Morning Five: 12.12.09 Edition
Posted by rtmsf on December 12th, 2009
Heading into an interesting Saturday of games, we’ve got a few dollops of knowledge that will help you navigate things. Keep in mind we’ll be doing our first weekend Boom Goes the Dynamite this afternoon, in addition to RTC Lives for Butler vs. Ohio State and the Wooden Classic this afternoon…
- UNC’s Marcus Ginyard will be held out of today’s game against Presbyterian with pain in his foot. A UNC doctor was quick to say that this pain was unrelated to last year’s stress fracture that Ginyard suffered, but it is in the same foot. This is a ‘precautionary’ measure to keep Ginyard from fracturing the foot. UNC undoubtedly won’t need the defensive dynamo today, but against #2 Texas next Saturday? Yeah, probably want him in the lineup then.
- Some Comings and Goings. Wake Forest junior guard Konner Tucker is leaving the school after seven games (he was JuCo transfer), and St. Mary’s fifth-year senior guard Wayne Hunter is out for the rest of the season after tearing his ACL in a game this week against Utah State. In terms of relative importance, the Hunter loss is much more significant, as he was averaging 12/3 for the season and was one of the best perimeter defenders for the Gaels. Tucker was only averaging 2.2 PPG in just over five minutes per contest.
- LeBron a fan of John Wall? Who isn’t?
- Unless Notre Dame is interested, and they’re not, the only way this makes sense is if the Big Ten can poach another major conference football power. Missouri? Kentucky? West Virginia? Pittsburgh? Louisville? It’s fun to speculate about this, but from a hoops perspective we’d hate to see the Big East change at the top (you can send the bottom quarter to the A10 or America East for all we care).
- Want to get ready for today’s games — Seth Davis, Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman give us a pretty good rundown of what to watch this weekend.
Missouri to Big 10 and Houston to Big 12? Or Pitt to Big 10 and Memphis to Big East?
The Big 11 should add Butler. Previously, they have examined and rejected Louisville, Rutgers, Syracuse, Missouri, and Nebraska.
By adding Butler, the Big 11 gets access to the all important Indianapolis market in terms of television and recruiting. The travel is not very onerous because teams could either put a team on a bus or van, or fly. It sure beats traveling to University Park for a Tuesday night volleyball game.
Butler already offers football but would need to increase expenditures; a small price to pay to join the Big 11. All games could be played at the Lucas Oil Dome. So Butler has that going for them, which is nice.