Rush the Court’s East Coast boss was courtside from Miami’s dominating victory over North Carolina. Here are his three thoughts from the game:

1. Miami is playing like a #1. And we are not just talking about a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. With the way that teams have been losing in the past few weeks you can start to make a legitimate case for the Hurricanes as a potential #1 team in the country. Sure they don’t play in the Big Ten, which is by far the best conference in the country this season, and the ACC may be down this year, but there is something to be said for beating the teams you are supposed to beat. Now I probably wouldn’t pick the Hurricanes to win the Big Ten, but it is hard to argue against a team that hasn’t lost a game when it has had its full roster. Don’t be surprised to see the Hurricanes at or at least near the top of the polls on Monday.
2. UNC is getting close to the bubble. If the Selection Committee had to make up a bracket tomorrow the Tar Heels would probably still be in, but they are getting perilously close to being on the wrong side of that bubble. Now they have to bounce back from this embarrassing loss to travel to Cameron to take on a Duke team that has played well since they were embarrassed in their trip to Coral Gables. After that they still have a game against NC State and another game against Duke to end the regular season. If they stumble in any other games or get knocked out early in the ACC Tournament it could be a very nervous Selection Sunday in Chapel Hill.
3. Miami is putting together a great season, but maybe not a great program. Obviously this season has been a great one for the Hurricanes program even if they fall apart later in the season, but don’t be so quick to put them up with the ACC’s elite. Joining that group requires consistency and the Hurricanes have only put together part of one season. The media is trying to spin a narrative that Jim Larranaga has built up this program to be one of the best in the ACC going forward, but that isn’t the reality of the situation. Outside of Shane Larkin the entire starting lineup will be gone after this season and the incoming class is not exactly stellar (two recruits: one four-star and one three-star). The hope for Miami’s fans should be that this season shows recruits what can happen at Miami (and that the shots of the weather outside during the games can be some extra motivation).

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1. With all of the movement caused by conference realignment it is nice to see schools not move every once in a while even if it is only for one more year as Notre Dame appears to be doing with the announcement that it will stay in the Big East through the 2013-14 season. Now we will not pretend this was some noble gesture as we are aware of the fact that if the Irish had been able to get out of their 27-month notice period they would have. Perhaps more interestingly Notre Dame also says that the other members of the “Catholic 7” also intend to stay in the Big East for one more season making the conference more than just an also-ran even if one for a short period of time.
2. It has only been 8.5 months since Sports Illustrated came out with its cover story calling Jabari Parker the best high school basketball player since LeBron so it is somewhat amusing that they are ready to hype another recruit, Andrew Wiggins, as the best recruit in this class as the “Michael Jordan of Canada”. Some apologists may try to explain this away by noting that Parker recently joined this year’s senior class, but we are having a hard time explaining this coincidence of having the two best players in the past decade in the same senior class as nothing more than useless hype. We have seen Wiggins play on several occasions and while we think he is a better prospect than Parker primarily because of his explosiveness we wonder why the media is so eager to hype someone as “the next big thing”.
3. Most years the contenders for national player of the year honors are fairly predictable and this year isn’t that different with one notable exception: Victor Oladipo. While it may be hard to make a case for anybody on the preseason #1 team being under the radar Oladipo was not even considered a Big Ten Player of the Year candidate coming into the season as you would not have found anybody outside of his immediate family who would have considered him anywhere close to Indiana’s best player (that distinction would have went to Cody Zeller). Yet with a little over a month left in the regular season Oladipo is up to fourth in ESPN’s straw poll, which is one spot ahead of his more highly regarded teammate. As for the actual award, it appears as if Trey Burke and Doug McDermott with the eventual winner most likely being the one who finishes the strongest over the next month.
4. Just a few days ago it seemed as if nothing could go wrong for the Florida Gators. They were having one of the most dominant seasons in recent memory before getting blown out by Arkansas on Tuesday. Now they will have to play at least for at least a month without the services of Will Yeguete after they announced that the junior forward will have arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. At this point the Gator are hoping to get Yeguete back in time for the SEC Tournament, but it is possible that he could be out for the season if they expect him to be out that long. Yeguete doess not put up huge stats, but if the Gaotrs are going to make a run in March Yeguete’s contributions on the glass could be key as the Gators lack a significant interior presence outside of Patric Young, who will need some help if the Gators are planning on making a trip to Atlanta.
5. There was plenty of controversy around National Signing Day with the most prominent ones involving a player who committed to Alabama despite getting an Auburn tattoo and another recruit who had commitment put into limbo after his mother absconded with his National Letter of Intent after she disagreed with his choice. While Jeff Borzello’s  “biggest commitment flips in recent history” may lack the absurdity of those two examples it is an interesting reminder not to rely on these commitments until the player has officially signed or in some cases actually arrived on campus. We remember most of these recent flips, but we had forgotten about some of them (particularly those listed in the “others” category).

1. Most of the nation was focused on football recruits during National Signing Day yesterday, but Iowa State may have been the biggest loser yesterday in terms of its recruiting when the NCAA denied the school’s appeal to make Maurice Jones eligible for the 2013-14 season. Jones, who averaged 13 points, 3.5 assists, 2.7 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game as a sophomore at USC before transferring to Iowa State, was not academically eligible to play when he left USC last September and apparently did not improve his grades enough in time for the NCAA to lift his ineligibility. The Cyclones had hoped to have Jones be eligible in time for the second half of next season, but with Jones having to sit out next season too we wonder if he will take a different route including going to a junior college and if Jones isn’t in Ames we would assume his recruitment would open up again.
2. We have been talking about the Ed O’Bannon case for a few years on this site, but it seems like the mainstream media is just starting to get a sense of how big this case could be for (or actually against) the NCAA. The latest addition is Charles Pierce, who points out how big of a deal profit-sharing could be for student-athletes and the member institutions. We won’t try to argue that it would not be at the very least a very significant symbolic change we do wonder how the member institutions will try to fudge the numbers in an attempt to give the athletes as small an amount of money as possible. Perhaps all of this talk about major athletic departments struggling financially is just setting the stage for schools to say they cannot afford to pay student-athletes significant sums of money.
3. One of the great things about Luke Winn’s weekly Power Ranking column is his versatility in pulling out interesting statistics to analyze and present the best teams in college basketball. While Winn has a few crutches like his reliable Aaron Craft Turnometer he usually presents a new statistic to analyze for each team each week. The stat that jumped out at us this week was Florida‘s (possible over-)reliance on three-point shooting. While such high volume three-point shooting makes a team extremely dangerous it also makes them vulnerable to early exits when they go cold from the field (live by the three…).
4. For years Dick Vitale has talked about how he tried to recruit Magic Johnson to play for him while he was still a college coach at Detroit and if Magic had joined him he might still be coaching. Well Vitale is getting his wish (sort of) as Magic will be paired with Vitale (and Mike Tirico) on February 19 when Indiana plays at Michigan State. While Magic has served in virtually every role imaginable in basketball this game will be his first as a college basketball analyst. We just hope that both Magic and Vitale are able to control themselves to let the players (and not the announcers) become the focus for those of us watching at home.
5. We are still trying to figure out what exactly happened with the Hamline incident that left one of the team’s players facing a second-degree assault charge and its coach suspended. Yesterday that coach, Nelson Whitmore, left the school in what has been described as a “mutual agreement”. All we know about the case is what reportedly happened between the victim and the Hamline basketball player. What we don’t know is what Whitmore did to merit such a severe sanction as the school said his actions did not violate any NCAA rules. Even though we are never happy to see somebody leave his or her job we are happy to see a school own a problem like this even if we wish this entire episode had never happened.

1. When it was announced that Old Dominion had fired Blaine Taylor yesterday many people immediately wondered whether the team’s 2-20 record this season was bad enough to lead to an in-season firing especially given Taylor’s overall exceptional record at the school. However as David Teel points out the suspicion that Taylor’s history of alcohol abuse and his recent strange behavior makes the firing “equal parts sad, awkward and unusual”. Given his history and the suspicions around it we doubt that you will see many angry columnists firing off their usual columns questioning the goals of college athletics when they fire a coach mid-season. Normally we are indifferent if a fired coach winds up getting another head coaching job and that is true in Taylor’s case too, but if the speculation is true we hope that he is able to get his life back together.
2. If you have been waiting to hear Dick Vitale to call a Final Four game, it will finally happen this April. For international viewers. Vitale may be a polarizing figures to some, but it has always seemed strange that the face of college basketball to many casual fans has never worked courtside because NBC and CBS have owned the rights to the NCAA Tournament and presumably Vitale has a pretty strong non-compete clause in his contract that other ESPN talents such as Jay Bilas were able to get around. While people have mentioned the possibility of Vitale calling games during the NCAA Tournament for years, this situation probably works out best for all parties: US viewers are given more nuanced commentary while international viewers will be given the most recognizable voice in American sports.
3. This is probably a case of reading too much into a statement, but Mason Plumlee has (sort of) come out and said that he expects Ryan Kelly to return this season. Actually if you read the statement it sounds more hopeful than anybody, but the fact that this is even news is reflective of how little information Duke has released about Kelly’s injury or how well his rehab is going. While we can understand the lack of desire Duke must have to share any information about Kelly’s condition with fans and the media we have to wonder what effect it is having on Kelly’s potential Draft status. We never consider Kelly to be a potential first round pick even on his best day, but you would think that a fairly athletic 6’11” forward who can hit shots from the perimeter would be someone that NBA teams would be interested in looking at. With the way that Duke is handling Kelly’s medical information we wonder how concerned NBA teams are of the long-term health of his feet. Obviously NBA teams will have their physicians examine Kelly before and after the NBA Draft, but we are guessing that the lack of information is not helping Kelly’s cause.
4. Two things from Andy Glockner’s Bracket Watch caught our eyes this week: the number of teams that have had bad losses with injuries and the lack of locks. While we tend to think that Glockner might be the East German judge of the bracketologists he certainly has a point about the effect of serious injuries on team’s that have some ugly losses. Although there is no team that fits the 2000 Cincinnati profile there are several prominent teams like Duke and Miami that have had some pretty ugly losses that occurred when they were not at full strength. Assuming the teams are at full strength the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will have quite a bit of work to sort out all of the “bad” losses that occurred while teams were missing significant pieces.
5. Arkansas’ blowout victory over Florida last night may have been a shock to the tempo-free fans, but while some unsavory characters were busy blaming others for their own ridiculous statements it is worth noting that Ken Pomeroy even suggested the possibility that some like last night could happen even if he didn’t necessarily see it happening for last night’s game. What the game really underscores is the lack of a dominant team this year. This isn’t necessarily a phenomenon limited to this season, but it seems like people forgot about that after how good Kentucky was a last year. When you combine that with some of the other excellent basketball around the country (particularly in the Big Ten) the last two months of the college basketball season promises to be an exciting one.

1. Yesterday the match-ups for the last BracketBusters were announced and given the lack of enthusiasm generated by the announcement we can understand why the event is ending. In the past it seemed like there were at least 3-4 games that we could point to as “can’t miss” games. This year the only game that measures up to that is Creighton at St. Mary’s. The game is bigger for St. Mary’s in terms of getting an at-large bid since most would consider Creighton a near-lock for the NCAA Tournament, but a road win would be a big boost for the Bluejays in terms of their NCAA Tournament seeding. On the other end of the spectrum is Wichita State, who is scheduled to play at home against Detroit in a game that would be huge for the Titans if they could pull out a win, but it could also be potentially devastating for the Shockers if they were to lose at home and might push them on the wrong side of the bubbble on Selection Sunday. Outside of that there are a few moderately interesting game, but nothing that we would plan our day around.
2. We have covered some of the recent legal proceedings in the San Diego sports betting case and now we can provide you with an update on the Toledo point-shaving scandal (a case we first discussed back in 2008). Yesterday, Mitchell “Ed” Karam pleaded guilty to bribing basketball players to shave points in several games played between 2004 and 2006 as well as fixing horse races and defrauding others in Detroit real estate deals. Karam along with his partner, Ghazi “Gary” Manni, bet approximately $331,000 on the basketball games, but as Karam’s attorney claims his client was the unlucky individual who happened to associate himself with Manni. With Manni set to go to trial on March 12 we suspect that his attorney will be telling a vastly different story than Karam’s attorney did.
3. Murray State  guard Zay Jackson, who was suspended from the team for this horrific hit-and-run incident in September, pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree assault and wanton endangerment with a sentence of 60 days in jail of which he still has 49 more days to serve before being on probation for three years. Before the plea deal was reached Jackson was looking at five years in jail before he entered the plea deal. In addition to the jail time and probation Jackson will pay for the victims’ medical expenses. Interestingly, Jackson had originally been sentenced to 30 days in jail by a previous judge who subsequently admitted to having ties to Murray State before recusing himself from the case. While we find it hard to believe it is expected that Jackson will return to the team next season. We are guessing this will be brought up by more than one group of opposing fans.
4. We have all heard plenty of stories about unsavory scouts so it is refreshing to read The New York Times‘ profile on Tom Konchalski, a New York City scout who is well-known in recruiting circles for his HBSI Report which he bought from Howard Garfinkel after initially working for Garfinkel. Konchalski’s knowledge of the high school basketball scene in the New York City metro area and beyond borders on encyclopedic and as the article notes on several occasions Konchalski can recall meeting players and the circumstances of their meeting almost instantaneously when meeting them again even it was over 30 years ago. Perhaps the most refreshing thing about Konchalski is that we have never heard his name mentioned in any scandals (or maybe that fact that we find it refreshing is reflective of the state of scouting). If you are looking for a more in-depth profile on Konchalski check out this 2010 feature from New York Magazine, which is goes into his life and passion in more detail.
5. We focus almost exclusively on men’s college basketball, but on certain occasions we will venture over to the women’ game for particularly notable events. Unfortunately this time the reason is a sad one as Monica Quan, an assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton, and her boyfriend were killed in their apartment late on Sunday night. As of late Monday night no leads into the double-murder had become public. We don’t know much about Quan or the women’s program at Cal State Fullerton, but we want to send our condolences to the family members of these two individuals and any others who may have known them as this appears to be yet another senseless act of violence.

1. We will start off this Morning Five by talking about football or more specifically the lack of football for the rest of the college football season. We won’t try to claim that we don’t enjoy football from time to time although we still don’t quite understand America’s obsession with it. Anyways now that football season is officially over we hope the media can shift its focus to basketball as quickly as possible. So if you have friends who are huge football fans and only care about college basketball for the NCAA Tournament try to get them in on some conference basketball because they will quickly learn their is more to college basketball than the NCAA Tournament.
2. One of the subtle changes that will be occurring with conference realignment is the potential movement of conference tournaments from their familiar locations to more functional ones given the new geography of various conferences. In our eyes the two biggest sites are Madison Square Garden and Greensboro Coliseum. Given the disintegration of the Big East it would appear that Madison Square Garden should be opening up and it appears that the ACC is interested in moving the ACC Tournament to the New York City area. It could be a while before that happens as the deadline for bids for the 2016-21 ACC Tournaments already passed with the current bids coming from Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Tampa, and Washington D.C. Of course, the powers that be could decide to reopen the bidding if they really wanted to get to New York City so it is something to keep an eye on in the future.
3. Over the years we have heard a lot of questionable thing about the various basketball academies, but those criticisms are usually focused on lackluster or non-existent academics. In the case of CCSE Preparatory Academy in Roseville, California the allegations are much more concerning as at least four students are alleging that they were subjected to corporal punishment by the school’s president Francis Ngissah, who was arrested and released on $100,000 bail. The students, who pay $10,000 per year for tuition and another $5,000 per year for boarding, but as the link notes there are several questionable aspects about the school not the least of which is its 24 year-old president, who claims he graduated from Harvard, but Harvard couldn’t verify his attendance which the school’s spokesman explains by saying that Ngissah attended Harvard under another name, but refuses to release that name. At this point all we can say is that we continue to question whether the supposed need for these training academies is worth all of the shady activity at them given how lightly regulated they are.
4. Speaking of students who actually attended Harvard the scandal the rocked the school and took away any chance of its basketball team being a player on the national stage this season appears to be winding down. According to the school, more than half of the approximately 125 students (approximately 1% of the total undegraduate student body) were required to withdraw from the school for an unspecified period of time. Approximately another quarter received disciplinary probation while the other students did not receive any further punishment. We have not heard which group Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry fell into, but would assume that the punishment would not extend beyond this academic year so t hey should probably be able to return to the team next season.
5. While the Manti Te’o circus may have opened up the public’s eyes to the world of catfishing it appears that some programs were aware of it and tried to teach its players how to avoid it. According to some reports Michigan may have engaged in catfishing some of its football players. While some individuals are trying to avoid using the term “catfish” when they describe what happened to their players it appears that they did end up catfishing the players. Our favorite part of the story is a quote attributed to Brady Hoke who describes the female who was used to lure in the football players in this way: “she was hot, now; a very, very nice looking young lady”.

1. If people were upset by the NCAA using a federal bankruptcy proceeding to obtain information for their own investigation into Miami they may be surprised to learn that at least one (anonymous) NCAA investigator claims that the NCAA did nothing wrong. In addition, the anonymous individual also questioned NCAA President Mark Emmert’s assertion that he was unaware of the practices that were used in the Miami investigation. At this point we are not sure where this case is heading, but continue to assert that the NCAA would definitely benefit from some more transparency. As for the case itself, the close of the article sums it up best: “The only certainty? This mess keeps getting messier.”
2. When we brought you the financial information about Tennessee a few days ago we assumed that the atrocious situation there was somewhat unique. It turns out that the Volunteers are not alone as a new report questions the financial viability of Louisville‘s YUM! Center. The author of the study (found here in PDF format or you can check out their entire website) say that the root of the problem was unrealistic expectation for bond sales used to finance the arena and was compounded by a very friendly agreement with Louisville. According to the author of the study the YUM! Center costs $92,000 to operate per day and will end up costing taxpayers $839 million over the next 40 years. We are assuming this is not the last that we have heard of this issue.
3. It appears that the James Southerland saga will not be resolved for another week as Syracuse has set Southerland’s appeal to regain his eligibility for next week. The date and time of the appeal has not been announced, but Southerland will miss Saturday’s game against Pittsburgh and Monday’s game against Notre Dame. Interestingly Southerland’s appeal will be heard by a panel from Syracuse not the NCAA. We are not privy to all the details of Southerland’s suspension, but based on the information that has been released it appears to resolve around a tutor helping him write some or all of a paper. We also are not clear how this decision will factor into any potential investigation by the NCAA, but the decision next week will hopefully add some clarity to this.
4. On Saturday the epicenter of college basketball will be in Bloomington, Indiana and in the lead up to that Dana O’Neil provides us with an excellent piece on the importance of basketball on life in Indiana. While most fans are somewhat familiar with the impact of basketball in the state, few have experienced and O’Neil provides a great insight into how it permeates life there. Everybody knows about Indiana, Butler, and Hoosiers (the movie not the team), but as O’Neil notes there is so much more to Indiana’s love affair with basketball than just what you see on television.
5. If you thought that Kentucky fans were pumped to take on Marshall Henderson just wait until Saturday when they go to Texas A&M and will have a very special spectator–Billy Gillispie. The decision by Gillispie to come to the game after being invited by Billy Kennedy is an interesting one since Gillispie left Kentucky literally running out the door. I guess that Gillispie assumes that he built enough goodwill in College Station during his three seasons there that it was a good place to make a public appearance. Still we don’t understand the need to make Gillispie a spectacle against his former team. Normally we would assume that the home crowd would cheer Gillispie loudly enough to drown out the opposing crowd, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see Big Blue Nation make a trip down to Texas just to jeer Gillispie one more time.

1. Basketball took a back seat at Ohio yesterday after an armed robbery (reportedly over $5) at 9:30 AM at an apartment complex near the campus led the school to suspend classes and cancel last night’s game against Eastern Michigan. Interestingly, the school remained open for another 2.5 hours with the suspect loose before the administration chose to close the campus. In the aftermath of the announcement there appears to have been quite a bit of confusion regarding the school’s intent, but fortunately it appears that nobody was harmed and no further incidents took place although the suspect was still at-large as of this writing. The school has announced that the game will be made up on February 20, which works well for both teams as they both have their preceding game on February 16 and next game on February 27.
2. Much of the early part of this week in the blogosphere was spent discussing Marshall Henderson‘s various, shall we say, peculiarities, both on and off the court. After a rough shooting outing against Kentucky on Tuesday night, much of that talk has died down, but on Wednesday USA Today‘s Nicole Auerbach published an insightful piece about the life and history of the controversial Henderson that included a revelation that the junior college transfer once violated his probation in Texas for failing a drug test because he had cocaine (along with marijuana and alcohol) in his system. Both Henderson’s father and his head coach, Andy Kennedy, believe that the guard has moved past his personal demons at this point in his life, but with his on-court demeanor sure to set Twitter ablaze again soon, we’ll have to wait and see if the pressure and infamy carries over to the Oxford after-parties.
3. The Wednesday news didn’t improve for Ole Miss fans, as the Rebels also learned that sophomore forward Aaron Jones will miss the rest of the season after injuring his ACL in Tuesday night’s game against Kentucky. The bouncy Jones was only averaging 4/4 in about 17 minutes per game this season, but his loss will be a shock to an Ole Miss lineup short on quality size. As if that weren’t enough, senior guard Nick Williams will be out an indefinite amount of time with a foot injury suffered in the same game. The timing on all of this misfortune is not the greatest, either — the Rebels on Saturday will visit a team, Florida, that is winning SEC contests so far by an average of 28.7 PPG. Good luck with that.
4. The Big East will draw the curtains on what can only be described as a college basketball goliath in less than two months, but unlike some of the other bitterness that has infused divorcing programs in other leagues, Syracuse and St. John’s specifically are looking for an amicable split. It makes sense. Syracuse has been NYC’s flagship college basketball program for a long time now despite its location several hundred miles upstate, and without question the Orange wants to keep its presence in the New York market strong after joining the ACC. St. John’s certainly wants to keep a marquee opponent on its home schedule as Steve Lavin tries to rebuild that proud program as well. The contract begins next year at MSG with a return trip to the Carrier Dome in 2014-15, but for now the series is only scheduled for those two games. We’d expect that it will be extended indefinitely at a certain point.
5. In this week’s edition of Luke Winn‘s Power Rankings he spends a lot of time focusing on teams in transition (literally, not figuratively). With the nerdtastic tool of Synergy Sports Technology at his disposal, Winn can find statistically enlightening nuances to explain the game in ways that both tease and titillate. In this week’s edition, he examines some of the best players in the country at shooting jumpers off the dribble (hint: two of them play each other Saturday night in a semi-important game), discusses the best transition guys in the game, and a mention of Kelly Olynyk’s “awesome hair.” Memo to Winn, though: It’s not Olynyk’s hair itself that creates the awesomeness — it’s the ropey-looking headband (color coordinated!) that he adds to the ensemble that truly elevates his look from simply Tim Lincecum cool to Andre Agassi spectacular (in his hirsute prime).

1. For the NCAA, the Ed O’Bannon likeness case is the gift that keeps on taking. The latest procedural twist in the case — which will not even go to trial until 18 months from now — is that the players will have the right to make a legal claim against the billions in television revenue that the NCAA earns through the broadcasting of its football and basketball games. The plaintiffs are hoping to become certified as a class-action representation, which would allow every former and current NCAA athlete a slice of the pie if the case is eventually won on the merits. There’s a long way to go before that outcome, but by and large, the case has thus far been more favorable to the O’Bannon team than the suits in Indy.
2. We may never get the original Magic Eight as its creator Grant Wahl abandoned us to write books about male underwear models, but there have been a number of individuals who have tried to fill the void including Luke Winn who received the Magic Eight ball in a care package from Grant two years ago. Peter Tiernan is trying to follow in those footsteps with his own formula for picking a champion. Looking back at data from the last 12 champions, he claims to have found eight key criteria a champion must have. Using his formula he has found eight teams that as of Tuesday morning meet those guidelines. Obviously the numbers from each of these teams can change over the next 45 days until we get to Selection Sunday (or is it technically the last Monday of the season?), but this could provide you with a good thing to keep in mind when you are filling out your brackets in March.
3. We usually have to report injuries here so we enjoy being able to report that players are coming back from injuries. The biggest positive news on that front comes from Missouri where Laurence Bowers is expected to return to play possibly as early as tonight against LSU. Bowers has been out since January 8 with a sprained MCL and the Tigers have struggled in his absence going 3-2 including an embarrassing loss at Florida where it seemed like the entire team forgot to get on the plane to Gainesville. Missouri will need Bowers to be back at 100% if they are going to challenge Florida’s control in the SEC this season. Fortunately the Tigers have a relatively easy stretch (ok, you could say that about the entire SEC schedule) to get Bowers back to form before they get another shot at the Gators on February 19 in Mizzou Arena.
4. Michigan also got some good news yesterday when it was announced that Jordan Morgan had a sprained ankle after x-rays on his right ankle did not reveal any fractures. This is obviously big news for the Wolverines with their showdown in Bloomington on Saturday night looming. Morgan will be particularly important against the Hoosiers because he would be matched up against Tyler Zeller, who would be a tough match-up even if he has had a relatively disappointing sophomore season. Before that game, the Wolverines play against Northwestern tonight, but we don’t have much information coming out of Ann Arbor except for this insightful analysis: “If he can play, he’ll play. But if he’s still hurt, he won’t.”
5. The news for Louisville was more mixed as they announced that Wayne Blackshear will be returning from a shoulder injury to play against Marquette on Sunday, but Kevin Ware will “not be coming back anytime soon” from his suspension. We still are not sure why Ware has been suspended and schools are so secretive with this information that it could be pretty much anything. Blackshear’s return is more important for a team that has been more offensively challenged that usual in the past week, but it would be short-sighted to dismiss the contributions of Ware who has played 15.3 minutes per game. At this point Louisville could use all the help it can get to right their sinking ship.

1. Yesterday we linked to a post that listed the ratings for every college basketball this season and pointed out that games only tend to get big numbers when they draw two marquee programs. We will be adding one more of those games the next two seasons as North Carolina and Kentucky have renewed the rivalry after not playing this season. The new contract calls for a home-and-home with the Tar Heels hosting the Wildcats on December 14, 2013 and the Tar Heels traveling to Rupp in the 2014-15 season. We would have preferred to see a longer contract, but will take this for now especially with all of the uncertainty that teams must be having with the changing landscape of their conferences and their schedules.
2. Speaking of conference realignment the Big East has come out with its intent to look for a 12th team to add to the conference as well as its plan to retain its name. Our Big East microsite posted an excellent recap of the proposed measures by the conference yesterday so we will leave a lot of the details to them, but this move should not be much of a surprise as it allows for the conference to have all of its teams playing conference games on the same day as well as allowing for two equal divisions making a football conference championship game possible. As for retaining its name we understand the brand recognition that the Big East conference has, but any sports fan will still know immediately that the new conference is a shell of its former self.
3. The Big East can try to protect itself by adding a 12th member and keeping its name, but the Big 12 and ACC look like they are relying on a different tactic: forming an alliance. At this point the talks are only in the preliminary stages and from what is being reported the interest is primarily coming from Big 12. While the column by Dennis Dodd focuses on football and that is probably where most of the “friends with benefits” (Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby’s words) action will happen. We are guessing that we may have some weekends of college football that are not unlike the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but we will be interested to see if we can get some additional interconference match-ups of this even if they are not formal events like the aforementioned challenges.
4. If you thought that Saturday night was ugly for North Carolina, things could get a lot worse if the NCAA decides to investigate their ongoing academic scandal. A recent addendum to the investigation into the scandal has led John Infante to change his mind and say that the NCAA should investigate UNC and should act quickly. As Infante points out the key issue here is the report of unauthorized grade changes, which the NCAA has punished before in the past. Even the most ardent UNC supporters are going to have a tough time defending them in this situation.
5. Since money seems to drive everything in college sports (and the world), we found the article by Sports Business Journal analyzing the financial situation at Tennessee particularly interesting. We knew that many programs are not profitable, but the fact that Tennessee, one of the premier athletic programs in country, is doing so poorly is startling. If you have any interest in business or economics the numbers in the article are fascinating, but we will point out this passage:
   

   [T]he Vols find themselves mired in more than $200 million of debt, the most in the SEC, with reserves of just $1.95 million, the least in the conference. The athletic department spends a startling $21 million a year on debt payments, $13.5 million of which comes from the school’s stressed $99.5 million athletic budget and the rest from donations.

   You don’t have to have an accounting background to know that those are horrific numbers. The rest of the article goes through how Tennessee is trying to transform itself into a sustainable entity, but we still cannot get over the fact that they are in such bad financial straits even with free labor.