College Basketball: An all-American story

Frank Kaminsky and Jahlil Okafor are as different as stories can be in college basketball. The two, however, have a lot in common - both are in the Final Four and both were the top selections on the Associated Press' 2014-15 all-America team.

Kaminsky, the 7-foot senior from Wisconsin, was a unanimous choice Monday. Okafor, the 6-11 freshman from Duke, received all but one first-team vote.

Notre Dame senior Jerian Grant, Kentucky junior Willie Cauley-Stein and Ohio State freshman D'Angelo Russell rounded out the first team.

Kaminsky worked his way to the top by improving through four seasons in college. Okafor arrived with all the laurels out of high school and immediate talk about leaving for the NBA.

"Not to be overly patriotic, but we're an American story, that you can do that in this kind of a system," Wisconsin coach and Chester native Bo Ryan said. "Sometimes where it looks like the privileged, the ones that are identified as being great players and can't-miss-type guys, where there can always come that guy from behind in the race and then cross the tape first."

Utah senior Delon Wright led the second team and was joined by Kentucky freshman Karl-Anthony Towns, Northern Iowa senior Seth Tuttle, Arkansas sophomore Bobby Portis, and Virginia junior Malcolm Brogdon.

The third team was Gonzaga teammates Kyle Wiltjer and Kevin Pangos, Oklahoma junior Buddy Hield, Syracuse senior and Academy of the New Church graduate Rakeem Christmas, and Iowa State junior Georges Niang.

Chris Mullin, St. John's all-time leading scorer and still the face of its basketball program three decades after his career ended, has agreed to coach the Red Storm, a person with knowledge of the discussions told the Associated Press on Monday.

Mullin, who led St. John's to the Final Four in 1985, has never coached at any level. He replaces Steve Lavin who agreed to leave last week, after five seasons during which the Red Storm reached the NCAA tournament twice.

Mullin, a New York native, was a five-time all-star with Golden State, a member of the USA's gold-medal winning "Dream Team" in 1992 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

George Mason has hired Dave Paulsen as its men's basketball coach. Paulsen was a three-time Patriot League coach of the year at Bucknell, taking the Bison to the NCAA tournament twice. Paulsen went 134-94 at Bucknell, where he arrived in 2008. Before that, he coached Williams, his alma mater, for eight seasons and won the 2003 Division III championship. . . . Bearcats coach Mick Cronin was cleared to resume coaching after missing most of the season because of a problem with a blood vessel in the back of his brain. The 43-year-old wasn't permitted to coach games or practices after the problem was detected in December. . . . Eastern Kentucky has announced that Jeff Neubauer has resigned after 10 seasons to become Fordham's next men's basketball coach. Neubauer was the Colonels' second-winningest coach with a 188-134 record including two Ohio Valley Conference tournament championships and NCAA tournament appearances in 2007 and 2014.