What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

It was quite a week for Kentucky at Rupp Arena. It began with a controversial ending as SEC rival LSU got the benefit of the doubt when it came to a tip-in at the buzzer.

The loss pushed Kentucky two games behind SEC-leading Tennessee. Not to worry, though, as the Wildcats took a bite out of the #1 team in the country in a prime time showcase between top-five teams.

The win against the Volunteers pushed Kentucky’s John Calipari into some new territory of his own…

1. Tonight will be yet another meeting between North Carolina and Duke, but one thing will be missing from tonight’s match-up: Dick Vitale, the broadcasting icon who will not be calling the game for the first time in 35 years. While the company line is that this is just ESPN sending various members of the team where they are needed it seems to be a sign of ESPN moving in a different direction and one away from Vitale, its longtime star. Instead, ESPN will have Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas call the game. With Vitale being 75 years old and Bilas becoming an increasingly popular and recognizable figure it would seem that ESPN is trying to move him into the role as its lead analyst and this would seem to be an ideal way to start.
2. It was not that long ago that people were talking about Seton Hall as a potential NCAA Tournament team. Now they appear to be spiraling completely out of control. On Monday, we mentioned Jaren Sina transferring amid speculation of issues within the locker room. Those were backed up by reports of racial tensions within the locker room (a report that Sina’s father denied). On Monday night, Sterling Gibbs, the team’s leading scorer, was ejected for hitting Ryan Arcidiacono leading to a two-game suspension. For his part, Gibbs apologized to both his team and Arcidiacono for his actions. With all that is going on with this team, we have to wonder how much longer Kevin Willard will remain the coach there.
3. We are not sure how much to make of Louisville’s decision to suspend Chris Jones for an unspecified violation of team rules prior to their game at Syracuse. Although the suspension is indefinite and not related to a basketball issue, based on the reports we have heard the suspension is only for one game at this point and likely not something that will be an ongoing issue if Jones does not have another misstep. Even if Jones (13.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game) is only out for this game, it will be interesting to see how the Cardinals adapt to playing without one of its four players who they can count on to score reliably.
4. It is not often that we see a college coach get fined, but then again it is not often that we hear a coach publicly criticize a call as “the worst call I’ve ever seen in my life” as Penn State coach Patrick Chambers did following his team’s loss to Maryland on Saturday. The call (an awful offensive foul on Jordan Dickerson) and more specifically Chambers’ response to it led to a $10,000 fine by the Big Ten for violating the conference’s sportsmanship policy. We agree that Chambers’ reaction might not fit with a typical sportsmanship policy we would think that the conference would have the sense not to fine someone when their officials got something so blatantly wrong.
5. This might not be news in the same way as most of the other items that we feature in the Morning Five and the story is technically almost a year old, but we still thought that Bob Huggins receiving a $25,000 bonus for beating Kansas on Monday and him not being aware of it until a reporter brought it up last year was noteworthy. Huggins is far from the only coach with such a clause–we have even heard of coaches from mid-majors voting teams in their conference into the top 25 in hopes of collecting a bonus for beating a top-25 team–but in this environment where there is increased debate about paying athletes in revenue sports these types of bonuses and Huggins’ apparent obliviousness to a bonus that would amount to the annual salary of many Americans might strike a chord.

1. For the past few years we have been speculating as to when many of the legendary coaches in college basketball would retire, but there is another college basketball legend–Dick Vitale–who we should be talking about in a similar way. Vitale, who turned 75 in June, reached an agreement with with ESPN that will extend his contract through 2017. We all know that Vitale has become a polarizing figure with some fan bases, but we have a hard time faulting someone who is so passionate about the sport we all love and is even more passionate about raising money for cancer research. We are sure that there are some of you who have grown tired of Vitale and his “act”, but remember there is no bigger ambassador for the sport.
2. Butler announced that head coach Brandon Miller would be taking an indefinite medical leave of absence for an undisclosed reason. Last season, Miller had the unenviable task of replacing Brad Stevens with a depleted squad and it showed with a first-year record of 14-17 overall and 4-14 in the Big East. We aren’t sure what the exact reasons are for Miller’s leave of absence, but according to Jeff Goodman they might be stress-related as many of Miller’s friends have been unable to contact him for months and Goodman says that he would not be surprised if Miller did not return. Whatever Miller’s ailment may be we wish him the best of health in his recovery from whatever is bothering him. Chris Holtmann, who previously spent three seasons as head coach at Gardner-Webb before coming to Butler, will serve as the interim head coach during Miller’s leave.
3. Cameron Biedscheid‘s stay at Missouri was a short one as the school announced that the Notre Dame transfer is leaving the school “to attend to personal matters”. The school did not go into details as to what those personal matters were, but said that Biedscheid, who would be have eligible to play in the spring semester, “will no longer be a member of our basketball program” indicating that this will not just be a temporary break. Even though Biedscheid’s production as a freshman at Notre Dame– 6.2 points in 17.4 minutes per game–was modest he was a highly touted prospect and would have been expected to pick up a lot of the scoring the Tigers lost when Jordan Clarkson, Jabari Brown, and Earnest Ross left. Now the Tigers are left in an even more difficult spot and Biedscheid will have some tough decisions ahead as he will not be eligible to play in Division I until the 2015-16 season. To make things even worse for Missouri, Johnathan Williams III, a power forward who averaged 5.8 points per game last season, will miss time after suffering a torn meniscus during an individual workout.
4. With those losses the announcement that Missouri had reinstated freshmen Jakeenan Gant and D’Angelo Allen certainly seems a little suspicious. The pair had been suspended last month after they were arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault when Gant’s wallet was found at the site of an assault. Gant was considered a coup for Kim Anderson as he was the state’s 2014 Mr. Basketball who committed to Frank Haith and stayed even after Haith left. Allen committed to Missouri the week after Anderson was hired so they are both pretty significant freshmen at least on a symbolic level.  We aren’t exactly sure how they magically managed to do enough to impress the staff that they had turned things around the same time the team lost two key pieces, but we have our suspicions.
5. Long Beach State‘s aspirations of competing for the Big West title this year took a hit when head coach Dan Monson announced that starting guard A.J. Spencer would miss the 2014-15 season after suffering a torn ACL in his left knee during a pickup game last week. Spencer’s injury was reported last week by a local newspaper, but was not confirmed by Monson until this week. Spencer averaged 9.1 points and 3.2 rebounds per game last season while starting 28 of 32 games. Monson will try to fill Spencer’s spot by committee, but with Long Beach State’s challenging non-conference slate it could be a rough start to the season.

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Nick Fasulo (@nickfasuloSBN) is your weekly host.

Raw emotion meets raw weather, as Dick Vitale was caught puttering through a North Carolina blizzard only to find out the Duke vs. North Carolina game would be postponed due to the winter storm. We have applied a bit of an Andy Warhol Pop Art feel to it, while some feel like the original would be perfect album art for an upcoming indie rock band’s latest LP.

Tyler #ENNIONS Ennis Keeps Syracuse Undefeated

It will challenge for Game of the Year, capped off by a strong nominee for Play of the Year. Tyler Ennis, the savvy Orange point guard, has been huge in close games for his team all season long. You’ve seen the buzzer-beater, now check out the reaction from his giddy head coach and others around the web.

EVEN ANONYMOUS NFL GMS AND SCOUTS THINK TYLER ENNIS IS AMAZING

— Sean Keeley (@NunesMagician) February 13, 2014

Ennis did crack a smile after that. But just barely. Ice cold.

— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) February 13, 2014

ENNIONS

— Luke Winn (@lukewinn) February 13, 2014

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1. Courier-Journal writer Tim Sullivan said that Kentucky was just too big and strong for Louisville Saturday. The Wildcats outrebounded the smaller Cardinals 44-36 and scored 17 second chance points to Louisville’s six. Louisville has become too reliant on the play of its backcourt, he writes, and when it came down to it and the Cardinals needed interior baskets to take the pressure off of Russ Smith and Chris Jones, the frontcourt didn’t deliver. To reach a third straight Final Four, Louisville will have to improve its inside game or hope for favorable match-ups. (ed. note: the Monday afternoon dismissal of Chane Behanan by the university won’t help matters)
2. Rick Pitino said the main culprit in the loss to rival Kentucky Saturday was frontcourt play. He focused specifically on the play of Montrezl Harrell and Chane Behanan, and said that those two need to better focus on rebounding, blocking shots and dunks. Pitino even compared his squad’s frontcourt to Christina Aguilera in a blog post following the game. Louisville’s four big men only attempted seven shots against the Wildcats, which included a second half with Julius Randle mostly sitting on the sidelines (he only logged four minutes).
3. Dick Vitale says SMU is a team to watch heading into conference play after a strong 10-2 start with close, respectable losses to Virginia and Arkansas. Vitale said that the jury is still out on the Mustangs, but we should find out what they’re made of quickly with their first three AAC games coming at Cincinnati, home vs. Connecticut, and at Louisville. If they win one of those games, folks around the AAC and maybe beyond will start to take notice of Larry Brown’s squad.
4. Mick Cronin wants his young players to watch and learn from senior Sean Kilpatrick. Cronin said his underclassmen have plenty of talent, but they need to show up every day and play hard — for example, Kilpatrick goes hard in every practice, for the entire practice. A couple of freshmen, Kevin Johnson and Troy Caupain had solid games in Saturday’s win against Nebraska. The head coach hopes to see that kind of production consistently and knows that the formula for doing so is no big secret. Just watch Kilpatrick.
5. College Basketball Talk takes a look at Memphis heading into conference play and considers the things the team needs to do more and less. The Tigers, who were outrebounded in seven of their first 10 games, certainly need to rebound better. And as it always seems with Memphis under Josh Pastner, the author wants to see the Tigers struggle less against other quality opponents. Memphis will get more opportunities against good competition this year in the AAC as opposed to the previous few seasons in Conference USA.

1. We have not heard of many players deciding to transfer so far this season, but it is getting to the point in the season/academic year where we would expect to start hearing a lot more about that. Alex Murphy is the first player from a major program this season to announce his intention to transfer as he plans to leave Duke at the end of the semester. Murphy, a redshirt sophomore, reclassified from the class of 2012 in his final year of high school and entered college in the class of 2011 so even though he is a redshirt sophomore he is only 20 years old. We would expect that Murphy, who averaged just 2.1 points in 6.3 minutes per game as a freshman, will have plenty of suitors although Florida (where his brother Erik played) or Providence/Rhode Island (his home state) would be the favorites.
2. It seems like this ridiculous conference realignment period will never end. After seeing what seems like nearly every school change conferences we are starting to see some schools go back to their former conference. Yesterday, Oral Roberts that it will be rejoining the Summit League after leaving it for the Southland Conference in 2012. The Oral Roberts administration cited the Southland’s more recent expansion as being opposed to the school’s goals of reducing travel costs and strengthening rivalries. Although we hesitate to praise anybody for changing conferences (admitting that we understand the economic realities of college sports) it is nice to see Oral Roberts do this if their stated reasons were the actual reasons for their move.
3. Apparently George Mason officials take a different view of stepping on an opposing player’s chest than college basketball historians. Yesterday, the school suspended forward Anali Okoloji indefinitely after he was called for stepping on South Florida’s Anthony Collins during their game on Wednesday night. The move should not effect the team too much as he was only averaging 2.4 points and 1.6 rebounds per game this season although their next two games are against Oklahoma and Iowa State so they could probably use all the help that they can get. For his part, it appears that Okoloji is taking the right approach publicly by agreeing with Paul Hewitt’s decision.
4. With all of the focus on Duke’s current freshman star Jabari Parker, many media members have been comparing him to former Duke star Grant Hill. While Hill’s NBA career was derailed by a series of unfortunate injuries it appears that he is doing well based on his interview with Ryan Fagan that touches on a variety of things including his thoughts on his alma mater, some of the current stars, and his philanthropic work. It also appears that Hill has been active working on a financial career as he has an interesting post-basketball career path in front of him.
5. Finally, it is hard to believe that Dick Vitale has been working at ESPN for 34 years as a college basketball analyst. Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of his first ESPN telecast and the people at ESPN dug into their vault to pull out his first telecast. While we understand that he has become a polarizing figure to some because of his loud personality and his perceived favoritism of some teams it is hard to argue with his impact on the game and how he has helped popularize it with a national audience. For those of you who may not be familiar with his older work the video shows a little bit about how he has changed (hair isn’t that different though) although we did find Joe Boyle’s facial expressions when Vitale started to talk amusing.

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. teams playing havoc with the minds and emotions of AP Poll voters. Perfect example this week – North Carolina. After laying a giant stink bomb at home against Belmont and making everyone wonder exactly how much of a difference P.J. Hairston will make even when he’s back, those same short-handed Heels went out and took it straight to the defending champs during Sunday’s convincing win over Louisville. So which is the real Carolina? Hard to say at this point, but yet another reminder that this is a year where almost any team can put up a W.

UNC Took It to the Champs on Sunday (Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports)

I LOVED…. efficient scorers. Marcus Paige‘s 32 points on 9-of-13 shooting brought to my attention that we do have a number of examples this year of quantity scorers who are putting up their numbers without dominating the ball — not the most common find with today’s shoot-first mentality. The two names that immediately come to mind are Duke’s Jabari Parker (after two weeks, still for real) and UK’s Julius Randle. Parker is now shooting almost 56 percent for the year (65 percent from three) and has only been under 50 percent shooting once all year, while Randle has never been below that mark. Meanwhile, both are still putting up over 20 points per game. It’s hard to not love a teammate who can fill it up while still leaving shots for the other guys on the floor.

I LOVED…. Russ Smith‘s ability to slice the double team. I’ll harp on his decision-making when appropriate, but there is no one better in the college game about sizing up two defenders at the top of the key, hesitating momentarily to draw them closer and then knifing through to create an instantaneous 5-on-3 situation in the lane that usually results in a layup. He’s a fun talent to see up close.

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1. The biggest news impacting college basketball over the weekend came from Tobacco Road, as the Raleigh News & Observer‘s Dan Kane has continued to push forward in his dogged pursuit of the truth involving to the North Carolina athletic department’s relationship with a decade-plus history of fraudulent courses involving many of its student-athletes. We plan on having more commentary available later today, but as Kane continues to show with his persistence, there doesn’t appear to be any question that the academic support people charged with assisting student-athletes in their coursework were entirely too cozy with the administrators — Julius Nyang’oro and Deborah Crowder — who were ultimately proven responsible for the no-show courses and other academically fraudulent activities. These recently released emails exhibit that Nyang’oro received perks and benefits that were ethically improper (i.e., sideline passes to UNC football games) given that athletes may have been steered to the bogus classes under his watch. This latest reveal gets Kane one step closer to a direct connection with the athletic department, as the academic support staff who appear to have been nudging athletes to these courses and providing Nyang’oro with perks are under the employ and direction of the athletic department. Are we to take at face value that these staff members were acting on their own in a rogue manner; or was there a wink-and-a-nudge agreement in existence here, from the top down? Credit to Kane to continue rattling the cage in Chapel Hill — apparently there are a number of possibly instructive emails that were not released because of student privacy and/or personnel concerns. We’ve said it before, but the University of North Carolina really needs to take more responsibility over this entire situation. 
2. UNC, of course, has a ridiculously successful basketball program to protect, and keeping that brand viable and competitive is one of the cornerstones of the new ACC as it moves into a basketball environment that Mike Krzyzewski has already called the “best ever.” ESPN’s senior VP of college sports programming, Burke Magnus, did an interview with Al.com last last week, where he described college hoops programming as very important to ESPN’s continued success in the sports broadcasting marketplace, but also focused specifically on the new-and-improved Atlantic Coast Conference as the key to higher (even approaching college football) television ratings going forward. SI.com‘s Andy Glockner took the time to evaluate his statements — could ACC basketball become SEC football, in other words? — finding that Magnus’ hoped-for ratings may be a bit ambitious, but ESPN’s move of the ACC to Big Monday and the congregation of so many nationally-relevant programs in the same league will without question have a positive impact on viewer interest.
3. Later today the sportscaster who probably had more influence than any other in making college basketball a name-brand, marquee American sport, will be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. Dick Vitale, long before he was Dookie V. or some kind of embellished caricature of himself, was must-see viewing along with the teams of the 1980s and 1990s — if you listen to some of those broadcasts now on ESPN Classic, a keen observer will note that Vitale’s analysis was often spot on, making his more muted schtick considerably more appealing as an exciting conversational tool. At some point around the turn of the last decade when Vitale lost interest in providing thoughtful analysis and instead became synonymous with cheerleading for certain blue-blooded programs (ahem), many of the younger generation of fans turned on him and have rightfully viewed him as an anachronistic dinosaur ever since. Still, his influence on the sport as a whole is far beyond what any other national college hoops broadcaster has ever reached, and Vitale deserves all the accolades he is now receiving, in this, the twilight, of his long and illustrious career.
4. There was some transfer news over the weekend, as former Indiana guard Maurice Creek announced that he will spend his graduate transfer year at George Washington, and Illinois forward Myke Henry announced that he will spend his final two seasons at DePaul. Both players are transferring back home, as Henry is a Chicago native and Creek grew up in the suburbs just outside Washington, DC. The new Colonial, Creek, represents a very intriguing situation — a one-time rising star whose career was sidetracked by multiple injuries, he could provide an immediate lift on the perimeter to a young team desperately in need of some senior leadership and scoring punch. Henry will have to sit out next season, but he will join a talented recruiting class in 2014-15 with a year of action under its belt that can probably use the versatility on the wing that Henry can provide.
5. There was some very sad news over the weekend, as colorful longtime Miami (OH) head coach Charlie Coles passed away at the age of 71. As the Athens Messenger writes in a column about his life, Coles was “one of a kind,” the kind of old school coach who “always had a minute; always had a story.” He retired from basketball in 2012 after enduring years of health issues, but his teams at Miami were generally known as very tough outs — he took the Red Hawks to three NCAA Tournaments including a Sweet Sixteen in 1999, a couple of NITs and CBIs, and was regularly competitive in the even-steven environment of the MAC. Twitter reaction around the college hoops universe about Coles‘ passing was proper and respectful, but this video of his press conference after a close-but-no-cigar loss at Kentucky in the 2009-10 season is perhaps more revealing (and fun). You can leave his family a note on his Legacy page here; he certainly will be missed.

1. It appears that Eddie Jordan never did directly claim to be a Rutgers graduate although his methods of saying so may be interpreted as being deceptive. Yesterday, CBS released the biography that Jordan had provided the school as part of his application. It does “absolve” Jordan of a majority of the blame and does point out that even if Jordan is not a college graduate he understands semantics well enough to utilize the phrase “alma mater” to his advantage when applying for a job there. The bigger question is why Rutgers a school with access to its own records did not bother checking into the statement a little more closely.
2. One of the most painful aspects of conference realignment (outside of having to reorganize our microsites) was the loss of traditional rivalries due to heavier conference schedules. One of the bigger non-conference rivalries that appeared to be on the chopping block was Memphis and Tennessee. Now it appears that fans of those two schools may be getting an early Christmas present as the schools appear to be on the verge of continuing their series. There are still several issues to work out before the deal is finalized, but moves like this help restore our faith in the idea that schools are about more than just making money.
3. One of the many issues that people have been advocating for reform at the NCAA level is the idea of multi-year scholarships rather than the one-year renewable scholarships that can be pulled by schools without any penalty to the school. The latest such example of the downside of this appears to be former St. Louis freshman Jared Drew who after redshirting his freshman season was told by the coaching staff that his scholarship would not be renewed as he did not fit with the direction they were going in. We have no idea if there were other issues going on in the background (academic or disciplinary) that may have led the school to make that decision, but with nothing stated or public it appears that the new coaching staff simply felt that they could get better players. Perhaps some news will come out explaining another reason for why Drew was let go, but at this time it makes St. Louis look bad and probably will not help them on the recruiting trail.
4. Even though gambling is still illegal in much of the country so this only applies to a very small part of the country and for the rest of the country it can just be viewed as an interesting academic exercise in statistics Andy Glockner took a look at some of the post-Andrew Wiggins decision championship odds and found some intriguing values. The odds on the teams listed all appear to be pretty good values, but the one that sticks out the most to us would definitely be Louisville. For a defending champion to be returning that many key pieces and have one of the best college basketball coaches ever and still have 12-1 odds to win the title seems off even if their in-state rival has what many media members are hyping up as the greatest recruiting class ever.
5. Dick Vitale may be a controversial figure for some, but there are two things about him that nobody can argue about–his love of college basketball and his passion for raising money for cancer awareness. With his 8th Annual Dick Vitale Gala he is expected to cross the $10 million mark in funds raised for cancer research. As you would expect the guest list for the event is pretty impressive and is projected to break last year’s record of $1.8 million raised. We wish Dick the best in his work in raising money for research, but more importantly we wish anybody affected by this devastating condition(s) the best in what they are going through.

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. my friend’s text response to my joking suggestion that Dickie V might not survive five overtimes at his age during the Louisville-Notre Dame game Saturday night: “At one point in the third OT he said on air, ‘Dan I gotta go to the bathroom. Seriously I’m not kidding,’ and then he was gone from the broadcast for like five minutes.” Priceless.

I LOVED…. Indiana going from an are-you-kidding-me loss to Illinois, complete with a late-game collapse and unforgivable defensive sequence on the buzzer-beater, to looking like a can’t-miss Final Four team by completely dominating Ohio State on the road.  Of course, what good college team hasn’t pulled this Jekyll and Hyde routine at least once this season? If Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller are on their A-game, though, this Hoosiers team is awfully tough to beat.

I LOVED…. Tim Hardaway Jr.’s stroke. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone pure so many consecutive threes as he did against Ohio State on Tuesday. As LeBron pointed out in a tweet, it’s pretty because the form is so consistent each time he rises up. His clutch marksmanship should have gotten the Wolverines a win at Wisconsin on Saturday, and it could be part of some fun nail-biters in March, too.

Tim Hardaway’s Stroke is Picture Perfect

I LOVED…. the cat-and-mouse ending to the Kansas-Oklahoma game. Bill Self made the absolute right call switching to the triangle-and-two defense, which got the Jayhawks back into the game in the final minutes. He dared the Sooners to beat them from the perimeter, and they did just that by knocking down multiple three-balls in the closing minutes. Perfect strategy shift, but better response.

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