Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew.

+ The World Wide Leader has launched a debate on which state reigns supreme in boys’ basketball and the Hoosier state is not among the top six seeds as the competition kicks off. {ESPN}

+ The News and Tribune sits down with Tom Crean for five questions after his appearance on Tuesday night in Southern Indiana. {The News and Tribune}

+ Lawrence North junior Justin Martin tells Kyle Neddenriep that the Wildcats have a new nickname – “Louisville North.” {Indianapolis Star}

Quotable:

“We’ve been showing signs and playing well in stretches — we just don’t have that belief yet. We try to stress that we just need to get one step closer every day. We know there is a long way to go, but it’s not like it’s light years away.” – Crean on how he remains optimistic during the rebuilding process.

We’re already hearing things about the coaching search — Kevin Stallings this, Scott Skiles that — so it’s probably appropriate to make a note of Pat Forde’s story today about Bruce Pearl. It’s a lot of stuff most of you probably already know. For example, Pearl’s fiasco at Iowa, when he turned rival Illinois in for recruiting violation — and that made him a pariah in the tight-knit, stop snitching world of college basketball coaching — is common knowledge. Also, if you aren’t privy by now to the man’s record, or his charisma, you probably don’t have ESPN.

Still, after reading Forde’s story, it’s pretty impossible not to want Bruce Pearl to be the next head coach at IU. See for yourself.

ESPN.com just dropped a bomb on us, folks: the NCAA sent a letter to IU last Friday detailing major — not secondary like all the phone call nonsense we had to endure earlier this season — violations in the men’s basketball program. A quick blockquote of the particulars:

Larry MacIntyre, assistant vice president for university communications at Indiana University, confirmed to ESPN.com that the school did receive documentation from the NCAA last week.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday night that the school will make the allegations public on Wednesday. University trustees president Stephen Ferguson told AP that school officials this week reviewed the report, but that the NCAA is not expected to make its ruling until this summer.

“There won’t be a hearing till this June,” Ferguson told AP. “It’s just been reviewed, and I think everyone is analyzing it now.”

OK, so the good out of all this: looks like this season is not in jeopardy, since nothing will come of this till June. But then there’s the bad news: oh, the bad news. At this point, I’d prefer not to get overly reactionary. I’m trying to sit here calmly in my living room just past midnight on Feb. 13, 2008 and think all is well with the team I love; the team I write about; the team I’ll follow till the Good Lord takes me from this Earth.

(more…)

Thanks to a helpful hat-tip from the IDS’ Basketblog — who I presume were able to catch this video early in the day because they are college students not soullessly working the 9-5 — here’s a video of Eric Gordon’s appearance on ESPN’s “First Take.” (Those of you unfamiliar with “First Take”: It’s “Cold Pizza” with 90 percent more Skip Bayless, which is always a blast.)

Anyway, E.J. talks about the player he most models his game after (it’s not who you think), why he wears No. 23, and a whole bunch of other topics. Enjoy.