Story: www.arkansasbusiness.com/sports_blog_post.asp?pID=5327

Money quote from Coach Brady:

Arkansas State gave him an opportunity to play at a high level and put him in a system that allowed him to showcase his talent and prove himself as a player in his first year of Division I basketball. We gave him a scholarship when other schools that saw him did not. It is a situation that really disappoints me, upsets me, is not right and does not sit well with me.

This is a SAVAGE hit to Arkansas State's short term future. That team is like night and day when Reed was on court and in the starting lineup vs. when he wasn't, even in micro-stretches when he'd get rested in games.

I wonder where he'll end up. SBC board says the coach who recruited him is going to Wichita State, but they had a full slate of signings (no scholarships to spare) and couldn't even free one up for Chris Babb.

Huge story....and really hurts ASU's ambitions of controlling the West going forward. Brady probably saw Reed as his ticket back up to the Big Leagues.

Work in the Arkansas papers is that they've also got a scholarship and practice restriction APR penalty coming down on them this year. Not a fun time to be Brady.

Tough to build when you're losing highly regarded freshmen on almost an annual basis. Wedel left when Nutt was fired, now Reed leaves when his assistant coach/recruiter leaves for a new job.

I figured it was gonna be us and ASU next year in the West. Not sure - but i'd imagine we'd be big time favorites now

Totally agree.

FIU on talent and FAU on talent/coaching scare me from the east, but nobody else seems to be (at this point) in our ballpark, even without Tramiel. ASU is still going to be pretty damn good, but losing Reed makes them probably the best of the second tier of SBC teams.

I'll be interested to see how MTSU weathers the loss of Yates (my bet is: very poorly) and how Denver handles Rohnert's graduation (not much better).

I don't blame Brady but this happens fairly often to Belt teams. Kudos to JJ who to my knowledge has never had an eligible player transfer that he didn't encourage to do so with the exception of Mangrum.

NT should be in great shape next year but don't rule out WKU who again got a great recruiting class on paper or Thomas' FIU who signed a 6'9 player who may be the highest rated recruit every in the Belt. FIU gave NT more than they could handle last year and they should be much much better.