Morning Five: 01.22.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 22nd, 2014

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  1. College basketball fans (particularly the students) love to find any part of an opposing player’s past to use to get under his skin. They will not have to look very far for Cimneon Bowers, a Florida State junior college recruit and one of the top junior college players in the country, after he was arrested along with two teammates for eating marijuana after police attempted to search their car when they smelled marijuana. Bowers and his teammates were charged with tampering with evidence and have been suspended indefinitely until the legal process is sorted out. FSU also says that they will let the legal process play out before making a decision on Bowers, but we doubt that they will back away from him based solely on this.
  2. When we mentioned Notre Dame‘s Under Armour deal in this space earlier this month we wondered how much money a second-tier athletic apparel company could offer one of the most prestigious brands in college sports. It turns out that the answer is a lot of money–reportedly $90 million over 10 years. Now it is worth pointing out that this figure, which would be the biggest in college sports history, is based on the school receiving some of the company’s stock making the figure more variable than if the contract was all cash-based.
  3. George Washington suffered a major setback yesterday when they announced that Kethan Savage, their second-leading scorer, would be out 6-8 weeks with a fracture to the fifth metatarsal in his left foot. Savage is averaging 13.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game so it is obviously a big loss for the Colonials who are 15-3 and looking at a potential NCAA Tournament appearance if they can keep up their current level of play in Savage’s absence. Fortunately for the Colonials they do have a fairly balanced attack with five other players averaging between 8.1 and 14.5 points per game so there is a reasonable chance that they can hold on until Savage returns.
  4. A large portion of the US population enters into pools of various sizes for the NCAA Tournament with the hopes that their bracket will bring them small fortunes and/or fleeting glory. No pool (at least that we are aware of) is offering what Quicken Loans is, which is $1 billion. Sound too good to be true? There is one catch. Your bracket needs to be perfect to collect the $1 billion. The odds of doing so are 1-in-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 based on the number of potential ways to fill out a bracket, but the number drops down to an much more manageable 1-in-128 billion (the other number is quintillion) if you eliminate some stuff that has never happened before (like a 16 beating a 1). The $1 billion is payable in 40 payments of $25 million per year or one lump sum of $500 million. If you are thinking of working on 9 quintillion brackets for this March, you are only allowed to submit one per household.
  5. Like nearly everybody else we were stunned by Creighton‘s ridiculous three-point shooting at the start of their game against Villanova on Monday although probably not as stunned as the Villanova staff who apparently was not aware that Creighton could shoot before the game. If you were wondering how rare that was, it appears that it is not as rare as you think. Ok, maybe it is fairly rare according to Ken Pomeroy’s play-by-play database that goes back to the start of the 2008-2009 season, but as you can see it has been done a couple of other times in that period just usually not on as a big of a stage with the exception of West Virginia against Kentucky in the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

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Morning Five: 01.21.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 21st, 2014

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  1. Coming into the season we would have thought that a prolonged absence for DaJuan Coleman would be a significant blow to Syracuse and it still might be, but after their performance in the past six games (five of which Coleman has missed) we are not so sure. We will find out over the rest of the season if we were right initially as Coleman will undergo surgery on an injured leg and miss the rest of the season. Fortunately the Orange already have five games of experience without Coleman this season and they have a potentially serviceable three-man rotation on the inside (Christmas, Keita, and Roberson), but Coleman’s absence will cost them some depth on the inside as the season goes along particularly if one of the other three is injured or gets in early foul trouble.
  2. Despite battling injury issues lately Michigan State has been able to reel off 10 straight wins since their surprising loss at home against North Carolina. It appears that they will have to wait at least one more game before they can get their full team back on the court as the school has said that it is doubtful that Adreian Payne will play in tonight’s game against Indiana. Tonight’s meeting is actually the second meeting between these two teams this season as they already played in Bloomington on January 4 in a game that the Spartans won 73-56. Payne is currently recovering from a sprained foot and is “sort of day-to-day” according to Tom Izzo, but as you would expect they will not be taking any chances on Payne at this point unless he is 100%.
  3. Over the weekend (and coinciding with the 40th anniversary of its historic upset of UCLA to end the latter’s 88-game winning streak), Notre Dame inducted Digger Phelps into its Ring of Honor. Phelps, who is best known to this generation for coordinating his highlighter and tie on ESPN GameDay, went 393-197 in his 20 seasons at South Bend including seven wins against #1-ranked teams. Phelps, who spent part of this off-season being treated for bladder cancer (unrelated to his prior prostate cancer) and has reportedly been given a clean bill of health, was introduced by his longtime GameDay colleague Rece Davis.
  4. Although there are a lot of issues around how the NCAA determines eligibility that need to be worked on, but as Myron Medcalf points out the one safeguard that is available is the junior college route, which many current Division I players have found to be very useful. It goes without saying that many players who go through this system tend to have some red flags that scare off some programs just based on the fact that they have to go the junior college route. Those coaches who avoid players from this route do so at their own peril because although the high school recruiting battles win the headlines before the season many times a seasoned junior college player can make a significant contribution too.
  5. One of the challenges in using traditional advanced metrics is that they can make it difficult to truly assess a team when it loses a key player. Standard ranking systems are not perfect either, but they usually adapt more quickly by raising or dropping a team in the rankings based on their more recent performance. There is a way around this with advanced metrics, but it requires a quite a bit of additional groundwork. Fortunately, Dan Hanner is up to the task with his two-part post (part 1 and part 2) looking at how various teams have reacted to the losses of top players. In general the results are about what you would expect, but in a few cases teams have actually performed better. Now a lot of those surprises can be attributed to small sample sizes, but they are worth following.

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Morning Five: 01.10.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 10th, 2014

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  1. With the decision by Colorado and Washington to legalize the use of marijuana the debate around drug testing student-athletes particularly for non-performance-enhancing drugs has come under increasing scrutiny. Troy appears to be going in the other direction, but not as the result of legal issues. The school has announced that it plans on drug testing all of its athletes in the next 30 days following the deaths of four students during the holiday break. We do not know the full details behind the deaths of these four individuals, but based on what we have read it does not seem like drug testing is the answer to what happened at the school. It will be interesting to see how the school handles these drug tests going forward as they say that a student’s first positive test will result in notification of a parent or guardian. Since nearly all college athletes are adults in the eyes of the law we are not sure how this will go over and also do not know how the NCAA will deal with these results.
  2. With the FBI reportedly investigating three UTEP basketball players for gambling, it seems like the ideal time for an update on Varez Ward, the former Auburn player accused of point-shaving. Ward, who was accused of trying to fix a February 2012 game against Arkansas, is awaiting a decision from prosecutors about whether they will let him enter a pre-trial diversion program (basically he would have to follow some predefined rules for a period of time then the charges would be dismissed). Now he will have to wait a little longer as prosecutors have asked for more time to decide whether to let him enter such a program although a decision could come as early as next week. Ward’s trial is scheduled to begin on February 10 so he has a month to come to an agreement before this goes to trial.
  3. It appears that the college basketball version of keeping up with the Joneses is keeping up with Calipari as Kansas announced that it plans on spending $17.5 million on housing for the men’s and women’s basketball teams as well as 34 lucky non-student-athletes. That figure more than doubles the figures that we have seen thrown around for Kentucky’s famed Wildcat Coal Lodge. The 34 non-student-athletes are basically being let in to comply with NCAA rules that any type of housing can be allowed as long as it is also available to non-student-athletes as well. We would be curious as to who these 34 individuals are (probably legacies or children of big donors). For comparison, Kansas is also building two other new residence halls for other students at an expected cost of $47.8 million, but at a cost of $68,000 per student compared to $265,000 per student for the basketball housing.
  4. One of the things that we love about college sports is the atmosphere. Whether it is the students or the bands, college games have an atmosphere that few professional arenas can come close to. It is also one of the reasons why we are so opposed to neutral-site games. Schools occasionally bring along the bands and a handful of diehard fans, but in some cases they have to improve. In the case of Duke they turn to a volunteer band to fill in at times. This is hardly unique to Duke as several other schools resort to similar methods, but it is something to watch for the next time the cameras pan to the band and you see somebody who looks like he or she is too old to be in college.
  5. One of the interesting areas of college sports that generally gets overlooked is the politics of shoe contracts. One of the best examples of this is Notre Dame, which made the surprising move of switching from adidas to Under Armour at the end of this season. Whatever you think of their basketball program, the Irish are one of the biggest name brands in college sports, but it appears that adidas may have ruffled some feathers in South Bend with their decision to reportedly offer Michigan more money than Notre Dame. Regardless of the politics, it is a huge coup for Under Armour as Notre Dame is by far the biggest program that they have landed.

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Morning Five: 01.09.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 9th, 2014

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  1. Creighton got some great news on the injury front yesterday when it got back MRIs on Doug McDermott‘s shoulder and Grant Gibbs‘ knee. McDermott is listed as day-to-day with a shoulder sprain and is expected to play on Sunday. Gibbs’ status is a little less clear after he dislocated his kneecap and is expected to miss the next month. While both injuries obviously are tough blows to the Bluejays this is probably the best that their fans could have hoped for after both players were injured in a win on Tuesday night against DePaul when it seemed like both players might miss an extended period of time.
  2. Vanderbilt was not as fortunate albeit for completely different reasons as they will be without Eric McClellan, their leading scorer, for the rest of the season as he will not be in school for the spring semester after violating one of the school’s academic policies. According to the school he is expected to be reinstated this summer so we would expect to see him back in a Commodore uniform next season. McClellan, a sophomore transfer from Tulsa, was averaging 14.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game this season. His departure is a crushing blow for a team that was going to have a tough time staying in the top half of the SEC with a full roster and now is down to just seven scholarship players.
  3. We have talked a lot about conference realignment in this space over the past few years, but we cannot think of a time where it has had such a direct influence on wins and losses as it will with the Southland Conference this year. Yesterday the conference announced that it would be making Stephen F. Austin (the best team in the conference) forfeit one game and Oral Roberts forfeit two games because they are scheduled to play more than four non-Division I opponents this season (the NCAA maximum). The worst part about it? They have to forfeit conference games because two of the schools in their conference–Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word–are transitional Division I programs meaning that even though they play in a conference full of Division I teams they still get counted as a Division II team (their previous Division) until next year.
  4. When Florida dismissed Damontre Harris from their team we assumed it would be the last time we would see the Virginia Tech transfer in Gainesville. It turns out that we were wrong, which happens more often than we would like to admit, as Billy Donovan said yesterday that Harris was re-enrolling at Florida and could work his way back onto the team next season. Given the continuous state of flux that most basketball rosters seem to be in taking another chance on Harris, who averaged 6.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game as a sophomore at South Carolina in the 2011-12 season, certainly seems like a reasonable risk since it appears that he did not have any legal issues.
  5. Three years ago we created a Big Four State Tournament where we created fictional all-star teams from the best college basketball states in the country. Ryan Fagan of Sporting News took a similar approach with states this year, but took a much broader look at each state by considering the individual teams rather than the most prominent players. The results probably won’t be too surprising to those who have actually followed the season, but it should create some debate particularly since some of the traditional powerhouse states are ranked lower than where they might normally be in this type of ranking.

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Morning Five: 01.08.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 8th, 2014

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  1. As we suggested yesterday, it turns out there was more to the story of the suspended UTEP players than was initially reported as they are accused of betting on at least one sporting event. The accused players include not only already suspended juniors Jalen Ragland and Justin Crosgile, but also McKenzie Moore, the team’s leading scorer. At this point, all the school is saying is that they are not aware of any evidence that implicates the players in point-shaving or even betting on games that involve UTEP. We suspect that this will become a bigger story moving forward.
  2. It appeared that it would not take long for Notre Dame transfer Cameron Biedscheid to find a new home as news broke yesterday that he was headed to Missouri, but much like Biedscheid’s initial decision to leave Notre Dame now there is some question as to the veracity of the original report as Biedscheid came out later in the day and denied that he had made a decision yet. If Biedscheid does transfer to Missouri it would be a big pick-up for Haith as Biedscheid was a top-tier talent coming out of high school before his relatively disappointing freshman year in South Bend.
  3. Biedscheid may still be deciding on where he is transferring to (or at least when he will publicly admit it), but Providence transfer Brandon Austin has decided and like so many other recent transfers is headed to Oregon. To call Austin a Providence transfer might be a little misleading because he along with fellow freshman Rodney Bullock were suspended indefinitely before the season started with the suspension extended to the entire season just a few weeks ago. While the addition of Austin, a top-50 recruit, could mean big things in the future for the Ducks it also might take them out of the running for Louisville transfer Chane Behanan.
  4. It should not come as a surprise, but yesterday Fran McCaffery received a one-game suspension for his altercation with an official during Sunday’s game with Wisconsin that led to his ejection. McCaffery’s ejection came at a point in the game where the momentum swung in favor of Wisconsin so it would hardly be a stretch to call it a turning point in the game. For his part, McCaffery has publicly expressed remorse for his actions. Still given McCaffery’s history we doubt that this will be the last time we see his infamous temper on a public stage.
  5. It turns out that Grinnell can do more than set ridiculous scoring records. It can also set ridiculous assist records as Pat Maher handed out a NCAA-record 37 assists on Monday night in Grinell’s 164-144 win over College of Faith. As you might expect the usual suspects are already out criticizing Grinell’s scheduling, which we can admit is questionable. To us, the most interesting aspects of the record (we haven’t seen video of the game so for all we know Maher was throwing passes to guys who were hitting half-court shots all night) is that Grinell did this without Jack Taylor, who holds the NCAA record with 138 points in a game and sat out last night, and Maher broke the record of David N. Arseneault, the team’s associate head coach, who happens to be the son of the head coach and is a former Pioneer himself.

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Morning Five: 01.07.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 7th, 2014

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  1. Now that we are finally done with college football season we can welcome all of those people who spent the past few months rooting for teams that lost their chance at a national championship over a month before the final game of the season. The biggest celebration last night was undoubtedly from FSU fans we are sure that fans of college football (and sports in general) celebrated the death of the BCS, a ridiculous system that somehow survived sixteen seasons. Now that is finally dead we would like to welcome college football fans to the world of playoffs even if theirs looks like it will be somewhat limited for the next few years.
  2. We have no idea why the FBI would be investigating suspended UTEP juniors McKenzie Moore and Jalen Ragland, but it probably goes without saying that it isn’t good. The two were suspended indefinitely by Tim Floyd in late December and nobody has commented on the suspensions, which were reportedly for a violation of team rules. As usual those team rules could be virtually anything, but the in our experience the only time that the FBI has really gotten involved with basketball players is when it involves point-shaving. Obviously, we are a long way away from that, but it is worth keeping an eye on even if UTEP’s original statement on the suspension would not appear to indicate anything that serious.
  3. Most people who invest in the stock market rebalance their portfolios at the end of the year (or some pre-specified date). With that in mind Seth Davis has his Hoops Thoughts Stock Report where he assesses whether you should buy, sell, or hold on 63 teams. Overall, we agree with most of Seth’s ratings so we will not get into the details of his rankings of the individual teams (we might get into that later with the microsites), but it was interesting to see Seth leave Iowa off the list–a team that we called the most underrated in college basketball back in November.
  4. As expected Duke‘s streak of 122 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 10 ended yesterday as the Blue Devils fell to 16th, which is their first time outside of the Top 10 since December 2007. Coming on the heels of their loss at Notre Dame on Saturday it leaves them 33 weeks shy of the record of 155 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 10 by UCLA from 1966 to 1976. Frankly, Duke probably should have been out of the Top 10 a few weeks, but remained in it for the same reason that Gary Parrish is able to do a weekly Poll Attack–voter inertia. Regardless of that it is an impressive feat and one that is unlikely to be duplicated any time soon.
  5. We still have over half the season left, but with conference play just starting it seems like a good time to review how the top incoming freshmen have performed. Dan Hanner decided to take a look at the top 100 freshmen according to the RSCI rankings in a two-part post (part 1 and part 2 here). As you expect it is a fairly exhaustive statistical analysis of the top 100 incoming freshmen, but the one thing we would caution you on is remembering the level of competition these guys are playing against.

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Morning Five: 01.06.14 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 6th, 2014

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  1. After pleading guilty to third-degree felony marijuana possession charges on Friday, Utah State star Jarred Shaw was reinstated to the team. Shaw, who was arrested on December had missed five games before his reinstatement. Prior to his arrest and suspension, Shaw was leading the team in points (16.1), rebounds (7.8), and blocks (1.4) per game so this is clearly huge news for the Aggies. The Aggies actually did fairly well during their time without Shaw as they went 4-1 with their only loss coming by one point on the road at Air Force. With Shaw back, they should be competitive with anybody in the Mountain West.
  2. Few college basketball players have been as injury-prone as LIU-Brooklyn star Julian Boyd, who tore his ACL again in non-contact drill the day after Christmas. This injury, which is Boyd’s third, is expected to end Boyd’s college career. Boyd, who was the 2012 NEC Player of the Year, first injured his knee on December 12, 2012 and then re-injured it in July. According to the school, Boyd was close to coming back before his latest setback. While his college career appears to be over, perhaps Boyd, who was averaging 18.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game last season before injuring his knee, might have a career overseas if he can ever get healthy
  3. Over the weekend our SEC microsite talked about South Carolina’s resurgence. Now they will have try to maintain that without the services of Bruce Ellington, who has opted to forgo his final season of college basketball eligibility to focus on the NFL Draft. Ellington, a two-sport star at South Carolina, averaged 12.8 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 3.2 assists as a freshman in the 2010-11 season, but has seen his production drop each season as he has spent more time focusing on football. This season, he only played three games (between the end of the regular season and the football team’s bowl game) averaging 5.7 points, 1.7 assists, and 1.3 rebounds per game. Ellington is reportedly a top-20 wide receiver prospect so it certainly makes sense for him to focus on football at this point and not risk an injury playing basketball.
  4. Mitch McGary will undergo back surgery tomorrow, which is expected to keep him out for the rest of the season. As we stated last week the school’s official position is that McGary is “out indefinitely,” but it seems like everybody expects him to be out for the season. In fact, given McGary’s potential NBA future bringing him back this season might even be negligent. For the Wolverines, McGary’s surgery means the end of their hopes of making a run deep into the NCAA Tournament, but they still have enough talent to make the NCAA Tournament.
  5. It didn’t take very long for Indiana transfer Luke Fischer to find a new home as the former Hoosier has decided to transfer to Marquette. Fischer, who grew up about 30 minutes away from the Marquette campus, only averaged 2.8 points and 2.1 rebounds in 13 games this season after coming back from a preseason injury. Unlike nearly every other transfer that we have heard of in the past few years it appears that Fischer will not be applying for a hardship waiver of some sort so he will not be eligible to play until next December after sitting out a year.

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Morning Five: 01.03.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 3rd, 2014

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  1. By now you are probably aware of our stance on the rampant use of transfer waivers, which the NCAA seems to be handing out like candy on Halloween. Now it appears that the NCAA might be pulling pack on the allowance of transfer waivers including those for graduate transfers. According to John Infante, the NCAA is considering requiring all transfers to sit out one year without exception. I think it goes without saying that this proposal has not been getting much public support outside of college coaching and administrative circles. It is worth noting that the NCAA would extend the student-athlete’s five-year window. Even with that marginal concession we doubt that the NCAA will be able to withstand the public backlash if it does so.
  2. Speaking of potential transfers the future of Chane Behanan became a little more uncertain yesterday. Behanan, who kicked off the Louisville team on Monday, has expressed some interest in transfer, but is first heading to work with former NBA player and coach John Lucas to deal with an undisclosed problem with the possibility that he might enter the NBA Draft. If Behanan decides to transfer, he would be eligible to play one more semester and according to reports would only be blocked from going to another AAC school. Regardless of his decision on his career path and given Lucas’ work with players dealing with alcohol and other substance abuse problems we wish Behanan the best of luck before we would worry about anything basketball-related.
  3. If you thought that the ACC could rely on depth to salvage its reputation this season, you can knock one team–Georgia Tech–off that list after it appears to have lost forward Robert Carter Jr. for the season to a torn meniscus in his left knee. While the team is being careful in saying that Carter, who was averaging 10.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game, is out indefinitely many other reports are suggesting that he could be out for the remainder of the season. Almost everybody is aware of some players making miraculous recoveries so we will probably get a better idea of when Carter might come back following his surgery next week, but it looks like the Yellow Jackets might be towards the bottom of the ACC standings this season.
  4. Michigan is awaiting word on the status of Glenn Robinson III after he injured his left ankle in the second half of their victory at Minnesota yesterday. Robinson had been averaging 14.2 points and 5 rebounds per game coming in. With Mitch McGary likely out for the remainder of the season, the loss of Robinson for any prolonged period of time would be devastating for the Wolverines and would likely keep them out of the NCAA Tournament as they will be entering the heart of their Big Ten schedule on January 18 as they play at Wisconsin, home against Iowa, and at Michigan State in a one-week stretch. If Robinson is out, it would place even more pressure on Nik Stauskas and Caris LeVert to carry the team. Both have shown great improvement since last season, but that would probably be too much to ask of them.
  5. Now for the number-heavy portion of the Morning Five. Yesterday, we sort of promised you that Ken Pomeroy would deliver the third installment of his three-part conference race preview and he delivered. As we noted yesterday these are not meant to be the best conferences, but instead the most competitive conference races. When you see the conferences on the list you will see what we mean. And of course there is our weekly link to Luke Winn’s Power Rankings. The two things that jumped out to us this week were the huge difference between the usage rates for Syracuse and Arizona were and the blinded point guard comparison.

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Morning Five: 01.02.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 2nd, 2014

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  1. 2013 did not end well for Oklahoma State with the loss of Michael Cobbins to a ruptured Achilles tendon. 2014 is not starting off much better as backup point guard Stevie Clark was arrested just ten hours into the New Year for possession of marijuana. This is not the first time that Clark has dealt with disciplinary issues while in Stillwater as he was suspended at the start of his freshman year for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Given the way these type of issues are dealt with we doubt that Clark will miss a substantial amount of time. And we would certainly expect him to be back by January 18 when the Cowboys welcome Kansas to Stillwater.
  2. This has not been the type of season that we have come to expect of Temple and things may have taken a turn for the worse as sophomore Daniel Dingle could miss the rest of the season with a tear in his right meniscus. Dingle, 6’7″ forward, had been averaging 6.7 point and 2.3 rebounds per game this season. Without him, the Owls are down to just nine scholarship players. With their AAC schedule starting on January 9, the Owls are in a precarious position and at this point can probably forget about getting into any kind of postseason tournament.
  3. Texas A&M picked up a big transfer yesterday as they landed SMU transfer Jalen Jones. You may remember that Jones announced that he would be transferring from SMU just as the season started. Jones, who led the Mustangs in scoring (14 per game) and rebounding (7 per game) last season, has two more years of eligibility remaining. Although there are reports that the Aggies will be applying for a waiver so Jones can play immediately we cannot imagine a scenario in which the NCAA would grant it although as we have said before they seem to granting waivers for everything else.
  4. Looking for a more “scientific” preview of the upcoming conference races? As usual, Ken Pomeroy has you covered. In Part 1 and Part 2 of his three-part conference race preview (we assume Part 3 will be coming later today), Pomeroy ran Monte Carlo simulations of each conference race to predict the likelihood that each team will win their conference regular season. These races are ranked in order of competitiveness so do not wait for Part 3 to see where your power conference team is projected to finish. The Big 12 and Big Ten (arguably the two best conferences in the country) are ranked 17th and 14th respectively in terms of competitiveness.
  5. Was one 116-12 game not enough for you? If you answered yes, then you may in luck as it appears that Southern and Champion Baptist appear to want to continue their “rivalry”. For those of you who missed the game on Monday, Southern scored the first 44 points of the game to set a NCAA record and continued to press well after the game was decided, which was probably in warm-ups. There is a possibility that next year’s match-up could be more competitive as Southern only beat Christian Baptist 90-36 last season so maybe Monday night was an aberration.

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Morning Five: New Year’s Day 2014 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on January 1st, 2014

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  1. We will start off by wishing all of you a Happy New Year. We hope all of you had a great 2013 and that 2014 is even better. Today is a pretty light day in terms of college basketball action as the schools seem to be letting college football have its day in the spotlight. Still there are several interesting games with San Diego State at Colorado State, Boston College at Harvard, and Southern Methodist at Cincinnati being the most intriguing. If you are just killing some time before the games tonight, you should check out our “Best of 2013” column that takes a look back at some of the best games, moments, and performances of last year.
  2. One team that is not having such a great start to the year is Oklahoma State as they lost Michael Cobbins for the season after he suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the team’s win on Monday. Collins, a junior who was averaging 4.5 points and 4.3 rebounds per game this season, was also the team’s top post defender. Although Cobbins might not seem like a big piece to the Cowboys title aspirations based on his numbers, he plays at a position where the Cowboys lack depth. The job of replacing Cobbins will fall to sophomore Kamari Murphy, who has some experience in the role as he filled in last year when Cobbins injured his toe in the preseason.
  3. The college basketball world lost one of its coaching giants yesterday as former Iowa State and Michigan coach Johnny Orr passed away at the age of 86. It seems ridiculous that we could say that Orr, a coach who made it to a national championship game and two more Elite Eights at Michigan, would be more strongly associated with Iowa State than Michigan, but it is true. Orr, who is the all-time wins leader at both schools, shocked many observers by leaving Michigan to take over at Iowa State, but he is credited with building “Hilton Magic” into what it is today.
  4. We are not sure why there are not more quality college basketball “mailbag” columns. Perhaps it is because everybody is using Twitter as their “mailbag” forum to answer questions. In any event, Mark Titus has an amusing and surprising well-thought-out  mailbag from yesterday (part 1 and part 2). Most of the content is similar to the typical discussion, but it is somewhat interesting to see hear the responses from the perspective of a former college player (ok, who sat on the bench… a lot).
  5. One of the interesting things with the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week selections so far this year is that we don’t think any of them are legitimate threats to win the Player of the Year award. Obviously all of them, like DeAndre Kane this week, are excellent players, but we have not heard of any of the four that have received the honor this year being serious contenders for the end of the year award. Similarly, the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Week honor has been gone to one player (Jabari Parker) who will probably win the honor at the end of the year, but the other three winners including James Young this week do not figure to be in contention for the honor at the of the year. We guess it goes to show you the power of consistency.

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