Here’s hoping everyone had a safe and patriotic ID4 weekend.
- Sometime this week — perhaps today, but our bet is on tomorrow — the NCAA will announce that it has decided what to do about the four Play-In Games for next year’s and subsequent NCAA Tournaments. So far we haven’t caught wind of any leaks from among the Committee (where are ya, Andy Katz?), but we’ll lay odds on each of the three stated options. 1) PiGs populated by #16/#17 seeds (odds – 2:1); 2) PiGs populated by last eight at-large teams (odds – 5:1); 3) mixture of the two (odds – 7:2). We’re truly hopeful that the Committee will somehow incorporate the last few at-large teams into the play-in mix, but we’re not expecting that to happen.
- On Friday, TMZ reported that the NCAA is investigating “two current and two” former Kentucky players for contacts with agents that may have jeopardized their eligibility to play college basketball (note: Sports by Brooks reports one of the players to be John Wall). Your immediate reaction of “TMZ?” followed by a complete and utter lack of shock that John Calipari’s players would be accused of this, is forgivable? Well, the truth is that TMZ broke the Tiny Gallon/Oklahoma violation back in March so their credibility on this issue might have more weight than considered at first blush, but it is somewhat disconcerting that the report failed to name anyone as explicitly as they did with Gallon. UK fans are rightfully skeptical with so few details yet released, but we’re not prepared to dismiss TMZ based on rumor-mongering alone because as far as we know, they’re currently hitting 100% on breaking recruiting violation stories (we know of no other recruiting story they broke that was wrong).
- Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans… we don’t meant to call you stupid, but you’re all kinds of stupid.
- UCLA guards Jerime Anderson and Tyler Lamb had surgeries last week to continue the yearlong injury bug that has befallen the program. Neither are expected to be out for long, but you never know with the bad luck that the Bruins have experienced lately.
- We’re really not sure how we feel about this, but we’re incredibly hopeful that it works out. Former Tennessee forward Emmanuel Negedu has reportedly been cleared to play next season at New Mexico, providing an immediate lift to Steve Alford’s team as they recover from losing two of the best players in its history this offseason. Negedu of course collapsed and his heart stopped beating for a while last fall during workouts at UT.
