UK hoops notebook: Ga. breaking through?

When Georgia forward Trey Thompkins was 4, his father gave him a basketball and some career counseling. "Maybe you can be good at this," Howard Thompkins, the father, told his son.

It took awhile, but Howard Thompkins III (hence, "Trey") came to realize his father might be right.

"I was probably 8 years old," he said when asked about the birth of his dream to play in the NBA. "Because that's when I actually started liking basketball."

Fast forward to this spring. Thompkins surely showed more than enough promise to enter this year's draft. And as we learned with Kentucky freshman Daniel Orton, a player does not have to produce a great deal to attract NBA attention. Orton projects as a possible first-round pick after averaging 3.4 points and 13.2 minutes last season.

"Orton underlines why the draft is about potential," said Chris Ekstrand, an NBA consultant who specializes in the draft. "If production (was the key element), there would be 10 rounds of guys before him."

That makes Thompkins' decision to return to Georgia next season all the more surprising. Doesn't anyone with NBA aspirations jump at the first chance to turn pro? Even more so for a player whose father was an NBA Draft pick.

Thompkins led Georgia last season with averages of 17.7 points and 8.3 rebounds, plus he made 37.7 percent of his three-point attempts, so he clearly qualified for inclusion.

"I'm a religious person," Thompkins said last week when asked about not being part of Thursday's NBA Draft. "I feel the Lord has a plan for me. Whatever his plan is, it will happen. There's no rush."

Thompkins came to Georgia two years ago as a bona fide recruiting coup. He ranked as high as sixth, no worse than top 25 nationally in his high school class.

For Thompkins, that high rating meant responsibility. "It meant I had to work as hard as I could," he said. "There are so many players just as good. I have to figure out what can separate me."

Georgia's end-of-season banquet inspired Thompkins to announce his intention of returning next season. "Definitely spur of the moment," he said. "It was a shock to even me. I just decided maybe I need to come back to school."

Of course, Georgia Coach Mark Fox welcomed the news. He lauded the maturity shown by Thompkins and teammate Travis Leslie in carefully weighing options and choosing to return to the Bulldogs. As Fox saw it, it didn't take a model of maturity to see the wisdom in returning.

"Eighty-some (underclassmen) declared," the Georgia coach said. "Even if no seniors or foreigners are drafted, there are going to be some heartbroken players. Just the math of it was crazy."

Thompkins and Leslie have worked on "unspectacular things," Fox said. Leslie wants better perimeter skills; Thompkins works to be more explosive athletically and to gain greater endurance.

Thompkins cited one other factor in the decision to return. At long last, Georgia basketball shows promise. With Thompkins and Leslie returning, plus the addition of transfer guard Gerald Robinson (a 1,000-point scorer for Tennessee State), the Bulldogs can expect to move up the standings after being no better than tied for fifth in the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division since 2007.

"I think we can do some things next season," Thompkins said.

Earlier this spring, columnist Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution judged the progress made under Fox.

"Georgia finished an honorable 14-17 in the season just completed, beating Tech, Illinois, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Florida en route," Bradley wrote. "But that was accomplished with the players Fox inherited from Dennis Felton, and two of them — Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie — turned out to be quite good. It's clear from one season that Fox can coach what talent he has. At issue was whether a guy who'd never before worked east of Manhattan, Kan., could attract talent.

"Marcus Thornton was kind of an early acid test. Fox had no shot at him last fall because Fox hadn't yet proved anything to us locals, but when the state's Mr. Basketball becomes unaccountably available and you're the state school ... well, you pretty much have to get him, don't you?"

Georgia got him.

Having avoided early departures to the draft, the Bulldogs seem capable of, as Thompkins said, doing some things.

'My way'

Former UK guard Dirk Minniefield proudly watched his son, Darin, play in the NBA Players Association-sponsored Top 100 Camp last week in Charlottesville, Va. He flashed the same infectious smile and enthusiastic goodwill that made you want to root for him no matter what difficult circumstances complicated his life.

For instance, in December 2008, he was arraigned in his hometown of Houston, Texas, on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud involving an alleged mortgage scheme. Standing courtside before one of his son's games last week, Minniefield said he would be declared innocent once the legal process plays out.

The charges followed well-chronicled problems with drug use, which brought his NBA career to a premature end and led him to become a counselor.

"All in all, life is good," said Minniefield, now (brace yourself) a grandfather of 11. "I got to do everything I wanted to do in life. I didn't do it as long as I'd like.

"But I have no regrets. I did it my way. That doesn't mean I was always right. But I did it my way."

Darin Minniefield, who will be a ninth-grader this fall, was playing in his second Top 100 Camp. He also participated two years ago before entering the seventh grade.

"I've got moves," Minniefield said of getting his son in the camp at such a tender age. "I figured they owed me something. This year he belongs."

The Top 100 Camp gives his son something Dirk said he never had: an idea of what it takes to be an elite player and what it means.

"I was just thrown into it," Minniefield said of the basketball world. "No one told me this is what's coming next. I had to figure it out as I went along, understanding how good I was and the responsibility that goes with that. By the time I figured it out, I had three kids and was smoking marijuana."

Name game

Zeke Chapman was not sure how his parents came up with his name.

"I think it came from Jerry West, Zeke from Cabin Creek," he said.

Father Rex Chapman, the former UK basketball star, said West was not the inspiration.

"We went back and forth," he said. "Somebody said 'Zeke' one day and we said, 'all right.'

"Our parents were saying, 'Zeke? Is it Ezekiel?' No, just Zeke. They were less than thrilled with it."

Darin Minniefield was destined to have a name that started with the letter "D." His father, Dirk Minniefield, another former UK standout, has twin sons, Derrick and Darrick, 31, daughter Dishanta, 32, and daughter Daria, 10.

His wife gave Darin his name.

"I just said, it's got to be a 'D,'" Minniefield said.

With one exception: No Dirk Junior.

"I don't want a junior," Minniefield said. "There's only one of me."

Farewell, NCAA tourney?

The talk of a major re-alignment of conferences led ESPN analyst Jay Bilas to ponder a changing landscape in college basketball.

"I don't think that basketball is an afterthought, but I do believe that after conference expansion is complete and we have more powerful super conferences, it stands to reason that the big shots will consider starting their own basketball tournament," he wrote in an e-mail. "Given the revenue generated by the power conference teams, I can see the super conferences breaking away from the NCAA to start their own thing. It may be many years in the future, but I think it could be a future possibility."

A world without the NCAA Tournament?

"With super-conferences, it seems inevitable that there will be a separation between financially viable and committed programs and those that are not, both in football and basketball," Bilas wrote. "It is certainly that way in football now, and the world is still on its axis and the sun continues to rise in the east. Perhaps some might miss an upset here or there if the big shots broke away from the NCAA, but the Republic will remain standing and the new thing would be embraced.

"Remember, the NIT used to be the biggest thing in college basketball. Anyone crying over that now? And, the Southwest Conference was a football power, and the Metro Conference was Louisville's home. Nobody cares anymore. New traditions can and will take hold. I may be alone, but forming a new thing separate from the NCAA is the next logical step."

'Atypical' view

Well-known critic Murray Sperber watched as college athletics underwent a money-driven reassessment. In that re-evaluation and relatively mild realignment, college basketball seemed an afterthought. Kansas, the third-winningest program, stared at the prospect of being abandoned to its own devices.

"I think that college basketball put itself in the back seat in college sports when it totally embraced the NCAA tourney and sealed it with conference playoffs at the end of the season," he said. "You and I can remember when winning the Big Ten title was a big deal. Now it is merely a footnote to a season that depends on how well you do in The Big Dance.

"But college football never abandoned the importance of conferences. It diluted it with the BCS bowls but they depend on conference standing for positioning. Also playing so many fewer games per year means that games in conference are very important."

As for the alarm anyone might see in a program like Kansas holding little sway, Sperber said, " ... Kentucky, Indiana, and Kansas are atypical schools in that basketball is king at those places and football often a poor relative. In most of the rest of big-time college sports, the opposite is true. So, we see the world from an atypical point of view."

Camp notes

A few leftover notes from the Top 100 Camp:

■ With only a Saturday night session remaining, Bowling Green High's Chane Behanan was the camp's second-leading scorer at 14.8 points per game. The No. 3 scorer was Duke-bound wing Michael Gbinije (pronounced BEN-a-jay) at 14.0 ppg.

■ Cody Zeller, younger brother of North Carolina big man Tyler Zeller and Notre Dame player Luke Zeller, averaged 12.2 points.

■ Highly regarded junior-to-be J.P. Tokoto belatedly broke into the scoring column. He failed to score in his team's first three games, which left him greatly vexed. Then he scored four and eight points in the next two games.

■ Darin Minniefield averaged 2.4 points and Zeke Chapman 2.2.

■ Anthony Davis, who has UK on his list, plans to visit within the next two weeks.

■ Behanan, who has a 3.4 grade-point average according to Bowling Green Coach D.J. Sherrill, quoted Rick Pitino when asked his college position. "Point forward is what Pitino says," he said. "Like a guard and a forward at the same time. That's what he sees and that's what I've got to see." The camp measured Behanan's height as 6-foot-6 without shoes.

Tickets for Canada

At mid-week last week, there were about 500 tickets remaining for Kentucky's exhibition game against the University of Windsor on Sunday, Aug. 15.

For UK's games in Windsor on Aug. 16 and 17, there were about 1,200 tickets available.

Elisa Mitton, the sports information person for Windsor, said she had received ticket requests from "all over North America." The requests from as far away as Texas, Maryland and Florida marked a departure from Windsor's past experience.

"Oh, usually there's a small core group from that state," Mitton said of the usual ticket demand for these exhibition games. "For Ohio State, there were a lot of fans from Ohio. None (of the visiting schools) had this cross-country reaction. It's awesome."

Windsor averages about 1,500 fans for its home games, so the school is hoping the exhibitions against Kentucky do not have the feel of a road game.

The school's St. Denis Centre will seat 2,500 for the games. Tickets, which cost $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under, can be purchased by calling (519) 253-3000 (Ext. 2447 or Ext. 2437).

Happy birthday

To former UK player Ravi Moss. He turns 26 on Monday.

This story was originally published June 20, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "UK hoops notebook: Ga. breaking through?."