Every Friday throughout the rest of the season, the Other 26 Microsite will dig into some of the top storylines featuring those leagues from the previous week. 

1. O26 Teams Make Statements Against Power Conference Teams

George Washington’s Joe McDonald and Maurice Creek turned heads with a buzzer-beating win at Maryland (washingtontimes.com)

• Saturday: New Mexico cruises at home, handing Cincinnati its first loss, 63-54; Green Bay’s Greg Mays and Keifer Sykes each contribute 20+ points to defeat Virginia, 75-72
• Sunday: Maurice Creek’s buzzer-beater lifts George Washington to a big win at Maryland, 77-75

• Tuesday: After trailing nearly the entire game, Gonzaga surged ahead late to win at West Virginia, 80-76
• Wednesday: North Dakota State’s Marshall Bjorklund scored 26 points to lead the Bison over Notre Dame, 73-69

Near misses: Arizona 63, UNLV 58; Xavier 85, Bowling Green 73 (OT); Washington State 67, Idaho 66; Kansas State 64, South Dakota 62; Xavier 63, Evansville 60.

2. Chances For More Statements to Come

With only a few weeks remaining before conference play gets into full swing, opportunities are winding down for Other 26 teams to trip up power conference opponents. Some of this week’s most intriguing match-ups:

Read the rest of this entry »

1. You know the NCAA has done something incredibly dumb when it completely reverses a decision it just made, but when the public was made aware of the NCAA’s decision to take away a year of Steven Rhodes‘ eligibility because he participated in games on a military base while serving as a Marine it became clear that the NCAA had to reverse its decision. We are going to assume that the original decision made by someone who was just reviewing the case and following the letter of the law without looking at the bigger picture and definitely without consulting his or her superiors. We will give the NCAA some credit for reversing course quickly, but we suspect that there was some external pressure placed on the organization to reverse its prior decision.
2. We are still anxiously waiting for the release of full schedules, but the powers that be have decided to release the schedules in bits and pieces. The latest part of the schedule to be released is ESPN’s Super Tuesday schedule. As you would expect given the relative strength of the two conferences the Big Ten slate is more compelling and the SEC one features a lof of Kentucky. Obviously the SEC slate is banking on Kentucky rebounding from last season’s collapse and the solid play of this year’s incoming freshman class, but it is hurt quite a bit by the lack of either Florida-Kentucky game since both will probably be featured CBS weekend broadcasts.
3. When we saw that there was news about the First Four we were initially excited by the possibility that the NCAA had finally gotten rid of the farce that is the First Four. Unfortunately, the news was merely that the NCAA was considering alternatives to Dayton as the site of future First Fours. Dayton already has the rights to the next two First Fours secured, but the bidding for the 2016-18 iterations remains open. According to David Worlock of the NCAA, the issue is not so much that Dayton has not been a suitable host, but instead is reflective of conference realignment. Honestly, we have no idea what that means unless the NCAA is planning on changing the format of the NCAA Tournament because of the changes in conference structure since it should not affect the location of what essentially amount to play-in games.
4. Yesterday we mentioned the ongoing issues around Chris Walker’s eligibility at Florida and how it remained one of the major outstanding issues heading into the season. While Jamal Aytes would not be classified in the same category as Walker he remained one of the top uncommitted players in the class of 2013. That is until he committed to UNLV yesterday. A 6’6″ power forward usually does not attract a lot of attention, but Aytes managed to crack the top 100 for most recruiting services. His addition will not be enough to make anybody in Las Vegas forget about Anthony Bennett or Mike Moser, but he could help ease the transition by committee.
5. As those of you who are on Twitter are aware there are some coaches who seem to get social media and those who do not. With that in mind Sporting News put together a list breaking down the best and worst of college basketball coaches on Twitter. Most of the names on the best/worst lists should not exactly surprise you although the names on the worst lists might have such a minuscule presence online that you might not have even been aware that they were on Twitter. We have no idea if this type of stuff has any influence on potential recruits, but we will say it does not hurt to be able to speak their language.