1. The strange transfer drama around Todd O’Brien appears to have come to an unsatisfying end as he received the official rejection of his appeal for a graduate student transfer late on Wednesday. This does not appear to be any different than the previous rejections as the NCAA continues to reiterate its stance that the decision by Saint Joseph’s not to support the transfer factored in the NCAA’s decision. Since nothing seems to be changing in this story as the school refuses to comment on the situation citing privacy laws despite O’Brien’s insistence that he would waive his rights it seems like the school will continue to take a big PR hit and face the consequences on the recruiting trail. If the school does have a legitimate reason for blocking the transfer, one would assume they would want to get their story out there even if it was leaked through anonymous sources talking to a reputable media organization. Seriously, someone at St. Joe’s e-mail us and we will pretend it was an anonymous source.
2. Unlike O’Brien DePaul junior forward Tony Freeland will be granted a release for his transfer. Freeland announced yesterday that he would be transferring to a school near Los Angeles to help tend to his ailing grandmother. Freeland, who has been sidelined this season after undergoing shoulder surgery, averaged 9.6 points and five rebounds per game as a sophomore. Despite his injury, he should have plenty of interest from teams in the LA area looking for a solid interior player with Big East experience and two more years of eligibility remaining.
3. Speaking of forwards in the LA area, USC junior forward Aaron Fuller is expected to miss the rest of the season as he will undergo surgery on his left shoulder next week. Fuller has been one of the bright spots averaging 10.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game for a Trojan team that that has been underwhelming to put it kindly. Fuller, a transfer from Iowa, has done this while playing with a torn labrum in his left (shooting) shoulder. As we mentioned yesterday, we didn’t think that the Pac-12 could get much worse, but it continues to find ways to top itself.
4. In this week’s edition of his power rankings, Luke Winn examines the relative chances of Syracuse and Murray State going undefeated as well as a variety of topics. The undefeated discussion goes about the way you would expect, but some other areas such as the statistics on blocked shots by Anthony Davis and Jeff Withey may surprise quite a few people. As always it is a great read and we guarantee that if you read his power rankings you will come away having learned something that you didn’t know before (assuming you aren’t some college basketball sabermetric guru).
5. Is there a storm brewing in the ESPN college basketball family? According to some sources it appears that Jay Bilas is not a fan of Andy Katz based on a tweet that Bilas sent out after Katz made a mistake on-air. While we have no knowledge of their relationship firsthand we have spoken with both at games and they seem very friendly as individuals. In truth, this really isn’t a major news story (nearly every major company has some petty bickering among high-level employees), but it is a slow news day and makes for some amusing discussion.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 5:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under Uncategorized. Tagged: aaron fuller, anthony davis, depaul, jeff withey, murray state, saint joseph's, syracuse, todd o'brien, tony freeland, usc. 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.