- The extortion trial of Karen Sypher began Monday in Louisville, and the blockbuster allegation of the day came from the defense. Sypher says that Rick Pitino threatened to have her “put in concrete in a river” if she didn’t keep quiet about their affair in 2003. It’s going to be educational to see how the defense tries to spin this so that Pitino is viewed as the guilty party considering the amount of evidence that the feds already have in this case.
- The second installment of the Flourishing Five came out yesterday, and the Wisconsin Badgers are the #4 pick. As a reminder, CBS Sports is picking the five collegiate programs with excellent basketball and football programs. #5 Pittsburgh was named last week. The Badgers are a solid choice. We’re going to predict that the next three (in order) are: Florida, Ohio State and Texas.
- This is an interesting article from Dennis Dodd about how the ACC hasn’t shut the door on future expansion, having mocked up 14- and 16-team scenarios. The ACC has to know that as a lesser football conference, it behooves them to be more proactive in this arena rather than waiting to get raided by the Big Ten and/or SEC at some future date.
- The thing is, when Tom Izzo says that he believes Purdue is the Big Ten favorite next season, he realizes that his team (not the Boilermakers) will probably be standing later into March and April. Would you bet against this guy in the postseason given what he’s been able to accomplish the last two with much the same cast of characters?
- The Ivy League is still the Ivy League, regardless of the success of Cornell making the Sweet Sixteen and Harvard’s Jeremy Lin getting signed by the Golden State Warriors. But there are some league insiders who believe the added attention that the conference has received will only help recruiting the type of players who would have otherwise gone to BCS schools.