- After he scored 25 points in the first game of the season we thought that Joshua Smith might have actually turned a corner and could be a productive force for Georgetown. Although he did continue to be a productive player averaging 11.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game his numbers tailed off as the season went on and after on Friday he was declared academically ineligible by the school. Smith, who transferred from UCLA last season and surprisingly got a waiver to play this season without missing any time, has never been able to get into playing shape for any long period of time and at this point we are not sure whether or not he will stay at Georgetown. What we are sure of is that if he does not there will be no shortage of coaches out there willing to take a chance on him thinking that they will be the one to get through to him.
- This Bubu Palo case does not appear to be going away any time soon for Iowa State. Palo, who was charged with second-degree sexual assault that were later dropped, was kicked off the Iowa State basketball team despite his legal victory because the school felt that the had violated the student code of conduct. Unfortunately for Palo the decision came after the transfer window for this season closed. Last week a county court ruled that Palo should be allowed to play for Iowa State, but the Board of Regents objected so the case went to the Iowa Supreme Court where they again ruled in favor of Palo and denied Iowa State’s request for an immediate stay. As we mentioned last week, there have been several cases like this in that a player was kicked off a team despite having charges thrown out against him, but this is the furthest a school has went to keep a player off a team. We are not sure if Iowa State will try to take this even further, live with the decision, or just tell Fred Hoiberg just to keep Palo on the team (we are assuming the last choice is not an option).
- On Friday, Robert Morris announced that four members of its men’s basketball team–Jeremiah Worthem, Britton Lee, Evan Grey, and Shaire Tolson-Ford–had been suspended indefinitely for a violation of an unspecified university policy. The loss of four players will certainly hurt the team from a depth perspective, but only Worthem (8.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per game) was a significant contributor. The bigger issue for Robert Morris is that with Worthem out and Mike McFadden already reportedly considering leaving the team an even bigger onus will be placed on Stephen Hawkins to step up as Lucky Jones, a guard who leads the team in rebounds, cannot be asked to carry a much bigger burden.
- Mark Emmert and the NCAA leadership might be sticking by the idea of maintaining a single organization. Why wouldn’t they since their existence depends on it? It appears that not all of the schools feel the same way. Gordon Gee, the interim president at West Virginia, has come out and endorsed splitting the top-tier of schools into a separate division with separate rules or completely breaking away. Gee, who has led numerous universities (see his Wikipedia profile for more details than we care to provide), claims that having these schools leave the NCAA would allow them to “really reinvent the whole nature of the governance structure.” That might be true, but we have a feeling that this new group of schools would eventually create another overseeing body not unlike the NCAA and we would have many of the same problems that we have today.
- It has been a very long time since we heard from Marshall Henderson. Part of it has been Mississippi’s uninspiring schedule, but he also seems to have been his best behavior. That is until Saturday when he appeared to exchange words with Mississippi State coach Rick Ray. Henderson has not publicly commented on the altercation, but Ray did yesterday and apologized for his actions. As Ray notes, no matter what Henderson did (and Ray doesn’t mention him by name), there is no reason for a coach to get into an altercation like that.