- One of the best UConn traditions is called the Husky Run, a 5k amble through the streets of Storrs where the coaches and players “kick off” the basketball season with a spirited jog. Jim Calhoun has been doing these since he was back in Boston at Northeastern in the 70s, but he was compelled to miss this year’s event for the first time as a result of preparations for Friday’s hearing in Indianapolis in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee. Friday’s “First Night” event — the UConn version of Midnight Madness — will certainly be muted without Calhoun in attendance, not to mention the ugly specter of possible further NCAA sanctions hanging over everyone’s head in attendance.
- Earlier this week Luke Winn gave us his top sixteen backcourts, led of course by the ridiculously deep and talented Blue Devils. So who has the best frontcourt for the 2010-11 season? Would you believe the scintillating group at Purdue led by JaJuan Johnson, Robbie Hummel and Patrick Bade? You should. Duke comes in at #2, UNC at #3, and Kansas State at #4. Five schools other than Duke ended up on both of his lists, which should give you a pretty good sense as to who the top contenders for the title will be this season: Purdue (#1 frontcourt, #12 backcourt); Kansas (#5, #6); Syracuse (#7, #10); Ohio State (#9, #9); Michigan State (#15, #2).
- TSN’s Chris Littmann put together an interesting list of the top five Twitter All-Americans for the 2010-11 season. If you don’t have the following players on your feed, get them on there now… Mizzou’s Kim English (@englishscope24), Washington’s Isaiah Thomas (@isaiah_thomas2), Duke’s Nolan Smith (@ndotsmitty), Illinois’ Mike Davis (@illiniballa24), and Texas A&M’s Dash Harris (@dash5harris). Personally, we can’t wait to see what Thomas has to say leading up to Maui and a potential game against Kentucky next month.
- Hubris, arrogance, mere stupidity — or all three? Gary Parrish has long harped on the tendency for coaches to repeatedly and egregiously get busted for texting recruits when they’re not supposed to be doing so, but it doesn’t seem to stop their madness. We can only suppose that these are some of the same guys who, after looking up a bunch of porn on the work computer, think that by simply deleting the search history means they won’t get caught. You mean pressing “clear history” doesn’t get rid of it? Huh?
- We mentioned this situation in a Morning Five last week, but the schizz hit the fan publicly today when St. Louis’ two stars, Willie Reed and Kwamain Mitchell, were noticeably absent from Photo Day on Wednesday. The reason is that neither is currently enrolled in the school as a result of a year-long suspension meted by the university’s student court for an as-yet undetermined violation of student conduct (later changed to two months on appeal). Bryan Burwell spoke to Reed’s father about the suspensions, and although details on the specific allegations are sketchy, the father alleges fairly serious concerns about rights to due process and railroading if what he suggests is true. Michigan State fans would do well to look at this situation with a certain degree of interest, as there are two unnamed players on their campus possibly facing similar inquiries.
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Regarding Mitchell, Reed and SLU -- while the student code violation has not been disclosed, I have to believe that it has been "determined". Otherwise why suspend the two at all? Information about the precipitating incident has never, in deference to the parties involved, been disclosed publicly, but the circuitous route taken to this "final" disposition nearly begs for one last round, either in the court of public opinion, or before a civil judge.