1. By now all of you have heard of DeAndre Kane and at least part of his story including about his father and his time at Marshall before transferring to Iowa State, but we have not seen as thorough a description of Kane and some of the details of those incidents at Marshall as what Luke Winn provided in his article on Kane for Sports Illustrated. While Kane certainly comes across as a sympathetic figure it is interesting that he denies that any of the reported incidents happened despite multiple sources confirming the reports including one player who Kane reportedly punches who admits that he was at fault for the incident. Outside of the details on Kane it also has a guest appearance by Royce White, it also has a surprising story about how Lattrell Spreewell is one of Fred Hoiberg’s favorite teammates and how his experiences with Spreewell helped shape his view on accepting transfers.
2. Richmond’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament appear to be over after they announced yesterday that Cedrick Lindsey‘s career at Richmond was over due a torn meniscus in both knees. Lindsay, the team’s leading scorer at 18.3 points per game, was the team’s only remaining senior after forward Derrick Williams quit the team. Richmond’s resume is good enough that with a solid February and March they could be on the bubble, but without Lindsey and Williams it is tough to envision them putting together such a run. Without Lindsey in the lineup even more burden will fall on Kendall Anthony, the team’s second-leading scorer at 14.8 points per game, but at this point Richmond fans might be better served looking forward to next season.
3. Loyola’s bad season is about to get worse after they announced that Dylon Cormier, the top scorer in the Patriot League at 21.2 points per game, is out indefinitely after having surgery to repair two fractures in his left hand. The injury might have a bigger impact on Loyola than Cedric Lindsey’s will have on Richmond, but Loyola was nowhere near the point of having any postseason aspirations as they were only 9-12 prior to the announcement although they did manage to beat American, the top team in the Patriot League, last night without Cormier. It is possible that Loyola could rally without Cormier, but we would probably just consider last night’s result an aberration.
4. As a general rule using “I’m not the only one” is never a good defense, but apparently that is what Marcus Smart has elected to use as his defense for his growing reputation for flopping. We can’t argue with Smart’s claim because we do see a lot of flopping, but we doubt that his defense will win him many supporters. What will win him supporters is getting his game back together as it and his Oklahoma State team have fallen apart. We are not quite ready to write off Smart and the Cowboys yet, but if they do not turn it around relatively soon they could be looking at a much lower seed in the NCAA Tournament than they expected coming into the season.
5. Yesterday on ESPN’s Mike and Mike show, Jim Boeheim stated that college basketball is in “the best place it’s ever been.” On the surface it might seem like a ridiculous statement because of how much people complain about how college basketball has fallen off with many of the top talents only staying in college for the mandated one year before heading to the NBA, but Boeheim is looking at things a little differently. Boeheim’s argument is based more on parity. Some might call this mediocrity, but in Boeheim’s eyes there are benefits to not having a few dominant teams and instead having “a lot of really good teams”. On some level that is something we can certainly get behind and hope that it leads to a great NCAA Tournament.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 6th, 2014 at 8:41 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: cedrick lindsey, DeAndre Kane, Dylon Cormier, jim boeheim, marcus smart. 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.