- Seton hall star guard Jeremy Hazell had surgery on his broken left wrist on Thursday, which he injured nearly two weeks ago at the Paradise Jam. It’s a little strange that he didn’t have the surgery sooner even though his doctors knew that the wrist was broken some time ago, but we’re sure they had their reasons. Originally Hazell was expected to be out of the lineup for four to six weeks, but there’s been no additional information as to a revised timeline after this procedure. Let’s hope he’s back in time for the bulk of Big East play.
- Seth Davis gave us five things we learned from Wednesday night’s Duke-Michigan State game. He makes the somewhat controversial claim that Kyrie Irving is Coach K’s best freshman ever at Duke, while also suggesting that the Blue Devils and Spartans are the best two teams in the country. As for Irving, if we’re comparing apples to apples (an 18-yr old then vs. now), then he’s probably right; but 18-yr olds are generally better now than they were in the 80s and 90s. Still, relative to the time period, we’re not sure that Irving surpasses Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley or Grant Hill, all of whom were outstanding freshmen going to Final Fours while competing against NBA-caliber juniors and seniors (those don’t exist nearly as much today). As for Duke/MSU, we’ll agree about the Blue Devils, not MSU. The Spartans will lose several more games, but they’ll turn it on in March as they always do and find a way to get back to the Final Four.
- There’s a buzz around the country about Duke possibly going unbeaten this year, believe it or not. Let’s hold off on that talk, shall we? Seriously, does anyone over the age of 15 actually believe that a team with obvious flaws inside like Duke can go undefeated in the age of parity and 1-and-done stars? Come on…
- Luke Winn’s weekly power rankings are always a great way to wile away a morning — seriously, it takes us at least an hour to read through all of it and actually digest it (which means he probably researched and wrote it in about three minutes while completing the NYT crossword puzzle and hand-brewing the latest hipster French press coffee). It’s nice to see he agrees with us on Georgetown (a bunch of bro-haters if we’ve ever seen one).
- Duke’s Mason Plumlee shows a skill in the below clip that we’re not sure we’ve seen anyone else even attempt, much less actually perform — the three-basketball dunk. Yet for some reason, we really weren’t all that amazed by this. Maybe we’ve just been jaded by all the dunk contests over the years, but we’d actually have preferred to see him use only two balls and do simultaneous windmills or something.