Coach Cal reloads on the fly...

Last year, Derrick Rose. Next year, it will be Tyreke Evans. In the span of 36 hours, two very big things happened in Coach Cal's Closet. The first was the announcement that Rose, having spent seven months college, is leaving for the NBA green. No big secret. No big surprise. That was followed up a day later when Evans, the Philadelphia hoops prodigy who is rated a top three player nationally, announced he was coming to Memphis.

Evans is, by all accounts, a wonderful offensive player. He is a chiseled 6'5" and 200 pounds. He averaged 29 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists last season for American Christian Academy. While he will fill the scoring void created by Rose, he is not a point guard. Instead, he will settle into the shooting guard/small forward spot that was manned by Chris Douglas-Roberts.

In the spirit of Rose (and DeJuan Wagner before him), Evans will most likely spend one season with Cal and then play for pay. The similarities to Rose don't end there. Rose's recruiting was run by his older brothers. There were grumblings that his brothers were too involved and that they were shutting out his high school coach. Some even whispered that perhaps their hands were out, looking for a little "something-something". (Shocking! we know!) Evans, too, comes complete with his brothers-led-entourage. Tyreke hardly ever spoke to the media the last 18 months. But we sure did hear a lot from his brothers. For almost two years, the Brothers Evans spouted off about North Carolina being Tyreke's dream school. Girl Roy Williams got so tired of the act, as well as the obligatory entourage, that he completely stopped recruiting Evans. Then Louisville moved to the top of the list (followed closely by Villanova). But when it was clear that Cardinal junior Terrance Williams was not going to the NBA, Louisville got nixed and Memphis entered the picture. In the end, Memphis beat out Villanova. (Perhaps, in part, because Tyreke wants to get away from his Chester neighborhood. He is a witness in the attempted murder trial of his 16-year old cousin. Click here to read that story.)