Growing up I played a lot of basketball with a lot of different kids in the neighborhood. One particular boy who always appreciated a nice game of one-on-one was a neighbor down the street. When the weather was warm we scraped knees and rolled ankles nearly every day. My neighbor had an immense amount of talent, and I was blown away that someone with so much natural ability would  "choose not to play" in any sort of organized league. I quizzed him, quizzed his parents, quizzed my parents even.

It turned out that neighbor of mine was a Jehovah Witness, and as a freakishly active kid growing up, I damn near cried when I learned the harsh reality that Kingdom Hall did not allow its members to participate in team competition.

The situation of my neighbor has always stayed with me, and I was reminded of it once again after reading this great piece on USC's Dewayne Dedmon by Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard, published this week as part of the magazine's college basketball preview.

Living in Southern California, Dedmon's mother became a Jehovah Witness in 1995 to seek structure in her life. As her relationship with the church deepened, her son was growing faster than everyone around him. Naturally, Dedmon was drawn to the game of basketball and became sort of a folk hero in the San Bernadino Valley - "the tall kid who wasn't allowed to play."

After wrestling with the decision to essentially diss his mother's religious beliefs and pursue organized basketball, Dedmon's story from JuCo star to current NBA prospect is fascinating.

Hopefully this feel-good story can serve as a bit of a deterrent to what has been an incredibly ugly sports week.

The Unfounded Rumor That Swirled Around the Web of the Week was an explanation as to why the Syracuse Orange had fallen into a four game losing streak. It was not because two of those opponents were ranked in the top 10, or that their opponents shot a combined 33-69 from behind the three-point line during that four game span, or even because this Orange team might have been overachieving to begin the season 18-0.

No, the reason was a point shaving scandal, according to WYNN’s Andy Adamson who posted the rumor on PokerFives.com.

And because they're Google News keyword hounds and focus on mounds of traffic rather then serving as a network of solid writing by passionate fans and aspiring sports writers, BleacherReport.com jumped on it, hungry to be out in front of the story. Correspondent TJ Corbs, who has "been watching sports in the Northeast Corridor and reading interweb newsgroups for many years" and has an avatar of a pig wearing cow slippers, really brought the rumor to light, and now he looks downright silly. Because the rumor never had legs, Corbs' story has been removed by BleacherReport. Luckily, the the cached version still has the original article and should be available for at least a few days.

Naturally, this form of reporting was quite unsettling to a number of venerable sports writers, including Dave Kindred. Kindred, a former columnist for The Sporting News and commentary contributor to Indiana University's National Sports Journalism Center, took the sports blogging and new media world to task, essentailly asking when all this crappy content would dissipate to allow the cream to rise:

This dreck makes me happy because, some wonderful day, readers will notice. They will notice what's terrible and what's terrific, yes, by damn, they will. The more of the terrible they see, the sooner they'll look for the terrific. And on some handsome day in the Digital Age, they'll march into the town square demanding the terrific.

Apologizes for being biased, but I think the movement of fans understanding certain bloggers can actually be considered as a reliable source of sports news and commentary, and developing that sixth sense of what is shit, is well underway. Sure BleacherReport gets criticized for much of its content, but there's plenty of other similar networks (SB Nation included, obvi!) which are well respected, generate positive sentiments by venture capitalists, and are doing it the right way. Eventually all this will sort itself out, and Kindred - an "old-line, ink-stained" scribe - seems to welcome that day in his piece.

Everyone is raving about George Dohrmann's book, "Play Their Hearts Out." It's been called "a stinging portrait,"eight years of reporting in sharp, syrup-free prose," and " given the current college environment, its publication could not be more timely," All signs point to it becoming a book that can sit next to "The Last Shot" and "The Assist" on a bookshelf.

Now that the first wave of readers have had their chance to read through this 422-page expose, the Arizona Republic's Doug Haller posted a great Q&A on the book's main character, Demetrius Walker.

Currently sitting out this season after transferring from Arizona State to New Mexico, Walker comes off as content, happy, and totally cool with being used as a pawn in Joe Keller's game of chess as the slimy AAU coach looked to secure a better life for himself at the expense of a group of teen-aged basketball players.

If you've finished reading "Play Their Hearts Out," or have just heard about its release, definitely read Haller's interview and you'll see that Walker is just fine with his place in the basketball landscape.

It's the first Assigned Reading that's gonna cost you a bit of ched, but if you're a fan of the Syracuse Orange (or any big-time DI athletic program), have a son on the way (because men aren't required to mold their daughters into sports fans), or just appreciate a savvy blogger turned writer (yes, they exist) then Sean Keeley's "How to Grow An Orange" is a must buy.

Mr. Keeley, as you better frieken know, is the man behind SB Nation's Troy Nunes Is An Absloute Magician. He's also a great guy, one with the courage to single-handedly roasting the veracity of all those must-read paperbacks on fatherhood written by child development authors and psychologists that don't have a lick of wit to them. Sean's far more entertaining, and he's only charging $9.99 to help you become a better father.

Per Sean:

Georgetown & UConn fans probably won't appreciate much of it.  It's also a little salty so probably not the best gift for a five-year-old.  And I'd advise against Greg Robinson purchasing a copy.  Otherwise, every other person on the planet will enjoy it.

This sounds like an excellent way to spend ten bucks; go so check it out. It must be good, because even Google is sending me digital smoke signals that this should be added to my summer reading list

As we pass deadline day for underclassmen withdrawing from the NBA Draft, The Lexington Herald-Leader's Mark Story reports on what we all have been chatting about the past few weeks regarding Kentucky basketball: that the Wildcats are fast becoming nothing more than a short-term haven for top flight one-and-donners.

It's too bad, really, but with John Calipari branding himself as a purveyor of NBA ready point guards who simply need something to do before becoming elgible to play in The League, it's clear this is the direction the program is headed in.

Now five seasons into the one-and-done rule, Story offers some nice statistics on blue-chip laden teams, suggesting that UK's approach probably isn't going to lead to One Shining Moment.

Were you aware that college athletes get laid...like...a lot? Well if you were completely naive, former Florida guard (former in that he has recently transferred out of Gainesville) Ray Shipman offered some candid information to the Independent Florida Alligator today, suggesting that DI athletes have a harder time not fooling around with random co-eds, and never find themselves in a position where they have to forcefully whip out their cocks or unsuccessfully lure ladies into a public bathroom.

Somewhere, Ben Roethlisberger is eagerly seeking to meet these types of women.

Shipman having to come out and share his experiences publicly, like he's making some sort of earth shattering announcement, is what makes me chuckle. Was he thinking only Gator QBs can have their pick of tan-skinned undergrads? We know that hasn't been happening. Maybe he thought that his pedestrian 2.7-points per game was inadequate or something.

"There are girls that go out there for athletes. They do that intentionally," he said. "Maybe it’s the crowd or the games."

This is by no means a newsie story, but worth a read if you got two minutes to kill. Clearly, it's a slow news day in Central Florida.

We all know that money is the motive behind expanding the greatest tournament in sports to 96-teams. This idea of more money though is more about making the NCAA and its largets conferences richer, ostensibly doing little to fill the pockets of the little guy.

The New York Times' Ken Belson outlines how money would be distributed among college basketball's 31 conferences and sheds some light on what's sure to become an epic bidding war between CBS and the Worldwide Leader. In short, the Big Six (also known as the BCS conferences) plus the Atlantic 10 and Conference USA, would receive upwards of 71 percent of the money pie. This money is based on a conference's participants and wins per tournament.

Yes, a 96-team tournament would mean a tad more money for small conferences, with the "one-bid league" likely becoming extinct. But it also means that middling Providence, Seton Hall, Miami, Penn State, etc., etc. would also be dancing. To use a cliche... the rich just keep getting richer. And John Feinstein becomes more and more infuriated.

Despite a crazy first two rounds, there's actually a perfect bracket out there... one that foresaw Ohio's upset of Georgetown, Kansas' shocking defeat in the second round, and even had the guts to put Cornell in the Sweet 16. That bracket comes from 17-year-old Alex Hermann, a Chicago-area native who suffers form autism, but is clearly more in tune with college basketball then people like me.

While young Hermann might have a future in bracketology, he's also got a great PR sense to him. After realizing he had a perfect bracket through 48 tournament games, he told his mother to get on the phone and alert the media, because, we just might have a story here.

It's probably a stretch to everyone, but Alex has Purdue (his brothers alma-mater) cutting down the nets in Indy. Perhaps we're all just overvaluing their injured star Robbie Hummel.

According to NBCCHicago.com, it cannot be confirmed if Alex's bracket was indeed submitted before last Thursday at noon, and CBS Sports did not return their calls. But I refuse to be a skeptic here. Hats off to Alex. Dude knows what's up.