Morning Rumble 5/2: the Rumble of Omaha edition, or, remember Patrick Sellers?

Around the Big East that soon will be, starting on July 1st:

Creighton also announced some staff shakeups, bringing in former Hofstra assistant coach Patrick Sellers. Who, you may ask, is Patrick Sellers? Sellers was the interim head coach for Hofstra after Mo Cassara was fired (and before former Niagara coach Joe Mihalich was brought in)... he coached in China... and he was one of the fall guys for UConn's Nate Miles scandal, where having knowledge that Miles was being helped by an NBA agent (and former UConn team manager) nearly brought down Jim Calhoun.

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Which is to say, Sellers knows the Big East environment. Steve Merfield will give up his assistant coaching spot to be the "Director of Player Development", which is being advertised as a promotion.

More on Creighton - Doug McDermott’s return is good for him and even better for Creighton | The Dagger - Yahoo! Sports

Even if McDermott drops a few spots [in the NBA Draft next year] because of his decision, chances are he won't regret it. He now has a chance to play one more year for his dad, to be part of a new era of Creighton basketball and to try to lead the Bluejays beyond the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

What's more, we all get to see it. It may have been difficult to find McDermott on TV when he was facing the likes of Illinois State and Bradley the past few years, but next season his throwback game will be on TV twice a week for college basketball fans to enjoy.

Georgetown loses a center to transfer, the little-used Brandon Bolden. Casual Hoya puts it best:

In October 2010, Bolden committed to Georgetown after midnight madness following a recruitment that drew little fanfare. The next two years were equally mysterious. While scouting reports said that Bolden had plenty of raw athletic promise but little polish, the passage of time revealed even less on-court production. Box scores, highlight reels, and even full games are available for seemingly every high school player with a chance of playing in a major program. Yet, Bolden seemed to rarely play, and there were few video clips on which to judge him. As a result, Georgetown fans had seen less of Bolden than any recent incoming Hoya, including a guy who had recently immigrated from Nigeria [ed note: Moses Ayegba] and another who, as you might have heard, didn't play AAU [ed note: Otto Porter].

Newcomers to the league

Marquette adds a verbal commit from a 2015 guard, Nick Noskowiak, who is labeled as playing the game with flair and can shoot. It seems early for Buzz Williams to get a commit, but the in-state recruit had interest from rival Wisconsin (or Wisconsin-Madison, as our Anonymous Eagle friends like to call the candy stripers a few hours from Milwaukee).

Creighton adds a 6'2 junior college guard named James Milliken, ranked #39th best JUCO prospect by JUCO recruiting. "James is someone that my staff and I feel can score the basketball in a variety of ways," said Creighton head coach Greg McDermott.

Milliken's coach, Tommy DeSalme of Cowley County Community College, adds that "he can score in all different ways, and is an unreal athlete who makes it look easy with the things he can do athletically. God gifted him in a lot of ways and he's worked hard to become a great shooter. He is the total package on the basketball court."

(man, we have a lot of Omaha news here.)

Seton Hall snags a JUCO guard for depth to go with transfer Sterling Gibbs and incoming freshman Jaren Sina. From South Orange Juice:

Hakeem's path to Seton Hall is an interesting one. He committed to Columbia before decommitting and pledging to Brown in the spring of 2010 while playing at Blair Academy (N.J.). However, Hakeem left Brown mid-season after failing to play due to injury. Harris then played at Broward CC (Fla.) before finally ending up at Connors State College (Okla.) for the 2012-13 season. Hakeem averaged 12.4 ppg, 4 rpg, 3.4 apg and shot 54-145 (37.2%) from 3pt last campaign, fitting the Willard mold nicely. He was not in JucoRecruiting.com's 2013 Top 100 Player Rankings.

Are those impact recruits? Not likely. But the Hall and Creighton go with solid depth adds as the teams prepare for a league with so many rising programs (Villanova, St. John's, Providence, possibly Xavier) and established squads (Georgetown, Marquette, Butler, Creighton).