As most everyone around college basketball already knows, the NCAA finally cleared Kansas freshman Cheick Diallo in a ruling that figures to add much-needed frontcourt depth and rim protection to the Jayhawks’ roster. Diallo will make his college debut tonight, giving a boost of significance to what would otherwise be a relatively meaningless home cupcake game against Loyola (MD). While Bill Self said yesterday that the Mali native would come off the bench and recommended that initial expectations remain tempered, there will be considerable interest in how Diallo looks right out of the gate. Let’s take a look at what kind of opportunities the Greyhounds will present to the long-awaited jewel of the Kansas recruiting class.

Much-hyped freshman Cheick Diallo makes his collegiate debut as the Jayhawks battle Loyola (MD) tonight.

Over the last few years and for a variety of reasons, Self’s marquee freshmen have struggled to hit the ground running. Tonight should be a somewhat different story as Loyola’s attacking style of play should provide Diallo with opportunities to create highlight-worthy plays from the start. The Greyhounds rely heavily on their inside game to generate offense, which means that they’ll be coming right at the freshman in spite of his defensive abilities. According to hoop-math.com, 46.7 percent of the Greyhounds’ field goal attempts this season have been at the rim (27th nationally), but the Greyhounds are shooting just 55.5 percent on those close looks. For some context, last year’s Kansas team that struggled to find answers inside made 58.0 percent of its close shots. Put differently, one of the worst-performing offenses in Bill Self’s 13-year tenure at Kansas still had more success at the rim than Loyola has experienced in its first six games this season. That’s not good, and making matters worse for Loyola (or better for Diallo), the Greyhounds don’t have the long-range threats needed to make the Jayhawks stretch their defense.

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1. Today is the culmination of the #FreeDiallo campaign as Cheick Diallo, the heralded Kansas freshman, will make his debut tonight at Allen Fieldhouse.The whole saga has been discussed ad nauseum so we won’t rehash it here (you can follow Jay Bilas on Twitter for an almost daily recap), but would encourage you to watch the Jayhawks tonight if only to see the reception Diallo gets from the Kansas crowd the first time he steps on the court.
2. Diallo may be free now, but David Collette is still waiting for Utah State to lift its universal block on his attempt to transfer. The circumstances around Collette’s decision to leave the Utah State basketball team might seem suspicious, but the school’s decision to prevent him from transferring to any program is absurd. Jeff Eisenberg details some of the other petty steps that the school has taken to try to get back at Collette. While these seem extreme the school is hardly the first to do this sort of thing and it always seems to backfire on the school so we are not sure why schools continue to do it.
3. We probably would not have realized that former Duke star Chris Duhon is back in college basketball as an assistant coach at Marshall if not for his arrest early Monday morning for driving under the influence. Duhon was reportedly found asleep in the driver’s seat of his car with the engine running and had a blood alcohol level of 0.202, which is more than 2.5 times the legal limit. Duhon, who is an assistant under Dan D’Antoni, has been suspended for violating department rules and policies. We aren’t sure how long the suspension will last, but we hope that Duhon gets the help that he needs.
4. The college basketball world lost an icon last Thursday when Guy Lewis died at the age of 93. Lewis, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, is best known for his Phi Slama Jama teams of the early 1980s that featured [H]Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, but his career was much more than that. Lewis won 593 games making the Final Four five times and first came to national prominence in 1968 when he engineered the “Game of the Century” in which his Houston Cougars led by Elvin Hayes knocked off a UCLA team led by Lew Alcindor [Ed. Note: We’re a college site so we go by college names.] Lewis was also one of the first coaches in the South to openly push for integration, an often overlooked aspect of his legacy.
5. This actually is not the first time we have talked about Cal Tech on the site, but Chris Ballard’s in-depth look at the program is too good not to pass along. We will warn you that this definitely falls into the #longreads category, but we doubt that you will find an article that provides a more in-depth look at the personalities around a program that what this does. Obviously this program is very different than almost any other program in the nation (probably one of the few where student-athlete is used in the correct order), but in many ways that makes it even more interesting.

1. After falling to intrastate rival Texas A&M in the opening round of the Battle 4 Atlantis, Texas bounced back in its revenge game against Washington. The key to the Longhorns’ ultimate success this year may be senior big man Cameron Ridley. Entering the season, Ridley was expected to be the player most likely to struggle with the transition to Shaka Smart’s system, but he’s proving everyone wrong. As we mentioned on Monday, Ridley has instead become a focal point of the Longhorns’ offense. His usage rate is up six percent from last season and his per 40 minutes numbers (20.7 points and 16.3 rebounds per game) are impressive. The one concern is that the senior is struggling to adjust to the new rules, fouling out in the Longhorns’ two losses. But assuming the big man can find a way to stay on the floor, it’s clear that he’ll be an important piece for Texas this season.
2. Another Big 12 big man putting together an incredible run early this season is West Virginia’s Devin Williams, as the junior scored 23 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in a 67-59 victory over Richmond in Thursday’s semifinals of the Las Vegas Invitational. “The turning point was every time we threw it to Devin Williams,” head coach Bob Huggins said after the game. “He was just great, scoring for us. And when we missed, he was rebounding. He was terrific.” Williams has recorded a double-double in all five of the Mountaineers’ games this season.
3. After a woeful performance against Michigan State last week in the Champions Classic, many analysts rightfully questioned Wayne Selden’s role in Kansas’ offensive attack. The junior shot just 3-of-12 from the field with only one assist against the Spartans, but what a difference a week makes. After a victory over Vanderbilt in the finals of this week’s Maui Invitational where the junior wing averaged 19.3 PPG and shot 71 percent from three-point range, Selden was named Co-MVP of the tournament (along with teammate Frank Mason). While those numbers won’t hold up over the course of the full season, it looks like the controversial player is returning to the form he found in South Korea during the World University Games. This development certainly makes him the “ultimate X-factor” for a team that, with the addition of freshman big man Cheick Diallo, can certainly challenge for a national title.
4. Five Big 12 teams will hit the floor today. Baylor should cruise against Arkansas State; Oklahoma State returns to Stillwater for the second game of its back-to-back with Long Beach State; and Iowa State faces Virginia Tech prior to its potential NCAA Tournament rematch with UAB on Sunday. The two most interesting contests belong to Texas and West Virginia, however — two teams looking to pick up some resume-building wins. The Longhorns will take on Michigan in the fifth-place game at the Battle 4 Atlantis while the Mountaineers get San Diego State in the Las Vegas Invitational final. Both teams are expected to finish in the middle of the pack in Big 12 play, so picking up a couple of solid non-conference victories will be key to their NCAA Tournament hopes.
5. Finally, one interesting statistical note coming out of the first two weeks of the season. While Big 12 football is known nationally for its lack of defense, that shouldn’t be the case when it comes to basketball. All 10 of the league’s teams rank among the top 100 of KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency ratings, and seven of those are currently in the top 40. If even the bottom of the league is playing good defense, we could be setting up for an exciting conference season that features a number of nail-biting contests that come down to one play.

Kansas received word yesterday that five-star prospect Cheick Diallo will be eligible to play college basketball beginning December 1. Diallo, the nation’s fifth-ranked prospect, according to Rivals, had been under investigation for his time at Our Savior New American High School as well as possible benefits violations. His high school’s academic credentials have been questioned by the NCAA’s Eligibility Center on more than one occasion — Alabama lost 2015 recruit and Our Savior New American graduate, Kobie Eubanks, because he failed to academically qualify. Eubanks, however, appears to have had additional academic issues that prevented him from playing. Diallo’s case was bolstered by an independent investigation into his course history and nearly six figures of funding from Kansas.

Cheick Diallo’s NCAA clearance is big news for Kansas. (AP Photo/Gregory Payan)

The Kansas compliance department was deliberate in its approach to Diallo’s eligibility and the recently-crowned Maui Invitational champions should now be able to reap the rewards of that patience. The freshman really impressed his head coach during summer workouts, and is likely to force his way into the starting lineup at some point. “We’ve never had a big guy that could run like this,” Self told reporters. “It’d be nice to have a mindset to play at a much faster tempo than we have in the past. […] Cheick forces a pace that nobody has ever forced here. He can create pace better than any point guard we’ve ever had here. Just because the dude from rim to rim is as good as I’ve seen. I didn’t say the best offensive player, but running rim to rim I think he’ll drag everybody along with him.” Given that sort of evaluation, it appears that Diallo’s presence on the floor is likely to push Kansas to play at one of the fastest paces a Self team has ever maintained (Kansas is already playing the 37th-fastest tempo nationally). Read the rest of this entry »

1. Normally people go to Maui to relax (or take four months of paternity leave), but for Kansas the trip has been a lot more interesting and mostly for stuff that has been happening off the court. The big news is the lack of news from the NCAA about Cheick Diallo, which has led Kansas to take the somewhat surprising approach of publicly criticizing the NCAA. This wouldn’t be the first time that a school has criticized the NCAA, but they usually do it by feeding media sources who do the school’s dirty work for them. The other news was the decision to suspend Brannen Greene for six games after complaining about playing time. Fans and some media might make a big deal out of this, but we doubt it will have a significant impact in the long-term as long as Greene comes back with his head on straight although it does raise some questions about their leadership when an upperclassman does something like that.
2. Wichita State will likely be without senior point guard Fred VanVleet for this week’s Advocare Invitational in Orlando as he tries to recover from a hamstring injury. VanVleet, who has been limited this season by a series of injuries, is expected to be back for the team’s game against Saint Louis on December 5. With the Shockers senior leadership in VanVleet and Ron Baker we don’t think this will be an issue of making the NCAA Tournament, but losses at this point in the season could have a pretty big impact on what type of seed they receive on Selection Sunday.
3. On Friday, the 10th class was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame. While Charlie Scott was assigned the role of “headliner” of the class by many media sources the others in the class aren’t too shabby either with the list of inductees including John Havlicek, Quinn Buckner, Rolando Blackman, and Lou Henson. The event, which is held annually as part of the CBE Classic in Kansas City, typically goes under the radar, which is unfortunate because it would be a great way to teach fans about the history of the game. The other problem (and probably the bigger one) is the fact that the Naismith Hall of Fame gets the majority of the attention making the college basketball one a second-tier version.
4. In the grand scheme of things it was a meaningless game (even for this college basketball season), but last night’s marquee game was the national premier of Ben Simmons. While Simmons and LSU lost to Marquette the big takeaway from the night was that Simmons is probably already the best player in the country and it might not matter because of the rest of his team and the interesting strategy they sometimes employ. Simmons had 21 points, 20 rebounds, and seven assists, but the thing that will end up being the most talked about part of the game was his decision to pass twice in the waning seconds including the last pass of the game that forced Jalyn Patterson to take an extremely difficult three when a two would have won the game. We aren’t sure how many more marquee games we will see Simmons play in college, but we are sure there will be plenty of hyperbole and the accompanying over-the-top analysis this season.
5. We have read a lot about the injury risks athletes are exposed to, but we have not read much in traditional media about the health risks that coaches face. As Brendan Prunty points out many college basketball coaches suffer from vocal cord trauma–the result of constant yelling. Many of you have noticed some of the short-term changes with the raspy voices of coaches that seem to appear fairly early in the season (something that has become a bit of a joke at this point), but as Prunty notes the consequences can be more severe.

There are talented tournament fields everywhere this Feast Week. The Gulf Coast Showcase has a relatively strong mid-major field headlined by Murray State, Duquesne (which absolutely BLASTED Penn State on Friday) and Texas Southern. Four capable teams — Clemson, UMass (already a winner over Harvard), Creighton and Rutgers — will tussle in another four-team field in Vegas. Looking further ahead, Atlantis tips off on Wednesday before a handful of other events kick off on Thanksgiving Day and beyond. As we did with Puerto Rico and Charleston last week, here’s a look at the event favorite, a dark horse, and the teams who have the most on the line this week. We’ll also highlight a player and a storyline to watch.

Maui Invitational

Despite some early struggles, Bill Self and Kansas are still the clear favorite in Maui. (Getty)

• Favorite: Kansas. Even with no Cheick Diallo or Brannen Greene for the week and the second half collapse to Michigan State in Chicago notwithstanding, the Jayhawks are still the clear favorite in Maui as the only top 10 team in this tournament. Perry Ellis and Jamari Traylor are seniors. Frank Mason and Wayne Selden are juniors. This is an experienced team that might be going on its last ride together. As usual, there’s chatter about this being the year the Big 12 title streak is broken. Winning the Maui title would probably pump the brakes on that notion, at least for the time being.
• Darkhorse: UCLA. In terms of talent and potential, the Bruins are a clear sleeper. Aaron Holiday, Bryce Alford, Tony Parker — you could easily see a team with talented pieces like these upsetting a still-not-quite-right Kansas in the semifinal and then taking out Indiana or Vanderbilt the next night. Of course, they’re flaky enough that they could brick the last Maui quarter to UNLV, especially after that whole Monmouth thing.

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It’s Feast Week in college basketball. To get you ready for the Big 12’s representation in the various holiday tournaments this week, our Feast Week Mission Briefings begin today.

Catching Up: It’s already been quite an eventful beginning to the season for Kansas. The Jayhawks pummeled Northern Colorado in the opener, 109-72, in a game where they knocked down 15 three-pointers. In their first real test, though, Kansas again stumbled at the Champions Classic. The Jayhawks couldn’t handle a second half explosion from Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine and did themselves no favors on the offensive end. Some good news came last Friday when freshman big man Cheick Diallo received a waiver from the NCAA to travel with the team to Maui, but Diallo has yet to be cleared. As a result, head coach Bill Self has now begun to unleash his wrath against the sport’s governing body in public settings. Whether Diallo will be cleared to play this week (or this season) remains a mystery, but it’s becoming apparent that Self is tired of the distraction of waiting for an answer. In between the Jayhawks’ loss to Michigan State and Self’s campaign against the NCAA, Kansas also suspended guard Brannen Greene for six games as the result of a playing time dispute. Kansas, it seems, is in a bit of a mini-crisis heading into today’s Maui Invitational.

Bill Self and Tom Crean could meet on the court in the championship game of the Maui Invitational. (Photo Credit: KU Sports/Nick Krug)

Opening Round Preview: The Jayhawks will have an opportunity to work out any kinks relating to Greene’s suspension in their first round game against host Chaminade, by far the easiest opening round matchup. The Division II Silverswords are currently 0-2, having already lost to Alaska-Anchorage and Alaska earlier this month. Chaminade averages 32 three-point attempts per contest and they convert 14 of them, so Kansas will need to do a good job of protecting the perimeter. In general, though, this is the type of game where Self’s squad will pound it inside and wear down the overmatched opponent. The Jayhawks’ much tougher tests in the islands will come on Tuesday and Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »

1. It’s been an eventful weekend for Cheick Diallo‘s eligibility struggle. After he was allowed to travel to Maui on Friday with the Jayhawks, Bill Self opened up to the media about the process the school has endured to clear the big man. So far, Kansas has hired two separate investigative firms, visited Diallo’s high school on six different occasions, and sent a letter listing 19 shortcomings with the NCAA’s investigation. As of Sunday morning, Kansas still had not heard from the governing body regarding its most recent efforts. What happens next is really anybody’s guess, but the Mali native is with the team on island and is presumably ready to go should he get cleared sometime during the tournament.
2. After hanging tough against Utah before losing last Thursday, Texas Tech bounced back with a pair of wins to finish fifth in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. The Red Raiders knocked off Mississippi State and their highly touted freshman Malik Newman on Friday before defeating Tubby Smith‘s former school, Minnesota, on Sunday. For his part, Smith seems very happy with his position, telling the media, “I’m really happy we were able to come to a place like Texas Tech where they’ll celebrate you and not just tolerate you.” With a roster showing promise, the Red Raiders are poised to improve their Big 12 record this season, something that should give Texas Tech fans more reasons to celebrate Tubby’s team.
3. There was also some recent cause for celebration in Austin, as Shaka Smart picked up his first win as the Texas head coach when the Longhorns defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 67-56, in their home opener. They were led by big man Cameron Ridley, who scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field and pulled down 14 rebounds. After shedding some pounds in the offseason, Ridley is becoming a focal point of Smart’s attack and it has become clear that he intends to keep feeding him the ball going forward. Getting the senior some high percentage looks is a priority for a team that is shooting just 34.4 percent on two-point attempts through two games.
4. Travis Hines at the Ames Tribune took an opportunity to draw some early conclusions about Iowa State, and one of the things he noticed is just how much balance with which the Cyclones are playing through 80 minutes of game action. Iowa State so far has four players with usage rates higher than 20 percent, suggesting that they’re generously spreading the love on offense. The one starter not above that mark? Senior Georges Niang. But make no mistake, the team still knows Niang is its rock. “It’s good to have the foundation,” Naz Mitrou-Long said, “and Georges has been our guy for that for the last couple years.”
5. Despite missing three rotation players, Oklahoma State eked out a victory over Long Beach State on Sunday to finish third in the Charleston Classic. The Cowboys led by seven points with 39 seconds remaining when Jawun Evans picked up a personal foul and Chris Olivier was hit with a technical. Long Beach State would get it to within a single point as a result, but four clutch free throws by Tyree Griffin sealed the game for the Cowboys. Interestingly enough, the two teams will turn right around and play again on Friday in Stillwater, but this time Oklahoma State figures to be closer to full strength.

Tonight the fifth annual Champions Classic will tip off at the United Center in Chicago where Michigan State will face Kansas in the late game. The Spartans and Jayhawks — both ranked in the top 15 — bring the usual lofty season expectations each program is accustomed to. Bill Self and Tom Izzo have built the type of rosters that seem to be the recipe for success in today’s college game: a healthy mix of experienced upperclassmen along with some talented freshmen. In order to prepare you for tonight’s game and get you familiar with some of the new faces, here are four things you need to know before you tune in to watch.

Deyonta Davis faces his first major challenge in the paint against Kansas. (Rey De Rio/Getty Images)

1. Deyonta Down Low. Michigan State lost a lot of its muscle in the post when Branden Dawson graduated but Izzo seems to have found a more-than-suitable replacement in four-star freshman Deyonta Davis. The Muskegon, Michigan, native didn’t let his youth and inexperience make him reticent in his inaugural outing on Friday, as evidenced by his stat line of 13 points on 14 shots (team-high), 11 rebounds, and five blocks against Florida Atlantic. But his head coach might have to calm his budding star down a bit tonight because Davis won’t be able to physically bully the Jayhawks in the paint like he did against the Owls. Read the rest of this entry »

1. With the start of the college basketball season upon us, we figured it would be a good time to bring back the Morning Five. We apologize for the infrequent nature of these posts the past few months, but we had to deal with a variety of things the past few months (all good). Now that the season is starting we are planning on doing these posts at least a few times a week. If you have not been on the site in a while we encourage you to check out the great work that our microsites have been doing. And if you are in the mood to try something different this season (and potentially win tickets to one of the NCAA Regionals this year), we encourage you to enter into our Survivor Pool. Unlike some other sites, we are not being investigated by any Attorney Generals, you don’t have to pay any money to enter, and we don’t use insider information to try to win our own event.
2. We often talk about college sports being essentially separate entities from the educational institutions that they represent, but there are many instances in which they are intertwined. One excellent example of this is the Washington–Texas game that is being played in Shanghai. Many will view this as a way for the basketball teams to grow their brand and possibly even that of the conferences, but the schools also view it as an opportunity to promote their schools as educational options for people overseas. Financially it makes sense for schools to go after individuals who might pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition money instead of hoping to sell a bunch of $20 t-shirts.
3. Although the season is officially starting tonight there are a handful of notable players who are still in NCAA eligibility limbo. The most significant of these is Cheick Diallo, the highly touted Kansas freshman. We won’t claim to have any inside information/knowledge about the case, but Sam Mellinger’s column on the situation and his proposed solution is a worthwhile read while we wait for the NCAA to hand down a decision. As Mellinger notes the blame here shouldn’t fall as much on the NCAA as it should on the member institutions that allowed it to have this type of unregulated power.
4. Diallo appears content to wait for the NCAA to make a decision, but two other players (I guess they are technically just students now) have received negative rulings from the NCAA and in a somewhat unique move appear to be ready to call the NCAA on it by threatening lawsuits. Parties representing Central Florida freshman center Tacko Fall and St. John’s freshman Marcus LoVett have both reportedly looked into filing lawsuits against the NCAA. This might sound interesting on paper, but we doubt it will end up doing either athlete much good in the near-future because of the glacial pace that the NCAA and the court systems that deal with its cases move at for these type of things.
5. Finally, we have been off long enough that we never addressed the Louisville prostitution scandal and it looked like we might be able to avoid the topic since the administration at Louisville obviously doesn’t care about how poorly the situation reflects on the school, but we probably could have figured that out with the way they have handled numerous other things. Now it appears that the school may end up having to deal with the NCAA as Katina Powell, the individual who allegedly supplied the program with the prostitutes, will meet with the NCAA next week in reaction to the high likelihood that she will face criminal charges. Given the way the NCAA usually deals with these things we doubt that they will do anything to the program, but it will be interesting to see if Rick Pitino ever decides that it would be best to move on rather than have to deal with this scandal for the foreseeable future.