1. Jimmer Fredette will be moving up to the next level soon, and what we’re talking about there has nothing to do with basketball. The Jimmer announced his engagement to his girlfriend (and BYU cheerleader) Whitney via Twitter over the weekend with a photo and statement summarizing his excitement. Subsequently, jokes — most of them well-meaning, it seemed — began to fly throughout the tweetosphere regarding how Whitney is a senior at BYU and therefore still under the school’s honor code, so she’d have to play, er, a sort of defense a little longer, a subject on which she could educate him. Ah, those clever Twitter kids. In all seriousness, we extend our congratulations to the pair.
2. What do you have when you take a Marquette guy who loves advanced statistics and wants to apply them to college basketball, a possible brand new and downright compelling new statistic developed by that fellow that could help determine the most valuable players in college hoops (and finds that Jordan Taylor of his rival Wisconsin is atop the list!), a college basketball blog we love, and combine all that into a Luke Winn article? You have what we call a good time, friends. Ever heard of Ken Horton from Central Connecticut State? Familiarize yourself. Is Taylor more valuable than Jared Sullinger or Tu Holloway? Hmmm. See for yourself. All we can say is God bless you, John Pudner.
3. What’s Oklahoma State boss Travis Ford got up his sleeve? Via Twitter last week he made a cryptic reference to some “exciting non-conference schedule information” as well as “a possible roster addition early next week.” Well, now that’s this week, and there’s some speculation that the surprise may come in the rather large form of 7’0”, 235-pound Marek Soucek from the Czech Republic, a highly sought-after recruit whose name happens to now appear in the OSU student directory. Actually, Soucek hasn’t left the Czech Republic yet. What’s going on here? John Helsley of The Oklahoman wonders, too.
4. Everyone obviously knows about the Georgetown vs Bayi fight during the Hoyas’ trip to China from a couple of weeks ago. While the fiasco itself is likely ever to be pointed to by historians as a high-impact moment in the arc of Sino-American relations, it is interesting to examine reasons that might have led to such an event. Tom Gold is a sociology professor from UC Berkeley and is something of an expert on events in the (so-called) Far East; in a recent interview with Asian American Press, Dr. Gold discussed the thinking that may have been behind this from the Chinese viewpoint. A short piece, but it contains some interesting takes.
5. Retirement, schmetirement, let’s play ball. That’s evidently the mindset of San Diego State’s Steve Fisher, who just signed a four-year extension with the Aztecs, according to a late-night report from ESPN’s Andy Katz. As Katz points out, leading the school to its first-ever Sweet 16 could have served as an appropriate exiting point for Fisher, and then you throw in that the coach was treated for prostate cancer just over three years ago and his star from last season is gone…well, such an extension might come to some as a surprise. We doubt anyone in San Diego’s complaining, though, and if we’re talking about good health and normal blood tests (look at Katz, dropping some PSA knowledge!), we’re glad to see this happen.

jstevrtc (547 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2011 at 4:35 am by jstevrtc and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: byu, central connecticut state, georgetown, jimmer fredette, jordan taylor, ken horton, oklahoma state, san diego state, steve fisher, travis ford, tu holloway, wisconsin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.