1. When Kansas lost at Oklahoma State on March 1 we were less concerned with the loss than with Joel Embiid and his apparent back injury. Initial reports out of Lawrence were that Embiid would miss the last two regular season games, but was expected to be back in time for the Big 12 Tournament. Instead, Embiid met with an orthopedic spine specialist in Los Angeles yesterday for further evaluation of his ongoing back problems. Yesterday evening Bill Self announced that Embiid, who reportedly has a spinal stress fracture (no idea on what level or why this required a trip to Los Angeles to figure it out or confirm it), would sit out the Big 12 Tournament and likely the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. This is obviously a huge blow for both the Jayhawks and Embiid. As with all back injuries we will need to wait and see how Embiid responds to conservative therapy before making any further judgments on his progress.
2. It is not very often that we discuss international players on this site (the last time that we remember doing it regularly a New York Times reporter was chasing down leads in Turkey), but it is not often that one of the top 10 international recruits in a class decides to college basketball. That is what Dusan Ristic, a 7′ tall Serbian ranked #8 overall for international recruits in his age group, is doing by committing to Arizona and will be part of the incoming class this fall. We won’t pretend to know anything about Ristic, but he seems like an interesting project for Sean Miller. In terms of his commitment, the most interesting thing about it is that Ristic opted to leave the European professional league to play college basketball because he felt that it was better for the development of his game.
3. It seems a little later than usual, but Seth Davis put out his annual All-Glue Team yesterday. We do not have any issues with the selections, but it seems like Seth is going with more “mainstream” players–particularly Patric Young–than he has in previous years. Perhaps it is a version of recency bias that is making us value current players more in terms of their contributions, but it seems like the current All-Glue Team has more borderline stars on it than previous versions did.
4. One more spot opened up on the coaching carousel as Appalachian State fired Jason Capel (or will not renew his contract). Capel, who was the youngest coach in Division I when he was hired at the age of 30, went 53-70 in four seasons and was only over .500 in his first year. Capel’s overall performance before this year (9-21) has not been that bad, but his tenure was largely unremarkable with the exception of his ongoing refusal to let Devonte Graham, an Appalachian State signee, out of his National Letter of Intent. Given Capel’s pedigree (playing at North Carolina and being the son of former coach Jeff II and brother of current Duke assistant Jeff III) we would expect to see him on someone’s staff relatively soon.
5. With Selection Sunday rapidly approaching many fans are debating the impact of various injuries and how it should affect seeding. With that in mind, Dan Hanner’s injury splits makes for some compelling reading. As Hanner notes these all should be viewed with the caveat that these numbers are influenced by the opposition, but they are worth checking out. The Selection Committee might not take these numbers into account, but you should consider them when filling out your bracket in about a week.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2014 at 7:00 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: dusan ristic, jason capel, joel embiid, patric young. 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.