- It appears that NPOY candidate Kyle Singler will be 100% in time for Midnight Madness in three weeks (and a day) after surgery to repair some cartilage damage in his left meniscus (knee). The Duke forward is TSN’s preseason player of the year, and he is expected to lead an even better team into 2010-11 than the one that cut the nets down last April. It’s still hard to believe considering the star power that previous Duke players shooting for B2B titles brought to bear, but Singler has an opportunity to join very select company in the Blue Devil Annals (Hurley, Hill, Laettner to name the troika).
- Oklahoma basketball has certainly taken it on the chin in the last twelve months, but this is ridiculous. Senior guard Cade Davis, the top returning scorer/rebounder/assister/stealer/3-point shooter from last year’s Sooner debacle, fractured his face in a recent team workout. He’s not expected to miss any practice time, but we’re quite certain that we’re going to be rooting for this guy to have a great senior campaign.
- Mick Cronin is entering his fifth season at Cincinnati, and although he cites an improved win total in his four previous years (from 11 to 13 to 18 to 19), he’s definitely feeling the heat under his rear to get the Bearcats to the NCAA Tournament. This article by Paul Daugherty looks into the difficulties that Cronin faces in an environment where he is supposed to win without taking any chances in recruiting.
- Rivals #1 high school senior Austin Rivers published his latest diary where he describes his in-home visits with Coach K, Roy Williams and Bill Self. If you read between the lines; hell, or just read the actual lines (Duke “was kinda like old friends coming to the house.”), it’s fairly clear that Duke is his current leader. Assume Kyrie Irving sticks around for his sophomore year… can you imagine a backcourt of Irving, Rivers and Seth Curry in Durham? — wow! Dan Wiederer makes the case that Roy Williams may slide in through the back door by trying to sell Rivers on an opportunity to play with Harrison Barnes for one season, but that’s a longshot.
- This is an interesting article describing the popularity of the first name “Shaquille” among athletes in the 15-18 year-old range. Shaquille O’Neal was a global phenomenon in the early-mid 1990s as he blew up rims from Baton Rouge to Orlando and arenas everywhere in-between — it appears that many pregnant ladies who later had children who became star athletes in basketball and football liked that name quite a bit.