1. By now you are probably aware of our stance on the rampant use of transfer waivers, which the NCAA seems to be handing out like candy on Halloween. Now it appears that the NCAA might be pulling pack on the allowance of transfer waivers including those for graduate transfers. According to John Infante, the NCAA is considering requiring all transfers to sit out one year without exception. I think it goes without saying that this proposal has not been getting much public support outside of college coaching and administrative circles. It is worth noting that the NCAA would extend the student-athlete’s five-year window. Even with that marginal concession we doubt that the NCAA will be able to withstand the public backlash if it does so.
2. Speaking of potential transfers the future of Chane Behanan became a little more uncertain yesterday. Behanan, who kicked off the Louisville team on Monday, has expressed some interest in transfer, but is first heading to work with former NBA player and coach John Lucas to deal with an undisclosed problem with the possibility that he might enter the NBA Draft. If Behanan decides to transfer, he would be eligible to play one more semester and according to reports would only be blocked from going to another AAC school. Regardless of his decision on his career path and given Lucas’ work with players dealing with alcohol and other substance abuse problems we wish Behanan the best of luck before we would worry about anything basketball-related.
3. If you thought that the ACC could rely on depth to salvage its reputation this season, you can knock one team–Georgia Tech–off that list after it appears to have lost forward Robert Carter Jr. for the season to a torn meniscus in his left knee. While the team is being careful in saying that Carter, who was averaging 10.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game, is out indefinitely many other reports are suggesting that he could be out for the remainder of the season. Almost everybody is aware of some players making miraculous recoveries so we will probably get a better idea of when Carter might come back following his surgery next week, but it looks like the Yellow Jackets might be towards the bottom of the ACC standings this season.
4. Michigan is awaiting word on the status of Glenn Robinson III after he injured his left ankle in the second half of their victory at Minnesota yesterday. Robinson had been averaging 14.2 points and 5 rebounds per game coming in. With Mitch McGary likely out for the remainder of the season, the loss of Robinson for any prolonged period of time would be devastating for the Wolverines and would likely keep them out of the NCAA Tournament as they will be entering the heart of their Big Ten schedule on January 18 as they play at Wisconsin, home against Iowa, and at Michigan State in a one-week stretch. If Robinson is out, it would place even more pressure on Nik Stauskas and Caris LeVert to carry the team. Both have shown great improvement since last season, but that would probably be too much to ask of them.
5. Now for the number-heavy portion of the Morning Five. Yesterday, we sort of promised you that Ken Pomeroy would deliver the third installment of his three-part conference race preview and he delivered. As we noted yesterday these are not meant to be the best conferences, but instead the most competitive conference races. When you see the conferences on the list you will see what we mean. And of course there is our weekly link to Luke Winn’s Power Rankings. The two things that jumped out to us this week were the huge difference between the usage rates for Syracuse and Arizona were and the blinded point guard comparison.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 3rd, 2014 at 7:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: chane behanan, glenn robinson iii, robert carter jr.. 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.