1. Since only four ACC schools are hosting a preseason celebration that could be considered a Midnight Madness event, we need a fifth to truly make this an M5. So we begin with Louisville, a program that appears to have been conducting its own version of late-night ‘Madness’ in recent years, at least according to “Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen,” co-authored by Katina Powell and Pulitzer Prize winner Dick Cady. The resulting scandal has become the preseason’s biggest story in college basketball and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Earlier this week, Powell was interviewed as part of an ESPN Outside The Lines episode, and she came across as a credible source in addition to what has been confirmed by other eyewitnesses, including former Louisville players and recruits. Rick Pitino claims to have no knowledge of any of these allegations and has called on former player and staff member, Andre McGee – the supposed organizer of the whole mess — to come forward and tell the truth. But many feel that the NCAA won’t be able to force McGee — currently on leave from his assistant coaching job with UMKC — to speak with them. While it’s true that current players and staff of NCAA member schools are obligated to speak with investigators, McGee, with little to gain by sharing, is likely to choose not to cooperate. He is of course not immune from talking with criminal investigators, so we may eventually found out what he knows via leaks and/or public records, but that doesn’t help the NCAA make any decisions about what do with Pitino and the Louisville program. All of which makes it hard to speculate on whether Pitino will ultimately survive as the Cardinals’ head coach.
2. North Carolina will try to put aside worries about its own ongoing NCAA investigation with its annual “Late Night With Roy” celebration tonight at the Smith Center. The evening’s festivities will be hosted by former Tar Heels’ star Kenny Smith of TNT, and includes dance routines, comedy skits, and a team scrimmage as well as a special tribute to longtime “Late Night” host, Stuart Scott. UNC, recently named as co-#1 with Kentucky in the USA Today preseason coaches’ poll, will also be entertaining some top high school prospects. Recently Roy Williams has been struggling to recruit at the same level as other top national programs such as Duke, Kentucky and Kansas, so North Carolina fans hope a positive impression will be made on the players in attendance.
3. Just down the road, Duke hosted its “Countdown to Craziness” last Saturday night in Cameron indoor Stadium. Among the highlights were the unveiling of the school’s fifth national championship banner and a team scrimmage that indicated that Duke’s defense is ahead of its offense at this stage of the preseason. As usual, the Blue Devils also used the event as a showcase for many high-level recruits from several different classes. In other Duke-related news, Mike Krzyzewski confirmed that next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will be his last as head coach of the USA’s mens’ national team. That news alone is not surprising, but it does reignite the conversation of who will take over the job and whether that coach will come from the NBA.
4. Last Friday night, Syracuse held its annual “Orange Madness” event in the Carrier Dome. Much like at North Carolina, Orange players, coaches and fans probably enjoyed getting away from some of the recent negativity surrounding their program and are looking forward to some closure to its situation. With all the recent publicity about the Louisville debacle and the continuing talk concerning North Carolina’s NCAA investigation, it’s easy to forget that Syracuse will be without Jim Boeheim for the first half of ACC play this season and will have to manage smaller rosters for a while. It says here, though, that Louisville patrons would still gladly swap places with Orange fans at the moment.
5. The first ACC school to host a Midnight Madness event this season was Pittsburgh, with an event called #ZooAfterHours that was held in the Petersen Events Center on October 9. It looks like Jamie Dixon pulled a page out of the John Calipari playbook by featuring rap star and Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa as the main attraction. Dixon commented afterward that the night worked out as well as expected or maybe even better. He also was quoted as saying that the Panthers were ready to get back to “toughness, hard work and playing defense”after a disappointing 2014-15 season, and that “we plan to push the ball at every opportunity as we have good guards.” While the first part of that quote is appropriate for what has made the Pitt program successful in the Dixon era, we’ll believe the second part when we see it — the Panthers have been among the nation’s slowest-paced teams for many years.

Brad Jenkins (383 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2015 at 8:01 am by Brad Jenkins (@bradjenk) and is filed under acc, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: duke, jamie dixon, jim boeheim, louisville, mike krzyzewski, north carolina, pittsburgh, rick pitino, roy williams, syracuse. 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.