1. Coming off Saturday night’s loss at Oklahoma State the big concern out of Lawrence was not the Jayhawks’ loss, but instead was the health of Joel Embiid. Yesterday, Kansas announced that Embiid had reinjured his back and would miss the final two games of the regular season. Embiid could be back in time for the Big 12 Tournament, but with the Jayhawks’ final two games being against Texas Tech and West Virginia it would seem that the Jayhawks are locked into a #2 seed at worst. So while they could play Embiid in the Big 12 Tournament they have no need to do that so we would expect Embiid’s next game to be in the NCAA Tournament.
2. Normally we would make a big deal out of Roscoe Smith (11 points and 11 rebounds per game) missing Wednesday’s game against San Diego State after suffering a concussion on Saturday, but with UNLV unlikely to make the NCAA Tournament it probably doesn’t affect the big picture. On the other hand, the absence of Isaiah Zierden (3.2 points per game) usually would not merit mentioning here, but with the freshman being out indefinitely after injuring the medial collateral ligament in his right knee it could be a fairly significant blow to Creighton. Zierdan played sparingly at times this year, but has shown flashes of his potential with three double-digit games this season including a 13-point performance against Villanova on February 16.
3. Like many of you when we first read Mark Cuban‘s comments about how “hypocritical” the NCAA rules for one-and-done players were we were waiting for somebody to tear his argument apart. Mike DeCourcy was happy to oblige pointing out that it was the NBA that is in charge of the one-and-done situation. On some level we can understand Cuban’s logic that there is a better way to develop basketball ability than the current NCAA system he is going about it the wrong way. If he wants to make a change he needs to go to the other owners and the players association to make a change. On a selfish level, we would prefer that he opts to push for an age minimum of 21 years, but whatever option Cuban decides to pursue we hope he will do a little more homework in the future.
4. Last week on Twitter we mentioned how Doug Gottlieb had been widely criticized for ranking Kentucky #7 in his preseason poll, but looking back on it now it is clear that he ranked them too highly. We also referenced how wrong we were in our preseason rankings with only a handful of teams being +/- 3 spots of where they are now. Dan Hanner took a deeper look into which teams are exceeding or falling short of preseason expectations. Much of his analysis  focuses on his own predictions, but it does offer some interesting insight into polls overall as Hanner analyzes his own work.
5. We are still a couple of weeks away from what should be a Black Monday for college basketball coaches, but that did not stop Tennessee-Martin from firing Jason James after his fifth consecutive losing season. James, who was an assistant at Tennessee-Martin before taking over as the head coach, finished with a 37-117 record in his five seasons there. The school’s administration commended James for leading running the program with “the highest degree of integrity,” but in the end he simply did not win enough. Although this will make for a vacancy at the Division I level don’t count on a big-name assistant heading to the Ohio Valley Conference so we would guess this job will probably go to an internal candidate or someone who doesn’t have high-major aspirations.

1. The immediate fall-out from the aftermath of Thursday night’s New Mexico State-Utah Valley game appears to be over, but we are guessing the consequences of this and other similar incidents will be dealt with in the off-season. If you haven’t seen the incident, the footage of court rush and fans fighting with players is pretty jarring. New Mexico State’s K.C. Ross-Miller was suspended for two games and Renaldo Dixon was suspended for one game by the Western Athletic Conference. Dana O’Neil is one of the few to voice her support of the fans and places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the players involved. We are not sure which way the WAC or other conference will go on this, but it will certainly be a topic that will be hotly debated.
2. We have seen a lot of strange things in March over the years, but this year’s SWAC Tournament has to be pretty high up there. As a result of the APR rules four SWAC teams are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament, but after discussing the matter with the NCAA all ten  of the teams in the SWAC are still participating in the conference tournament. Prior to this teams that had been barred from the NCAA Tournament did not participate in their conference tournament, but the school presidents voted to include all ten teams most likely to help increase ticket sales (Alabama State President Gwendolyn Boyd is one of two to vote against it). Now the winner of the conference’s automatic bid will be the team that is eligible for the NCAA Tournament and makes it the furthest in the conference tournament. If there is a tie (such as if two ineligible teams make the finals and only the losing semifinalists are eligible) then the higher-seeded team will be given the automatic bid. If that team happens to be the conference tournament champion, nobody will notice. If not, we could have a very weird championship celebration.
3. It probably goes without saying that March is our favorite time of year, but over the past few years the change from February to March has also left us with a feeling of sadness since February 28 is Dean Smith‘s birthday. Normally that would be a time for celebration, but with Smith’s dementia and deteriorating health it brings our annual story on Smith and his difficulties from John Feinstein. Although sports fans (and college sports fans in particular) can harbor some of the biggest grudges we cannot think of anybody speaking out against Smith on a personal level. Many prominent coaches have legacies of piling up wins on the court, but Smith’s legacy is one of the few that extends beyond it.
4. With its win over Syracuse on Saturday, Virginia clinched the ACC regular-season championship. Except the ACC does not recognize a regular-season champion. The rationale behind that decision is complex, but Shane Ryan’s column on why the ACC does not formally recognize its regular season champion does an excellent job of explaining the history behind it. Essentially what it boils down to is the other schools in the conference standing up to North Carolina and Dean Smith, who wanted the NCAA bid awarded to the winner of the regular season. The article also includes a few amusing anecdotes about North Carolina’s fixation on hanging up banners that others don’t recognize including its ridiculous 1924 Helms banner.
5. Whenever a lower-tier program hires a big-name coach such as what Florida Atlantic did with Mike Jarvis six years ago we often hear about how that coach is going to turn the program around. However, more often as is the case with Jarvis that typically doesn’t happen. After six seasons (five of which were losing seasons) at FAU, Jarvis announced that he will resign at the end of the season. Jarvis says that he is making the move to explore other opportunities, but sources close to the situation say that Jarvis was going to be fired and the school gave him the option to resign instead. With Jarvis turning 69 just after the season ends, we would expect this is the last head coaching stop for Jarvis. If it is, he will finish with a 422-312 record with nine NCAA appearances in 25 seasons at Boston University, George Washington, St. John’s, and FAU.

1. With the season winding down, UCLA appears to be looking at a fairly high seed (we have seen anywhere from 4-7 in brackets), but we have to wonder about them going forward after Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams, the team’s two best players were suspended for last night’s game against Oregon. The outcome of last night’s game isn’t nearly as important as the suspensions–one game each for “violating team rules”. That could certainly mean a lot of things, but it has to make you wonder about the mindset of Anderson (14.9 points, 8.6 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game) and Adams (17.2 points per game) heading into March.
2. It has been a few weeks since we had heard much about the North Carolina academic scandal so we were a bit surprised to see that Business Week had decided to make it this week’s cover story. For those who have followed this story there is not anything particularly shocking in the story, but it will only serve to further damage the school’s reputation. At this point it seems unlikely that either the NCAA or any governing body will take significant action against the school and you can argue that print media is dying, but having that cover on newsstands across the world certainly won’t help North Carolina’s brand.
3. For the Tar Heel fans who might be feeling a little down after yet another mainstream media source took a shot at the school for their handle of the academic scandal, Grantland has a feature on a topic–the 2005 title team–that should serve as a way to perk you up. Except that it is about how the key players on that team failed to live up to expectations. We don’t mind to pile on Tar Heel fans today, but it is an interesting topic particularly when you consider that you can make a strong case for that team being one of the top teams since 2000. Oh, and if you want to know if Illinois fans are still upset about losing that title game check out the comment section.
4. Bill Self might not want to play Wichita State, but that does not mean he does not appreciate what they are doing. When asked about the Shockers, Self reiterated his stance that he would continue to schedule games to help his program not others. This certainly won’t endear him to Wichita State fans, but Self did come out in support of the Shockers as a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament if they are undefeated when Selection Sunday rolls around. Honestly, we don’t understand how anybody could believe that the Selection Committee would pass on an undefeated team much less one that made it to the Final Four last year (yes, we know the last part shouldn’t matter).
5. By now you should know that we basically link Luke Winn’s Power Rankings almost every week. It’s not that Luke pays us (that would be a nice gift though), but it is because it is one of the few columns that we learn something new from every week. This week the two things that jump out at us are the block matrix that Luke created and how Xavier Thames‘ usage and production has decreased recently. The part of the block matrix that jumped out at us is how underrated Chris Obekpa is as a defender. He won’t generate the headlines that Joel Embiid does mainly because of Obekpa’s limited offensive repertoire, but these numbers suggest that he might be able to find his way onto a NBA roster some day. As for Thames, being on the East Coast we do not get to see as much of him as we would like, but the graph showing his drop in usage and production is instructive if you are trying to figure out what is wrong with San Diego State.

1. Coming into the season if you would have guessed that Ole Miss would have a significant discipline problem you probably would have guessed it was coming from Marshall Henderson. It has turned out that Henderson has behaved relatively well and it is instead sophomore guard Derrick Millinghaus, who was suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules yesterday. Millinghaus was averaging 7.2 points and 2.4 assists per game this season so his absence will certainly be felt, but fortunately for the Rebels they have enough depth in the backcourt that they should be able to withstand his loss.
2. Barring a miraculous run in the Big Ten Tournament, Indiana will not be back in the NCAA Tournament this season and at most will be looking at a lower-level post-season tournament. So it was surprising to see Tom Crean announce that Hanner Mosquera-Perea was back on the team after missing just 11 days and two games following his DUI arrest on February 14. As you can see from the comments on that post even the Indiana fan base appears divided on Crean’s decision. To be honest we cannot really understand why Crean would let Mosquera-Perea come back to the team this season unless he was concerned that Mosquera-Perea might transfer if he was held out for the rest of the season.
3. The BYU Honor Code made national headlines with its restrictions in particular the case involving Brandon Davies. Now it appears that the school is changing the way it deals with its Honor Code in relation to how much it discloses to the media. The school will now only release information on the violations if it is a matter of public record or if the student-athletes initiates the conversation on the violation. The new rules regarding disclosure of information certainly makes sense since the old policy would appear to violate the student’s right to privacy. This obviously won’t address the issues some people have with actual Honor Code, but it is a big step in the right direction in terms of the student-athlete’s privacy rights.
4. Duke might be taking the crown for this year’s top recruiting class, but that is not stopping John Calipari from already starting to put another ridiculous recruiting class next year. His latest 5-star addition is Chicago junior shooting guard Charles Matthews  who committed to Kentucky yesterday. Matthews, ranked 12th in ESPN’s class of 2015 rankings, chose Kentucky over Illinois, Kansas, Marquette, and Michigan State. Obviously, it is very early in that recruiting cycle (only 10 of ESPN’s top 60 recruits have committed so far) and Matthews is Kentucky’s first commitment for the class of 2015, but we are fairly confident that Calipari will be putting together yet another blockbuster class. For a comprehensive breakdown of what Matthews is bringing to Lexington check out Jeff Borzello’s excellent breakdown on Matthews’ commitment.
5. The topic of rushing the court (or whatever term you prefer) seems to be coming increasing scrutiny these days. Most observers do not necessarily issue with the concept of rushing the court or the exuberance that college students have for the game (the latter is part of what makes the sport so special). The issue that some have (and one that we occasionally poke fun at on Twitter) is how or when certain crowds should rush the court. Gary Parrish argues that an argument can be made for banning court storms all together, but it is pointless to argue the relative merit of one versus the other. We agree with Parrish to a degree and are generally ok with most court storms as long as they don’t feel forced. It might feel weird to see students at some school rush the court, but it is probably unreasonable to expect kids between the age of 18 and 22 to understand all of the tradition that some of these programs have or even to have the same sensibilities as we do.

1. With the end of the regular season rapidly approaching many fans are finally coming to the realization that an undefeated regular season for Wichita State is getting closer. What is interesting is the backlash that the Shockers, a Final Four team last year that came closer to beating eventual national champion Louisville than any other team did, have received. As Mike DeCourcy notes, people are coming up with all sorts of questions about the Shockers and doing so completely ignores the point of how impressive the Shockers have been. Now 30-0, the Shockers are looking at the very real possibility of being a #1 seed. If you don’t think the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee is going to give an undefeated team that went to the Final Four last year a #1 seed we don’t know what to tell you. Yeah, the latter part shouldn’t matter, but the reality is that it does. You can certainly debate whether the Shockers are one of the top four teams in the country and it is a reasonable debate, but don’t let that stop you from appreciating what they are on the verge of doing.
2. Kansas released some additional details about the “Fieldhouse Apartments”, which will essentially be its basketball dorm. The primary donor is from Kent McCarthy, a prominent Kansas alum, who appears to have made his money through hedge funds (all with the name “Jayhawk” in them). Interestingly the Kansas legislature denied the school additional funding through bond offerings to help with construction, but the school is still moving forward with its plans. With this coming on the heels of Kentucky’s Wildcat Coal Lodge it seems like we could be entering an era of increasingly ridiculous student housing with each school trying to outdo the others.
3. With new NBA commissioner Adam Silver voicing his interest in increasing the age limit for players entering the NBA it is possible that we could be seeing the end of the one-and-done era. Michael Weinreb reflected on the impact of the one-and-done era. We are torn on how we feel about one-and-dones. We obviously low the level of skill and athleticism that they bring to the table, but we do miss getting to see key players develop over years. On the other hand, we are not fans of restricting the ability of individuals to enter a marketplace that has essentially been granted monopoly rights in this country.
4. CBS and Turner Sports announced their broadcast teams for the NCAA Tournament yesterday. Outside of the issues around the Final Four, which we have addressed before (semifinals on TBS and with alternate team-specific broadcasts for all of the Final Four games) there is nothing that is particularly surprising compared to last season. There are certainly some notable absences–namely Gus Johnson–not being involved. We would have thought that this was due to contractual obligations, but Bill Raftery is still doing NCAA Tournament games even though he like Johnson works for Fox Sports One now.
5. Were you sick of all of the talk about the Duke-Syracuse game including what was featured in this space? Well, that’s too bad because we are going to talk about it again today. Except that we are going to talk about the game that was played on February 1. Why would we talk about that game now? It turns out that two Duke fans–Shane Hackett and Leslie Gilman–were kicked out of the game by someone who has been described by multiple reports as an overzealous security guard. Hackett and Gilman had been going back and forth with Syracuse to figure out a way to compensate them for apparently being unfairly kicked out. Syracuse offered the couple $190 (the face value of the two tickets), but had Hackett turned them down saying that he paid $1,000 for the tickets. So a local Syracuse radio station came to the rescue and offered the couple $500 if they did not sue the school and agreed to never set foot inside the Carrier Dome again. The couple agreed to the terms even though the school was not involved in the deal.

1. Syracuse fans might not be happy about it, but yesterday ACC commissioner John Swofford said that the ruling on the C.J. Fair charge play was a “judgement call” and would not be reviewed formally by the conference. Seth Davis talked to Tony Greene, the official in the middle of the controversy, and while Greene would not directly discuss the call it appears that he feels that he made the right call. The more interesting part of Greene’s comments are that when Fair got the ball Greene was already anticipating the drive and possible contact. Some might consider that being well-prepared, but others might view it as making a judgment before the play actually happens.
2. At this point we have heard enough about this call and Jim Boeheim‘s reaction to it discussed to the point where we probably won’t even read another column about it, but the one thing that we are interested and haven’t heard discussed much is how people would have reacted if it had been Fair reacting the way that Boeheim did. This is something that we mentioned earlier this year when Fran McCaffery threw his temper tantrum and it is something that was touched upon during yesterday’s CBS College Basketball podcast: we tend to let college basketball get away with worse public behavior than nearly any other  sporting figure. Next time you are at a college basketball game take a little time to watch how the coaches are reacting and if you are close enough listen to what they say (cover the ears of any young children nearby). Can you imagine any other situation in which that behavior is acceptable?
3. Speaking of Fran McCaffery, he is the latest coach to tell his Iowa players to get off Twitter at least for the rest of the season. Some might paint this as McCaffery joining the ranks of Rick Pitino and Tom Izzo in their general distaste for the platform, but it is more likely a reaction to Zach McCabe‘s tweet in response to some critical fans. As we said before we don’t agree with the idea that players cannot handle the “pressure” of social media, but when your players cannot act appropriately on the platform you are forced to step in.
4. We are getting to the point in the season where some fan bases are looking forward to offseason so the head coaches of their teams can be fired. Dan Hanner took a more nuanced look at how long coaches typically last utilizing a Kaplan-Meier survival curve. His analysis suggests that coaches are most likely to get fired after three seasons so if your least favorite head coach is not there yet you might want to temper your hopes. Hanner also takes a look at which coaches might be most likely and least likely to be fired this off-season so if you are hoping for your coach to be fired it is definitely worth checking out.
5. Following the loss of Brandon Ashley some analysts essentially wrote Arizona off as a national title contender. We even remember hearing that one Pac-12 coach reportedly said that the Wildcats were a Sweet 16 team without him. Nobody would argue that Arizona is not worse without Ashley in the lineup, but the question is how much worse are the Wildcats. We cannot necessarily look at their offensive and defensive numbers in the two periods because the post-Ashley period has been so brief that we do not have reliable sample sizes to work with so Ken Pomeroy took a look at how they performed as a team overall after Ashley was injured compared to their expected and it turns out that they were not that far off. Now this should obviously be interpreted with a somewhat similar caveat about sample size, but it shows that the Wildcats overall performance during this brief stretch might be closer to being a national title favorite than some people are giving them credit for.

1. By now you have seen countless replays and photoshops of Jim Boeheim‘s meltdown at the end of Syracuse’s loss at Duke on Saturday night. You have also probably seen at least a dozen columns critiquing the call and Boeheim’s reaction to it. Even though we were there with almost a straight on view of Boeheim we won’t bore you with any more specific analysis of it other than to say it was amusing to see in person (as was Boeheim’s post-game press conference) or try to argue that he should be fined or suspended for his reaction (completely ridiculous). The point remains that there is no circumstance under which Boeheim should have reacted like that particularly in that situation. Boeheim’s 945 wins (and counting) at Syracuse will buy him more leeway for his reaction than some other coaches this season have received, but as we said right after it happened given the circumstances it might be the most meltdown this season.
2. When Cody Doolin left the San Francisco basketball team early this season we figured that it would the last we would see of him as a college player. The senior point guard, who had started all 103 games of his college career and averaged 13 points and 7 assists with just 1.5 turnovers this season, left the team just four games into his senior season after reportedly getting into an altercation with a teammate during practice. At the time we mentioned that we have no idea what could have been so bad about the incident that Doolin would leave team, but on Friday he announced that he would be transferring to UNLV. Doolin will reportedly seek a waiver (presumably as a graduate student) to play immediately for UNLV. Honestly, we were not completely sure that leaving your team after the season had started would even qualify you for redshirt status for the season. If he is allowed to play for the Rebels next season he would join a team that returns Khem Birch, Roscoe Smith, and Bryce Dejean-Jones and is bringing in a top ten class.
3. Tulsa senior guard Pat Swilling Jr, who was averaging 8.6 points per game this season, is being investigated for potential sexual assault charges stemming from an incident on January 27 in which a Tulsa student is accusing Swilling of raping her. Swilling, who is the son of former NFL Defensive Player of the Year and one-term Louisiana House of Representative member Pat Swilling Sr, was suspended from the team earlier this month, but no explanation was offered. Swilling has had an interesting college career to say the least. After initially being kicked out of St. Joseph’s for being in possession of a stolen laptop, Swilling has spent time at Louisiana Tech and College of Southern Idaho before ending up at Tulsa. He is scheduled to appear in court on March 4 for a hearing which would prohibit Swilling from having any contact with his accuser.
4. We are not sure what Kevin Willard is doing at Seton Hall, but it seems like he is suspending players left and right. His latest target is sophomore guard Sterling Gibbs who he appears to have been suspended because of his attitude in practice. Gibbs, a transfer from Texas, is second on the team in scoring (14.3 per game to Fuquan Edwin’s 14.5) and leads the team in assists (4.4 per game). We won’t necessarily chalk up Seton Hall’s 1-point loss at Creighton to Gibbs’ absence, but we would assume that Gibbs’ VORP is worth at least one point. As for when Gibbs will return it appears that it could be as soon as the team’s game on Tuesday as he is meeting with Willard in Chicago.
5. According to Indiana it is once again safe to enter Assembly Hall. After temporarily postponing games last week when an eight-foot, 50-pound steel beam fell from the ceiling onto seats, Indiana will resume playing games in Assembly Hall. The women’s team played their first game on Saturday afternoon without and the men’s first game will be on Thursday when they play Iowa as a make-up for last Tuesday’s postponed game. We imagine the seats near where the beam fell will be among the less popular ones to sit in for the rest of the season.

Here are our observations after North Carolina crushed Wake Forest, 105-72:

1. UNC will be an extremely difficult out in March. This shouldn’t be too much a surprise after their early season victories against Michigan State, Louisville, and Kentucky, but for much of the season the Tar Heels were dogged by the perception that they were inconsistent and for good reason. Mixed in with their big early wins the Tar Heels also had some awful losses–at home against Belmont and Miami and on the road against UAB and Wake Forest. Since their loss at Virginia on January 20, the Tar Heels have won nine straight and are starting to display the type of consistency that they will need to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. Some of their win streak can be attributed by the current weak state of the ACC, but it also includes wins against Duke and Pittsburgh. Current bracket projections have the Tar Heels being anything between a #5 and #8 seed after this week they should be somewhere near the top of that range.
2. Jeff Bzdelik needs a real estate agent. I know that the Wake Forest administration showed a lot of faith in Bzdelik by firing Dino Gaudio, who had taken them to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, to hire Bzdelik, who was 36-58 in three seasons at Colorado. With nearly three seasons in the books in Winston-Salem, Bzdelik is approaching 30 games under .500. Ron Wellman talked about culture when he hired Bzdelik, but we doubt that he was thinking of this type of culture at the time. At this point we would be shocked if Bzdelik returned next season so the question really is who will replace him. The two names that get thrown around for every power conference vacancy are Bruce Pearl and Ben Howland, but we cannot see either of them going to Wake Forest with the options they will have in front of them. Perhaps the most interesting potential candidate we have heard is Jeff Capel, who has experience at Oklahoma and knows the ACC well sitting alongside Mike Krzyzewski. We obviously have our reservations about hiring a retread who went 27-36 A.B. (after Blake Griffin departed), but he would be a relatively safe hire and one with some decent credentials.
3. Roy Williams seems much more relaxed. Early in the season there were rumors that this might be Roy’s last year. Those were obviously premature particularly with what appears to be an outstanding freshman class coming in. Still everybody who followed the Tar Heels could clearly tell that this team and this season was taking a toll on Roy. The turnaround in how the Tar Heels are playing has led to Roy’s mood to improve significantly (shocking). Although Williams is certainly not young at 63 years old, we would be looking at some of his colleagues in the ACC to retire before we would expect Roy to do so.

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1. It has been relatively quiet in terms of news around the Ed O’Bannon case, but yesterday the plaintiffs picked up a significant victory as a federal judge gave the ok for the class action suit to go to federal court. It will still be a very long time before we get a verdict in the case, but this is a big step in that direction. Having said that with all of the legal maneuvering that the NCAA can do here they will probably try to stall this case as long as possible because it appears that the only thing that can stop this case from being decided by a verdict is if the two sides reach an agreement.
2. Luke Winn’s Weekly Power Rankings are already probably one of the most challenging columns to write under normal circumstances (part of why we link it almost every week), but after Wednesday night’s craziness it was made even tougher. Luke still produced some interesting stats, but our favorite one this week might be his comparison of Big Ten Win-Loss records against efficiency margins. It is essentially a graphical version of John Gasway’s Tuesday Truths, but the direct comparison seems to make it much more illustrative of how records can sometimes be deceiving.
3. It seemed inevitable that once Rick Pitino (ok, and Tom Izzo too) spoke out against his players using social media that John Calipari would come out defending social media. The fact that Calipari supports social media should not be a surprise since he uses it better than any other major coach. The best part of Calipari’s appearance on Mike and Mike outside of making fun of the hosts for their performance in the celebrity game during NBA All-Star weekend was him saying that Pitino and Izzo ” know nothing about social media.” Say what you will about Calipari, but he knows how to cater to his target audience. Pitino and Izzo can target the donors and administrators who might not be into social media. Calipari will just target the teenagers who will become NBA lottery picks in a few years.
4. Tomorrow’s game between Duke and Syracuse may have lost some of its luster with both teams losing the game leading into their showdown, but don’t tell that to fans trying to get tickets on the secondary market. According to TiqIQ the upcoming Duke-Syracuse game will be the most expensive ticket this season with an average price of $2,125 on the secondary market. Now these figures are from before Duke’s loss at UNC so that number might have come down a little bit, but the biggest factor in what makes Duke games so expensive (outside of Duke usually being very good) is how small Cameron Indoor is.
5. With March approaching most programs are focused on their on-court performance. For Southern their performance off the court and in the classroom might be more important than what they do on the court as they are hoping be able to avoid a postseason ban over its APR. If Southern, which leads the SWAC, is ineligible for the postseason it would mark the second consecutive season that the SWAC regular season champ was ineligible for postseason play. Interestingly, Southern was a beneficiary of the ban last season as they earned the SWAC’s automatic bid after Texas Southern was ineligible to compete in the postseason.

1. Wyoming’s hopes of making a surprise run to the NCAA Tournament by winning the MW Conference Tournament took a huge hit yesterday when a MRI on Larry Nance Jr. revealed that he had a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and will miss the rest of the season. Nance led the team in scoring, rebounds, blocks, and steals this season so it is a devastating blow for the Cowboys. We do not know any additional details about other damage in Nance’s knee, but according to Andy Katz’s source Nance is awaiting surgical intervention on his knee.
2. As any Wichita State fan will point out Alabama’s season has not gone according to plan. Now the Crimson Tide will likely have to play the rest of the season without forward Nick Jacobs who is taking “an indefinite leave of absence” from the team. Jacobs, the team’s third leading scorer at 8.4 points per game, had been playing regularly, but it appears that “off-the-court issues” are the reason for his leave of absence according to Anthony Grant. Jacobs is still a junior so he still can return to the Tide next season. He has been a steady scorer for the Tide during his three seasons, but has not shown a significant increase in his production while at Alabama (6.1 points per game as a freshman, 7.6 as a sophomore, and 8.4 this season). Still he would be a big loss for the team if he does not return as a result of whatever the issues are.
3. We are sure that the last thing that some of you want to read is another piece about Duke, but Sports Illustrated‘s article about how Mike Krzyzewski has helped transform Jabari Parker‘s game is an excellent read. Told through a series of anecdotes it shows how Parker has developed from a top recruit recovering from injury to possibly the most complete player in the country outside of Doug McDermott. Perhaps what is more interesting is the interaction that he and Krzyzewski have and how Krzyzewski even at this point in his career still appears to be learning and developing.
4. We tend to head about the big NCAA violations that schools commit. What we usually do not hear about is some of the smaller infractions–real and imagined–that they commit. The Oklahoman obtained a report of violations that Oklahoma self-reported to the NCAA including one for what appears to be a pasta bar violation (see the May 10, 2013 entry). According to the report, three student-athletes ate more than the amount the NCAA supposedly allows at a graduation dinner and the school had the students pay $3.83 (the cost over the amount allowed by the NCAA) to the charity of their choice. To their credit, the NCAA has come out and said that it does not have any such rule. So for all the criticism that the NCAA gets for the way it runs college sports it appears that sometimes the schools make it harder for themselves for no reason.
5. According to Andy Katz, Arizona is making a push to end court storms after their two losses this season were marred by premature court storms (we don’t use our name when it is done that way). Since our site is named for something similar (done correctly) we often get asked about this. We have answered it several times and even been misquoted so here is our basic take. We understand why some people are against it (risk of injury, etc), but when done correctly (and this is partly on the school and its event staff) it is a reflection of the passion and energy that the fans have for the game. Taking that away would not necessarily detract from the game at least the on-court product, but it might affect the in-game experience for the fans who drive the sport. We won’t try to argue that college basketball has better basketball than the NBA in terms of athleticism and precision because it doesn’t, but the one thing it does have is a passion that the NBA rarely has, which you can see in the difference of the intensity of the regular season games for the two. Obviously, there need to be some limits on what fans can and cannot do at the games, but the administrators need to tread lightly or risk taking away part of what makes college basketball so special.