1. We loved the Carrier Classic, but we are also hoping that this doesn’t become some sort of fad where the game loses its appeal because there are so many variations on it. Having said that we fully support the idea of involving military schools in these type of games as they appear set to do this season for the All-Military Classic. According to reports, there is a 95% chance that the event will be held on the USS Yorktown this November. The event, which features Air Force, Virginia Military Institute, Citadel, and Army, would be held a day or two after the Carrier Classic, which is scheduled for November 9. Given the possibility of holding the event so close to Veterans Day this one seems like a no-brainer.
2. Brown is set to introduce Mike Martin, a member of the class of 2004, as its next head coach at a conference scheduled for this afternoon. Martin, who has served as an assistant at Penn for the last six years in Philadelphia after following Glen Miller there after Miller left Brown. The Brown administration is clearly hoping for a change of direction as the last coach–Jesse Agel–went 39-79 overall and 14-42 in the Ivy league during his four years at the helm. In contrast, Martin’s senior class went 39-17 during his four years as a player. With the rise of Harvard and the other traditional Ivy League powers it might be too much to ask of Martin to win a conference title in the next few years, but he should be able to make them relevant in the Ivy League again.
3. After a year wandering around Los Angeles UCLA will return to Pauley Pavilion with their opening game in the renovated arena happening on November 9 against Indiana State. In addition to having a set opener the Bruins also released the rest of their schedule for the 2012-13 season. Outside of the home opener the two other notable non-conference games are a trip to Houston to play Texas and a home game against Missouri. However, the thing that we are most looking forward to is seeing the re-opening with a loaded Bruins team playing at home again with what should be a star-studded crowd.
4. It might not be a mark your calendars type of game, but if you are looking for a game that the media will hype up this year you should be aware of a game on December 19 featuring Louisville and Florida International. In previous years, this would have been an interesting enough match-up that featured Rick Pitino coaching against Isiah Thomas, but this year it gets a little juicier as Rick will be coaching against his son Richard, the new coach at FIU. Despite some probably apocryphal or at the very least staged trash talk, we suspect that this game will be a dud as Louisville comes in as a potential #1 team in the country while FIU will be another entity left in the wake of the post-NBA playing career Isiah Thomas.
5. In a sign of its commitment to higher education, the Big 12 reaffirmed yesterday that it is content at 10 member institutions for now. Outside of the amusing fact that the Big 12 will have 10 schools while the Big Ten will have 12 schools in it, we do not believe for a second that the Big 12 does not want to expand, which is something that the conference even admits it would be willing to do if the right opportunity comes. The most logical option for expansion continues to be Notre Dame, which is hesitant to do so thanks to their own lucrative TV contract for football and the ridiculous deal they receive from the BCS, which they have not been able to take advantage of much recently. Of course, if and when they end up at 11 schools you can be sure that the 12th school will not be too far behind in order to balance out the conference.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2012 at 5:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: air force, army, brown, citadel, mike martin, notre dame, richard pitino, rick pitino, ucla, virginia military institute, vmi. 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.