Centenary has notified the Summit League it will leave the conference in 2011. The school avoids any penalties by giving a two-year notice. South Dakota is set to join the league in 2011, so it appears the league will stay at 10 teams

Losing Centenary is not a big loss for the Summit League. Remaining league members won’t miss the cost of traveling to Centenary’s Shreveport, La. campus. The Gents and Ladies have struggled in men’s and women’s basketball and most other league-sponsored sports. Centenary is also one of the smallest schools at the Division I level with less than a 1,000 students.

"The main reasons were financial and to find a conference more geographically appropriate," Centenary interim president Michael Easton told the Shreveport Times.

The Gents men’s basketball team is ineligible for postseason play next season because of poor Academic Progress Rate scores.

Oakland junior Keith Benson tested his skills against some of the top big men in the country as part of the Amare Stoudemire Skills Academy last week in Phoenix. Benson was one of 14 players invited to the prestigious camp, which featured instruction from NBA coaches and scouts.

“It meant a lot to be selected as one of the top big men around,” Benson said. “There were a lot of major schools there and it was just an honor. ... I didn’t really know a lot about it, but I was excited to get an opportuntiy to go there.”

Benson said he learned over 30 post moves at the camp and different ways to defend each one, as well as things NBA scouts look for when evaluating players. Stoudemire also stopped by to give the participants some pointers.

“It was good to see where I was against other people,” Benson said. “It was different not being the tallest one around and to matchup against them. I think I did well.”

Benson’s roomate was Kansas’ Cole Aldrich, who is projected to be a top five NBA draft pick next season.

The camp also featured Georgetown’s Greg Monroe, Virginia Commonwealth’s Larry Sanders and Tulsa’s Jerome Jordan — who are all projected to NBA draft picks next year by nbadraft.net — and Wake Forest’s Tony Woods, Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson and Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates, who are projected to be NBA draft picks in 2011 by nbadraft.net.

Rounding out the camp was Jeff Allen (Virginia Tech), Denis Clemente (Kansas State), Dwayne Collins (Miami), Jeremy Lin (Harvard), Jerome Randle (California) and Calvin Stoudemire (LeMoyne-Owen College).