- Paul Hewitt hasn’t coached his first official game at George Mason, but he already has his first minor crisis to deal with as senior guard Andre Cornelius was suspended 10 games by the school for his role in a credit card fraud case in which he was arrested in September. Cornelius, who started every game last season for the Patriots and averaged 9.5 PPG as a junior, pleaded guilty to credit card fraud, a misdemeanor, and received a six-month suspended sentence, but had a felony larceny charge dropped. Cornelius will be allowed to practice with the team, but not play in games for them until the fall semester is complete (December 20), which would allow him to return for the game against Duquesne the following day. In the meantime, Hewitt will have to find someone to replace Cornelius and his outside shooting and veteran presence.
- Texas A&M coach Billy Kennedy, who recently announced that he would be taking time off to deal with his new diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, has not set a timetable for his return yet according to interim head coach Glynn Cyprien. However, Cyprien noted that Kennedy has been stopping by to watch practices and even attended a team meeting yesterday. With no date set for Kennedy’s return, we expect that Cyprien will be coaching the Aggies in their season opener against Liberty on Wednesday. When Kennedy returns (and we expect that he will based on what we have heard) it should be a big boost for the spirits of this team and could help them go on a quick run.
- As part of its ongoing college basketball preview, Grantland asked Mark Titus to preview the Big East. It is a sort of odd selection since Titus “played” at Ohio State, but he knows basketball and it is a solid preview even if we disagree with his selection of the conference champion. He does make a good point about how we may be viewing Connecticut incorrectly based on how they ended last year on a hot run rather than considering the entirety of their season. Overall, it is a solid primer for the non-hardcore college basketball fan, who Titus notes he is aiming for in the post.
- We have already shared our thoughts on Tyshawn Taylor and Kansas with regard to his potential as a leader. The fine gentlemen over at Basketball Prospectus put together an interesting analysis on Taylor and how he has evolved during his first three years in Lawrence by looking at how he is portrayed in articles by comparing the ratio of positive to negative words used to describe him. We are sure that someone will criticize the methodology and we certainly don’t consider this a rigorous analysis by any means, but it is interesting to see how the perception of Taylor has changed over the years. We would be be more interested in seeing a similar analysis of another player who was controversial or had legal issues, but ended up playing well for his team later in his career just to see if a bad reputation can be changed in the media by playing well and staying out of trouble.
- One of the more interesting aspects of college sports is the passion of the fans particularly the student sections. No group of fans is more well-known for this than college basketball fans, who thanks to the the seating arrangements of most college arenas can play a surprisingly big role in the game by throwing off the opposition. Over the years fans have offered up some rather amusing taunts and today’s students are no exception. The first example of the season came from Ohio where Ohio University-Zanesville was taunted by fans of opposing Mount Vernon Nazarene University as the fans dressed up as exotic animals and sheriffs in reference to the surreal event in Zanesville, Ohio last month. While some may question the taste of the taunts, you have to admit it is fairly creative.