1. You probably already knew that Michigan State star Kalin Lucas sprained his ankle in the game against Wisconsin on Tuesday evening, but yesterday MSU officials confirmed the important news that there was no broken bone in his foot.  As of now, he’s listed as day to day but he’ll be re-evaluated after treatment today to determine if he might be back for Saturday’s game against Illinois.
2. Minnesota forward Royce White has officially retired from basketball as he formally withdrew from the Minnesota program on Wednesday.  You’ll certainly recall White’s bizarre YouTube announcement that he was quitting basketball in mid-December, and it was clear that not all was right with the budding impresario.  A tough week gets tougher for Tubby smith, who lost Al Nolen to academic problems on Tuesday.
3. This is an internal link, but we want to make sure everyone sees it who comes here.  Have you wondered who some of the teams are that would be invited to the NCAA Tournament if they stupidly expand it to 96 teams?  Check out our analysis for the answer to that.  If you’re not as appalled as we are that the likes of Alabama and Boston College would be part of the field, then you’re a better person than us.
4. Impressive.  The February 27 Gameday matchup between #2 Syracuse and #3 Villanova has already sold out the Carrier Dome (34,616), and it will set a new record (breaking SU’s own 2006 makr) for the largest crowd to ever see a college basketball game in an on-campus arena.
5. Mike DeCourcy thinks that the three most likely teams to run the conference table will be the MEAC’s Morgan State, the Horizon’s Butler, and the MAAC’s Siena.  Cornell in the Ivy is another obvious choice, but they do have to visit Harvard, and of course #1 Kansas has a tough road game coming up at Texas on Monday night.

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 2:43 am by rtmsf and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: attendance records, butler, cornell, kalin lucas, michigan st, minnesota, morgan st, ncaa tournament expansion, royce white, siena, syracuse, villanova. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.