1. The NCAA gets a lot of criticism for a lot of things (often warranted), but their decision to pull seven championship events out of North Carolina during the 2016-17 championship season in response to the HB2 law seems to be widely applauded in the mainstream media. While some have been critical of the NCAA for making this decision against the state of North Carolina, the NCAA did come out with a clear list of reasons for their decision. It is also worth nothing that North Carolina is not the only state to have faced a ban by the NCAA for non-NCAA-related issues (the state of South Carolina was briefly banned from hosting championship events because of its use of the Confederate flag). For their part, coaches and administrators from several schools in the state including Duke and North Carolina have come out in support of the NCAA’s decision.
2. With the NCAA joining the NBA, which decided to move the 2017 All-Star Game in response on to HB2, the ACC also decided to move its neutral-site championship events from North Carolina for the 2016-17 season as well. Although it would be easy to take a shot at the ACC for making a move only after the NBA and NCAA did it is worth noting how significant the move is since the ACC is headquartered and was founded in North Carolina. The move isn’t that significant for basketball this year as the ACC Tournament is going to be held in Brooklyn, but among other things it does force the ACC to move its football title game (scheduled for the first weekend in December) out of Charlotte to a site that has not been announced yet.
3. We figured that after George Washington did not do anything in July following allegations of verbal abuse against Mike Lonergan by some of his former players (refuted by other former players) we had heard the end of that issue for the foreseeable future. It turns out we were wrong as reports surfaced on Friday night that Lonergan had been fired by the school. Given the details surrounding Lonergan’s reported abuse and his disdain for athletic director Patrick Nero it should be no surprise that Lonergan will be challenging his dismissal. We still are not sure what led the school to dismiss Lonergan on a Friday night in September, but it certain puts the as yet unnamed interim coach in a very difficult spot.
4. Although Miami lost quite a few players to graduation this past season, we expected Miami to have a solid team this season thanks to what might be the best recruiting class the program has ever had. Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, Dewan Huell, one of the most prominent pieces in that class, was arrested on misdemeanor battery charges last week. According to police reports, Huell, a 6’11” McDonald’s All-American, attacked a man who he found in a closet with his ex-girlfriend after Huell went to her apartment uninvited. Assuming this is Huell’s first such incident we doubt that he will get more than a slap on the wrist with what has been released.
5. Davidson is best known for Steph Curry playing college basketball there (and that is unlikely to change any time soon), but it has also become a well-known program internationally thanks to Bob McKillop and his recruitment of foreign players. As Seth Davis point out, the fact that Davidson will have players from seven different countries on its roster this season is the result of years of dedication by McKillop. It is a rather interesting strategy and one that is more likely to pay dividends for McKillop than if he were to hope to have the next Curry fall into his lap.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2016 at 8:10 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: bob mckillop, davidson, dewan huell, george washington, miami, mike lonergan. 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.