!

So... Let's break down each player's performance from Friday's win over Grand Canyon, and hopefully not have to be eating any of these words in a month or two when we have a better feel for everyone. Doing it position-by-position.


POINT GUARDS
 
Tenale Roland - Among projected starters, Roland is the newest to the show, but still fit in quite nicely! Shot 3-6 from the field and 1-2 from 3-point range for eight points. Not bad for a first rodeo! He also added a Quayle-esque six rebounds, but more of the "in the right position to get the bounce" rather than the "jump way higher than everyone else" kind of boards. Not going to read too much into him only having one assist as he's still learning things. But considering the learning curve, not having a single turnover in 20 minutes of play is very encouraging!

The 2012 USU basketball recruiting guide

With the signings of Marvin Jean and TeNale Roland earlier this week, Utah State looks to be done with basketball recruiting for the 2012 class.Now, it's time to break it all down!

To give a first impression, this looks like it very well could, and probably should turn out to be Stew Morrill's best recruiting class since, well... ever! Looking back at the 2005 class that brought in Durrall Peterson, Chaz Spicer, Chris Session, Nate Bendall and Tyler Newbold (who came later because of a mission), that's got some quality star power across that board. 2006 wasn't half-bad either with Kris Clark, Steve Ducharme, Brady Jardine and Pooh Williams.

But for each of those classes there were a couple of misses as well, which really can be said for every year. If you ever get a year where every guy in a class pans out to be a solid contributor, chances are a nice little NCAA tournament run is in your near future.

So if the basketball gods wouldn't mind smiling down on Utah State University this coming season, we'd really enjoy it if this were to be the class where everyone pans out to be studs. The ensuing result of such an astrological alignment (that's part of the Mayan 2012 thing, right?) would create something so unstoppable that not even John Cusack could save the rest of the WAC from USU's wrath (kind of like how he couldn't save that apocalyptic movie from being s***ty).