Louisville coach Rick Pitino failed to gain entry into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, per a source.

"He was very disappointed," the source said. "He thought his chances were good."

The class of 2012 includes Reggie Miller, Bernard King and Don Nelson.

Alex Oriakhi’s transfer options may be limited by the bylaws of various conferences throughout the country, such as the Southeastern Conference.

Oriakhi completed three years of eligibility at UConn. The SEC requires prospective transfers to have more than one year of eligibility remaining.

SEC schools Florida, Kentucky and Missouri had been mentioned as possible destinations.

Bradley Beal is returning to St. Louis this weekend to huddle with his family and decide whether to return to Florida for his sophomore season or declare for the NBA draft.

“I know it's going to be a hard decision for him,” Beal's father, Bobby Beal said Thursday.”Some people say (leaving) is a no-brainer, but I know that he loves college, loves the atmosphere down there.”

Beal, a 6-foot-3, 207 pound shooting guard, is a consensus top-5 pick.

“We'll sit down as a family and weigh all the pros and cons and try to come to a decision,” Bobby Beal said.

Arnett Moultrie will declare for the draft after one season at Mississippi State.

"I have enjoyed my time at Mississippi State University and I will never forget the people I met and got to know," Moultrie said in a statement. "Nor will I ever forget my coaches and teammates. Keep me in your prayers and I will keep Bulldog Nation in mine."

The first-team All-SEC player averaged 16.4 points and 10.5 rebounds this season and is projected as a first round pick.

Anthony Davis said his injured left knee is at about “90 percent.”

“My knee is better,” Davis said. “I got a lot of treatment and rehab for it. I’ll be fine – just keep icing it, keep getting treatment.”
Davis left Kentucky's South Region final win over Baylor with what the team termed a "contusion."

He averages 14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and 4.6 blocks a game.

Arizona and UNLV are out of the race to sign basketball star Shabazz Muhammad

"It's at three right now, yeah," Muhammad said. "UCLA, Kentucky and Duke. Right now, those are probably the last three before I make my decision."

Muhammad, Naismith National Player of the Year, said he liked UNLV and Kansas, but wanted to be honest with coaches who kept ringing his phone.

"I just think it was the calls," Muhammad said. "The schools that I took out, I liked them, but I wasn't really interested in going. I didn't want to lead them on. I want them to do the best they can to recruit other players and not recruit me anymore. I just thought that was the mature thing to do."

Muhammad was awarded MVP honors Wednesday in the McDonald's All-American Game, scoring 21 points to lead the West to a 106-102 victory.

"When you come to every event, you want to be known as the best player at the event," he said. "Knowing everybody's talented, this is the elite 24, top 24 guys in the country, and just coming in knowing everybody's competing, competing is a beautiful thing."

Kentucky played together for the first time during summer pickup games with NBA players, with the most extensive visit coming from the Oklahoma City Thunder, which brought most of its roster to Lexington for nearly a week.

The Wildcats struggled early on.

“They came out here and just tried to kill us, really,” Doron Lamb said. “They weren’t taking it easy on us — especially Kevin Durant. Every time he got the ball, he tried to shoot it. And he was talking junk.”

“It think it helped start us off knowing we needed each other,” Terrence Jones said, “because if we did it one by one, we were going to get destroyed by those players. We had to help on defense, had to do something on offense to free each other up or we weren’t going to win.”

By the end of the Thunder's visit, the Wildcats were holding their own and carrying a new confidence that this season might be as special as fans hoped.

“We were pretty excited about that,” Darius Miller said. “That’s when we knew we had a pretty good team.”

“We figured out how good we could be,” Marquis Teague said, “if we were unselfish.”

“We started winning those games and beating some of the best players in the world — just because we were doing it together,” Jones said. “We knew from that point on we were going to have to do it together.”

Shabazz Muhammad seems to have narrowed his college choices.

“I’m considering five but there are three that [stand out],” Muhammad announced.

UCLA, Duke, and Kentucky (in no order) have put themselves in the forefront, with Kansas and UNLV rounding out the top five.

Muhammad is expected to announce his decision on April 11 — the first day of the spring signing period which runs through May 16.

Rick Pitino stresses defensive activity and timely closeouts beyond the three-point arc.

“We have a defensive chart that if we get 35-plus deflections, which encompasses five different areas of defense — steals, tips from behind, blocked shots, actual deflections and loose ball recoveries — if we get 95 percent of that, don’t allow the opposition to shoot a high percentage from the 3-point line, we’ll win 95 percent of our games,” Pitino said.

Louisville ranks 17th in three-point field goal percentage defense and 8th in steal percentage.

“If I’m forcing 23 turnovers and only turning over 13, and I have that 10 differential, that’s meaningful,” said Pitino.

Renardo Sidney will forgo his senior season at Mississippi State and turn pro.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on at Mississippi State right now,” Sidney said in an interview. “I’ve been thrown in the fire all year, so I’m not going back through that stuff any more.”

Sidney has signed with an agent and will attend IMG Academy in Florida over the next “three to four” months in preparation for a professional career.