- Mike Krzyzewski said on his XM radio show on Wednesday that he expects Kyrie Irving will be out of action for “a long time.” He didn’t specifically elaborate on what that might mean, but given the relative gloom and doom coming out of Durham over the last week, we’re leaning toward not seeing him in a Duke uniform again this season. Coach K has been called many things in his career over the years, but one of the things we’ve not heard about him is that he’s an embellisher or BSer — he pretty much tells you what he thinks to be true. With that in mind, we believe him when he says Irving may not play again this season.
- Well, it’s not the Nobel Peace Prize, but maybe that’s next… Bill Self, John Calipari, Ron Hunter, Mike Sutton and Scott Nagy have been nominated for the first United Nations Nongovernment Organization Positive Peace Awards in the coach category. Yes, there actually is a coach category. Self and Sutton were nominated for work with other charities, but the other three were honored as a result of the work they’ve done with Samaritan’s Feet, a charity that provides footwear to needy children around the world. The article actually says that two of those places were “Haiti and Detroit,” which is rather depressing that an American city has such inherent structural and poverty problems that it appears in the same sentence as a third-world country.
- Luke Winn is back with his weekly power rankings, a compendium of information where if you don’t walk away after reading it having learned sixteen new things, then you’re smarter than the average bear. This week is particularly insightful because he talked with numerous assistant coaches to get the insider scoop on all of his ranked teams and their best players.
- Kansas’ Mario Little has been suspended indefinitely by Kansas for a late-night altercation on Wednesday involving his girlfriend that resulted in his arrest for battery, criminal damage and criminal trespassing. Without reading too much between the lines, it appears that Little got upset when he found another man at his girlfriend’s residence, and things escalated to a bad place from that point. Regardless of the reason, it’s clear that Bill Self and KU are taking this seriously, especially in the light of the past year-plus of poor decisions by KU athletes. The 6’6 Little was averaging 6/4 in around sixteen minutes per game, but certainly Kansas has plenty of depth at the guard position especially with Josh Selby debuting on Saturday against USC.
- In this article at the Omaha World-Herald, Lee Barfknecht writes that former UTEP, Texas A&M and Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie could be a candidate for the Texas Tech job if things don’t turn around for Pat Knight there soon. From the entire blogosphere to TTU brass, we believe that such a move would be a great hire — Billy Clyde needs to be back in college basketball somewhere (big grin).