1. Hampton Roads Pilot: Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver announced he will be stepping down at the end of the year due to health reasons. Weaver has Parkinson’s disease and needs both hips replaced. Weaver’s departure very much puts the Hokie administration in limbo, as the university is also currently looking for a president. The plan is to hire the president first, so he or she can give the go ahead on the athletic director. That’s the best case for stability. Though the turmoil in the administration may indirectly put some pressure on James Johnson, as the new athletic director may want to make his or her mark early.
2. Atlanta Journal Constitution: Brian Gregory earned himself a one-year extension, which seems a show of tepid support from the relatively new athletic director, Mike Bobinski. A single year is nothing to clamor about, and it likely was the minimum required to help ease the minds of recruits and their parents. With the extension, Gregory is under contract until the end of the 2018 season (and if you do the math, next year’s class would be seniors in the final year of Gregory’s contract).
3. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: Jim Boeheim is doing his best to temper expectations heading into the season. But as the author points out, Syracuse generally wins a whole lot of games and experiences success regardless of the players lost the previous season. But possibly more important when defining expectations for this year’s team is considering the hot streak–defensively–last year’s team went on to reach the Final Four. Syracuse didn’t look like a contender for much of the season, but things came together when it mattered most.
4. Baltimore Sun: You would have thought an unranked Connecticut outrebounded Maryland by 30 in a rout based on Mark Turgeon‘s comments after the game. The Huskies outrebounded Turgeon’s team by three boards and won by one. More importantly, Maryland missed far more shots than its opponent. The Terrapins actually won (barely) the rebound percentage battle. Long story short, Turgeon may be upset with his team’s effort on the glass, but Maryland is still a good rebounding team.
5. Keeping It Heel: Every day that passes without more concrete news is another day that fuels rumors that PJ Hairston may be permanently ineligible. What started as a message board rumor has quickly gained steam (and some legitimacy) yesterday. The story still doesn’t make a ton of sense, but apparently hinges on the fact that Hairston wasn’t entirely truthful with the NCAA or Roy Williams. The latter seems unlikely (why would he still be practicing if Williams was planning to kick him off the team), but the former is definitely in play considering the NCAA’s loose definition of evidence. Alexander Hines takes a look at the Tar Heels without Hairston, which would obviously be a huge blow.

mpatton (576 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 13th, 2013 at 7:40 am by mpatton and is filed under acc, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: brian gregory, georgia tech, jim boeheim, jim weaver, mark turgeon, pj hairston, virginia tech. 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.