An absolute ton of newsworthy stuff to catch up on from the weekend…
- 2008 #1 player Greg Monroe committed to Georgetown after his visit there this weekend. It couldn’t have had anything to do with that now-ubiquitous Jerry Rice dance, could it? “Hoops” Weiss has the definitive take on how Monroe will impact the Hoyas. Above the Rim writes that Duke (who was hot-n-heavy for Monroe) isn’t used to losing out on these guys.
- Making the Dance reports that after Georgetown (who obviously had the best MM weekend), Illinois (Bruce Weber can recruit after all?!?!), Indiana, Louisville and several others had good weekends.
- Lots of Midnight Madness and practice coverage from the weekend…
- Huggins taking over the reins at his alma mater. (there’s an amusing wmv file floating around where Huggins is giving a speech to some WVU booster club – it’s longwinded and rambling, but the DerMarr Johnson payoff is funny)
- A general roundup of MM from Lexington to Lawrence.
- Catching up with Tubby in Minnesota.
- Pat Forde takes in the scene at UK with Billy Gillispie. Apparently Goodman did the same.
- Andy Katz checks in on the hype surrounding Memphis.
- Goodman also took a road trip to Saluki country to report on the best mid-major not named Gonzaga, while en route to seeing Pitino in Louisville.
- Wake’s first practice without Skip Prosser.
- Dave Odom tries to save his job with transfers at South Carolina.
- Pitt has XXXL expectations for DeJuan Blair.
- The defending champs (2x) start the rebuilding process.
- Sad news that former Georgia star and current surgeon Alec Kessler died of a heart attack last weekend.
- Injuries, suspensions and dismissals:
- Gonzaga’s Josh Heytvelt was reinstated on Friday but will miss the first week of practice due to
shroom farmingfoot pain. - Louisville’s Juan Palacios injured his ankle and may have to redshirt his senior season.
- Brandon Rush reports that he’s on target for his Dec. 1 return to Kansas.
- Georgia suspended three players for not attending classes, including top two scorers Takais Brown (9 games) and Mike Mercer (15 games). Seriously, fellas? SEC Hoops:TGTBTD has the take on how this will affect the Bulldogs.
- Northwestern’s best player Kevin Coble is taking a leave of absence to be with his sick mother.
- Ball St. coach Billy Taylor booted two more players off the team, making a total of six since he was hired in August.
- Gonzaga’s Josh Heytvelt was reinstated on Friday but will miss the first week of practice due to
- More Preseason goodies:
- Gary Parrish and Ben Howland converse about whether the Pac-10 will have the most first round picks ever this year.
- Pitino bitches about the difficulty of the unbalanced league schedule Louisville is being forced to play.
- MMAS continues its comprehensive review with its non-BCS top 25.
- Seth Davis asks us 20 questions, then he answers them.
- Gary Parrish lists his start-of-practice top 26. Memphis, eh?
- The Fanhouse wonders if Memphis is even the best team in its own state.
- Jeff Goodman takes a realistic look at Duke’s expectations for this season.
- ESPN plans on showing a grand total of TWO Pac-10 games this year! Up from zero last year.
- The Big 12 handed out its preseason awards – DJ Augustin is the projected POY.
- Shawn Siegel lists his top 25 Big 12 players and top 25 Big 10 players for 07-08.