- Conference realignment is so much fun this year that the roulette wheel won’t stop spinning. The latest news, as reported by Pete Thamel at the New York Times, is that Missouri is on the verge of formally applying for membership as the 14th member of the SEC. His source said that such a move is “inevitable and imminent,” and the Board of Curators is expected to meet and discuss the issue in private sessions Thursday and Friday in Kansas City. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anyone following this story because Missouri has been looking for a soft landing spot for a while now, but this realignment once again will serve to destabilize the Big 12 as it desperately tries to keep itself together. If the league does in fact lose Mizzou to drop back to nine teams (TCU for A&M washes out), does this open up the Big East to even more poaching of its choicest football programs such as Louisville and/or West Virginia? Does BYU again become an option for an invitation to the Big 12; or could Boise State now be on the table instead? The fundamental truth in all of this is that we’re essentially racing to the bottom where the Big East becomes a football mid-major conference and the Big 12 keeps itself alive by routinely stemming off barbarians at the gates from the east, west, and north.
- Speaking of the Big East, a conference that is so desperate to remain relevant in football that it’s actually considering the addition of a school from Idaho (Boise State), another from Colorado (Air Force) and two from Texas (SMU and Houston) to shore up its ranks. That’s right — the league built on Syracuse vs. Georgetown and Villanova vs. St. John’s has completely sold its regional soul to the BCS devil. The league presidents agreed on Monday to raise the conference exit fee to $10 million, a move predicated on the need for perceived stability in the face of additional realignment. Hefty price tag or not, if the Big 12 now pursues Louisville and West Virginia, expect those schools to jump at the opportunity. Then the Big East will need two more football schools, and so it goes, and so it goes…
- Can we talk about basketball now? Vanderbilt received bad news on Monday when all-SEC senior center Festus Ezeli was handed a six-game suspension as a result of his acceptance of improper benefits (a meal and hotel room) from a Commodore booster over the summer. The university self-reported the violation after learning of its existence during an internal compliance review in August. The ‘Dores are in many folks’ Top 10 this preseason, and they’ll have to navigate an opening slate of Oregon, Cleveland State, Bucknell, NC State, Texas (probably), and Monmouth before getting their big man back against Xavier on November 28. Kevin Stallings has plenty of perimeter talent at his disposal in Jeffery Taylor, John Jenkins and Brad Tinsley, but his viable post options other than Ezeli are 6’9″ Steve Tchiengang (5/3 last season, but nursing a sore ankle) and 6’11” Josh Henderson, a redshirt freshman who has yet to play a minute of college basketball. Expect Vandy to face some difficult early games with no post players to speak of.
- Don’t expect the nation’s #1 overall recruit to make a college decision anytime soon. Despite saying that he “loved” his visit to Lexington for Big Blue Madness over the weekend, Shabazz Muhammad‘s father told ZagsBlog that his son will still be a “springtime decision.” A number of schools other than Kentucky remain on Muhammad’s list, including Duke, Arizona, UCLA, USC, Kansas, UNLV, and Texas A&M. Many people believe that he’s currently leaning to Ben Howland’s program in Westwood, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he is not going to make a rash decision.
- Finally, some disheartening news involving a player who has already had a very difficult year. Not more than a month ago, Arizona junior Kevin Parrom was at home in New York City visiting his sick mother when an intruder broke into his father’s apartment and shot him in his hand and leg, putting him in the hospital to face an extensive rehabilitation. Earlier this summer, his grandmother passed away; then on Sunday night, he lost his mom, Lisa Williams, to cancer. This sequence of sobering events impacting Parrom is somewhat reminiscent of the horrible few weeks that Kansas’ Thomas Robinson suffered last season, and all we can say in situations like these is that we hope he finds peace somewhere amidst all the chaos and pain in his life right now. His tweet on Sunday night referencing his mom’s passing is both heartbreaking and heartwarming in its poignancy.