Morning Five: New Year’s Eve 2013 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 31st, 2013

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  1. It did not take very long for Louisville’s title defense to turn into a mess. On Saturday, the Cardinals lost to their in-state rival Kentucky in a game in which the Wildcats played for long stretches without Julius Randle, their best player. Yesterday, they lost something even bigger as they dismissed Chane Behanan from the team for an undisclosed violation of university policy. Unlike Behanan’s previous indefinite suspension we think this one will stick regardless of how much sleep Behanan gets. It goes without saying that it is a big blow for the Cardinals who now face an uphill battle in their quest to repeat as Behanan’s departure means an even bigger void on the inside.
  2. Kevin Ware‘s potential redshirt is not as devastating to Louisville’s title defense chances as Behanan’s departure, but it serves as another setback for a team that is essentially living off last season’s reputation this year. Ware, whose injury and comeback served as a symbol for Louisville’s title run, had battled back to return to the court earlier than many expected. Unfortunately, it appears that a kick that he received to the same area as the fracture has caused enough damage that he might sit out the rest of the season.
  3. This has not been the typical Gonzaga season so far and things appear to have gotten even tougher with the news that Gary Bell Jr. will be out “for a while” with a broken right hand. In addition to being much lower in the rankings than they are accustomed to, Gonzaga is also already dealing with injuries to Kevin Pangos and Sam Dower so Bell’s injury only exacerbates a growing problem. Fortunately for Gonzaga it seems like they will only have two teams–BYU and St. Mary’s–to deal with in the WCC and they play them at home first so if they are able to weather the storm in January they could be in good position if they are healthy by February.
  4. On some levels Luke Fischer‘s decision to transfer from Indiana is not particularly notable, but the speed at which he did and how much of a higher level program Indiana was than the rest of his offers is interesting. We won’t pretend to know that much about Fischer or his game, but when a player has one offer from an elite program and a bunch of offers from good, but not elite programs it makes you wonder. Either the elite program is jumping on a hidden gem or maybe everybody else knows that the player might not be as competitive at that level. In any event, we suspect that Fischer will probably end up at one of the other schools that offered him a scholarship in high school.
  5. Finally, with all the injuries, suspensions, and transfers that we have been talking about recently now seems like the perfect time for Seth Davis and his annual Jigsaw Man column. If you are not familiar with the concept, Davis tries to find a “relatively obscure” player who would fill a void on teams that seem to be missing one key element. The most common complaints with the column tend to be on how to define “relatively obscure” since we probably are familiar with almost every significant player in the country. After looking at this for years the best way to do it is just to accept any player who would not be considered a star on his team.

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Morning Five: 12.30.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 30th, 2013

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  1. Michigan’s dreams of making another March run were dealt a major blow on Friday when the school announced that sophomore Mitch McGary would be out for the rest of the season after electing to have surgery on his lower back. McGary, who was one of the top recruits in the country coming out of high school even after a late slide down the rankings, started slowly as a freshman before turning around things late in the season to become perhaps Michigan’s second most effective player in the run to last season’s title game. Had he elected to enter the NBA Draft there is a good chance he might have been a lottery pick, but slowed by a back injury that had been bothering him since late August he was less effective (9.5 points and 8.3 rebounds per game) than the Wolverines would have hoped. Although we have seen college players make some strange decisions we assume that this will probably mean that McGary will return to Michigan next season to prove he is healthy unless some agent convinces him to leave with a guaranteed first round spot.
  2. In a somewhat similar way, but for a completely different reason, we may have seen the last of suspended Utah State forward Jarred Shaw this season after he was charged with felony drug distribution. Shaw, the team’s leading scorer, rebounder, and shot blocker, had already been suspended after police found marijuana after responding to a call at his residence. According to police, the amount of marijuana that they found was “more than personal use.” Given the latest information, we would be surprised if we saw Shaw, a senior, back in an Aggie uniform. Our best guess is that Shaw is headed overseas for a pro career assuming he is not playing in a prison league first.
  3. Seton Hall has already suffered several significant setbacks including both injuries and an Israeli military call-up, but those pale in comparison to what happened to Gene Teague on Friday night. Early in the second half of the team’s win over Lafayette, Teague went up for a lay-up and was undercut by a Lafayette player leading to an ugly fall (video here). Teague was immobilized, put on a stretcher, and taken to a local hospital when he was diagnosed as having suffered a concussion. The overall outcome is somewhat fortunate because based on the way he fell it could have been a lot worse. For now, Teague will be undergoing a series of tests as part of the standard concussion protocol to determine when he is fit to play again.
  4. Many of our younger readers might not be familiar with King Rice, the former North Carolina point guard from 1988-91. If they are familiar with him, it would either be through replays of old games or his history of arrests that continued up through his coaching days. So it was good to read a New York Times profile on Rice that appears to indicate that he may have turned a corner. Now the head coach at Monmouth, Rice has been arrested on several occasions including once as a junior at UNC on charges of assaulting his then-girlfriend, resisting arrest, and destroying public property. Many of Rice’s issues, including that arrest, appear to have revolved around alcohol. According to Rice, he has been sober for 17 years, but as anybody who has ever interacted with an alcoholic knows that can change very quickly so we hope Rice can continue on the new track that he appears to be on.
  5. This season has been a challenging one for Marquette and head coach Buzz Williams so it would not have been entirely shocking to see them try to get heralded freshman Duane Wilson healthy in order to try to salvage the season. Wilson, a top-100 recruit coming out of high school, has been sidelined with a stress fracture in his left leg since the preseason. On Friday, the school announced that Wilson would be taking a medical redshirt. Regardless of the status of Wilson’s recovery, which we have to rely on Marquette’s reports for, it seems like a redshirt is the best option for both parties as we doubt Wilson would have been unable to turn this team around and it seems reckless to throw away a year of eligibility on this Marquette season.

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Morning Five: 12.27.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 27th, 2013

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  1. After some initial uncertainty regarding the status of Cameron Biedscheid, Notre Dame granted Biedschied permission to transfer. As we noted earlier this week, it has been a rough week for the Irish who lost Jerian Grant to an academic issue over the weekend. Biedscheid, who took a redshirt just before the season started, was a top-30 recruit coming into school, but did not have a particularly impressive freshman season. News of Biedscheid’s intention to transfer leaked over the weekend, but then questions arose as to when and whether Notre Dame would grant the transfer request.
  2. Some might consider it a little early to start debating the best conference in the country, but in some ways it might be the second best time to judge conferences since the remainder of the regular season will essentially be conference match-ups (the best time being after the season). As such, Matt Norlander’s analysis of the top conferences in the country using the RPI and KenPom rankings is somewhat instructive. Most of the findings are not too surprising for those of us that follow the sport regularly, but it is interesting to see just how bad some conferences have been (like the Mountain West and SEC) and how disappointing some other ones have been (ACC).
  3. With Saturday’s massive intrastate match-up between Louisville and Kentucky looming, Sporting News took a look at the top 10 players from Rick Pitino and John Calipari (fair warning: they are both slideshows). Given their well-traveled coaching paths neither list is composed exclusively of Louisville and Kentucky players, but it is interesting although not surprising to see how heavily weighted Pitino’s list is towards Kentucky. Having said that it will be interesting to see how Pitino’s legacy in particular is defined in terms of his team association when he hangs it up. Given the arc of his career we suspect he will be someone like Larry Brown without a firm affiliation to one school.
  4. When we saw the headline that Reggie Johnson was transferring from Miami we were initially very confused. It turns out that it was not about the rather large former center for the Hurricanes. Instead it was referring to the 6’1″ sophomore guard from Miami (Ohio). This Reggie Johnson is the second-leading scorer for his team at 11.8 points per game and states that he is looking for “great chemistry, a winning program, a place where I can excel and reach my full potential and of course a great education.” Although the other Reggie Johnson was probably a more desirable target this one should have a fair number of suitors with nearly two and a half years of eligibility remaining.
  5. We have spent a fair amount of time on Twitter criticizing the breaks that teams (particularly professional ones) get from the government. It should not come as a surprise that other organizations get these benefits too, but the size of the benefits–particularly for a company like ESPN–may surprise you. According to The New York Times, ESPN has received almost $260 million in state tax breaks and credits over the past 12 years. We won’t get into the economic or political discussions regarding the reasoning behind this decision or the implications it has on the state government and economy, but we suspect that it might become a big debate whenever the next economic crisis hits Connecticut.

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Morning Five: 12.26.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 26th, 2013

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  1. We hope all of you had an enjoyable Christmas holiday yesterday. Fortunately for college basketball programs across the country it was an uneventful day as the only news that happens for programs on holidays and it appears that players (and coaches) across the nation were on their best behavior yesterday. Today should be more of the same and in fact should be even quieter with no games scheduled today, but that will change later in the week (more on that later).
  2. The only real college basketball action happening yesterday was in Hawaii where the Diamond Head Classic finished up. The big news out of Hawaii was Iowa State adding another quality win to its NCAA Tournament resume with a four-point win over Boise State. At this point, the Cyclones have a very solid top-10 resume and probably will end up there when the next poll comes out. On the other end of the spectrum we have St. Mary’s. Coming to Hawaii the Gaels were undefeated and a borderline top-25 team. Three games and three losses later (by a combined 11 points) they have just one game to rebound before a big showdown at Gonzaga on January 2.
  3. With all of the talk about scoring and fouls one of the things that not many people have talked about is the number of players who have had big scoring nights. Matt Norlander took a look at that using a 40-point performance as the threshold and breaking it down by season, conference, and game location. The one thing that jumps out (other than the big drop-off in 40+ point games since the four-year stretch spanning 2005-2009) is how many of these games came in BCS-level conferences (ok, maybe not the Big Ten) since many people would expect these performances to come in more free-flowing, less physical mid-major games. Clearly, the BCS-level conferences tend to get more talented players, but that is not always necessarily reflected in scoring output.
  4. We missed this over the weekend as we were traveling, but we remiss we did not mention the retirement of longtime official Ed Hightower, who officiated his last game on Sunday. Although Hightower’s final game was not a high-profile game (Iowa vs Arkansas-Pine Bluff) perhaps that is fitting as Hightower is one of the more well-respected high-profile officials that we can think of. Unlike some of his colleagues who are well-known for making specific calls Hightower does not have that type of reputation (ok, there are probably a few fans who harbor some resentment over random calls). As Dan Wetzel noted last week, Tom Izzo’s admiration for Hightower speaks volumes for Hightower’s work. Actually, we suggest you take a look at the comment section on Wetzel’s article, which might be the first time we have seen the comment section full of positive comments, to get an idea of the quality of Hightower’s work.
  5. If you still have some more time with your family this holiday season, we suggest you use today and tomorrow to get your family time in. If today isn’t enough, you should have some time on Friday too with three ranked teams playing, but doing so against really weak competition. On Saturday, it is a completely different story with a solid slate featuring games between Villanova and Syracuse at 2 PM and Kentucky and Louisville at 4 PM. Outside of that there are several other interesting games to keep you occupied the rest of the day so you might want to invest compression socks because you might be on the couch for a very long time.

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Morning Five: Christmas Day 2013 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 25th, 2013

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  1. Since we are essentially at the end of non-conference play it seems like a reasonable time to assess some of the top freshmen in the country. We do this with the understanding that players can improve drastically in the second half of the year. It goes without saying that the most criticized member of this freshmen class–Andrew Wiggins–is also its most hyped member. As Peter Bukowski points out, some of that is due to Wiggins’ reluctance to take over games like he (presumably) can. When Wiggins has asserted himself (admittedly too infrequently for most people’s taste) he has shown the skill that still puts him at or very close to the top of every draft board out there. As for the rest of the top freshmen, they all have basically been as advertised.
  2. Taking a step back from all of the NBA Draft talk, Kelli Anderson has been taking a look at the top candidates for this season’s Wooden Award. Although her list of candidates is not particularly remarkable, she does raise some interesting points about Marcus Smart‘s development. Smart’s point guard numbers (assists and turnovers) have been unremarkable as they do not show much change from last season, but Smart has shown growth in his ability to control the flow of the game more by himself rather than with the assistance of his coaches. While Travis Ford and other Smart supporters may have a point in today’s era of advanced metrics, Smart might need to show more statistical improvement before getting others to buy into him as a next level prospect along the lines of a Wiggins or Parker.
  3. There is a tendency for many people to view the holidays as a time for celebration, but for others it is also a time for reflection. According to Mike DeCourcy the latter is something that new USC coach Andy Enfield has been doing recently. Enfield made national headlines as the affable coach of the Florida Gulf Coast team that captured the nation’s attention with Dunk City and leveraged those two wins into a better job at USC. Since arriving at USC things have not gone that smoothly for Enfield most notably with his comments that were published in Men’s Journal that set off a verbal then nearly physical war with Tim Floyd. Although we were more cautious on Enfield than most after his two-game stretch, we are aware of his ability to coach and hope he can use the lessons he learned over the past few months to make USC into the legitimate program that it should be.
  4. By now you have probably seen quite a few variations of the “Can Wichita State go undefeated?” columns. As usual Ken Pomeroy has a slightly different take on it. Unlike other Pomeroy posts this one is based on a statistical fallacy as it looks at when the Shockers are likely to lose their first game based on how many games they have already won. The real utility of the charts are to look at how much Wichita State’s chances of going undefeated (at least for the regular season) improve when they get through specific tough stretches. At any rate, if the Shockers can build on their current undefeated record this might be useful to look at to figure out just how long they might go undefeated.
  5. As you can imagine yesterday was a slow day for college basketball news, but it also allowed us to catch up on some stuff that we normally would not have gotten around to. One of those things was an excellent longform piece by Alexander Wolff exploring the world of 3-on-3 basketball. Most of us know 3-on-3 as a practice drill or more often a pick-up game, which is often devoid of rules, but the world that Wolff explores is one of FIBA-governed tournaments and individuals seeking inclusion in the Olympic Games. Now we don’t see the Olympics happening or it even becoming a NCAA sport since there would be too many issues with cannibalizing the current offering, but it is an interesting read into a different basketball culture.

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Morning Five: Christmas Eve Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 24th, 2013

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  1. If you are one of those people who is vehemently opposed to the idea of tanking, Zach Lowe of Grantland may have a solution for you. According to Lowe, the NBA is exploring the possibility of what is essentially a lottery wheel. With this proposed system, teams would know where they would be drafting up to 30 years in advance of a specific NBA Draft. The numbers and the algorithms behind the wheel are beyond the scope of a Morning Five so we would refer you over to Lowe’s column for a discussion on it along with the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal. This certainly is not a perfect solution, but could serve as an interesting point to base further discussions about how to structure the NBA Draft going forward.
  2. In this week’s Hoops Thoughts, SI‘s Seth Davis turns the tables and instead of looking at the freshmen as nearly every writer and fan has done this year he has decided to look at the top seniors. Reviewing his Senior Watch List it is apparent how many high-level seniors there are this season. We wouldn’t take this as an indication of a resurgence of upperclassmen, but instead as one of a short-term phenomenon as this year’s junior class is not particularly impressive. Still as Seth points out it is worth taking some time to appreciate this group of seniors.
  3. If any college basketball coach could use a little holiday boost this year, it might be Ed Cooley. Having already lost Kris Dunn for the season to a shoulder injury, Cooley announced yesterday that incoming freshmen Brandon Austin and Rodney Bullock had been suspended for the remainder of the season. While unpleasant the news should come as a surprise to Friar fans as the pair had been suspended since November 6 for an unspecified violation of the school’s code of conduct. The school is not releasing any more information, but according to the local newspaper there are no state or local police complaints about either since they arrived on campus back in August. It is unclear if Austin and/or Bullock will stay or transfer, but they both will be allowed to practice with the team for the remainder of the season.
  4. It has certainly been an interesting past few days in South Bend. On Saturday the men’s basketball team blew a seemingly safe lead against Ohio State. On Sunday, Jerian Grant announced that he was leaving the team this season due to an undisclosed academic matter. Finally, yesterday news leaked out that Cameron Biedscheid, who was said to be redshirting, was transferring or maybe not. Biedscheid, one of the most highly touted recruits that Mike Brey has ever signed,  had an unremarkable freshman season averaging 6.2 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 1 assist per game before deciding to take a redshirt year this year with the announcement coming just before the start of the season. Early yesterday it was reported that he had asked for a release from the school, but it is unclear when the school would process such a request since it is officially closed until January 2. As Tom Noie notes, there is a chance that Brey could talk Biedscheid out of it by then, but it seems unlikely.
  5. Finally with Christmas right around the corner, The Dagger has you covered with an assortment of college basketball teams butchering your favorite Christmas carols. While we can appreciate the effort and find quite a bit of humor in their attempts, we are pretty sure these will not be mentioned in the same breath as Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. Anyways, we hope you enjoy their renditions and have a happy holiday.

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Morning Five: 12.23.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 23rd, 2013

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  1. The big news over the weekend was the decision by North Carolina not to apply for P.J. Hairston‘s reinstatement. As we have said for several months now it seemed unlikely that Hairston would ever come back to the Tar Heels as his involvement in multiple highly questionable situations that could lead to questions from investigators well after this season ended. Although UNC remains one of the most enigmatic teams in the country they are undeniably talented and on a given night they can beat any team in the country as they have proven with wins over the preseason #1, #2, and #3 teams in the country. Hairston’s departure means they will take a big hit in terms of their potential, but in the long run it will probably help the team as it can move on without Hariston’s potential returning lingering like a cloud above their season. The next question is where Hairston goes from here. Coming into the season he was a potential first round pick. Now after a lost season we have no idea where he will fall on NBA draft boards and he might be best served by finding a professional team to play before the NBA Draft.
  2. Coming in a close second to the P.J. Hairston news was the announcement by Jerian Grant that he had been dismissed from the Notre Dame team “due to an academic matter”. The news comes as a devastating blow to a Notre Dame team coming off a brutal last minute collapse on Saturday against Ohio State. Grant, a redshirt junior, had been averaging 19 points and 6.2 assists per game so his loss is actually a bigger blow to Notre Dame than Hairston’s is to UNC, but UNC is a much bigger player on the national stage than Notre Dame so Hairston’s impact will be felt more on a national level. Based on Grant’s statement we are assuming that his dismissal is probably related to plagiarism. If Grant returns to Notre Dame next season, he would likely only have one more season of eligibility left since he already used a redshirt year.
  3. Duke certainly gets more than its fair share of notoriety, but one of the thing that does not get enough publicity is how ridiculously consistent they have been. As Matt Norlander notes, the Blue Devils are on the verge of being ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll for 120 straight weeks. That puts them 35 weeks short of the record set by John Wooden’s UCLA teams between November 15, 1966 and January 20, 1976. If they manage to stay in the top 10 of the AP poll the rest of this season (frankly, we are not sure they belong in it right now), they have a very solid chance of doing so for all of next season with their ridiculous incoming freshman class. Of course, we probably would have said the same thing about this group of Kentucky freshmen, who were considered to be of even higher quality, and you can see how that has turned out so far. Perhaps, the example of this Kentucky team should underscore just how impressive this current Duke streak is.
  4. After Billy Donovan’s comments earlier in the week it was merely a formality, but Florid officially dismissed Damontre Harris from the team. The loss of the South Carolina transfer will certainly hurt the Gators in terms of frontcourt depth particularly on the defensive end as Harris averaged 2.3 blocks per game as a sophomore at South Carolina. However, with the imminent arrival of Chris Walker the Gators might be able to overcome it. After being hit with a series of injuries and eligibility issues in the early season, the Gators are showing signs of being a legitimate Final Four contender. As for Harris, we are not sure where he goes from here and much of his fate will probably depend on what the issues were that led to Harris’ dismissal from the team. Assuming they are not legal issues, we would not be surprised to see him end up on another BCS-level conference team.
  5. It takes a special kind of talent to be kicked off a team when your father is the assistant coach, but that is what once-heralded recruit J-Mychal Reese appears to have done at Texas A&M. Reese, a top-75 recruit in high school in 2012, had already been suspended for the first four games of this season for a “violation of athletic department rules and regulations” before getting kicked off the team this weekend. His father, John Reese, had been serving an assistant other Billy Kennedy. We use the past tense there because neither J-Mychal nor John traveled to the team’s game against Oklahoma over the weekend. According to reports, Reese’s dismissal was related to drug use. Unlike Harris, the next stop for Reese will probably be a level or two lower than the Big 12 given his reported drug issue. Despite his off-court issues, Reese is a talented player who averaged 7 points per game while shooting 42.9 percent from three-point range this season in between his suspensions so there will probably be many mid-major programs willing to take a chance on him.

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Morning Five: 12.20.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 20th, 2013

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  1. It seems hard to believe, but it appears that Australian point guard Dante Exum is planning on visiting five colleges — Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, and Oregon (which one of these doesn’t belong…) — in the near-future. The reason that it seems so strange is that Exum could enter the coming NBA Draft and is widely believed to be a top five pick if he did enter the 2014 NBA Draft. Andrew Bogut, a fellow Australian, has spoken publicly advising Exum to enter the NBA Draft if his draft stock is that high. Now this could all just be Exum getting a few trips out of the recruiting process or just wanting to test the college waters to see if he likes the system as a way to prepare for a likely NBA career, but we will believe that Exum is going to college when we see him in a college uniform.
  2. If you were hoping for an in-state rivalry to develop between Kansas and Wichita State you can forget about it. Well at least on the court. According to a report from The Kansas City Star, Gregg Marshall would be willing to play a home-and-home series with the Jayhawks, but Bill Self says he won’t because he sees no upside in it for Kansas. While we are not fans of Self’s decision not to schedule games between the two schools we have to agree with his logic that it does not benefit Kansas in any way. Scheduling Wichita State would only make the Jayhawks’ schedule more challenging (and if you look at your schedule this year you know that they do not need it) and the potential cost of a loss to an in-state school that is several rungs below them on the basketball hierarchy would only weaken their stranglehold on the state. In fact, just getting Kansas on their regular schedule would only further validate the Wichita State program (if a Final Four trip last season didn’t do that) so we wouldn’t expect to see this match-up in the regular season any time soon.
  3. In his final Power Rankings of 2013, Luke Winn has his usual statistical breakdowns, but he also has one of the longest breakdowns we have seen in the column looking at how Arizona defended Michigan in the last possession of its win this past weekend. Outside of that the numbers that jump out at us the most are how infrequently Michigan State gets to the free throw line and how bad Baylor is in the post. It will be interesting to see how the latter two issues play out as the season progresses as both teams are top 10 teams at this point and both issues seem like they might be significant going forward.
  4. How much does it take to get your name attached to an historic college basketball venue? At Indiana, it appears that the price is $40 million, after the school announced on Thursday that Assembly Hall would be renovated and renamed the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall by 2016. The renovations are reported to include “revenue-generating box seats, a new south entryway, a state-of-the-art video scoreboard, escalators and remodeled restrooms and concession stands.” All of that is fine and well, and we’d much rather see a philanthropist’s name on the side of the building than a corporate one (Bob Evans Assembly Hall just doesn’t have the same ring to it), but let’s just be sure that Indiana administrators are not going to let Skjodt, the daughter of a shopping mall magnate, turn the place into a hoops version of the Mall of America.
  5. The NCAA makes a regular practice out of tying itself in knots with its public inconsistencies and embarrassing blunders, but Thursday marked a new one for the likes of Jay Bilas and others to skewer. In a Montgomery County (Maryland) court case involving a wrongful death filed by the family of former Frostburg State football player, Derek Sheely, NCAA counsel wrote in a court filing that “The NCAA denies that it has a legal duty to protect student-athletes, but admits that it was ‘founded to protect young people from the dangerous and exploitative athletic practices of the time.’” From a legal perspective, the NCAA is clearly distinguishing the mission and goals of its current mega-organization from that of something a half-century ago; but from a PR perspective, this is just another quiver in what the public perceives as an organization deeply embedded with hypocrisy and completely out of touch with the world around it. Happy Friday.

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Morning Five: 12.19.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 19th, 2013

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  1. Late on Tuesday night a video of Southern Illinois coach Barry Hinson ranting went viral. By now, most of you have seen it. If you haven’t, we posted the clip on our Tumblr account. Outside of the amusing aspect of seeing Hinson rant, the one thing that caught our attention was the universal applause that Hinson has received. When we say universal we mean we have not seen a single media member criticize Hinson for his comments. We are not contrarian enough to go against that tide, but we do find it curious how coaches are able to go to the media and criticize the effort of a player (or group of players). However, when those same players exceed expectations the coach is praised for getting the best out of those players. If being able to motivate your players is a trait that generates applause, then failing to do so should also lead to an equal degree of criticism. Now, this is hardly the first time that a coach has gone off on his players (Pat Knight at Lamar comes to mind) so the long-term narrative around Hinson’s rant will probably be determined by how his players react to it.
  2. North Carolina has been one of the most confusing teams in the country so far this season. They have without question the three best wins in the country so far knocking off preseason #1-2-3 (Michigan State-Kentucky-Louisville), but also have a pair of home losses coming against Belmont and UAB. The most common excuse for the Tar Heels has been that they have had to adjust to playing without P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald. Yesterday one of those problems was solved when the NCAA cleared McDonald to play. That announcement by itself is interesting on some level, but the most interesting aspect of the release was that UNC only submitted their request on December 11 and it is the only request from the school meaning that the school has not even approached the NCAA about a ruling on Hairston. Late last night the school said it hoped to have the Hairston issue resolved by the end of the week, but based on what we have heard we would not expect Hairston to return this season. It is also worth pointing out how long it took UNC to submit since many individuals–fans, media, and coaches–have been critical of how long the NCAA took to reach a decision when in fact it was UNC that took a long time.
  3. We saw it coming as soon as Alex Murphy announced that he was transferring from Duke and yesterday Murphy confirmed that he would be transferring to Florida. Murphy, who entered Duke a year early at the behest of Mike Krzyzewski, never became a regular in the Blue Devil rotation and although the Gators aren’t that far behind Blue Devils in terms of talent the change of venue and system might give Murphy a better chance to play. One of the more interesting aspects of Murphy’s transfer is that he was essentially pushed by the Duke coaching staff to leave high school a year early to help bolster the team’s depth, but it may have hurt his development as a player.
  4. While many of the early season made-for-TV events have fallen apart as the gimmicks that they are one event that appears to have staying power is the Armed Forces Classic, which is played at US military bases across the country. Yesterday, ESPN announced some of its schedule for the games for the next three years. The 2014 game will be played in Puerto Rico and will feature a father-son match-up when Rick Pitino (Louisville) will face-off against Richard Pitino (Minnesota). The 2015 event is completely up in the air both in terms of location and teams, but the 2016 event promises to be a particularly special one as it will be held in Pearl Harbor less than a month away from the 75th anniversary of the attack that propelled the US into World War II.
  5. It might be a little late for Christmas this year, but if you have at least $100,000 lying around and a Duke fan that you want to impress then Christian Laettner‘s jersey from the 1992 East Regional Final against Kentucky might be the perfect gift. According to Leland.com, they are auctioning off Laettner’s jersey from that game, which they claim to have authenticated through a variety of methods. The owner of the jersey reportedly had a relationship with Laettner and was given the jersey at the end of the 1991-92 season. Laettner has not commented on the auction yet, but given the reputation of the auction house we won’t question its authenticity. We will be interested to see just how high the final sale price will be as we can imagine there are plenty of Duke graduates who would love to hang that somewhere in their office.

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Morning Five: 12.18.13 Edition

Posted by nvr1983 on December 18th, 2013

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  1. Seton Hall had hit a bit of a rough patch with injuries, but got some good news when it was announced that Sterling Gibbs will only miss 1-2 weeks after hyperextending his right knee. When Gibbs went down with his injury late on Saturday, it appeared as if the Pirates’ season was about to go down in flames as the team is already playing without Fuquan Edwin (ankle) and Patrick Auda (foot). Although both are expected to be back fairly soon, the prolonged loss of Gibbs (the team’s leading scorer) would have put the Pirates in a difficult position as the entered Big East play. Now, as we mentioned on Monday, the Pirates have a soft schedule until New Year’s Eve when they travel to Providence so the timing of Gibbs’ injury appears as if it will work out well for the Pirates.
  2. One of the topics of discussion that has been brought back by the increased emphasis on calling fouls this season is the idea of allowing players to have six fouls before they foul out. There are plenty of reasons for it including allowing prominent players to play more minutes and allowing all players to be more aggressive because they would have more room to operate with their fouls. As Ken Pomeroy points out there is some data on this as the conferences formerly known as the Big East and the Trans America Athletic Conference allowed players to pick up six fouls before being disqualified from conference games from 1990 to 1992. Pomeroy’s research is admittedly rough (he included games where players were only allowed to pick up five fouls in games during those seasons), but there were notable increases in the fouls per games. What that means for the actual quality/level of play during the games is unclear, but perhaps a more in-depth look at those seasons and those games would give the NCAA a better idea of how such a change would play out.
  3. One of the teams that we had the most trouble ranking this week was Duke. It turns out that we are not alone. ESPN’s BPI has the Blue Devils ranked a surprising 31st. As they note, the Blue Devils have been rather uninspiring this season and even their wins do not appear that impressive when you ignore the names of the front of the jerseys of their opponents. We are confident that Duke will move up these rankings as the season progresses and they develop as a team, but right now they are among the many big-name teams that have not proven themselves on the ocurt.
  4. Speaking of polls many critics argue that they are at best useless and at worst undermine the game by focusing an inordinate amount of interest on games featuring teams in the top 25 at the expense of other teams and games. Gary Parrish is not part of that camp. In fact, Parrish says that preseason polls (widely considered the most useless of all polls) are in fact quite useful. Parrish’s methodology is a bit suspect–using the current Ken Pomeroy rankings to determine the accuracy of the preseason AP Top 25–but it does point out that these rankings can be a useful guide as to who the best teams are. We view rankings similar to the way that we look at advanced metrics–they can be used to supplement your viewing experience (or in this case guide you to the better games), but if they are your only tool then you are missing the big picture.
  5. Finally, as we approach the end of the year we are sure to hear about the major stories of 2013. While this season is still young one of the dominant storylines has been (and will be) that of the freshmen. Andrew Sharp notes that this is nothing new and that looking back on the arcs of past phenoms can give us some insight into the current group. The obvious college basketball example is Andrew Wiggins and while he has had his ups and downs in his brief college career that is almost always the case with players under this degree of scrutiny. And as Sharp mentions the next group of phenoms are just a few YouTube clips away.

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