- Most of the major recruiting battles we follow involve coveted high school recruits, but as we have all seen sometimes the top junior college players can also have a big impact particularly when they wind up at the right program. So although yesterday’s announcement that Kadeem Allen, one of the top junior college players in the country, was committing to Arizona might not blow up the message boards it could still be a significant move. Allen is a 6’3″ guard who was a high-major recruit coming out of high school, but was unable to qualify so went to junior college in Kansas where he averaged 17.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game last year as a freshman on his was to junior college All-American honors. Assuming Allen honors his commitment he should have another year to learn the Arizona offense under T.J. McConnell before he will really have to compete for the job so even if Allen doesn’t work out Sean Miller should have plenty of time to find a replacement for McConnell.
- After missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years, Purdue was hoping to bounce back this season. Much of their hopes coming into the season appear to rest on the shoulders of sophomore center A.J. Hammons, but those hopes will have to be put on hold temporarily as Hammons was suspended for an unspecified violation of team rules. Hammons, who averaged 10.6 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game last season, will miss Purdue’s two exhibition games and its season-opener against Northern Kentucky. The actual suspension should not necessarily be a cause for concern for Boilermaker fans (Matt Painter said it was a conduct-related suspension and not one related to academics), but the fact that Hammons, who was supposed to lead the team this year (see our post on the topic published yesterday and written before the announcement), would be reckless enough to get suspended might be a reason to be worried.
- Speaking of reckless… Yesterday, Roy Williams announced that North Carolina would finally reveal P.J. Hairston‘s punishment in two weeks for his multiple transgressions over the summer. We have no idea what Hairston’s suspension will be since it has previously been announced that he would miss some regular season games, but has been practicing with the team. At this point, we doubt any significant suspension is coming (unless the NCAA steps in), but the length of Hairston’s suspension will be significant because the Tar Heels have some stiff competition early including a match-up against Louisville in their fifth game (potentially). Michigan State in their seventh game, and Kentucky in their ninth game. Without Hairston’s offense and experience these would likely be almost certain losses for the Tar Heels and would pose an interesting dilemma for NCAA Tournament seeding when Selection Sunday rolls around.
- Most of the season previews you will be reading over the next week will focus on the star players and occasionally some key role players, but as Mike DeCourcy notes in his piece on Evansville senior Bryce Weiler there is more to the college basketball experience than what most of us are exposed to. As DeCourcy notes, despite Weiler’s blindness (the result of congenital abnormalities when he was born four months premature) he has managed to become an integral member of an Evansville team that went from being a 9-21 team his freshman year to a 21-15 team last year (his junior year). For all of the ridiculous stories we see around college sports (ranging from the suspensions to individuals throwing away their careers) it is nice to see stories like this.
- If you are like us you have probably been been waiting impatiently for the season to start. To keep ourselves occupied we have been reading through all sorts of preview pieces, but two of the most interesting “previews” that we have seen come from Ken Pomeroy (featured as the current rankings) and Dan Henner (ESPN Insider access only), who have somehow produced a rating system to predict how good different teams are coming into the season using an algorithm that is probably way too complex for us to understand. One of the more interesting things about the aspects is how widely they differ on how they project some teams. John Templon took on the Herculean task of comparing the two rankings systems. The wide divergence for top teams (like Arizona, which is Hanner’s #8 team, but only Pomeroy’s #23 team) will probably draw the most attention, but the bigger spread for some other teams is probably more interesting for the overall comparison. It will be interesting to see how close these two preseason rankings end up to the final rankings when the season is done.