- After a somewhat lackluster opening night for college basketball (we will just call it a soft opening), we got under way in a big way with the Tip-Off Marathon yesterday (and technically the day before too). There were not any particularly surprising results–Florida was playing short-handed against Miami and the Hurricanes are better than people think so we aren’t buying that as an upset–but that does not mean there was a shortage of storylines. Not surprisingly, the biggest news came out of Indianapolis at the Champions Classic where Duke beat Michigan State 81-71 and Kentucky crushed Kansas 72-40. The big takeaways from the two games were how dominant Jahlil Okafor can be (he is now 25-for-30 on the season and last night he did it against a legitimate Division I team) and how scary the Wildcats already are. Okafor will certainly be in contention for Player of the Year awards, but we aren’t sure if he will be aggressive enough to put up overwhelming numbers. Kentucky with its platoons might actually do so. The question of whether they can go undefeated will certainly come up and they should be favored in every game they play–only games against North Carolina, Louisville, and Florida (at least twice) seem like the line would even be close at this point–but we would recommend holding off on any serious discussion on that until February at earliest.
- The details of the NCAA’s investigation of Syracuse remain unclear, but according to reports at least one part of it involves a former YMCA employee who has been accused of stealing nearly $340,000 from the organization. It is unclear if any of that money was directed to any student-athletes, but they are believed to have taken courses/internships that involved working at the YMCA. We probably won’t know the exact details of the accusations until the NCAA releases its findings, but we don’t think the NCAA needs any more of its member institutions involved in academic scandals.
- Virginia Commonwealth has not yet cleared JeQuan Lewis, who suffered a concussion on Friday against Tennessee, to resume playing. Lewis, a sophomore who averaged 5.9 points in 16.1 minutes per game last season, hit his head in the first half and had to be helped off the floor. According to Shaka Smart, Lewis showed improvement over the weekend, but is still not quite ready yet. Fortunately for Lewis the odds of him suffering another similar injury are extremely low compared with sports where concussions are usually a concern. The other thing in his favor is the Rams don’t really need his services until their game on November 24 against Villanova so he can take his time coming back.
- The details behind Demetrius Treadwell‘s indefinite suspension have come out and things are not looking good for the Akron star. According to reports, Treadwell is accused of assaulting a female basketball player. This is not the first time that Treadwell has been in trouble as the All-MAC forward was suspended briefly last year. While some schools have developed reputations for going easy on athletes in these settings we think two things are working against Treadwell in this case (outside of the obvious potential assault)–being in the post-Ray Rice era where abuse against women has become more of a focal point (yes, we know how absurd it is that it had to become more of a focal point) and the fact that this was against a member of the same program. On a larger scale, we have to wonder what is going on at Akron where they had a star point guard (Alex Abreu) facing drug charges two years ago, another player who served a yearlong suspension for a domestic incident, and another player who transferred after violating team rules.
- Last week the NCAA released the sites for the 2017-21 Final Fours. On Monday, they released the locations for many of the earlier rounds. The biggest news is that the First Four is staying in Dayton and the NCAA is no longer going to try to convince us that it is the First Round with every other team getting byes into the Second Round. While we have our reservations about the First Four, it appears to have provided Dayton with some kind of financial benefit as they beat out what was reportedly a competitive bid from Sioux Falls (would have loved to see some national writers get shipped out there).