Duke released a statement on Monday night confirming that Debbie Krzyzewski Savarino, the oldest daughter of Mike Krzyzewski, suffered a mild stroke as a result of a vertebral artery dissection “several weeks ago.” She is expected to make a full recovery, according to the short AP article from Yahoo! Sports (linked above) and a more detailed writeup from Durham’s Herald-Sun. Mrs. Savarino, 40,  is in fact already back at work in her position as assistant director of Duke’s Legacy Fund and Director of External Relations for Duke basketball.

Vertebral artery dissection is a leading cause of strokes in younger patients, especially those under 45. If you place your fingers on either side of your neck (gently), you’ll feel the pulse from your carotid artery. The vertebral artery runs right behind and parallel to the carotid, along the vertebrae in the neck, and supplies blood to the brain. Dissection doesn’t mean that the artery opens up and blood empties out into the body, but rather that one of the layers of the artery’s inner lining breaks and blood flows into the wall, causing it to bulge, get trapped, and then clot. The clot obstructs the normal flow of blood through the artery and therefore to the brain, and the patient starts having any of numerous symptoms, like headache, dizziness, loss of coordination, facial droop (we don’t know what Mrs. Savarino’s symptoms were and will not speculate) — in other words, the symptoms people usually associate with a stroke. Obviously all strokes are inherently dangerous, and the possibility of long-term deficits is always there, but patients who experience a stroke caused by vertebral artery dissection often have good outcomes with little or no lingering effects.

Every single person here at RTC extends their prayers and well-wishes for Mrs. Savarino, and we’re elated to read about what sounds like a great prognosis and a full recovery.

Fifteen days ago, North Carolina went to Atlanta for an ACC tilt against Georgia Tech. The Tarheels looked slow and listless, shot 27.6% from the field, hit only two of their 12 three-pointers (16.7%), and gave up 13 steals to the Yellow Jackets while answering with only five of their own. It was a clanger of epic proportions, especially for a program so consistently loaded with talented players. Professional pundits, bloggers, neutral fans and even some die-hard UNC backers chose that night as their jump-off point from the North Carolina bandwagon, and seemed proud to proclaim their disembarkment publicly.

Was Everybody Too Quick To Bury Roy and the Tar Heels?

The pollsters agreed. The Monday before the UNC vs GT game, the Heels received 31 points and six points in the AP and ESPN/USA Today coaches’ polls, respectively. The day after the game, UNC was down to two points in the AP and zero in the coaches’ poll. They only had one game the following week, and that was the continuation of their home winning streak against Clemson. The rankings from last Monday showed them netting a mere two points in the coaches’ poll and nothing in the AP. The lack of votes isn’t surprising, considering just the one game, but people still seemed reluctant to give UNC much credit for their two wins this week, chalking up the win at Miami (FL) as a result of Miami’s propensity for losing close games, and blaming Saturday’s victory over North Carolina State on a Wolfpack team that appeared uninterested in anything basketball-related that afternoon. In the three wins since being drilled by the Yellow Jackets, people have found reasons to deny UNC full credit for the victories, their minds still poisoned by the game in Atlanta.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Anyone who watched St. John’s take down Duke yesterday saw a strange and lethargic facsimile of the Blue Devil squad we’ve seen previously this year. That’s by no means an excuse and isn’t meant to take anything from the Johnnies’ victory, but before you fall victim to the tendency to put too much stake in one game and start selling your Duke stock, we offer you the calming tone of Mike Miller’s take at Beyond the Arc. By the way…whither the Red Storm? There are some bad losses there, but they have wins over Duke, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and at West Virginia. Their pressure-cooker January is over, and now we’ll see if that tough stretch of their schedule seasoned them for the second half of their Big East slate. If so, the Tournament awaits as a reward.
2. Does anyone remember Central Florida? Donnie Jones‘ in-conference move from Marshall to UCF in the off-season (along with his reputation as a good up-and-coming coach) already had people aware of the Golden Knights, and then everybody got wise when they beat Florida and Miami (FL) on the way to winning their first 14 games this year. Since that start, UCF has dropped six straight and find themselves last in Conference USA. The Knights have eleven players who play at least 12 minutes a game, and Jones feels that one of the keys to UCF getting its mojo back is to shorten the rotation to seven or eight players for the last nine games. Unfortunately, that won’t be difficult, now that junior guard A.J. Rompza is out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his foot.
3. Having trouble finding a good comparison for The Jimmer with which to enlighten your unhip friends? Bob Ryan contemplates the methodology and validity of comparing one player to a former player and, in doing so,  offers an outstanding parallel to Fredette that we haven’t seen mentioned anywhere, even considering the unhealthy amounts of time we spend on Twitter and reading the works of our favorite columnists. The article also further justifies why you should be reading Bob Ryan on a regular basis.
4. After the thrills that Butler provided all of us last season (and remembering how nice the people there were to us on our visit there last April), it’s been tough to watch last year’s finalist come back to earth as much as they have this year so far. Even with the early departure of Gordon Hayward, every Bulldog coach and player is aware of the difference between last season and this one: their effort on defense. In the article, Brad Stevens mentions how he’s ready to give walk-ons more minutes if it means better team defense, and Shelvin Mack includes himself in his own assessment, noting, “We gave up 60 points in one half [to Valparaiso on Saturday]. Last year we gave up sixty points in a game.”
5. Even without rooting interest, the best part of this weekend of basketball was the hint of a smile we saw on the face of Kansas‘ Thomas Robinson on a couple of occasions during the Jayhawks’ game against Kansas State. As much as fate has asked he and his little sister Jayla to grow up in the last month, it’s good to see that Robinson even still has the capacity to smile. It would be understandable if he had lost it for a while. One fellow who can relate to what Robinson is going through and recall that kind of loneliness is former Clemson defensive back Ray Ray McElrathbey, whose ordeal from five years ago bears some similarities to Robinson’s. A must-read from the Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger.

Highlighters and Headsets is an occasional look at the coverage of college basketball – from television to print (they still make paper?), blogs to bracket busters, and Gus Johnson to Gameday – written by RTC contributor Steve Moore. He welcomes your comments, column ideas and Dickie (V) jokes at smoore71@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter @smoore1117.

With a Mountain West matchup taking a national stage for the first time, I’m sure there were plenty of college hoops fans – and mainstream sports fans (even Simmons was watching) – searching the cable guide for CBS College Sports Wednesday night.

All Eyes, Including Our Boy Steve's, Were On the Marriott Center On Wednesday Night

While unable to watch live, I did set the DVR and decided to see how this mid-major network handled its moment in the sun. By the time I pressed play, the Twitter explosion had already told me how the Jimmer show went down in Provo. But since I usually leave the on-court analysis to my RTC colleagues, the suspense wasn’t really what I was after.

Having only seen the occasional glimpse of action on CBS College Sports, I hopefully enter with no bias or prejudice. Hell, I don’t even know who’s on the call tonight. We’ll soon find out.

PREGAME: First disappointment: Realizing I don’t get CBS College Sports (CBS-C from now on) in high def. I understand they broadcast in it, and that some carriers offer it, but if you want to be a major sports network, you need to FORCE everyone to carry your HD feed (I’m looking at you, Fox Soccer Channel).

Read the rest of this entry »

The Lede. Hopefully everyone was over their Jimmer hangovers by the time the games started tonight. Judging by Twitter, and…well, pretty much every sports outlet in the nation, the transitive verb “to Jimmer” has entered the American sporting lexicon with some serious impact. We can’t remember when a college baller’s name has ever been used in this fashion; nobody ever said “You got Turnered/Walled,” or “He Morrisoned them,” or “They Hansbrough’d the heck out of that poor team.” And the only name we can think of that contains a reverent “The” at the beginning that’s in regular use today belongs to U2 guitarist The Edge, though — and credit to Seth Davis for starting the trend — “The Jimmer” is now commonplace usage in referring to just about everybody’s favorite player.

Darius Morris and Crew Start the Celebration (J.Gonzalez/Detroit FP)

But enough of that for now. We’ll have many chances to discuss him later. Tonight we saw three tough conference road wins, two of them in games involving bitter rivals. We have a couple of RTCs we have to weigh in on, and a pair of outstanding tweets from the Gonzaga vs St. Mary’s game. First, though, we start…with Sparty.

Your Watercooler Moment. On the halftime coverage of ESPN2’s St. Mary’s @ Gonzaga game, when asked about how dire the situation was for Michigan State this year after their loss to Michigan tonight, even the understated Dan Dakich hesitated for effect and said gravely, “Well…it’s pretty serious.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A Facebook page has been created in support of Kansas sophomore forward Thomas Robinson. The page calls upon “all Kansas fans to support T-Rob during this horrible time in his life, and not only Kansas fans, but fans of any other school who find it in their hearts” to support Robinson.

Robinson, and Friends

By now, you’ve heard about the unbelievable trial that fate is putting him through right now. The only two grandparents he’s ever known died within a few weeks of each other. His mother Lisa died on Friday of a heart attack. She was 38 years old. The Robinson family now consists of Thomas, 19, and his 9-year old sister, Jayla. So, in addition to keeping up with his studies and everything else that comes with playing for an elite college basketball program with as rabid and dedicated a fan base as any out there in any sport, Thomas is, for now, the official caretaker for his 9-year old sister — the very person who called him to tell him that their mother was gone.

[Time out, here…imagine that scenario for a moment. The 9-year old second grader has this news. She has to alert her brother, over a thousand miles away. There were presumably adults around at the time her mother died, at the hospital or wherever. They probably felt like they should make the call to Thomas, because that’s not news that you tell a 9-year old to break. Whether she volunteered for that task or not, Jayla is the one who left that voicemail. 29-year olds shouldn’t have to do that, let alone 9-year olds. That’s courage.]

On one hand, we’re sure Thomas is honored to take that responsibility of caring for his sister, and will dedicate his life to it. On the other…he shouldn’t have to. The situation is beyond comprehension, even to people as detached from it as us. The universe, though, has forced Thomas and his sister to comprehend it, and live it.

There have been some good — actually, let’s not say “good” — let’s say that some positive things have happened in the wake of this, things that speak well of Kansas fans, the school itself, and the NCAA. A scholarship fund that bears her mother’s name has been set up for Jayla Robsinson, and people are even inquiring about adopting the girl, or at least becoming her legal guardian. Kansas Athletics, Inc. will pay for the cost to fly the team to Washington, DC for the funeral tomorrow and the funeral itself. This has been approved by the NCAA, an organization that takes a lot of guff and endures a lot of second-guessing as far as the decisions they make that greatly impact kids’ lives. You can find some of that venom on this very site. But you’ve got to give credit where it’s due, even when there’s no other decision that could conceivably have been made.

So let’s all enjoy tonight’s games, and the big San Diego State vs BYU matchup that most of us have been looking forward to for so long. We all need to enjoy these little pleasures and be grateful for the chance. You don’t need us to tell you that. But before you settle in for the game, perhaps you could take 60 seconds, check out the Facebook page that’s been set up to support Thomas Robinson, and join the group set up by Kansas fans. Chances are, if you have a Facebook account, you’ve offered or accepted friend requests from more tenuous “friends” in the past. We’re pretty sure Thomas will look in on it at some point, and it would be good if the member count was well into the thousands, as we expect it will be eventually. We’re talking about the Kansas basketball family, after all.

News came down late on Tuesday that Tom Izzo had dismissed junior guard Korie Lucious from the Michigan State squad for conduct detrimental to the team. In a statement, Izzo said, “Unfortnately, Korie Lucious displayed conduct detrimental to the program. My focus is on this team for the remainder of the season.”

Lucious and Izzo In Less Trying Times

Lucious also released a statement, in which he admitted, “I didn’t live up to the standards of the program. Unfortunately, I let my teammates, my coaches, and myself down, and I wish them the best for the rest of the season.”

Lucious had led the team in assists, dishing out 4.1 APG as well as contributing 6.5 PPG this year. He also led the team in assist-to-turnover ratio with a rate of 1.9.

So far, there has been no mention as to whether Lucious will be eligible to rejoin the team as a senior next season. He had endured some criticism from MSU fans this year regarding a tendency to disappear late in games, a sentiment that would belie his performance in his most well-known moment as a Spartan: his buzzer-beater against Maryland that sent Midwest 5th-seed Michigan State through to the Sweet Sixteen of last year’s NCAA Tournament:

Tom Izzo is known for how his Spartan squads improve throughout a season and usually overachieve in the NCAA Tournament. In his 15 seasons as head coach, he’s taken MSU to the Tournament 13 times, and those teams have “underachieved” their seeding only twice. Both of those were first-round losses — as a Midwest #7 against Nevada in 2004, and as a Washington-pod #6 against that history making George Mason squad in 2006. Despite their 12-7 record this year, many followers of the game still held out faith that the Spartans would eventually show their usual late-season performance spike, evidenced by the fact that MSU clung to the bottom rung of the AP Top 25 and tied for 23rd in RTC’s rankings this week (see upper left).

As part of their remaining Big Ten slate, Michigan State still has upcoming games against Purdue and Illinois in East Lansing, and on the road at Minnesota, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. Even with six Final Fours, two trips to the championship game and his title in 2000, to survive that schedule and build a record good enough to warrant a bid to the NCAA Tournament this year would be Izzo’s greatest achievement yet. Izzo has four other guards who play at least 11 minutes a game, so what Lucious brought to the team in terms of points and rebounds won’t be terribly hard to absorb among the other players. But the dark cloud and mental gut-punch that this suspension brings to the program in an already difficult year is bigger than any scoring or rebounding contributions that the Spartans will be missing as a result of Lucious’ dismissal.

David Ely is an RTC Contributor

Get ready college hoops fanatics. Get ready for the stampede of casual fans that are about to crash the sports bars once the NFL season comes to a close. They’ll have to find something for their sports fix and they’ll turn to college basketball. So be prepared for people asking things like, “Who’s that big guy for Ohio State? He looks pretty good.” Or “San Diego State’s in the top five? Really?!?” Just try to smile and nod at those fools. No need to let them ruin the season’s stretch run.

What We Learned

TWTW Loves Jimmer and Kawhi, But Prefers E'Twaun and the Boilers Traveling to Columbus This Week

Even with SDSU and BYU squaring off on Wednesday, TWTW feels that if there’s only one game you watch this week, make sure it’s Purdue at Ohio State, tonight at 9pm ET. Matt Painter’s squad is one of our favorites and TWTW thinks they’re a good bet to pull off the upset. Purdue rebounded from back-to-back losses at Minnesota and West Virginia to grind out a win over a plucky Penn State squad and then took care of business against reeling Michigan State. It would have been easy for the Boilermakers to fold at the first sign of trouble this season. They have the built-in excuse of Robbie Hummel’s injury, and no one really believed they could sustain their early-season success once they hit the meat of their schedule, but seniors JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore wouldn’t let that two-game losing streak turn into a prolonged swoon. Johnson scored 25 points in the win over PSU, while Moore poured in 26 against the Spartans.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. A painter can be convinced that they’re in the process of creating a masterpiece and then, suddenly, pick up their brushes one day and lose all feel for what they were doing or what they wanted to say. The only option then is to leave it or trash it and work on something else. A similar thing happens in sports, and especially college basketball. Players and coaches can fall victim to burnout, chemistry problems, communication breakdowns, or any host of difficulties that can ruin a season. Not one person here would be surprised if Michigan State lost the rest of their conference games and then coasted through the Big Ten Tournament, but certainly nobody predicted the kind of season the Spartans are having. MSU site The Only Colors weighs in on what they think the problems are in East Lansing.
2. Sophomore forward Dan Jennings must have had a plane to catch on Sunday, or perhaps he just figured he had better things to do than to sit on the bench with his West Virginia teammates as the Mountaineers defeated South Florida. Jennings, who’s played in 14 of WVU’s 18 games and averages 2.1 PPG and 2.5 RPG in 8.6 MPG, just up and left the bench with about 18 minutes left in the game yesterday, “never to be seen again, I guess,” according to Bob Huggins. Dan, buddy…apologize to your team and your coach and enjoy any role your team gives you. You’re a young forward on a team with a few guys playing better than you at that position. Keep working and your time will come.
3. Having just one loss and a player of the year candidate on your team will put a smile on any coach’s face, but The Daily Herald’sJason Franchuk says the best evidence that BYU coach Dave Rose is having fun this seasonis that the coach has actually made it a point to take time to needle the writer consistently about ths condition of the latter’s cell phone. Franchuk also notes that Jimmer Fredette and Kyle Collinswoth are “looking forward to the fun” of playing San Diego State this Wednesday night. So are we, boys.
4. How would you like to be a D-I baller caught in a situation in which, on one hand, you’ve got mobsters calling you in your dorm room telling you what they’d like the margin of tonight’s game to be, and, on the other, your coaches, university officials, and the FBI telling you how to handle yourself in this little conundrum? This piece from the Jackson Sun describes how former Memphis State player Lowery Kirk found himself in just that spot in 1961, back in the days when college basketball was much more within the reach of the wiseguy demimonde.
5. If you have ESPN Insider access, we encourage you to check out the Doug Gottlieb article about getting comfortable as a college freshman, and not just because it had us reminiscing about those trembling and reluctant first few college days of our own. We certainly won’t give away Gottlieb’s whole list, but two fellows who appear on it whom we’re most impressed by are Missouri’s Phil Pressey and Ohio State’s Aaron Craft. Just a few weeks ago, Pressey was lost and downright intimidated but has found his rhythm and you can see confidence where there once was none. And for a while it looked like Craft would be primarily known as “the guy in the Bruce Pearl photo,” but his solid play for the Buckeyes has been too good for people to even care about that.

The noon-to-3pm stretch today was one of those that helps make the case in favor of an electronics upgrade here at the RTC Southern Compound, specifically for a multi-screen video wall. Having two games like Ohio State @ Illinois and Villanova @ Syracuse happening at the same time was both fantastic and painful. Then Tennessee @ Connecticut after that, as well as Temple @ Xavier and the small matter of Texas @ Kansas? Oh, yeah. we’re hittin’ the electronics store at some point this weekend. But not until the games are done.

• Wayns’ World. One of the basic strategies against any zone defense is to use quick perimeter passing  and penetration to create openings for shots and passing lanes. Of course, it’s never a bad strategy to just get hot from outside and shoot over the zone, and that’s what ‘Nova did early on against the Orange. When the defense extended, that opened up gaps for those quick, fearless Wildcat guards and even some nice interior passing between Mouphtaou Yarou and Maurice Sutton. We’d say Jim Boeheim didn’t game-plan for Maalik Wayns, a 20% three-point shooter on the year (40% overall), to drill a trio of threes and go 6-11 from the field.
• Blue Horseshoe Loves ‘Nova Basketball. We know a lot can happen between now and March, but if I’m playing the college hoops market, I’m pulling a Gordon Gekko on Villanova. I’m getting in there at a 45-degree angle and gobbling up all the Wildcat stock that I can. Top-flight coach, quick guards who can shoot as well as break down defenders anywhere on the floor, long big men who play even longer on both ends of the floor, and not to mention that they have guys who were in the Final Four two seasons ago? Time to accumulate.
• A Buckeye Beauty. No, we’re not talking about a girl on the Columbus campus. We’re talking about one of the great performances of the season, this one by Jared Sullinger. Certainly, the 27 points and 16 rebounds are impressive, to say the least. We’re just as impressed by the 40 minutes played, though — ten minutes above his average — and the mere two personal fouls. You don’t get 27/16 if you’re not on the floor, or don’t know how to stay on the floor. And you’ve seen Sullinger. Not exactly a little guy who shies away from contact. We all knew Sullinger could play basketball, but he showed us today that he’s got guts as well as game.
• The Arts of Craft. Another note from OSU’s win: Deshaun Thomas (a pair of threes, 8 pts in 12 minutes) sparked that second half run when the Illini had the lead, and Jon Diebler (15 pts, 3-5 from three) was his usual steady self. When your team takes a fair number of treys and shoots better from three-point range (46.7%) than your opponent does from the field (43.1%), you’re going to be fine most of the time. But we need to give some props to OSU freshman point guard Aaron Craft. He only had five points, but that’s not something they necessarily need from him. In his 31 minutes (more than two of the starters), he dished four assists, only turned the ball over once — he leads the team with a 2.3-to-1 assist/turnover ratio — and, most importantly, he found himself on Demetri McCamey for most of the game and covered the Illinois star like red ants on a Snickers bar.
• We’re Cold, But Kemba and Melvin Aren’t. For the first half, Tennessee-Connecticut has been more evenly matched than we anticipated, and Kemba Walker needed that buzzer-beating three to give the Huskies the halftime lead. As we’ve mentioned often around here, you never know which of Tennessee’s multiple personalities you’re going to get on a given night, and for the first half the “good UT” has shown up. The Vols have done a good job bodying up to Walker and have held him to just eight points so far, including that three before the half. Melvin Goins has been UT’s best player, surpassing his 8.0 PPG average with ten points and he’s perfect from the field. By the way, it’s about 14 degrees outside and there’s a whole lot of action yet to come today. We ain’t goin’ anywhere…