1. Ole Miss will be without Aaron Jones to start the season, as the senior forward was suspended last week for a violation of team rules. He missed the Rebels’ exhibition win against Delta State on Friday and will also miss the first two regular season games against Charleston Southern and Troy. Andy Kennedy figures to weather life without Jones by giving more minutes to Sebastian Saiz (who had 14 rebounds in Friday’s exhibition win), M.J. Rhett and Dwight Coleby. Coleby playing increased minutes could be a silver lining in terms of his development, since he only played 10 minutes per game as a freshman last year. The Rebels are also relatively deep at the guard positions, and Kennedy could use four-guard lineups at times to cover Jones’ absence.
2. It wouldn’t be a preseason M5 without a list from CBSSports.com’s Matt Norlander. This time Norlander looks at 10 coaches who are on the hot seat entering the season, and he includes Alabama’s Anthony Grant and Tennessee’s Donnie Tyndall (a last minute addition) from the SEC. Last year’s 13-19 campaign in Trevor Releford’s final season was certainly disappointing, but Grant has built a solid but underappreciated program at Alabama with at least 21 wins in three of his five seasons in Tuscaloosa. At the end of the day, it depends on how the Alabama administration views its basketball program. Even without a trip to the NCAA Tournament this season, 91 wins, one NCAA Tournament invitation and two NIT invitations in five years may be enough to buy Grant another year if his young roster shows potential. But he is no doubt walking a fine line at Alabama.
3. Platoons, platoons, platoons. You just can’t avoid talk of platoons, especially not on the SEC microsite. First-year Kentucky assistant Barry Rohrssen talked about whether the platoon system will be a one-year thing or become a program staple at a press conference last week. “Well, you don’t exactly know it’s going to be limited,” Rohrssen said. “That’s to unfold next season.” This comment was in response to a question about the risk of recruits being turned away by the limited minutes they would get in a platoon system. It says here that Coach Cal will get players no matter what system he runs or who figures to be on the roster. Thus far elite recruits have not been scared away by a clogged roster in Lexington, and that doesn’t figure to change as long as Wildcats keep getting drafted.
4. The Dallas Morning News obtained details of Billy Kennedy’s two-year contract extension that was announced in September, and they appear “mostly cosmetic,” according to the newspaper. Extending the contract of a coach who is 50-49 with no NIT or NCAA invitations in three years seems curious, but the recruiting class Kennedy has put together for next season furthers the case for patience. Still, Texas A&M has enough talent to emerge from the middle-of-the-pack in the SEC this season, and there is nothing like on-court success to validate a contract extension.
5. Several Tennessee players told Ben Frederickson of GoVolsXtra that the NCAA infraction rumors swirling around Donnie Tyndall are not a distraction. “We are just trying to move forward,” JuCo transfer Kevin Punter told Frederickson. “We have a whole bunch of other things to be worrying about.” One of those things is the Vols’ season opener against VCU on Friday in Annapolis. The Rams are easily the most difficult opponent an SEC team will face to open the season, and it’s asking a tall task to prepare for the HAVOC even in drama-free times.

The next time we complain about our knees throbbing after a particularly physical run over at our local courts, remind us of Kevin Laue.  The 6’10 native of Pleasanton, CA, was offered a scholarship by Manhattan College after spending a postgraduate year at Fork Union Military Academy, where he averaged 10/5 per game playing against other D1 prospects.  So why is anyone talking about a low-major recruit heading to a MAAC school?  Well, because Laue plays with only one hand.  From the AP:

Manhattan College’s Barry Rohrssen figures coaches take chances all the time. He’d rather take one on Laue, whose left arm ends just past the elbow. So last week, the Division I school signed the center, and Rohrssen is confident his work ethic will rub off on other players.  “We take chances on kids who have poor academic histories, who have disciplinary problems both on the court and off the court,” Rohrssen said Tuesday. “We give opportunities to players who don’t appreciate them, who take them for granted. For all the right reasons, Kevin deserves this chance, and he should make the most of this opportunity.”

Back in grad school, we actually played pickup ball quite a bit with a guy like this.  He was surprisingly efficient with the ball in terms of his motion and release.  Very consistent with his shot and could play defense just as well (or better) as anyone else out there.  Given that experience, it honestly doesn’t shock us that someone such as Laue could pull this off, as in our experience, people with disabilities work that much harder to prove everyone wrong.  Two years ago an article in the San Francisco Chronicle stated, “he carries a 3.5 grade-point average. With an offseason’s work on a hook shot, he could become a Division II or III college prospect.”  Or… a D1 scholarship player.  Still exceeding expectations.  Congratulations, Kevin.

Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC and NEC Conferences.

SOUTH ORANGE , NJ –  Looking at the non-conference schedules you can’t accuse Loyola or Siena with loading up on sure Ws. Loyola had a stretch of 7 games in 16 days where the Greyhounds faced an ACC team (Boston College) , three defending conference champions (Mt. St.Mary’s, Cornell and Davidson), a preseason conference favorite (Vermont) and Tennessee St., who played in its conference championship game last season. Loyola did defeat Mt. St. Mary’s and Tennessee State but came up on the other side of the ledger in the remaining contests.

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