- Robbie Hummel aftermath. Obviously, Purdue losing Hummel to a season-ending ACL injury will get a lot of attention. Here’s what some of the big names are writing about it – Gary Parrish, Jeff Goodman, Mike DeCourcy, Andy Glockner. Everyone agrees that this is a situation that Purdue will not be able to overcome. One thing’s for sure, though — America may have found its team to root for in the postseason this year.
- You gotta give it up for ESPN’s Jeannine Edwards going on John Calipari’s show and getting into a friendly banter about last year’s odd situation with former UK coach Billy Gillispie, well-chronicled on this very site.
- Expect this to enable a lot of snarky dialogue today in the blogosphere: FIU head coach Isiah Thomas was ejected from his team’s game against Middle Tennessee State last night (a loss, 74-71). Thomas ran onto the court to protest a call and was thrown out for his behavior. FIU is now 7-23 on the season and 4-13 in the Sun Belt Conference, in case you were wondering (and we know you were).
- Missouri’s Justin Safford joined Robbie Hummel with torn ACL injuries this week, but oddly, MU officials are leaving open the possibility of Safford returning to the team this season. The junior starting forward tore the ligament in the Tigers’ blowout win over Colorado on Wednesday night, and he was averaging 9/4 in twenty minutes per game this year.
- Syracuse is expecting to set a new on-campus record for attendance at the Carrier Dome on Saturday night for their battle with Villanova. 34,616 tickets have been sold, nearly a thousand more than the previous record crowd in 2006 for Gerry McNamara’s last home game.