Morning Five: 01.01.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 1st, 2013

morning5

  1. Now that it seems that nearly every school has changed conferences the next (il)logical thing is thing to do is not change conferences after you say that you will and go back to your original conference, which is exactly what Boise State did yesterday when it announced that it would stay in the Mountain West and not move to the Big East (in football) and the Big West (all other sports) in 2013. At this point it is really a matter of when not if the Big East officially ceases to exist so Boise State’s decision should not come as much a surprise particularly with the prominence of its football program nationally. As for basketball, which is obviously our primary focus, the decision will only bolster an already promising Mountain West Conference and will likely mean that San Diego State will also bail on the Big East thanks to a provision in the contract that allows them to leave without penalty if there are no other schools in the conference that are located west of the Rocky Mountains. The return of those two schools means that the conference should continue to be competitive with the so-called BCS conferences for years to come.
  2. With 2012 complete there are only four teams that remain undefeated: Duke, Michigan, Arizona, and Wyoming. The first three teams are the top three teams in the rankings while the Cowboys have not even cracked the top 25. They will have a hard time doing that and staying undefeated with the loss of Luke Martinez, who is out indefinitely after fracturing his right ring finger. The loss of Martinez (14.5 points per game) is particularly problematic for the Cowboys as they are about to enter the most difficult part of their schedule with a game on the road against a very solid Southern Methodist team before they begin play against the previously mentioned exceptionally strong Mountain West schedule.
  3. He will have to settle for being in the enormous shadow of Mike Krzyzewski for the foreseeable future, but Jim Boeheim has put himself in position to pass Bob Knight for second on the all-time wins list after the Orange’s easy win yesterday to close out non-conference play gave Boeheim his 902nd career win. Boeheim will have a shot at passing Knight tomorrow when Syracuse begins Big East play at home against Rutgers. At this point we have heard plenty of arguments about where Boeheim ranks among the all-time greats. For the time being, we will ignore those and choose just to appreciate Boeheim for his impressive career and longevity. We will leave the debates about where he ranks all-time for when he retires and his resume can be judged as a whole.
  4. John Infante, who is the best source for information on NCAA rules (follow him on Twitter if you don’t already do so), has put together his third annual list of suggestions for small changes to the NCAA rulebook that could have a significant impact on student-athletes. While some of these changes may seem to relatively minor in terms of their impact such as what he proposes for graduate assistant some of the other suggestions such allowing coaches to arrange professional training for their athletes would obviously have a much larger impact. There are some ideas that we are still having trouble getting behind such as a proposal to allow athletic departments to hire prospects, but either way this is a post that should make you think about how current rules are structured and how they could be improved.
  5. Finally, with 2013 behind us it is both time to look forward and also to look back. If you missed the excellent “The 10 Biggest CBB Stories of 2012” by Chris Johnson, we highly recommend you check it out with this summary post and the attached links to the top 10 stories. You can argue putting #2-#10 in any order you want and maybe even throw another story or two in there and we would be willing to hear your argument, but if you try to challenge the #1 story of the past year we will not even listen to your argument.
nvr1983 (1398 Posts)


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