1. The talk of Thursday was all Kyrie Irving, all the time.  The superstar freshman’s toe situation has the college basketball world buzzing about whether he’ll play again this season.  Even Irving himself fueled the fire with this tweet on Thursday morning suggesting bad (or at least, not good) news.  Jeff Goodman writes that Duke is still a national title contender, with or without the talented rookie, but obviously the Devils’ margin for error would now drop precipitously.  As Duke and Irving mull over the medical options available to him, our crack team of contributors at RTC debated the impact of Irving’s loss on the national landscape.
2. There was an amazing comeback on Wednesday night and almost nobody outside of 432 lonely souls on a cold night in Fairfield, Connecticut, knew about it.  In a classic intersectional battle between 2-6 Hartford and 1-7 Sacred Heart, the SH Pioneers found themselves down 51-31 and their prospects looking rather bleak for a second win with eight minutes to go.  An 8-1 run followed by a march to the free throw line — remember kids, scoring with the clock stopped is the best way to score! — where Sacred Heart hit 11 of 12 foul shots brought them back into the game.  A late steal, foul and subsequent free throw with 0.2 seconds remaining by Stan Dulaire sealed the unlikely victory for the Pioneers.  We hope that none of the few in attendance decided to beat the traffic early!
3. The SI boys’ columns came out on Thursday, and if you’re reading this, you know that Seth Davis and Luke Winn are always worth a look for some insights nobody else will have thought of yet.  Davis gives the Pitt Panthers some overdue dap (the quietest #3-ranked team in modern hoops history?) while correctly calling out NC State fans for their intellectual dishonesty, and Winn continues to make better use of interesting graphics and clip-art in his Power Rankings than any college basketball scribe has ever dared to attempt.
4. Have you ever seen an 11-year old dunk in a game?  No, we hadn’t either.  But we’d never seen a 6’2 pre-teen named Adrian Moore, and get this, according to a profile from BIAH, Baylor is already recruiting the young lad who can sky from the Class of 2016.  Michael Avery, anyone?  We don’t think Michael Avery was doing this kind of stuff in middle school, though…  and whatever happened to that Kentucky coach who was recruiting him?

5.  Oregon unveiled a new throwback jersey yesterday that the Ducks will wear in their upcoming Saturday game against local rival (and current D-III school) Willamette University.  The unis refer back to the first game ever played at venerable old Mac Court, a 38-10 victory for the Ducks over WU in 1927.  We’re pretty sure that Phil Knight wasn’t selling shoes from the back of a truck outside the Oval in the 20s, but he’s certainly found a way to make these throwback jerseys look pretty cool (with a conspicuous swoosh on the right shoulder, of course).  (ed. note: pay no attention to the eye hovering behind the jersey)