- Raleigh News & Observer: North Carolina lost to Butler in the Maui Invitational, sending fans on a roller coaster ride bottoming out down 29 points, peaking at a last gasp comeback that cut the deficit to six, before settling somewhere in between. The Tar Heels were pushed around all night, and defended the perimeter woefully. About the only positive to take away from the game was the last 12 minutes, but North Carolina has to get a lot tougher and can’t coast after big wins.
- Sports Illustrated: Mike Krzyzewski wants to “circle wagons” and figure out who’s staying in the ACC. It’s clear the Maryland move caught Coach K by surprised, and he’s concerned about the stability of the conference. Before the powwow he may want to wait to see if the Terrapins manage to reduce the $50 million exit fee: if they can, Krzyzewski is absolutely right to question the conference stability. It sounds like Coach K wants reaffirmation from Clemson and Florida State and supports replacing Maryland with Connecticut or Louisville.
- Charlottesville Daily Progress: Tony Bennett really likes the progress of his freshmen, three of whom made up the Cavaliers’ top scoring trio in their win over North Texas. Bennett’s system definitely has a steep learning curve, so expect the frosh to get better as they understand their roles in the pack-line defense. Long story short: don’t write off Virginia finishing in the top half of the conference just yet. This team still has a long way to go, but it’s improved a lot even just through six games.
- Tomahawk Nation: Props to Michael Rogner for charting an efficiency-based +/- for Florida State that takes into account garbage time and other anomalies. While the charts need more data to help take care of outliers (for instance, Terrance Shannon likely won’t play as well most games as he did against St. Joseph’s), but the data is still interesting. It confirms the Seminoles are a more consistent offensive team so far this season, and freshman point guards Montay Brandon and Devon Bookert have a lot to do with it.
- Miami Herald: This story is mostly about football, but the NCAA just issued a brutal ultimatum to former Miami players. Mark Ennis described it best: “The NCAA is holding a gun to Miami’s head and telling former players ‘give us what we want or she dies.'” Barry Jackson reported that the NCAA sent out a letter to Miami players telling players that the NCAA will assume their guilty if they don’t talk. This definitely feels like a intimidation tactic by the NCAA to get evidence.