- Rick Barnes will just need to stay patient with Myck Kabongo, it appears. The star point guard has traveled with the team to Hawaii for this week’s Maui Invitational, but the NCAA has not yet deemed him eligible to play. The Longhorns have looked lost offensively without Kabongo, and they can’t afford for him to stay on the bench much longer. They should be able to dispatch of Chaminade and, truthfully, either Illinois or USC in the semifinals, but this team can’t get off the island with a championship if Kabongo’s not playing. Here’s the funny thing about all of this — technically, according to that article linked above, there’s nothing necessarily preventing Kabongo from playing right now. It’s just that if he plays and the NCAA eventually finds him ineligible due to his relationship with an agent, Texas would have to forfeit every game he appeared in. As if there’s a chance in the world Barnes would risk that.
- Even before Oklahoma State’s thrashing of North Carolina State in the finals of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, The Oklahoman published this piece about Le’Bryan Nash‘s maturity and improved play so far this season. Then he lit up the Wolfpack for 23 points, and his team looked immortal during the final two days of this three-day tournament. It’s obvious that some of us — like myself, who said in a preseason podcast I had serious doubts about Oklahoma State’s potential — might have been, um, dead wrong about Nash and the Cowboys. It’s early, sure, but everything’s coming together perfectly for Travis Ford. Nash looks like he gets it. Marcus Smart can play the point. His high school buddy Phil Forte really is one of the top shooters in his freshman class. There’s no telling how long the Cowboys may ride this wave of momentum from Puerto Rico.
- It’s hard to be TCU. New league, new opponents, new era, and on top of that, Trent Johnson is really in rebuilding mode with this program right now. That’s why losing Amric Fields, the Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year last season, hurts so much. The Star-Telegram claims Fields is probably out for the season, which means he’ll join freshman center Aaron Durley on the walking wounded list (Durley’s also out for the year). Luckily, the Horned Frogs do have a lot of bodies up front still, even if they’re largely unproven. Nobody said Trent Johnson’s new job was going to be very easy.
- TCU lost Fields in the midst of a loss to in-state rival SMU. That’s Larry Brown’s new team, of course, and here’s an interesting analysis as to how TCU and SMU differ in their approaches to rebuilding. It’s not as though Trent Johnson is some sort of up-and-comer as a coach. He’s taken three separate programs to the NCAA Tournament and established himself as one of the game’s better coaches during his tenures at Nevada and Stanford. He’s no Larry Brown, however. Nobody is. And that’s why this article is a good read, no matter if you live in TCU/SMU territory in Texas or 1,000 miles away in another part of the country. These two programs both needed a bold move, and they took different paths to achieve it.
- Bruce Weber may not have the same sort of talent that Bill Snyder has on his football team, but he says he loves his depth so far. He has a point. Outside of Rodney McGruder and perhaps Jordan Henriquez, the rest of the rotation is mostly interchangeable. There are just solid players up and down the roster at every position. Right now, the Wildcats have 11 players averaging between 16-24 minutes per game. That will obviously change as the season progresses, but even against early cupcakes, that’s quite staggering.