- On Saturday, Mike Arespo, the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, said that the member schools were committed to matching other power conferences when it came to giving student-athletes stipends. Although Arespo did not specifically state how much the schools would be willing to spend it appears that it would likely be the often-quoted full cost of attendance. As Arespo notes, there are a myriad of other political and legal issues that have to be addressed, but this could be another step in further separating the haves from the have nots.
- Indiana suspended sophomore forward Hanner Mosquera-Perea indefinitely after he was arrested on a DUI charge (technically an operating while intoxicated charge). Mosquera-Perea, who has struggled to live up to the hype generated by his ridiculous YouTube clips coming out of high school, was arrested on Friday morning just after 3 AM. Normally we would figure that a coach would make an indefinite suspension go away rather quickly, but with the way that Mosquera-Perea and the Hoosiers have been playing there might even be the possibility that Crean keep him out for a prolonged period of time. We doubt that it will happen, but it would be nice to see a coach hold a player accountable for doing something like this for once.
- We have mixed feelings about the decision by Lamar to fire Pat Knight on Sunday. On one hand, Knight has been awful at Lamar going 3-22 so far this year after going 3-28 last season. The lone bright spot during his nearly three-year run at the school was a NCAA Tournament appearance in his first season that was sparked by his epic rant. On the other side, we have no idea what the school is getting by firing a Knight a month before their season will end. For some schools we can understand the idea that you can get a better coach, but when you are Lamar you really don’t have a shot at the real big names. So unless there is something that we are missing like an issue with Knight behind the scenes it seems like a strange time to fire him.
- We should probably be more familiar with new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, but we mostly know him as the guy who typically gets the big standing ovation when he takes over for David Stern at the NBA Draft between the first and second round. It appears that Silver could be making a name for himself more quickly than we anticipated. In an interview in USA Today, Silver stated that he would like to raise the age limit by one year and get rid of the one-and-done rule. We understand that there will be some legal issues with doing so, but we think that those are likely the same philosophical issues that people have had with the current age limit. On a selfish level, we would love to see this because it would mean that players would most likely have to stay for two years. Frankly we are not sure why this would not be something that the Players Association would be in favor of too since it would give the current members an extra year of job security.
- Jay Bilas has made a habit out of poking fun at the NCAA for its many hypocrisies. One of his more popular stunts from last year was exposing how the NCAA was selling player jerseys by advertising the player’s name on their website even though they claim it is team jersey not a player jersey to bolster their assertion that a player should not receive a portion of the profits. On Friday, someone in control of Syracuse’s social media accounts made the mistake of advertising a Syracuse #11 jersey as a Tyler Ennis jersey. While it was already obvious to every fan who wears that #11 jersey for the Orange this season in theory this should be a NCAA violation and more importantly a legal problem for the school and the NCAA since they are not supposed to profit off a player’s likeness. You can be sure that the O’Bannon legal team appreciated this gift.