Morning Five: 02.05.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on February 5th, 2014

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  1. If you thought that the legal issues around the Mike Rice case were ending soon, yesterday’s announcement that three more players are planning on filing additional lawsuits would argue otherwise. Rice, who is already facing a lawsuit from Derrick Randall, is now potential facing lawsuits from Dane Miller, Robert Lumpkins, and Jerome Seagears. While the four potential lawsuits might seem like a lot there is still the potential for many more players, assistants, and other staff members to join in so there might be a lot more to this nightmare for Rice.
  2. Louisville’s defense of its national title has been much tougher than expected due to a variety of issues that we have discussed in this space multiple times. Now they will have to play without Wayne Blackshear, who will be out for at least tonight’s game against Houston due to a concussion. The timing of the injury is particularly unfortunate for Blackshear as he was just reinserted into the starting lineup. Although the one game absence might not seem like a big deal we have not seen a timetable for Blackshear’s return and as we all know the recovery from a concussion can be variable. With all of the injuries and attrition that the Cardinals have had this year we would normally question how well-equipped they are to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, but we have seen Rick Pitino pull off enough miracles in March to know better than to doubt him.
  3. One of the things that we have often wondered about some of the best sixth men is why their coaches do not just start them. Ken Pomeroy took it one step further and looked at which sixth men play the most and which starters play the least. Although we can understand some of the rationale for why certain players start or come off the bench we are having a hard time explaining some of these splits unless the coach is trying to give a senior player the benefit of starting, but we cannot see how that would not end up being more embarrassing if that starter ends up on the bench most of the game.
  4. We held off on linking to John Gasaway’s Tuesday Truths until this point in the season because we felt that it was simply too early in the season to link to the earlier version, but now that we are done with football season it seems like a good time to take a look. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this analysis it looks at how team’s do on offense and defense in a per-possession basis in conference play. One of the more interesting findings from this week’s edition is just how well Virginia is performing compared to the rest of the ACC. We still are not sold on the Cavaliers, but numbers like this suggest that they might be better than we have been giving them credit for being.
  5. We mentioned Harvard earlier this week in reference to the loss of Kenyatta Smith for the season, but for the most part they have stayed out of the national spotlight this season due to their mediocre schedule and the fact that they did not win any big non-conference games. Still they should be a tough out in March and hence a big national story when the NCAA Tournament rolls around. With that in min Charles Pierce took a look at the Crimson and while there is not anything particularly groundbreaking in it there are few people who write about anything as well as Pierce so it is worth a read.

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Morning Five: 02.04.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on February 4th, 2014

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  1. It did not take Oklahoma State very long to decide to cut its losses with Stevie Clark as they dismissed him from the team following his arrest for urinating out of the window of a car. It appears that Clark’s latest arrest was the proverbial third strike that led Travis Ford to dismiss Clark. The timing could not be worse for a reeling Cowboy team that has lost three straight including back-to-back games at home. The Cowboys have already lost Michael Cobbins for the season to an injury so they are now essentially at a six-man rotation as only six available players on the roster had averaged more than seven minutes per game entering Monday night.
  2. We are not exactly sure what changed for Arkansas between Monday morning and the early afternoon, but whatever it was they decided to reinstate Alandaise Harris and Michael Qualls. As we mentioned in yesterday’s Morning Five despite their indefinite suspensions the pair might not be out for a long period of time. What we did not expect was for Mike Anderson to reiterate on the SEC Conference Call that the two were still suspended indefinitely before announcing a few hours later that they were back on the team. Whatever the explanation the Razorbacks could certainly use the pair back as they have fallen from being a team with NCAA Tournament aspirations to one that is near the bottom of the SEC.
  3. Georgia Tech dismissed sophomore guard Solomon Poole from the team for “conduct and accountability issues”. Poole, who was averaging 6.4 points and 2 assists per game, last played for the Yellow Jackets on January 7 against Duke and had been initially held out due to a migraine headache and what were described as medical issues related to migraines. According to the school, those medical issues and his absence as the result of them are completely separate from his dismissal. Poole is expected to finish the semester at the school before looking to transfer elsewhere.
  4. Wyoming was already looking at a difficult game on Wednesday with a trip to New Mexico. Now they must do so without Josh Adams, who was suspended for one game by the Mountain West Conference for punching Utah State’s Spencer Butterfield on Saturday. Adams is second on the team in scoring at 12.1 points per game and leads the team with 3 assists per game. The Cowboys will likely try to replace Adams’ output with a three-man committee of Jerron Granberry, Charles Hankerson Jr,  and Trey Washington but it is more likely that other regular contributors like Larry Nance Jr. and Riley Grabau will need to just step up their production.
  5. Athletic apparel/shoe contracts have been in the news a lot more than usual lately, but the one that Tennessee signed with Nike recently caught our eye because of one specific provision: a compliance provision that penalizes the school if the football or basketball program receive a TV or postseason ban. Such a ban in football would reduce the school’s pay for each year of the ban by $450,000 or 500,000 (half of the base compensation) while in basketball it would cost the school $45,000 or $50,000 (10% of the base compensation). As John Infante points out this is unusual for such contacts, but we would not be surprised to see more of it going forward.

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Morning Five: 02.03.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on February 3rd, 2014

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  1. Saturday was full of great college basketball action with plenty of upsets and late-game heroics, but the biggest event of the day was Brandon Ashley injuring his foot in a loss to Cal. X-rays in Tucson on Sunday confirmed Arizona’s worst fears as Ashley had suffered a fracture and will be out for the remainder of the season. As Andrew Murawa noted before Arizona officially announced Ashley’s injury, the Wildcats are equipped to deal with Ashley’s absence, but it is unquestionably a big loss for them. Arizona has the two Oregon schools visiting them this week in Tucson so we should get a better idea of where they stand within a week.
  2. In one of the more surprising results on Saturday, Oklahoma State lost at home to Baylor, but their bigger loss may have come later that night after freshman backup point guard Stevie Clark was arrested for “outraging public decency.” If you are unfamiliar with that phrase apparently it means that Clark was urinating out the window of a vehicle. This is the second arrest for Clark in a month as he was arrested on New Year’s Day for possession of marijuana and also was suspended in November for a violation of team rules. Oklahoma State has not released an official comment on this yet, but we would suspect that Clark will be sitting for a while.
  3. Harvard still has a chance at making this a historic season with a NCAA Tournament run, but those odds appear to be getting longer. Kenyatta Smith, who was expected to be their top interior player, is out for the season after fracturing his right foot. This is the same foot that had a hairline fracture that made Smith miss the first 17 games of the season before he came back to play two minutes against Dartmouth before breaking a bone in practice the next day. Since the Crimson had already played most of the season without him they will not necessarily need to make any major adjustments, but Smith’s absence does lower their ceiling considerably.
  4. After a promising start to the season the wheels have come off in Little Rock as Arkansas is starting to fall apart. Having lost four of their past five and six of their past eight, the school announced that they had suspended Michael Qualls and Alandise Harris indefinitely. Given the contributions of Qualls (11.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game) and Harris (9.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game) this is a huge loss for a team in free fall even with their relatively weak SEC schedule (yes, we know that is redundant). The school has not offered much information on why they were suspended outside of the usual PR release so there is a chance that the suspensions will only last for a relatively short period of time.
  5. When teams make deep NCAA Tournament runs we always hear about the financial windfall the school gets with the increased application rates. According to Forbes that was not the case for Wichita State at least in the short term as the school lost money last season from their NCAA Tournament run. The school will almost definitely make more money as the result of this a few years down the road (assuming they make reasonable financial decisions), but it is interesting to see some of the short-term predicaments that smaller programs can find themselves in.

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Morning Five: 01.31.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 31st, 2014

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  1. When we found out that Larry Brown was headed back to college basketball two years ago we never would have imagined that he would be toiling in such obscurity. Sure, Southern Methodist is not exactly a basketball hotbed, but he is still Larry Brown–possibly one of the ten best basketball coaches ever. While Brown might not be getting much attention at Southern Methodist it certainly is not due to a lack of success because it seems like he has turned the program around (not counting Tuesday’s surprising loss at USF). Southern Methodist may only being on the bubble at this point, but we would love to see Brown back in the NCAA Tournament if only for the idea of him getting to coach against another legend.
  2. Notre Dame forward Austin Burgett was released from the hospital yesterday after undergoing a procedure to treat an irregular heartbeat he noticed during the team’s game against Florida State on January 21. Burgett reportedly underwent an ablation for an undisclosed arrhythmia and although the school is calling this a “common, non-life threatening procedure” given all of the issues we have seen with arrhythmias in sports (in particular college basketball) we could not help but be worried for Burgett when we heard about his condition initially. According to the school, they will monitor Burgett’s recovery before making a decision on when he will return to the court.
  3. We have heard endless talk about the NBA potential of Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, and a few top prospects. What we have not heard much about is what NBA scouts think of the next tier of prospect. Jason King spoke to three NBA scouts about several of the more intriguing underclassmen and for the most part their comments were fairly critical. Of course, that doesn’t mean that several of these players would not be drafted in the first round (you need 30 players to fill the 30 spots), but it does show you where these guys fall short if you did not already know.
  4. In this week’s edition of his Power Rankings, Luke Winn has his usual treasure trove of statistics and advanced metrics, but the two things that jumped out at us were his breakdown of the play of T.J. McConnell and Tyler Ennis as the distributors for the top two teams in the nation and just how remarkable efficient Jabari Parker has been in the post. The numbers for McConnell and Ennis are not particularly surprising (we knew they were very good), but the McConnell’s equitable distribution and the way Ennis has stepped up against better competition was eye-opening. As for Parker, we were surprised at how efficient he is in the post, but that might be due to how diverse his game is.
  5. Speaking of Arizona and Syracuse (and Wichita State) we are reaching the point in the season where people are starting to talk about the possibility of a team going undefeated. We are also at the point where we are starting to get our annual barrage of articles talking about how a team would be better off losing a game. We have never bought into this theory and we doubt that any player or coach would admit to it. Certainly there is another degree of pressure later in the season when you are undefeated, but it seems hard to believe that there would be any additional pressure in the NCAA Tournament.

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Morning Five: 01.30.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 30th, 2014

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  1. The news that McDonald’s All-American Chris Walker had been cleared by the NCAA to play for Florida has been widely considered a win-win for Florida and we would tend to agree. On one side the Gators are adding a potentially explosive inside force to add to what is already a top-five team. To make it even better for the Gators it took them so long to get Walker eligible that unless he has a ridiculous February and March he will probably be back in Gainesville next season. As for the NCAA’s findings, they eventually concluded that he received impermissible benefits from five people including two agents. As punishment, Walker will need to donate $270 (the amount he reportedly received from agents) to charity and serve 80 hours of community service. Walker’s first game as a Gator is expected to be February 4 against Missouri and we are sure that everybody will be watching to see how much an impact he can have on the Gators.
  2. Speaking of McDonald’s All-Americans, the latest group of McDonald’s All-Americans was announced yesterday. Looking through the list there are not any major snubs there although we are sure there are some high schoolers out there who feel left out. With the proliferation of high school all-stars games the moniker high school All-American has lost some of the luster that it had years ago, the McDonald’s honor is still the gold standard in our eyes. While the game is full of interesting match-ups (all presumably played without a bit of defense as is the tradition for all-star games) we are curious about their definitions of East and West as players from Chicago are on both squads and two players from Florida are on the West team.
  3. Delaware appeared to be on the verge of running away with the CAA regular season title, but their chances took a big hit when they announced that junior guard Jarvis Threatt and sophomore forward Marvin King-Davis would be suspended for at least a month. According to the school the suspensions are for unrelated violations of athletic department policy. While both players have significant roles on the team, Threatt is by far the biggest loss as he had been averaging 17.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 2.3 steals per game (leading the CAA in both assists and steals). The Blue Hens have a 2.5 game lead in the CAA standings, but with the loss of these two for at least a month that lead might not last.
  4. After starting the season 13-0 and looking like they were a potential threat to Arizona in the Pac-12, Oregon has fallen apart losing five straight before beating Washington State on the road. Now they may have to try to bounce back without the services of starting point guard Johnathan Loyd, who underwent surgery on his nose after breaking it in practice. Loyd, who leads the team with 5.7 assists per game, has not been ruled out for tonight’s game against UCLA, but if he does play he will most likely be wearing one of those masks that Richard Hamilton became well-known for wearing.
  5. Although it does not happen that often sometimes margin of victory can be warped by a team going on a big run in overtime making the outcome seem like a blowout when the winning team could have easily lost the game just five minutes earlier. To determine the utility/predictive value of margin of victory in these situations, Ken Pomeroy analyzed games between teams where they played twice with one game going to overtime and the other being decided in regulation and attempted to correlate the margin of victory in the two games. The results were variable, but as you might expect they essentially found that while the margin of victory was not that strongly correlated in overtime wins it should not be thrown out based on the idea that the two teams were essentially equal that night.

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Morning Five: 01.29.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 29th, 2014

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  1. The announcement that a group of Northwestern football players are asking to be represented by a labor union probably will not elicit the amount of attention it deserves from the general public because… well, they are Northwestern football players, but it could be one of the biggest sports stories of this year. With the backing of the National College Players Association the football players filed a petition to be recognized as employees with the National Labor Relations Board and filed union cards for an undisclosed number of players. Before we get ahead of ourselves we should point out that this is just the first step of the process (“getting a seat at the table” as they say), but it is an important one. As you can imagine the NCAA is not a fan of the idea and has issued a statement essentially saying that athletes do not meet the definition of employees and thus should not be awarded rights typically given to unions. The scope and details of the case go well beyond what we have the space to cover here so we would recommend you check out the excellent Outside the Lines piece we linked to earlier.
  2. We all knew it was coming, but Dante Exum came out and announced it yesterday: he will be entering this year’s NBA Draft. The Australian point guard, who is projected by most to be a top-5 pick in this year’s Draft, had reportedly been considering playing college basketball and even had come up with a list of finalists. Basically it was a list of top programs with no real shot (even UNC where his father played) since Exum is guaranteed NBA millions. Multiple players including Andrew Bogut, a fellow Australian and #1 pick who actually went to college, came out publicly and urged Exum not to go to college. Now college basketball fans can bring back their dreams of landing a star recruit to American high school players.
  3. According to Tim Miles it was not a single incident, but rather a series of them that led him to dismiss Deverell Biggs from the team. Biggs, who redshirted last season after coming to Lincoln as a first-team junior college All-American, was the team’s third-leading scorer at 9.9 points per game despite being a reserve playing just 20.5 minutes per game. We do not know the full extent of the series of incidents that led to Biggs’ dismissal, but he was cited in April 2012 for suspicion of DUI and in December 2012 for leaving the scene of an accident then was suspended in July for a violation of team rules. We do not know what happened to make Miles finally decide to get rid of Biggs, but we imagine that there will be somebody else out there to take a chance on Biggs.
  4. We are not sure what “medical and personal reasons” have led Kennesaw State coach Lewis Preston to take off from his coaching duties since January 2, but the school announced that he will return to his coaching duties at the end of this season. Preston, who is 7-61 (not a typo) as a head coach at Kennesaw State, was replaced by Jimmy Lallathin, who did not do much better going 3-12 as the interim coach. As we said we have no idea what the specific reasons were for Preston’s absence were and it would be reckless to speculate on what those reasons could be so we will just wish Preston the best in his return.
  5. Normally the loss of a player who is averaging 2.8 points and 2.8 rebounds per game would not even merit a mention here (ok, maybe if they did something really dumb), but Xavier’s frontcourt is so thin that the indefinite suspension of freshman forward Jalen Reynolds might have an impact on the team. Despite his limited playing time (partly the result of his propensity to foul) Reynolds is one of the top rebounders on the team and as a freshman one would expect him to improve as the year goes along. Based on the reports on nearly every site it appears that this is an academic issue so we doubt that we will see Reynolds back this season.

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Morning Five: 01.28.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 28th, 2014

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  1. Yesterday, recently dismissed Louisville forward Chane Behanan announced that he would be transferring to Colorado State. Behanan, who was dismissed from Louisville for repeated rules violations, is expected to be eligible to play for the Rams at the end of next season’s fall semester. Outside of all the jokes about marijuana being legal in Colorado (there are rumors swirling that it was the reason for Behanan’s dismissal), Colorado State would appear to be an ideal situation for Behanan given Larry Eustachy’s own public battles with substance abuse (alcohol–you may remember his infamous photos with coeds), which may help him guide Behanan. Given Behanan’s talent and productivity while at Louisville this could be a big addition for Colorado State if he can get his act together.
  2. We have heard plenty of fans complaining about the new rules and how they have led to more fouls (although the talk has started to get quieter), but we have not seen an analysis as thorough as Dan Hanner’s on which coaches have been most affected by the rule changes. As Hanner notes, the trends do not necessarily correlate with the coaches that have traditionally had more aggressive defenses, but there are some prominent coaches who have seen the number of free throws attempted by their opponents increase significantly. Given those increases we are a bit surprised that we have not heard these coaches be more outspoken in their disapproval of the new rules.
  3. The news that Southern Methodist prized freshman recruit Keith Frazier may have had a failing grade changed to a passing one so he could graduate high school generated quite a bit of attention yesterday. So much so that Southern Methodist quickly issued a statement regarding the “misinformation” that had been circulating. Essentially the investigation uncovered that Frazier had at least one failing grade changed to a passing one in a physics class by a teaching assistant who subsequently left the school. According to investigators the SMU staff and the high school coaches had been inquiring about Frazier’s grades repeatedly because he was on the verge of not graduating/qualifying. Given what has been made publicly available it is going to be very hard to prove that the SMU staff had anything to do with changing the grades so they should be off the hook. We doubt that the NCAA has the time/resources available really look into this so unless the Dallas school district is going to really look into this we doubt that much more will come of this.
  4. If you were hoping to see the Final Four in a new location, you are probably out of luck as based on the NCAA’s release of the finalists for the 2017-2020 Final Fours. The eight finalists–Atlanta, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, North Texas, Phoenix/Glendale, San Antonio, and St. Louis–have already hosted 24 Finals Fours and are scheduled to host the next two. Only the Phoenix/Glendale location would be a new site for the Final Four. As we mentioned on Twitter yesterday, we would like to see these played on the coasts a little more often although we understand the appeal of the Midwest (being in the center of the country so theoretically close to everybody). The other limiting factor is the NCAA’s requirement that venues hold at least 60,000 fans and have at least 10,000 hotel rooms in the area. The hotel rooms would not be an issue for most major cities, but the venue size might unless the cities have NFL teams that play indoors.
  5. A month after getting kicked off the Florida basketball team, Damontre Harris is back on the team. Well, sort of. Harris is practicing with the scout team, but will not play for the team or even be on the bench. While Billy Donovan will not let Harris play for the team this season because it “would completely devalue our core values” it appears that playing for the team next season would not. In any event it is a significant addition for the Gators going forward (assuming Harris can manage to stay on the team) given Harris’ productivity as a sophomore at South Carolina when he averaged 6.8 points (on 55% shooting from the field), 5.5 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game despite playing just 25.9 minutes per game.

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Morning Five: 01.27.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 27th, 2014

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  1. After he scored 25 points in the first game of the season we thought that Joshua Smith might have actually turned a corner and could be a productive force for Georgetown. Although he did continue to be a productive player averaging 11.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game his numbers tailed off as the season went on and after on Friday he was declared academically ineligible by the school. Smith, who transferred from UCLA last season and surprisingly got a waiver to play this season without missing any time, has never been able to get into playing shape for any long period of time and at this point we are not sure whether or not he will stay at Georgetown. What we are sure of is that if he does not there will be no shortage of coaches out there willing to take a chance on him thinking that they will be the one to get through to him.
  2. This Bubu Palo case does not appear to be going away any time soon  for Iowa State. Palo, who was charged with second-degree sexual assault that were later dropped, was kicked off the Iowa State basketball team despite his legal victory because the school felt that the had violated the student code of conduct. Unfortunately for Palo the decision came after the transfer window for this season closed. Last week a county court ruled that Palo should be allowed to play for Iowa State, but the Board of Regents objected so the case went to the Iowa Supreme Court where they again ruled in favor of Palo and denied Iowa State’s request for an immediate stay. As we mentioned last week, there have been several cases like this in that a player was kicked off a team despite having charges thrown out against him, but this is the furthest a school has went to keep a player off a team. We are not sure if Iowa State will try to take this even further, live with the decision, or just tell Fred Hoiberg just to keep Palo on the team (we are assuming the last choice is not an option).
  3. On Friday, Robert Morris announced that four members of its men’s basketball team–Jeremiah Worthem, Britton Lee, Evan Grey, and Shaire Tolson-Ford–had been suspended indefinitely for a violation of an unspecified university policy. The loss of four players will certainly hurt the team from a depth perspective, but only Worthem (8.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per game) was a significant contributor. The bigger issue for Robert Morris is that with Worthem out and Mike McFadden already reportedly considering leaving the team an even bigger onus will be placed on Stephen Hawkins to step up as Lucky Jones, a guard who leads the team in rebounds, cannot be asked to carry a much bigger burden.
  4. Mark Emmert and the NCAA leadership might be sticking by the idea of maintaining a single organization. Why wouldn’t they since their existence depends on it? It appears that not all of the schools feel the same way. Gordon Gee, the interim president at West Virginia, has come out and endorsed splitting the top-tier of schools into a separate division with separate rules or completely breaking away. Gee, who has led numerous universities (see his Wikipedia profile for more details than we care to provide), claims that having these schools leave the NCAA would allow them to “really reinvent the whole nature of the governance structure.” That might be true, but we have a feeling that this new group of schools would eventually create another overseeing body not unlike the NCAA and we would have many of the same problems that we have today.
  5. It has been a very long time since we heard from Marshall Henderson. Part of it has been Mississippi’s uninspiring schedule, but he also seems to have been his best behavior. That is until Saturday when he appeared to exchange words with Mississippi State coach Rick Ray. Henderson has not publicly commented on the altercation, but Ray did yesterday and apologized for his actions. As Ray notes, no matter what Henderson did (and Ray doesn’t mention him by name), there is no reason for a coach to get into an altercation like that.

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Morning Five: 01.24.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 24th, 2014

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  1. Minnesota got some relatively good news yesterday when Andre Hollins was diagnosed with what has been described as a “severe ankle sprain” after x-rays and later a MRI on his left ankle came back negative. A “severe ankle sprain” might not sound like good news on the surface, but with the way Hollins went down it would not have been unreasonable to think he might have broken a bone or suffered significant ligament damage. Instead, Hollins will be evaluated daily according to the coaching staff and has not been ruled out of their game against Nebraska on Sunday. Given how easy the Gophers upcoming schedule is and how important Hollins is to the team it would seem like they would be more likely to give him more time to recover.
  2. At this point we are not sure if we are going to see this Michigan State team completely healthy the rest of this season. It seems like as soon as they are about to get back to full strength. The latest addition to the injury list is Branden Dawson, who broke a bone in his left hand after slamming it into a table during a film session. Dawson claims that he was upset at himself and in particular at comments that Dan Dakich had made about the team’s effort. The long bright spot for the Spartans with this injury is that Dawson is only expected to be out for 4-5 weeks, which means he should be back in time for March.
  3. Yesterday, the US Basketball Writers Association released its Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List that features what the USBWA considers the top 23 players in the country. As you might expect this list is fairly similar to the one put out by the Wooden Award the day before. The one notable inclusion in this group is Xavier Thames, who has been putting up ridiculous advanced metric numbers, but has been largely ignored because he plays at San Diego State. Other than Thames the list also has most of the same snubs as the Wooden list and like the Wooden list it also does not eliminate players from postseason consideration for awards.
  4. Kentucky basketball tickets are among the most coveted in all of college basketball so it should come as no surprise that somebody is reportedly trying to make money off counterfeit tickets. According to reports, Lexington police are investigating a woman’s claim that she was sold counterfeit tickets to Tuesday night’s game against Texas A&M. Lexington police have already identified an individual that they would like to question about the case.
  5. We have no idea how this even became a controversy, but yesterday Nik Stauskas apologized for comments that his father made about Nik potentially turning pro after the season. Nik’s father, Paul, had recently told SI.com that there was a “really good possibility” that Nik might enter the NBA Draft after this season. At this point we would consider Stauskas as a borderline first round pick so while he might enter this year’s Draft it is too early for him to be thinking about it and way too early for him or his family to talk about it. While this is a different circumstance than the one that Russ Smith’s father put him in after the NCAA Championship Game it follows a similar pattern of a family member deciding to use some of his or her son’s fame to get a little bit of media attention too.

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Morning Five: 01.23.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 23rd, 2014

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  1. The case of Bubu Palo is one of the more unique ones that we can remember. Palo was charged with second-degree sexual assault in May 2012, but the charges were eventually dropped. Iowa State’s Office of Judicial Affairs determined that Palo had violated student conduct rules and he was dismissed from the team. Last week a district court ruled that Palo should be able to rejoin the team. Now Iowa’s attorney general, on behalf of school’s Board of Regents, filed a motion to essentially prevent Palo from rejoining the team. Palo’s case will likely be heard by Iowa’s Supreme Court as the Board of Regents is claiming that the district court decision essentially stripped the school of its power to decide who can represent its university. There have been several other cases like this (Dez Wells and Michael Dixon come to mind), but we cannot remember one where the school had to go to such extreme lengths to prevent a player from coming back to a team.
  2. In the past few weeks we have seen quite a few coaches have loud outbursts both on and off the court. This is nothing new and coming at this point in the season it should not be too surprising. What is new is the contrition that some coaches are showing. John Groce is only the latest example to come out and apologize for his outburst. And he is not alone as Frank Martin, Fran McCaffery, and others have come out in the past month and publicly apologized for their outbursts some of which may have cost their teams games. Are we seeing a kinder, gentler coach or just a more politically correct one?
  3. Yesterday the Wooden Award Advisory Board released its Midseason Top 25 featuring the front-runners for the end of the year award. The usual suspects are on there (McDermott, Parker, etc.), but most of the focus for lists like this is on who got snubbed. In this case, the names that jump out are Nik Stauskas, Gary Harris, and Joel Embiid not to mention Xavier Thames and Sean Kilpatrick. We have no idea how anybody could put together a group of the 25 best players in the country and not include those five, but the one saving grace of this list is that being absent from it doesn’t eliminate the players from consideration for end of the season awards.
  4. As we have pointed out before the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week award continues to confuse us as it has been almost exclusively awarded to players who have no shot of receiving any postseason honors. Obviously this award is meant to reflect a single week’s work rather than a season’s contribution, but it is striking to see that just two of the seven winners (Doug McDermott and DeAndre Kane) this season will even be in contention for any national honors at at the end of the season. This week’s winner was Naadir Tharpe, who at this point is not even assured of having his starting point guard job secure at Kansas.
  5. We are not sure what to make of Mark Titus’ newest power rankings. Gone is the usual ridiculous non sequiturs and instead we have an interesting set of rankings that is backed up by actual analysis (still a little light on the numbers). The thing is looking at these rankings it is pretty clear how big of a mess it is after the top two teams because we would totally rearrange the next ten spots on the list, but we don’t necessarily have any significant issues with Titus’ rankings because we can see his reasoning too.

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