Maryland Minute 1.5.12: Texas A&M Point Guard Transfer Jamal Branch Considering Terps

Literally no college basketball coaches would give Alex Kline a scoop. That tweet is pure BS.

Here’s my take on the Harrisons:

Yes, they’re awesome and they appear to like Maryland. BUT. I suspect they’ll go to Kentucky, and even if they don’t they’re so good that every major program will put the full-scale assault on them throughout this year.

When we talk about awesome PGs like Branch, Britt, Aquille and some of you guys say you don’t want to take them because of the Harrisons, I think that’s straight crazy.

Jamal Branch & Aquille Carr are major talents. 2-5 years ago we’d have killed for players like that when instead we were signing Adrian Bowie. If the Harrisons want to come to Maryland, they will. They can go wherever they want and whatever team they choose will already have good guards on their roster.

Jamal Branch? Aquille Carr? Yes please.

Wait too long for the twins and that one bird may have flown away.

We are flush with PG’s & rumors of PG’s! As for aquille I would love to get him but im scared he wont end up being able to clear academically, or last 4yrs academically. So even if he does commit im not going to get excited til I see him on the floor. But if and when I do man that will be exctiting all right!

That Branch is favoring St. Johns over Maryland, Arizona and a couple other schools

That Jamal Branch is visiting St. John’s this weekend and Maryland next weekend

Hiring O’Brien may be the first action by PSU to accept responsibility for allowing Sandusky to prey on children for ten years. O’Brien has no previous ties with their program. According to ESPN, PSU actually side-stepped their search committee. Who knows if he will be encouraged to replace the current staff with more outsiders. Based on interviews and comments, PSU has a bigger problem and that is their values. Too many still think of the scandal as an “on-balance” issue. The 10-year cover-up by the PSU administrators, the AD, and Paterno of a sexual assault of a minor at their facilities that McCreary witnessed is not an “on-balance” issue. Learning that a colleague/friend had sexually assaulted a minor and believing it occurred, I am certain that very few of us would have done what Paterno, Curley, et al did. I believe that we would have either gone to the police or confronted that friend to gave him the opportunity to turn himself in first. Their insistence that the cover-up is not about the university nor its football program is why I think Paterno and probably Spanier were forced out by PA Attorney General Kelly rather than the PSU board of trustees. By leaving without a whimper and agreeing to testify for the prosecution in the AD Curley and VP Schultz perjury cases, Paterno may even have avoided a conspiracy charge. During the grand jury investigation, Kelly did not pursue Paterno’s interactions with AD Curley about Sandusky so we don’t know to what extent he was involved in the cover-up. We should know more as the criminal and civil cases proceed. Maybe what is revealed about the measures they took to protect their image and that of PSU and its football program for almost a decade while Sandusky preyed on more victims will be enough to open some eyes. They may even understand the contempt that some of us have for their decision to play the bowl game this year and donate some of the proceeds to charity, more image management measures.