1. We are just four days away from the start of the college basketball season and by now you have probably read a ton of preview columns (you can always catch more here), but if you want the latest updates to all of those articles, CBS had the Jeffs (Goodman and Borzello) put together a comprehensive list of injuries and how long the players are expected to be out. As you can tell some conferences and some teams have been hit harder than others, but it is worth checking out because outside of the major injuries and NCAA issues there are quite a few players who may not be starting the season with their teams that you were probably unaware of before seeing this list. We are hoping they keep this updated, but even if they don’t it is a good piece to bookmark for the first week of the season.
2. Of course with the start of the season there is the annoying performance issue. Coaches and administrators can no longer rely on hype from the media and message boards and instead have to produce on the court. In some situations that can lead to precarious job status and Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish have picked out 12 coaches who are sitting on the proverbial hot seat. All but two of the names on the list come from power conferences and for the most part we agree with everybody on the list, so it should be interesting to see how long some of these guys last. We are assuming that all of them will make it through the season as they all come from established programs, but we are particularly interested in seeing what happens to the pair out in LA where one could win a national title or be fired and the other is apparently a “trip to talk with.”
3. In a move that we are ambivalent towards, but will probably generate a fair bit of discussion (we have already seen a fair bit of yellow journalism on the topic) the NCAA modified its guidelines for transfer waivers as it relates to players looking to be closer to home to be with an ailing family member. The move is an attempt to standardize a protocol given the growing number of transfers requesting waivers for this reason. It should be noted that all of these modifications only apply to those seeking to compete immediately after transferring. For the most part the modifications make it easier to obtain a waiver (it has to be a debilitating injury not just life-threatening injury, be involved in regular care rather than be the primary caregiver, etc). The only thing here that limits the student-athlete’s ability to transfer is a requirement to be within 100 miles of the ailing family member whereas in the past there was no such boundary. While this may be an issue for individuals who come from hometowns in sparsely populated areas, it seems like a reasonable rule to prevent people from using a relative’s illness as an “excuse” to transfer without having to sit out a year. In situations where there is not a reasonably well-situated school within that 100-mile radius, we are assuming the NCAA will decide on a case-by-case basis.
4. We are not used to seeing a Luke Winn column without some statistical analysis in it, but since nobody has played any official games yet we will cut him some slack as he unveiled his tiers of potential Wooden Award winners. We have heard criticism from some writers for championing Winn’s work, but we instantly like his list better than what the committee releases since his list includes freshmen. It is worth noting that his list is not in order and instead just has numbers by the players to help keep track of how many players are in each group. Even though Winn lists 50 players we can only see 10 at most having any shot of being National Player of the Year and that is giving the incoming freshmen more credit than they probably deserve.
5. Last week we mentioned how there was something strange going on at Detroit Mercy. It turns out that we were on to something as after the school’s Athletic Director and an assistant coach resigned, another assistant coach — Carlos Briggs — did not attend practices on Thursday and Friday. Neither the school nor anybody on the coaching staff will comment on the situation although they stated that the other assistants were still with the team. We cannot say much about the situation other than it is not ideal for a school about to start its season and that where there is smoke…

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2012 at 5:30 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: detroit mercy. 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.