Live: Clemson at Liberty 2nd half

11:48 a.m. Time to be the only dad at pre-school picking up his child. Always awkward. Clemson will clearly win out. Up next is Siena vs. Northeastern. Guarantee you we will have several mentions of the 4th & 2 in this game.

11:46 a.m. In response to whether or not the DVR was one of the top five inventions this century, I received this Tweet from Michael_Rudolph "Easily. It goes like this 1. Internet 2. George Foreman Grill 3. Coors Light 4. DVR 5. The Slap Chop."

11:41 a.m. Talking fantasy football with Telep (that's what you do when the game is 68-31) and I just shot myself in the foot. Telep: "I need to pick up a player in our league." Me: "You should get Jason Snelling of the Falcons. With Michael Turner out, Snelling will get 80 yards and a touchdown when he starts." Telep: "Why don't you get him?" Me: "Um." Waiver wire order Telep 1, Me 4. I need a RB. Whoops.

11:39 a.m. Have had the game on mute for the last 15 minutes. Best 15 minutes of the morning.

11:31 a.m. Somewhere Scot Pollard is thinking "I really like the mutton chops with the fo-hawk," with regards to Carter McMasters.

11:27 a.m. Always enjoy an impromptu call from my good friend Dave Telep.

11:21 a.m. I'll be honest when Noel Johnson signed with Southern Cal, I always had the feeling that he'd go pro or transfer back to East Coast after a year in L.A. He told me he doesn't even like tacos. There is a killer taco stand right down the street from the Galen Center.

11:19 a.m. ESPNAndyKatz "So far only dozed for 15 minutes on the floor at ESPN from the second half 16-minute to the 8-minute mark of Hawaii-Northern Colorado."

11:15 a.m. Trevor Booker just hit a three and then a fade away jumper. I might take my first break of a day. Adrian Branch is gushing.

11:13 a.m. Tanner Smith with the drive and score. He's gotten better and better and better. Guys like Mike Maynard did a great job with his skill development in high school.

11:12 a.m. Fact - I never saw Demontez Stitt in high school or AAU. That's a rarity.

11:07 a.m. Getting ready to dive into the second half.

Two quick thoughts - really respected Jason Williams as a player. One of the best guards in college basketball this decade. But he struggles as an analyst and color commentator. Wish him well as an assistant coach. Let's be honest, that's what he'll be in two or three years.

Second thought - didn't respect Doug Gottlieb as a player in college. Played against him one summer. Cheap shot artist on screens. But so was I. Maybe we are one in the same. Love his views on college hoops and the second best guy at ESPN behind Jay Bilas. Great insight. Understands how important recruiting is. Shoots it straight and honest. Really respect him and his views.

Live: Clemson at Liberty 1st half

10:16 a.m. "You are looking live at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia..." Sorry, Brent Musberger, I've always wanted to say that.

10:17 a.m. Game went live with the one-liner of "You gotta love a train" by the analyst. This will be fun.

10:19 a.m. 11-1 Clemson start. Can Bobo Baciu get in the game now?

10:20 a.m. "David Potter is a poor man's Allan Houston." Who is doing the color analyst?

10:21 a.m. Crap, Potter just hit another three (that's three). I mean, this guy is a poor man's Allan Houston!

10:22 a.m. Seth Davis already with the Tweet of the Morning. "I got 10 bucks that says @ESPNAndyKatz is asleep on his couch right now in a snuggie."

10:24 a.m. 22-5 Clemson. Potter is a poor man's Rotnei Clarke right now.

10:27 a.m. Just realized that this game has a lot of firsts for me in this game. Happy to say I was the first national writer to scribe about Clemson's Trevor Booker, Andre Young, Tanner Smith, David Potter, Noel Johnson, Milton Jennings, Liberty's Carter McMasters and Jesse Sanders. Someone give me a cookie. Or a gold star.

10:28 a.m. Cool story on Liberty's Sanders - he played for a home school team in Houston. My man Jim Hicks of the Recruiter's Cheat Sheet swore up and down to me that he was a player. He'll be a big player this year at Liberty.

10:30 a.m. Evan Gordon, Eric's little brother, is at the foul line. I'll be honest, never knew this is where little Gordon ended up.

10:31 a.m. Full warning - if you text me or call me today, good chance I'll use it in the live blog. You've been given fair warning and I hope you bring it today.

10:36 a.m. Right on cue, got a commitment call. Santoine Butler to Gardner-Webb. Blog on pause.

10:53 a.m. Back. Butler to Gardner-Webb. I love DVR. Let's catch up, shall we?

10:58 a.m. I love watching Clemson’s point guard Andre Young. He is one of my favorite players I’ve covered in Georgia. He is one of the top competitors I’ve ever covered and a guy that defied all of the small player odds that were stacked against him. He played at a very small school in Albany (Deerfield Christian) and won, won, won there. He and current Georgia starting point guard Dustin Ware faced each other time and time again for the championships and developed into one of the best rivalries in Georgia’s storied history for high school hoops.

11:01 a.m. Trevor Booker is a monster rebounder. Sheesh.

11:02 a.m. All of the games are promoting the new ESPN encyclopedia and more times than not, I’ll probably be my usual ornery self and make a smart-alecky statement about the promotion but the book is amazing. Truly amazing. If you are a hardcore hoops fan, add this book to your Christmas list. The book is full of gold.

11:04 a.m. Adrian Branch is doing some recruiting for Liberty. Talking about out of conference schedule, the A.D. baking cookies, intimate atmosphere in Lynchburg. This is disturbing.

11:06 a.m. Caught up on the DVR. Which brings me to this question - is DVR one of the top 5 greatest inventions this century? Clemson 42, Liberty 19.

24 Hours of Hoop

Okay, let’s try this again.

I wanted to go all 24 hours here on the National Hoops Report. But by 12:06 a.m., I was dead asleep on the world’s greatest coach, a place I like to call “Where Amazing Happens.”

The 24 hours of blogging was a wrap before it ever began.

The 6 a.m. wake-up call came, turned on the tube, saw the Saint Peter’s-Monmouth game on television and promptly decided that the marathon would wait a little longer to get started at NHR headquarters.

At 7:54 a.m. I checked the score and saw Rotnei Clarke, er, Saint Peters beat Monmouth 58-34.

Hello Drexel-Niagara. Watched for a couple of minutes, went to the kitchen to grab some Special K only to return to see PBS Kids on the television. My four-year-old was propped up with her one-year-old sister on “Where Amazing Happens” and I had my third loss of the young day.

The time came to take my four-year-old to pre-school (the best three hours of the day), put the one-year-old down for an early nap, reclaimed the remote, the “WAH” and settled in for a long day of basketball.

The first image I get is Bruiser Flint ripping into his team about playing defense with 1:17 to play in the second half.

Niagara will win this game.

Clemson at Liberty is next. I’ll be there for it. Join me, won’t you? Join me all day here at the National Hoops Report.

12@12: Weekend randomness

1. National Hoops Report college player of the week: The opening week schedule didn’t have a lot of games on tap (disappointing, isn’t it?) but there was a clear cut leader in the POW award in week one. Ohio State’s Evan Turner was amazing. The first game of the year, he messed around and got a triple-double. The next game, he racks up 17 boards and scored 24 points.

Chad Ford says a few NBA scouts have called Turner a Brandon Roy type of player. Sure, it has only been two games into the year, but believe it. Don't look at Turner's scoring. Look at his rebounding and passing. He's a high-level pro with that kind of size.

2. National Hoops Report freshman of the week: Xavier Henry, SG, Kansas. How about 27 points in 24 minutes in his college debut. And Hofstra isn’t exactly a cupcake. Henry can flat out score. We all knew that after watching him torch the prep ranks for four years. He obviously won’t keep up that pace on a team like Kansas. It will be fun to watch him play against Memphis (the team he was committed to at one point) on Tuesday night.

3. National Hoops Report win of the week: Rider over Mississippi State in Starkville. Huge confidence booster for the MAAC school. Huge confidence destroyer for the SEC school.

4. Harrison Barnes The nation’s top high school basketball player is going to North Carolina.

Barnes announced his decision at an elaborate press conference in a standing room only ceremony at Ames (Iowa) High School. Over 13,000 people watched the press conference online. ESPNU carried it on their Recruiting Insider show.

Roy Williams watched it via Skype.

His commitment via online teleconference with Roy Williams was a look into the world of recruiting like never before seen. That part was unique. Those that are addicted to college recruiting never get to see that moment where the player commits to the coach. It is a fun thing to witness. With his use of modern technology, Barnes opened a window into the world of high stakes recruiting.

And in high stakes recruiting, oftentimes real, genuine emotion is not there. It is all positional movement amongst one millionaire against another with a teenager caught in the middle of it all. When Barnes brought Roy Williams onto the big screen, there was a genuine excitement there. You don’t see that very often anymore, not even from good ‘ole Roy.

5. After Barnes announced he’d be a Tar Heel and not a Duke Blue Devil (like I thought he’d be), the question was immediately asked: “What does this mean for Duke?” Part of me wonders if Duke jumped the shark with the loss of Barnes to North Carolina.

Coach K doesn’t lose players. The last one he really, truly lost was Jared Jeffries, a Bloomington, Ind., to Indiana.

Clearly, Duke needs to land Quincy Miller and/or Austin Rivers in 2011. I’ll go out on a limb and even say J.P. Tokoto, a 2012 stud, will be a Blue Devil. Or can I? In the past, you just knew who was going to Duke. It took all of two seconds to know who commits to Duke.

Not anymore. Barnes proved that.

6. Lost in the shuffle of National Signing Day is an amazing story of a player that is expected to help a NCAA tournament team. It shouldn't have been lost at all. In fact, the story should have been a national one, especially with the the first day of the signing period coming on Veteran's Day. Meet Bernard James. Here is his story.

7. With the signing period coming to a close on Wednesday at 11:59 p.m., college staffs will hit a collective reset button and re-examine the current pool of unsigned prospects. But understand this: more times than not, a player’s value is oftentimes is misconstrued in the spring period. The value of a late addition particularly for a high-major big man is tough to gauge. No disrespect to him, but see Frank Ben-Eze for example.

8. I was told there was a signing announcement/press conference/county fair/whatever you want to call these things these days that lasted one hour and 45 minutes last week. That is 105 minutes, folks. Whoa. Where there clowns making balloons, faces being painted and turkey legs being handed out for refreshments? That’s a long time to celebrate a college decision. I wonder if the valedictorian gets two hours.

Of course, I’m not a big fan of any high school player holding a press conference. I suppose I’m just a curmudgeon.

9. Sure, it has only been one game. Sure, John Wall didn't play. But Eric Bledsoe is much better than his No. 52 composite ranking coming out high school. Rivals had him ranked 23 overall coming out of high school, the highest of the services. Prep Stars had him at 69, the lowest of the rankers. Bledsoe was brilliant in his college debut.

10. Did Isiah Thomas even look at the talent at FIU before taking that job? He’s bound to blow up if the losses, the bad losses, pile up like they are starting to.

11. One NBA sources of mine says: “Nastiest dunk by a guard in the post-Jordan era.” Truth.

12. Here are my 12 football thoughts from the weekend:

A. Brian Kelly, uber-successful coach at Cincinnati, I’ll save you the trouble. Here is the MLS search page
for South Bend.

B. Dexter McCluster touched the ball more for Ole Miss. Just like I asked. He ran for 282 yards and four touchdowns against Tennessee. And Texas remains the most consistent top tier team in the country. Call me Nostradamus.

C. USC’s defense isn’t the same this year, particularly with the linebackers. With Clay Matthews and Brian Cushing, last year’s backers for the Trojans, not only starting but amongst the top 12 linebackers in the NFL this season, it’s easy to see why there is little fight with USC’s defense this year.

D. The Pac-10 is the best conference in America right now in college football. Why the SEC keeps getting pumped as the nation’s best league is mind-boggling. The ACC might even be better.

E. Bill Belichick. Where do we begin? Start and end with his arrogance. Two major things come to mind in the ripple effect. 1. New England’s defense doesn’t have a leader in its own locker room after the head coach showed zero faith in his team. 2. Belichick said without saying that Peyton Manning scares him to death.

F. As bonehead of a move that was the 4th and two play, credit needs to go to Manning. Indianapolis was down by 17 points in the fourth quarter. The Colts scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Manning was an amazing 9-11 passing for 119 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Joseph Addai scored a four yard run thanks to a great drive by Manning. The Colts had 15 plays in less than six minutes to collect those scores.

G. How about the poll NBC conducted with the 20 living NFL Hall of Fame quarterbacks about which quarterback they’d want leading their team – Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. The results were as follows: 13.5 to 2.5 in favor of Manning.

H. Denver is the Iowa of the NFL.

I. Cincinnati beat Pittsburgh twice this year. Say that out loud. No, really, it’s true.

J. Tennessee’s Chris Johnson has 1,091 rushing yards thru nine games. That is the most since Shaun Alexander rushed for 1,114 yards in 2005 in that span.

M. Who is the Heisman leader right now? Stanford’s Toby Gerhart has rumbled through every defense that has lined up across from the Cardinal this year. After watching him for two full games (against Oregon and Stanford), I’m ready to call him my Heisman favorite.

N. Who is the NFL MVP leader right now? Clearly, it is Peyton Manning. Still need a reason after last night’s game?

Live from Ames, Iowa

Harrison Barnes, the nation's top high school basketball player, will announce his decision today at 4 p.m. EST live from Ames High School.

You can watch the press conference here.

Barnes will select between Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, UCLA and Iowa State.

Where will it be?

Bold prediction: Today is National Signing Day

Today is National Signing Day. But you probably knew that. Teenagers will sign what is essentially a contract that binds them to the college or university of their choice. (Where is the student-athlete's benefit in that? Nevermind, that's another column for another day.)

With that being said, there are still a number of players that are waiting to make their decisions. They have a week to sign, ending at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 18.

I'll be posting my predictions on where the top 150 players (according to Scout, Rivals, Prep Stars and ESPN) go. I would attempt all 750 players on the new HoopScoop rankings. But I remembered that ranking 750 kids is pointless. So is predicting all of them.

Click HERE for my Twitter page.

Feel free to post your questions in the comments section below or via Twitter. Consider this a National Signing Day Mailbag.

12 @ 12: Weekend randomness

1. Pete Thamel, one of the best writers in the nation that covers high school sports, traveled to Israel to see how Jeremy Tyler is doing in his quest to becoming a decorated professional basketball player.

To no one’s surprise, Tyler is struggling in a foreign land and on his own.

Tyler left sunny San Diego to play at Maccabi Haifa for a $140,000 two-year deal. The end result, in Tyler’s eyes, is being drafted in 2011. His play was to follow in the footsteps of Brandon Jennings, who is having a surprisingly successful start to his NBA career.

The difference between Tyler and Jennings was this: Jennings was always good and a producer. Tyler, however, was not. One game he’d be a dominant force and clearly the best player to step foot onto the court. The next game, he’d complain, throw his arms up in frustration and immediately point fingers as to why his teenage world was rocked. Jennings never did that.

The other difference was work ethic. Jennings is a gym rat. When Tyler left the 2008 Pangos All-American camp after one night of action, Jennings, then out of high school, was constantly on the court and inside the gym.

Both are incredibly arrogant. Tyler’s is/was unjustified. Jennings, like him or not, was an arrogance that was competitive and it gave him an edge. Clearly, the trip to Italy was a life reality that your world is not the only world. Humility is life’s great reset button.

Perhaps a giant slice of humility is what Tyler, who would be graduating high school in May of 2010, needs.

2. The college basketball season officially starts today and the hoops world will be watching Isiah Thomas’s college coaching debut at North Carolina. And, sure, that’s a big time storyline to watch. But the game won’t be fun to watch. In fact, it will probably be a 25-point blowout.

3. But the game that is the most intriguing game on Monday’s slate is the Albany-Syracuse tilt. It is no secret that Syracuse lost to Le Moyne, Division II school, in a preseason exhibition. The Orange are sitting back on their heels at the moment while a team like Albany, certainly talented enough in the starting line up with Will Harris and Tim Ambrose. While Syracuse is much more talented, Albany will give the Big East team a run for their money to start the year.

4. High-major freshman that was ranked outside the top 25 that will have the biggest year: Noel Johnson of Clemson.

5. High-major freshman that won’t live up to his top 25 billing: Milton Jennings of Clemson.

6. Mid-major freshman that will have a huge rookie season: Keith Clanton of Central Florida.

7. Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated nailed it. College hoops needs an opening day or an opening weekend.

8. I know I pump them every week but if you love college hoops, Rush the Court should be one of the first five websites you check everyday. Here is one of the reasons why.

9. Where will Harrison Barnes be going to school? I’ve seen that sentence via text, twitter and email more than any other question this year. My answer? Duke. That’s my guess. Take it for what it is worth.

10. I spent the weekend counting the number of blogs that the University of Kentucky men’s basketball has “covering” the team. Unofficially, the count was 1,685,095.

11. If this guy would have gone to one of these fake schools that boast "national prep players", he would have gotten away with his plan of playing high school basketball.

12. Here are my 12 football thoughts from the weekend:

A. Well, thanks Oregon. Right when everyone believed in you, Stanford outsmarts you with your own game. The Cardinal just ran all over the Ducks to the tune of 254 rushing yards on 52 attempts. Ball control, clock management and power football.

B. Iowa, it was only a matter of time. Really, it was.

C. Who are you Boise State? Seriously. Are you as good as your record? Or was the Oregon win a matter of emotion at home and on national television? Or are you just that good?

D. Texas is the most consistent of all of the top tier programs this season. The closest game the Longhorns have had was a three-point win over Oklahoma at a neutral site. Florida and Alabama have been up and down all season.

E. However, Alabama’s win over LSU was one to help lock their position into the top two positions. The Tide would be my No. 2 team in the country (if my voice meant anything). Texas would be No. 1 while Florida checks in at No. 3.

F. Cal's Jahvid Best's touchdown dive against Oregon State was one of the scariest airborne accidents I've seen in quite some time. That was a terrifying leap for six points.

G. Twitter note number one that amazed me over the weekend: ESPN’s Joe Schad wrote “Jimmy Clausen Heisman? ESPN Research says 6 TD, 0 INT when trailing in 4th Quarter.”

H. Twitter note number two that amazed me over the weekend: ESPN’s Adam Schefter wrote “On third down, where Dallas won the game, Tony Romo was nine-of-11 for 140 yards, one touchdown and that quarterback rating of 149.1.”

I. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again and again. I’d play for Atlanta head coach Mike Smith a million times over. His antics against DeAngelo Hall (the worst role model in any professional American sport) were outstanding. Hall wanted to take on the entire Atlanta Falcons sidelines after a cheap shot on Matt Ryan by Laron Landry. The Falcons gladly obliged to take on the world’s biggest moron. And out of nowhere Smith, who is in his 50s, plowed through the pile and got right in the grill of the helmeted Hall. That’s leadership I’ll get behind any day.

J. The top two wide receivers for the Dallas Cowboys played at Northwestern Oklahoma State (Patrick Crayton) and Monmouth (Miles Austin). And the two play in a billion dollar stadium. Jackpot!

K. Stat that caught my eye this week: Peyton Manning threw the ball 40 times in the first half against Houston. 40 times! Only five quarterbacks threw over 40 times in the entire game this week. Manning finished with 50 attempts in a lucky win against Houston.

L. Who is the Heisman leader right now? Finally, a weekend for separation for some players. Let’s throw Stanford’s Toby Gerhart and Clemson’s C.J. Spiller onto the ballot. But Colt McCoy then Jimmy Clausen are my one and number two picks right now.

M. Who is the early NFL MVP leader right now? It is still a two-horse race between Manning and Drew Brees. And a million other guys chasing after the top spot.