1. It was SEC Media Day on Thursday and SEC fans were glued to the Internet wondering why Kevin from the NBC show The Office was answering questions about Vanderbilt’s basketball team. Lots of great information as SEC coaches and players spoke about expectations for the year, but the theme that emerged throughout each conversation was that SEC basketball will be the best it has been in a very long time. Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said, “I would say our league is as healthy and strong as it’s been maybe in the 12 or 13 years that I’ve been in it. I think our league is going to be very good.” The strength of the SEC will be seen at the top of the conference with three top ten ranked teams in the preseason.
2. Stallings also spoke about conference realignment during some of his time with the media, seeming to be more of a traditionalist. He said, “we’re probably going to get into some things that geographically don’t make sense — that’s disappointing and disconcerting. I’m a little old fashioned, I wish people would leave well enough alone.” But Stallings went on to say, “I wish the Big Ten had 10 schools, the Big 12 had 12 schools and the Southeastern Conference was made out of southeastern schools.” But that would be so easy and simple. The powers that be would never go for that!
3. Kentucky coach John Calipari spent time ensuring that opposing coaches know his team is not very good this year. When asked about his preseason ranking, Cal said, “they can rate us high all they want, but there are 40, 50 or 60 teams right now we could not beat. Maybe more. Maybe 100, because we’re just not ready to play a basketball game.” Why would voters rank Kentucky so high then? Maybe it’s a conspiracy! Calipari proclaimed, “they (the voters) did that on purpose to try and put pressure on us. I don’t know; I think they’re out of their minds.” Something tells us Cal will have Kentucky in shape to beat those 100 or so teams after a couple of additional more weeks of practice.
4. Calipari and Stallings spent some time discussing the other coaches’ team. Calipari spoke with an NBA scout who  watched both teams practice this week. Calipari said, “‘Cal, they’re really good.’ That’s what they said: ‘They’re really good.’ Well, what’s making them really good? (The NBA guys said), ‘they all do what they’re supposed to do. Right now, they could play games.’  And they looked at my team (and said), ‘You could not!’ They’re going to be really good.” Stallings responded with his knowledge of Kentucky’s team, saying, “I don’t know anything about his team. They’re all freshmen. Or a lot of them are freshmen. I know Terrence Jones is good. I know all those guys coming back on his team from a year ago are good. The other guys, I don’t want to know about yet.” Calipari claims not to know anything about  his team either. Both coaches know a lot more then they are willing to admit.
5. The SEC Media Day wasn’t all Calipari and Stallings. Florida coach Billy Donovan got in on the action as well indicating his unhappiness with some letdowns in team focus. “We need to clean up some of the slippage we’ve had the last couple of days,” Donovan said. “We start going 5-on-5 and now some of the rebounding, some of the blocking out, some of the rotations kind of gets thrown by the wayside a little bit and they worry about playing and they are not focused on one thing at a time.” Is there an SEC coach who is happy with his team right now? There are certainly none that are willing to admit it.

1. Tracking the Terps – Baltimore Sun: Maryland assistant coach Dalonte Hill was named as a third party in a lawsuit by Michael Beasley that could have major ramifications for college basketball. Hill coached Beasley on the AAU circuit with the DC Assault before moving on to an assistant coaching position at Kansas State. While I don’t think the lawsuit will affect Hill directly, it could expose some ugly realities about his role in Beasley’s recruitment (see Dave Telep’s article from two days ago for possibilities). I don’t expect Hill to make any comments on the case, but this is definitely something to keep an eye on.
2. Terrapins Insider – Washington Post: Although Beasley’s lawsuit is bigger news for college basketball, Pe’Shon Howard‘s injury is bigger news for Maryland. Howard broke his foot and is expected to be out for around ten weeks. If it’s much longer than ten weeks, Mark Turgeon will consider redshirting Howard to keep his eligibility intact. But Turgeon also sounds focused on this season, and Howard’s presence would be a big boost for a team that will have major depth issues. While Howard is sidelined, Terrell Stoglin will have to handle the point guard position. This could go either way, but my guess is Stoglin will take some time to adjust to the new role.
3. Boston Herald: Boston College freshman Patrick Heckmann wasn’t surprised with the team’s last place conference selection at Operation Basketball: “It’s kind of understandable. We lost pretty much all of our scoring options from last year […] We should surprise a lot of people how good we can actually play [sic].” My only revision would be to remove the “pretty much” from his first sentence. But the Eagles haven’t given up (and are “scrappy as heck,” according to Steve Donahue), which should serve them well in a conference where a lot of teams are rebuilding or have major flaws.
4. ESPN: Mitch McGary is nearing a decision (ETA next week). He’s trimmed his list to three: Duke, Michigan and Florida (he claims North Carolina is still in the race, but it sounds like a combination of not hearing from them and Brice Johnson’s recent commitment to the Heels has them off the list). Maryland was the other school to get axed. His latest blog post also reminds fans that the recruiting process isn’t all fun and games: “To be honest, it’s been really stressful and, at times, it’s been hard on my family.” As a top power forward in the Class of 2012, McGary would be a huge get for the Blue Devils.
5. Recruiting Insider – Washington Post: The NCAA has finally caught up with the 21st Century and will allow coaches unlimited calls and texts to high school juniors and seniors. Although the summer evaluation period has been tightened up a little, an April evaluation period will be re-opened. One of the less-reported points that seems like a bigger deal is that coaches will now be able to give an on-court evaluation of players during official visits.

1. Coming into this season we figured that Mark Turgeon was going to have a difficult time with a team that lacked a solid inside presence to the degree that there was quite a bit of speculation that he might play four guards. Yesterday he lost one of those guards for a significant part of the season when Pe’Shon Howard broke a bone in his left foot and is expected to be out for up to 3 months recovering. Howard’s injury leaves Maryland with just seven healthy scholarship players and to be honest those seven are not that good, which means that this could be a very rough start for Turgeon even if Howard comes back midway through ACC play.
2. When the NCAA announced that it would be adopting an APR minimum of 930 (two-year average) or 900 (four-year average) for inclusion in the 2013 NCAA Tournament quite a few writers immediately noticed that defending national champion Connecticut probably would not be eligible. This was based on the assumption that the school would not be able to achieve a two-year average over 930 between the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons after it scored 826 in 2009-10, which would bring the school’s average down enough that even a reported unofficial 975 in 2010-11 would only get them up to 900.5 for two years and 888.5 for four years. It turns out that the decision may be more complex. Essentially what it boils down to is that in February the NCAA will have another series of meetings to decide whether to use scores from those years or 2010-11 and 2011-12 for inclusion in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. If they were to do the latter, they would have to move up the release of APR scores from the traditional date of May. If they stick with the current measurement, then the Huskies and other programs in a similar situation would have to rely on an appeals process or hope the NCAA creates a waiver. We would say stay tuned, but there is no way that the NCAA would risk losing a school like UConn to a new rule when the Huskies could very well be playing for a three-peat at that point.
3. The NCAA announced another interesting policy change yesterday, but this was involves recruiting. The major change is that coaches can call or send text messages to recruits as much as they want. It also allows increased messaging on social networks and changes the recruiting periods. As nearly everybody on Twitter noted yesterday, it is somewhat amusing that Kelvin Sampson was essentially kicked out of college basketball for something that is legal just a few years later making him a pioneer of sorts.
4. We would  like to send along our best wishes to Billy Kennedy, who revealed that he was diagnosed with early stage Parkinson’s disease in a statement he released through Texas A&M. Kennedy had taken a leave of absence earlier this month to recover from what can best be described as fatigue and other non-specific symptoms. During that time he was seen by physicians, who diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease. We will not get into the effect this will have on the Aggies (that can come later) other than to note that Kennedy will be taking an extended leave of absence to attend to his health, which is certainly more important than basketball. We also will not delve into the progression and treatment of Parkinson’s disease other than to note that there are several medications and treatments that are available, which should hopefully help Kennedy deal with the condition.
5. Uber-recruit Mitch McGary has narrowed his list down to Duke, Florida, and Michigan after taking Maryland and North Carolina off his list and will commit to one of those three schools next week according to his blog post on ESPN.com. Most of the speculation we have heard so far is about Duke or Michigan and we are not sure how UF fits in here, but they have obviously done something to attract McGary’s attention. At any rate, you can expect Twitter to explode next week when he makes his announcement particularly if he decides to become a Blue Devil as he may very quickly become Public Enemy #1 for the rest of the college basketball world.

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.

In case you missed it, check out games #68-52 and #51-35.

34. February 21: Kentucky at Mississippi State (9:00, ESPN)- Remember the last time Kentucky traveled to The Hump to take on Mississippi State late in the year? The hatred was off the charts before (taunting texts to DeMarcus Cousins from State fans) during (an intense 81-75 overtime win by the #2 Wildcats) and after (fans serenading the officials with a bottle showering) the game. While we can do without the texting and postgame embarrassment, players like Bulldogs point guard Dee Bost still harbor a bitter taste in their mouth from that outcome. If one can pinpoint a weakness with this loaded Kentucky team, it’s the lack of a true post presence. State can trot out the 6’11 Arnett Moultrie and the 6’10 Renardo Sidney. If those two are committed to the post for 40 minutes, this could be one of UK’s SEC stumbling blocks.

Senior Dee Bost is looking for a measure of revenge against Kentucky

33. February 22: Kansas at Texas A&M (9:00, ESPN)- After winning seven consecutive Big 12 titles, it’s fair to label Kansas as the hunted. That makes a very capable Texas A&M team the most threatening hunter. With B12 POY candidate Khris Middleton, Washington transfer Elston Turner and a deep frontcourt, Billy Kennedy is walking into an ideal situation once he gets his health in order. A&M may have a more complete roster, but Kansas was still picked to win the Big 12 in a tie with the Aggies. Until someone knocks the Jayhawks off their pedestal, they deserve to be considered favorites. This game in late February could go a long way towards deciding the regular season crown.

32. February 23: Duke at Florida State (7:00, ESPN)- ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb outlined a compelling case that Florida State is much closer to Duke’s equal than most believe, mostly because of their lockdown defense, absurd athleticism and length at every position. Who wins out when Duke’s star-studded offensive attack – buoyed by the ultra-talented freshman Austin Rivers and the emerging Ryan Kelly – meets the ‘Noles dynamic defenders? Last season, FSU held a Singler and Smith-led Duke team to 61 points in an upset win.

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Lon Kruger: The Essentials

• Previous coaching stop: UNLV
• Career overview: Texas Pan-American (1982-86), Kansas State (1986-1990), Florida (1990-96), Illinois (1996-2000), Atlanta Hawks (2000-2003), UNLV (2004-11)
• Playing experience: Kansas State (1971-74)
• Accolades: Mountain West Coach of the Year (2008), SEC Coach of the Year (1992, 1994), 479 career victories, Big Eight Player of the Year (1973, 1974)

The Breakdown

With a coaching career spanning seven states over a period of 35 years, Lon Kruger has seen it all. He turned around an independent in Texas-Pan American in the ’80s; he’s made a Final Four at Florida and led Kansas State, Illinois and UNLV to multiple NCAA Tournaments. He coached the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA and served as an assistant for the New York Knicks, and he’s also a former two-time Big Eight Player of the Year with K-State.

Kruger is Back in Big 12 Country with Oklahoma

Talk about a good-looking resume. That’s why Oklahoma may have hit the jackpot with Kruger. With 479 victories to his name, Kruger brings his defensive-oriented style to Norman with the expectation of a quick turnaround. He won’t have an all-star roster to work with in his first season, but he’s got a decent core in Andrew Fitzgerald, Carl Blair and Cameron Clark. It’ll take a little time for the group to adjust to his rather unorthodox style of basketball, but don’t expect these Sooners to fall flat after the departure of Jeff Capel.

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Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.

On February 2, eventual national champion Connecticut found their missing ingredient.

Before that date, Huskies fans already had a sense their team could finish higher than the coaches selection of tenth in the Big East. Riding the heroics of Kemba Walker, they cruised through Maui, upset Texas on the road and dispatched of Villanova and Tennessee. Their sparkplug, leading scorer, energizer and team leader, Walker truly was Mr. Everything for the Huskies through the first three months of the season, but championships aren’t won by one player surrounded by incapable parts. Every critical eye knew that if Walker scuffled, as he did shooting 18-for-50 during two losses to Pitt and Notre Dame, the Huskies simply had no chance.

The talented junior drew double teams on every possession. He had no choice but to shoot 25 times per game. UConn’s late-game strategies became all too predictable. Someone else had to step up. Jim Calhoun, and Connecticut fans by extension, knew their team couldn’t reach a Final Four until a second option emerged alongside Walker.

By early February, Jeremy Lamb appeared to be that player. A 22-point, 4-rebound, 5-steal performance at Syracuse was his third consecutive outing with 20+ points. Lamb played with an understated confidence, lacked the typical freshman jitters late in games and confidently stroked jumpers. He developed into a consistent threat that defenses had to take seriously. Some inconsistent outings followed, but by March Lamb was the partner-in-crime Calhoun so desperately needed. The rest is history.

For contenders around the country, there is one fatal flaw that has the potential to derail their high hopes for this upcoming season. The flaw may take the entire non-conference slate to identify and most of league action to try to correct, but by March this glaring weakness must be solved in order for these elite teams to reach their lofty goals.

Reggie Bullock: UNC's missing ingredient?/ MSNBC

North Carolina: Consistent three-point shooting threat. Since I’m fairly confident Dexter Strickland can spell Kendall Marshall at the point for 3-4 minutes per half, the only other flaw I can identify for the overwhelming national title favorites is the lack of an outside shooting weapon. Unless someone emerges as a perimeter shooting threat, defenses will pack the post and dare Carolina to make jumpers, a problem further exacerbated by wing Leslie McDonald (38% 3FG) tearing up his knee this summer.  The most obvious resolution is Harrison Barnes, an All-American candidate perfectly capable of extending his range beyond the arc and improving on his 34% mark from deep. Blue-chip signee P.J. Hairston has the reputation of a premiere outside shooter, but relying on freshmen to make shots is often precarious. Most of McDonald’s minutes could go to sophomore Reggie Bullock. The Tar Heel faithful hope Bullock is the answer following a disappointing and injury-plagued rookie campaign.

Kentucky: Post presence. John Calipari’s roster this season is an enviable mix of super-talented freshmen bound for the lottery and seasoned veterans who know their proper role. Senior Darius Miller and sophomores Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb all return, but it’s the departure of center Josh Harrellson that could prove the biggest loss, a notion Kentucky fans could have never envisioned at this time a year ago. Harrellson was more than willing to do the post’s dirty work, snatching key rebounds, blocking shots and mixing it up with the likes of Jared Sullinger and Tyler Zeller. Although Anthony Davis and Kyle Wiltjer don’t lack in the height department, they’re more perimeter-oriented bigs without the necessary bulk to bang with elite, upperclassmen centers. Unless Eloy Vargas makes a gigantic leap forward, any team with a true post presence could give Kentucky fits.

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SEC and national media members selected their All-SEC and POY selections Monday morning. Their choices were as follows:

• JaMychal Green, Alabama – F, 6-8, 228, Sr., Montgomery, Ala.
• Terrence Jones, Kentucky – F, 6-9, 252, So., Portland, Ore.
• Dee Bost, Mississippi State – G, 6-2, 176, Sr. , Concord, N.C.
• John Jenkins, Vanderbilt – G, 6-4, 220, Jr., Hendersonville, Tenn.
• Jeffery Taylor, Vanderbilt – G/F, 6-7, 225, Sr., Norrkoping, Sweden

• Anthony Davis, Kentucky – F, 6-10, 220, Fr., Chicago, Ill.
• Doron Lamb, Kentucky – G, 6-4, 210, So., Queens, N.Y.
• Darius Miller, Kentucky – G, 6-8, 235, Sr., Maysville, Ky.
• Kenny Boynton, Florida – G, 6-2, 189, Jr., Pompano Beach, Fla.
• Erving Walker, Florida – G, 5-8, 177, Sr., Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Festus Ezeli, Vanderbilt – C, 6-11, 255, Sr., Benin City, Nigeria

1. The Southeastern Conference’s official preseason media poll was released yesterday. You know what that means: Time for Nerdfightin‘! It is hard to argue against Kentucky being picked as the overwhelming favorite to win the conference championship. Receiving 18 (of 23 total) first-place votes, the Wildcats topped Vanderbilt (four first-place votes), Florida (one first-place vote) and Alabama (no first-place votes). South Carolina was voted the last place team.
2. Also ripe for your nitpickin’ and message board forum fighting: the media’s All-SEC Teams. Kentucky sophomore Terrence Jones was voted SEC Player of the Year and joins Vandy’s John Jenkins and Jeffery Taylor, Alabama’s JaMychal Green and Mississippi State’s Dee Bost on the First Team All-SEC list. Three more Kentucky players — senior Darius Miller, sophomore Doron Lamb and freshman Anthony Davis — join Vanderbilt’s Festus Ezeli and Florida’s Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker as members of the six-player Second Team All-SEC. CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish threw the first nerdfight punch when he complained that Anthony Davis (like former Kentucky player John Wall before him) should be on the preseason First Team since Davis is arguably the most-talented player in the conference. We tend to agree and wonder why if there can be a six-member Second Team why there couldn’t be a six-member First Team?
3. Hope you didn’t miss our piece on Christian Laettner‘s appearance in Rupp Arena last night. Another player with more recent Kentucky history made an appearance during the Big Blue All-Stars exhibition game: Former Wildcat Enes Kanter. The Turkish-born Kanter was ruled ineligible by the NCAA for accepting benefits above an allowable amount while part of Turkish club team Fenerbahce. At last, Enes was freed, but his first game at Rupp was slightly underwhelming. Kanter looked out-of-sorts with the pace of the game and his NBA peers. Eager to involve the big man, All-Star teammate Rajon Rondo tried working with Kanter on several pick-and-roll plays; Kanter was surprised at the speed of Rondo’s bounce passes and lobs. Eventually Kanter settled into cleaning up offensive rebounds, made some mid-range jumpers and finished with 14 points and 10 boards. But his performance was not the kind of dominating debut Kentucky fans were hoping to see of the highly-sought big man.
4. Free Missouri! The school seemingly wants to join SEC Expansion 2011: ALL YOUR TEAMS ARE BELONG TO US. Though in a meeting of Big 12 presidents and athletic directors Monday evening, Mizzou did not formally withdraw from the conference. Interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas told the Kansas City Star that, “a strong desire for the University of Missouri to maintain its Big 12 affiliation was expressed” at the meeting. Yet when asked after the meeting about the Big 12, Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton said, “I wish them the best and all that. So we’ll see where that goes.” Sounds like where that is going is the SEC offices in Birmingham.
5. One of Missouri’s concerns about a move to the SEC is how it would affect Kansas City. The Big 12 will likely no longer hold its annual basketball tournament in KC. When Mizzou’s Board of Curators directed Brady Deaton to explore other conference options, they gave him explicit instructions to set up a holiday tournament for Kansas City. There is some pessimism regarding the success of a team-oriented tournament; ESPN’s Andy Katz wrote, “few power-six schools play in these non-exempt two-game tournaments anymore. … Most non-elite tournaments have shut down because of the difficulty of scheduling these games.” We think the next best option is to make a semi-home conference game in Kansas City with a familiar foe: Texas A&M. The two schools could promote the game as “The Battle for the Greener Pastures“.

1. Over the past few months there has been a movement in some parts of the media to pay athletes money in addition to their scholarships with Taylor Branch and the NCPA being the two most prominent voices. Now it appears that the NCAA might actually be considering paying athletes a stipend although it may not be to the level that some are hoping for. According to reports, NCAA president Mark Emmert plans to finalize a proposal that would pay student-athletes $2,000 per year that he would send to the NCAA Division I Board of Directors for their approval. That $2,000 per year would be in addition to the scholarships that already cover tuition, fees, room, board, and books. As the NCPA study notes student-athletes currently receive funds that are $3,222 short of covering the average university’s stated full cost of tuition so even this extra sum would leave the athletes $1,222 short. Of course, even the initial payment opens up a whole other can of worms, which we delved into yesterday, but we have to say that for the pro-pay people this appears to be a step in the right direction.
2. In an unrelated move, but one that ties in to the previous story a group of more than 300 players sent a petition to the NCAA asking for a portion of TV revenues to supplement scholarships to cover the full costs of attending college and for an “educational lock box” that would help cover additional education if their eligibility is up or just be a cash payment to the players after their careers are over. While many would be willing to agree with most of the request the last part is where you start to get on the slippery slope of professionalism. We haven’t seen the actual petition yet because it was just released to the Associated Press so they could get their stories up before everyone else, but we found it interesting that this based off the signatures from players at five schools (Arizona, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Purdue, and UCLA). As we mentioned in our aforementioned interview with Taylor Branch one of the problems that college athletes will run into is creating a strong union when the lifespan of the college athlete is so transient (typically four years). Perhaps if they can organize on a smaller scale (like these five schools) they can build some momentum to push for change in a relatively short time. That said we expect the NCAA to crush this petition given the amount of money that would be involved.
3. It should not come as much of a surprise that the SEC and national media has selected Kentucky as the preseason pick to win the conference even if one site predicted that another team may end up taking home the title. What is surprising, or at least interesting to us, is that a Kentucky player was selected as the SEC Preseason Player of the Year and it was not Anthony Davis. That honor went to sophomore (yes, there are still a few left) Terrence Jones. Davis ended up as a preseason second-team All-SEC selection despite being one of only four players to receive a vote for preseason Player of the Year. The rest of the selections were about what you would expect as they were dominated by players from Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Florida.
4. While expectations are high as usual at Kentucky they are much more muted at Kansas where Bill Self is apparently trying to temper what was already lukewarm expectations for a program of that caliber. Self decided to take some jabs at the media for pegging the Jayhawks as the co-favorites in the conference even though his Jayhawks have won at least a share of the Big 12 regular season title the past seven years and, to be brutally honest, the conference is pretty weak. Self does have a point that the Jayhawks will be much weaker this year than in previous years especially with their depleted freshman class, but the only other team in the Big 12 that we have any faith in is Baylor and they are questionable with their point guard play although they may have enough talent at the other spots to overcome that deficiency.
5. Coming into the season we expected St. Mary’s to have a difficult time replacing Mickey McConnell and now that task appears to have become even more difficult as Paul McCoy, a transfer from Southern Methodist, injured his right knee and might miss the upcoming season. McCoy, who already had his sophomore season at SMU end after he tore his ACL, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on the knee today with a second operation to repair the damage after three months of rehabilitation. For McCoy it is another significant setback in what appeared to be a promising career after he averaged 13.4 PPG as a freshman and now he is looking at a second medical redshirt. As for the Gaels, the injury will place even more pressure on Matthew Dellavedova, who has very little support around him in the backcourt with only two other scholarship guards on the team. Despite returning Dellavedova and Rob Jones the Gaels may struggle to play to the level that we have come to expect of them in recent years.

1. The LSU athletic department has a message for its basketball fans: A. B. C. Always. Be. Closing. LSU Athletics has partnered with adverCar, a marketing company that specializes in vehicle advertising. Participants can earn income from adverCar by having a decal attached to their personal vehicle containing an advertisement for the LSU basketball season. Perhaps former Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl might be interested in getting Vols fans to apply car ad decals for his new line of recliner furniture.
2. The Tennessee squad themselves are going back to an old-fashioned method of training: hitting post players with brooms. A recent practice report highlighted assistant coach Jon Harris‘ use of a broom to help teach his post players how to score and adjust for taller defenders. If we hear of Harris conjuring comets as part of a fast-break drill, Tennessee might have a magical season ahead.
3. Another way to produce magic on the basketball court is to recruit some really talented freshmen. This season the Southeastern Conference has four representatives on the Wayman Tisdale Award preseason watch list. The award is given by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association to the nation’s top freshman at the end of the season. Florida guard Brad Beal joins a Kentucky threesome of Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague on the watch list. Beal will need to crack a starting Gator rotation of experienced guards to be able to claim the award away from one of the Wildcats or the eight other non-SEC freshmen included on the watch list.
4. While Beal has to wait for his shot at the Wildcats in Rupp Arena, a former Gator is getting another shot to drive Big Blue fans crazy. Former Florida wing Corey Brewer joins a host of current and former NBA players as Villans to the Big Blue All Stars tonight in Rupp. The game is the marquee match-up for the traveling group of former Wildcat players that includes Enes Kanter, the Turkish big man who was ruled ineligible for NCAA competition last season. Brewer is the only SEC member of the Villains group; apparently Brewer’s former Florida teammate Joakim Noah is too busy with his training regimen to join the party.
5. Back in Gainesville, the sun shines bright on one old Kentucky foe. Florida coach Billy Donovan is expected to sign a contract extension that will lengthen his coaching tenure with the school for another five years. The new deal includes the two guaranteed years and the optional third year on his current contract, then adds an additional couple of years. Once he signs, Donovan will be locked in until the 2015-16 season — a twenty-year tenure at UF for a two-time National Championship winner. Donovan is worth every penny if he can lead Florida to a return appearance in the NCAA Elite Eight or better this season.