1. Coming into the season if you would have guessed that Ole Miss would have a significant discipline problem you probably would have guessed it was coming from Marshall Henderson. It has turned out that Henderson has behaved relatively well and it is instead sophomore guard Derrick Millinghaus, who was suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules yesterday. Millinghaus was averaging 7.2 points and 2.4 assists per game this season so his absence will certainly be felt, but fortunately for the Rebels they have enough depth in the backcourt that they should be able to withstand his loss.
2. Barring a miraculous run in the Big Ten Tournament, Indiana will not be back in the NCAA Tournament this season and at most will be looking at a lower-level post-season tournament. So it was surprising to see Tom Crean announce that Hanner Mosquera-Perea was back on the team after missing just 11 days and two games following his DUI arrest on February 14. As you can see from the comments on that post even the Indiana fan base appears divided on Crean’s decision. To be honest we cannot really understand why Crean would let Mosquera-Perea come back to the team this season unless he was concerned that Mosquera-Perea might transfer if he was held out for the rest of the season.
3. The BYU Honor Code made national headlines with its restrictions in particular the case involving Brandon Davies. Now it appears that the school is changing the way it deals with its Honor Code in relation to how much it discloses to the media. The school will now only release information on the violations if it is a matter of public record or if the student-athletes initiates the conversation on the violation. The new rules regarding disclosure of information certainly makes sense since the old policy would appear to violate the student’s right to privacy. This obviously won’t address the issues some people have with actual Honor Code, but it is a big step in the right direction in terms of the student-athlete’s privacy rights.
4. Duke might be taking the crown for this year’s top recruiting class, but that is not stopping John Calipari from already starting to put another ridiculous recruiting class next year. His latest 5-star addition is Chicago junior shooting guard Charles Matthews  who committed to Kentucky yesterday. Matthews, ranked 12th in ESPN’s class of 2015 rankings, chose Kentucky over Illinois, Kansas, Marquette, and Michigan State. Obviously, it is very early in that recruiting cycle (only 10 of ESPN’s top 60 recruits have committed so far) and Matthews is Kentucky’s first commitment for the class of 2015, but we are fairly confident that Calipari will be putting together yet another blockbuster class. For a comprehensive breakdown of what Matthews is bringing to Lexington check out Jeff Borzello’s excellent breakdown on Matthews’ commitment.
5. The topic of rushing the court (or whatever term you prefer) seems to be coming increasing scrutiny these days. Most observers do not necessarily issue with the concept of rushing the court or the exuberance that college students have for the game (the latter is part of what makes the sport so special). The issue that some have (and one that we occasionally poke fun at on Twitter) is how or when certain crowds should rush the court. Gary Parrish argues that an argument can be made for banning court storms all together, but it is pointless to argue the relative merit of one versus the other. We agree with Parrish to a degree and are generally ok with most court storms as long as they don’t feel forced. It might feel weird to see students at some school rush the court, but it is probably unreasonable to expect kids between the age of 18 and 22 to understand all of the tradition that some of these programs have or even to have the same sensibilities as we do.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 27th, 2014 at 7:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: byu, charles matthews, Derrick Millinghaus, Hanner Mosquera-Perea, kentucky. 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.