Got a little basketball nugget for you this afternoon.

Former Arkansas guard Patrick Beverley, who was selected by the L.A. Lakers in the second round of the NBA Draft and traded to the Miami Heat, will have to wait on playing in the NBA a little longer. According to a couple of reports, Beverley is going back overseas and will play for the Greek team Olympiacos.

Not necessarily a bad move for Beverley even though his goal was to play in the NBA next season. The Greek league has plenty of talent. He’ll also be playing for the team that signed former Atlanta Hawks forward Josh Childress last year and former NBA shooting guard Von Wafer earlier this month.

(UPDATE)

A friend of mine who covers the Heat for the Miami Herald, Michael Wallace, has more on Beverley’s move to Greece on the Herald’s Web site this afternoon.

He got the story confirmed through Beverley’s agent, who said the 21-year-old is going overseas to play point guard at a “high level.” Beverley’s rights will be retained by the Heat, butplans to be back next season.

“It was just a move we all felt was in the best interest of Patrick and the team,” Bradbury told the Miami Herald. “It’s an opportunity for Patrick to get a chance to really focus on playing point guard at a high level. We expect him to come back to the Heat next season ready to contribute.”

So Patrick Beverley is a member of the Miami Heat. The former Arkansas guard was drafted by the Lakers, then traded to Miami late last night. It should be a good fit for both parties. At least, that’s what they believe.

There’s a couple of stories worth checking out in regard to Beverley this afternoon.

• The first comes from The Associated Press, which wrote a story about what the guard is most known for at the moment: Cheating on a class paper at Arkansas. Beverley was asked about the situation once again, but didn’t say anything new in regard to the paper he turned in and was suspended for. In his words — “I learned from my mistakes.”

• Beverley’s hometown of Chicago is also interested in the guard. Especially since he’s going Miami hoping to play alongside another Chicago native — Dwayne Wade. ESPN Chicago caught up with Beverley this morning. In Beverley’s words, being drafted was a “dream come true.” He also said he and his agent were quietly hoping he’d be selected by the Heat. Remember, Miami was the first team Beverley worked out for throughout the draft process and the guard told me he got a good vibe from the encounter.

I knew it was going to be a tough night when the second round of the NBA Draft didn’t start until 9:30. But it wasn’t too bad when Patrick Beverley was pulled off the draft board by the Los Angeles Lakers with the 42nd pick in the NBA Draft.

I had a story written. I had a couple quotes from ESPN and the Lakers plugged in. And I was just waiting for Beverley to return a call.

But I waited. And waited. And waited. Then I realized why he didn’t call me back.

Beverley was traded to the Miami Heat a little while later, swapped for a future second-round pick and some cash considerations. Not a good thing when you’re trying to squeeze a story in under deadline. Somehow I managed. I hope it makes sense.

Like I said, I never got a chance to touch base with Beverley but have talked to him a few times through the draft process. One piece of information worth noting is this: Miami was the first team that Beverley worked out with after returning from his stint overseas. And he told me a few weeks ago that he got a really, really good vibe from the Heat.

“I sat down with (Miami president) Pat Riley and the Heat seem really interested in me,” Beverley said back then. “They have the 43rd pick and the 60th pick. They’re very interested in me. The workouts went phenomenal.”

Miami didn’t get a chance to grab Beverley at 43, though, because L.A. took him with the 42nd pick. Miami took LSU guard Marcus Thornton instead, then traded him to the New Orleans Hornets. Eventually, Miami was able to get its hands on Beverley by putting together a trade with the Lakers.

I wonder if the Lakers thought the Heat wanted Beverley and took him?

Anyway, it’s a much better situation for Beverley. The Lakers were considered the deepest teams in the NBA and general manager Mitch Kupchak told Lakers.com after the draft that sending Beverley back overseas was an option.

There’s more room in the backcourt (and on the bench) in Miami. So Beverley’s goal now is to make the Heat’s roster, which is never guaranteed for second round guys. But Beverley has to feel good knowing a team that wanted him went out and got him tonight.

Check RazorbackCentral.com for more on Beverley going to the Heat. I’ll let you know here on the blog and on our Twitter pages (@NWARobbie and @NWAOnlineHogs) if and when I talk to Beverley about the wild night.

Patrick Beverley is gonna “straight truck” Los Angeles.

The former Arkansas guard was selected late Thursday night by the L.A. Lakers with the 12th pick in the second round of the NBA Draft. The talk heading into the draft was that Beverley could be a late first-round pick, but it was more likely that he’d be taken in the second round.

As it turns out, he was taken by the recently crowned NBA champions.

Beverley spent this past season playing professionally in the Ukraine after he left Arkansas following an academic scandal. He was suspended for cheating on a class paper, but he managed to resurrect his NBA dreams overseas.

Beverley could have a difficult time finding playing time in the Lakers’ backcourt. Maybe he’ll be sent to the D-League like the Denver Nuggets did last season with former Arkansas forward Sonny Weems. But Beverley is a good rebounder for an undersized guard, and he brings a toughness that might help him hang around the NBA.

Why is it that you always need a vacation from your vacation? I’m worn out after a four-day trip to Boston, but back at work. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that we haven’t had any new posts on our blog since the baseball team’s season ended on Friday.

Well, that’s about to change.

Here are a few items of interest that might capture your attention this afternoon (and help the work day get over a little quicker).

• What is going on with former Arkansas and Springdale High QB Mitch Mustain? Mustain seems to be having some eligibility trouble at Southern Cal according to this story in the L.A. Times. The story indicates that there’s a chance Mustain, who is USC’s third-string quarterback, may not be eligible to play football this fall. That would be an another unfortunate turn for Mustain, who hasn’t played much since leaving the Razorbacks after his freshman season.

• Along those same lines, check out this interesting piece by The Birmingham News’ Jon Solomon about quarterbacks who ran the spread offense in high school having trouble adjusting to pro style systems. Solomon leads the story with Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson, who we know was having to get used to being under center since arriving at Arkansas.

• Guess who is grabbing some NBA Draft headlines? Former Arkansas guard Patrick Beverley, who is profiled in this piece in his hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune. I tweeted a link to this story earlier today (you can check it out by following me at @NWARobbie). The draft is coming Thursday and Beverley seems to be a trendy pick to go in the second round. Beverley told me today he’s squeezing in a final workout with Cleveland tomorrow. I’ll have more on Beverley’s road to the NBA Draft on Thursday.

• This doesn’t have Arkansas ties other than the fact Beverley could be selected in the draft. But check it out anyway. I picked up a copy of the New York Times when I was waiting for my plane (which was delayed, then delayed again) in Boston yesterday morning. The Times put together an interesting piece on NBA Mock Drafts and how the guys that do them HATE them. That’s right. The story gives you some pretty good insight into the mock draft process.

Now that track and field is over, and I’m not in Omaha for the College World Series, things are slowing down a little in the Arkansas sports world. But let’s be honest: Does it ever stop? Never.

With that in mind, let’s peruse a few links with some Arkansas-related topics.

• First, let’s start with Ryan Malashock’s work from the College World Series last night. We all know it wasn’t a good night for the Razorbacks, who lost 9-1 to LSU. Two outs were especially brutal for Arkansas as Ryan reports. He also wrote a notebook breaking down Brett Eibner’s erratic performance, Louis Coleman’s night for the Tigers, and Jacob House’s two-out, pinch hit strikeout.

• What would Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino do if he wasn’t a football coach? John Adams of the Knoxville News-Sentinel takes a stab at it in an entertaining column you can find by clicking here. Adams guesses at what most coaches would do from Florida’s Urban Meyer (military career) to Ole Miss’ Houston Nutt (a used-car salesman). As for Petrino, Adams thinks he’d be a big city police chief.

• The deadline has come and gone for underclassmen wanting to remove their name from the NBA Draft pool. So who from the Southeastern Conference is left? Not many. In fact, with so much talent opting to skip the draft and return to college, FoxSports.com writer Jeff Goodman believes the league should be deemed a “winner” in this year’s draft.

• Patrick Beverley’s name has been in the news a lot lately for things he did off the court. But we’re starting to hear much more about his game on the court. The NBA Draft is coming pretty soon and Beverley has created some buzz in the workouts he has been part of. Donnie Walsh, the New York Knicks president of basketball operations, apparently was impressed, according to the end of this blog entry from New York Post.

Arkansas coach John Pelphrey met with the media this morning for the first time in quite some time.

As we all know, a lot has happened in the past several weeks, too.

I’ve got tons of items to cover and not enough space to do so in the newspaper. Sorry I couldn’t get to the blog earlier to give you some highlights, but I was stuck inside Bud Walton Arena without my laptop while a huge storm was passing through. But thanks to Alex Abrams for covering for me while I waited and waited and waited.

One thing I did want to get up on the blog was Pelphrey’s reaction to what we’ll call the Patrick Beverley situation.

Pelphrey was cautious with what he said because of privacy laws. But he did acknowledge he still has a relationship with Beverley despite the fact the former guard indicated he and teammates cheated. Beverley has since backed off those comments.

“We have a relationship,” Pelphrey said. “I’m always going to try to encourage Patrick and the rest of those guys to do the right things, take care of themselves, protect themselves. do the right things.”

Pelphrey said he spoke with Beverley every seven to 10 days during the season. Something Beverley also told me during one of the times I have spoken with him the past few weeks. Pelphrey said he hasn’t spoken with Beverley in a little while, but continues to hear about his progress through others in the basketball program.

As for what Beverley did say? Well, Pelphrey indicated it’s a situation the Razorbacks just have to deal with.

“I think there’s a lot of things, our job sometimes, that makes it tough or gives us, something else to kind of have to deal with,” Pelphrey said. “I’m sure there are days that I feel like anybody else who is kind of in charge of something. … It comes with the territory probably.”

  Arkansas basketball coach John Pelphrey held a news conference this morning, and since it was the first time he has spoken to the media in awhile, there was plenty of sound bites to come out.

  Robbie Neiswanger, who was at the news conference, passed these items along. We’ll have more later.

  Pelphrey said there will be no changes to his coaching staff despite last season’s collapse. The Razorbacks are also one over its scholarship limit, and Pelphrey said there is time for that to work itself out. In other words, someone could transfer or a recruit could not become academically eligible.

  Pelphrey said guard Marcus Britt, who was suspended indefinitely following his arrest for driving while intoxicated, is very remorseful and still around the team. And despite Patrick Beverley’s recent admission that he had someone else writing papers for him at Arkansas, Pelphrey said he still has a relationship with the former Arkansas guard.

  And finally, Arkansas must add one game in early January to fill its schedule. At the moment, Louisville (and Rick Pitino), Texas and Baylor highlight the Hogs’ nonconference schedule.

  Again, Robbie will have more on Pelphrey’s news conference later on the blog and in The Morning News.

As you probably know by now, former Arkansas basketball player Patrick Beverley has said some pretty volatile things about the incident that led to his departure from the Razorbacks

But it wasn’t just his admission that he cheated on a class paper that got my attention and led to this story, which appears in The Morning News today. It was the fact that he said other teammates had it done as well in an interview on DraftExpress.com.

In case you weren’t aware, here were the words:

“It was some things that happened with me and my team,” Beverley said. “Someone from Arkansas was doing papers, was doing me and some of my teammates’ papers. Basically, instead of ratting my team out, I just said it was just me and I was forced to have a year of ineligibility.”

I heard this quote for the first time about an hour before I spoke with Beverley on Friday. It caught me by surprise. My plan was to write a feature on the former Arkansas guard as he continues to try to work his way into the NBA. I still did that. Was I going to ask him about his departure and see if he was ready to talk more about it for the feature? Of course. But his statement to DraftExpress that other teammates were involved changed the scope of what I was working on in an instant.

So near the end of my interview, I started asking Beverley about the situation and the quote from DraftExpress. He was much more guarded in his response, especially about any former teammates being involved. What he told me was this:

“I definitely don’t want to throw anybody under the bus,” Beverley said. “But people were doing papers. I was given paperwork. Someone wrote a paper and I turned it in. Like I said, I was wrong about that. To this day, I’ll always tell the truth. I stood accountable and told them, ‘Yeah, I turned in a paper that wasn’t mine.’”

I asked him a little more, trying to get him open up about the scope of the situation. Again, he wouldn’t implicate teammates, but said it has been a relief for him to talk openly about his mistakes.

“It’s been like stress relieving, you know what I’m saying?” Beverley said. “A lot of people thought it was because of grades. It really put a dark cloud over me. People took me leaving and took it a lot of other ways. People really didn’t know about what happened except the people that were in the program. It feels real good letting everybody know how it was.”

Clearly, this is a head scratching situation. Allegations of academic fraud are taken very seriously at Arkansas, the Southeastern Conference and the NCAA. Will it lead to an investigation? I don’t know. However, I made Arkansas aware of the comments yesterday and wanted to get their response and their plan of action. Will they look into it further? Do they think others were involved?

This is all they could say yesterday about the situation:

“The university conducted a full and thorough review of the matter and took swift action based on all aspects of its findings,” an athletic department statement read. “While Patrick Beverley is no longer a student-athlete at the University of Arkansas, the university still may not discuss details regarding his departure from the men’s basketball program due to student privacy laws.

“The University of Arkansas remains committed to compliance with all university, Southeastern Conference and NCAA rules and regulations.”

So stay tuned.

The University of Arkansas had its spring break last week, allowing John Pelphrey’s basketball players to spend a few days at home with their families. Pelphrey hit the road, as well, looking to add to his 2009-10 recruiting class. Back in Fayetteville on Monday, he took a few minutes to meet with reporters and discuss Arkansas’ offseason plans.

First and foremost, the media expressed an interest in getting an update regarding junior forward Michael Washington, a second-team all-SEC pick who may turn pro. Pelphrey said that he hadn’t spoken much with Washington but that during their brief conversations, he could tell Washington was conflicted.

While insisting that this is a “Mike and his family decision,” Pelphrey also revealed that he would give Washington an accurate assessment of what would be wise to do.

“We’ll support him in making the best decision possible,” Pelphrey said. “I think he would like to come back for his senior year, but I think he does want to see what interest is out there. … My sense has been that if he can be a first-round draft pick, that’s one thing. If not, let’s come back and work and see if he can’t become a first-round draft pick.”

Pelphrey addressed plenty of other topics. Among them, he commented …

• On oft-suspended freshman Jason Henry: “He’s still day to day. He’s make some strides. I believe (he is doing the right things to get back in good standing). There was a breakfast check this morning and he was there. That’s a good start. He’s on the team. I don’t anticipate taking him off the team.”

• On the chances of his three recruits — Jemal Farmer, Marshawn Powell and Anthony Borden — taking care of their academic work and enrolling at Arkansas: “We’re optimistic. We’re hopeful that at least one of them, maybe more, will come to summer school.”

• On the type of player he’s trying to find during spring recruiting: “Guys that can help. Big wings. Bigger, athletic guys. Also, we need another ball-handler at the point guard spot. We’re going to sign some people in the spring. How many of them, I don’t know.”

• On the most important areas in which he wants to see progress: “For me right now, a focus is I want to see these young men take ownership in their basketball team. I want to see them take responsibility for each other and have honor and respect amongst the team, and police themselves so to speak. I get a chance to hear all the time what we want to do, where we want to go, all these types of things. Now you need to show me.”

• On the NCAA asking Arkansas for information on some of the school’s basketball recruiting practices: “From my understanding, it is an inquiry. I don’t really forsee any issues with that. I know that myself and the coaching staff (find it) important to follow the rules and guidelines that were put into play, and in doing things the right way.
I’m not too concerned that there’s anything other there than what they say it is.”

• On whether he plans to make changes to his coaching staff: “Not from my side of it. I don’t know if those guys might have the chance to move up the ladder.”

• On what exactly caused Arkansas’ struggles this past season: “I don’t think I have enough time to sit here and go through all of it. I’ve thought about that a lot. I don’t think there’s an easy one word answer there. I don’t want to sit here and make a bunch of excuses, either. I understood who we were coming into this season and knew it would be a challenging deal, losing six seniors and Patrick (Beverley), and … then Marcus (Monk) … We just didn’t play well enough at the right times.”

Pelphrey also stated that Arkansas would play Texas at home and travel to Oklahoma next season. He said he couldn’t comment on other games because contracts haven’t been finalized.