1. The injuries keep coming for the SEC and college basketball. Florida‘s starting forward Erik Murphy has a torn meniscus in his right knee and will be out indefinitely according to The Gainesville Sun. Murphy injured his knee in practice on Thursday. “It does appear he has some form of a meniscus tear,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “How severe or how long he will be out, we’d probably find out a lot more on Monday. He’s out for the game (against Stetson) Monday and I’d assume he would be out for the next week as well.” Florida has a big game this week against Syracuse in the Big East/SEC challenge on Friday. The Gators played Ohio State earlier this season in an another top 10 match-up, and Murphy was crucial to Florida’s offense. He scored 14 points and grabbed three rebounds in 24 minutes of play against the Buckeyes. Donovan seems optimistic that Murphy will return soon.
2. Another SEC team that has been hit hard with injuries is looking to its freshmen to lead the way. BJ Young, Rashad Madden, Hunter Mickelson, and Devonta Abron combined to score 53 points for Arkansas in their win over Grambling State. All four posted career-highs in points, and Mickelson grabbed a career-high eight rebounds as well. “When those guys came off the bench, I thought they took the tempo up a notch for us and really got us into our transition game,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. “They got the most minutes of any of the guys out there, so to me, that’s a reflection of their play. I thought they were at times pretty impressive.” The development of the Hogs’ four freshmen is key as Arkansas is left with only nine scholarship players this season. All four will get plenty of opportunities moving forward as the Razorbacks’ leading scorer and rebounder, Marshawn Powell, is out for the remainder of the season with a torn ligaments in his knee.
3. Kentucky recorded only four turnovers in an 87-63 win over Portland on Saturday night. The four turnovers are the lowest for the Wildcats since a 1993 NCAA Tournament game against Utah (two turnovers). Much has been made of freshman Marquis Teague‘s ability to lead Kentucky at the point guard position, but he led the way with eight assists and zero turnovers. Teague added 14 points and four steals, and looked increasingly more comfortable in his role. That is a good sign for the Wildcats as they prepare for a big week with a matchup against St. John’s on Thursday and the much anticipated game against North Carolina on Saturday.
4. Kentucky coach John Calipari sent out shock waves in Big Blue Nation on Sunday as he asked a (hypothetical?) question to Cats’ fans. Calipari asked via his website CoachCal.com which non-conference team the Kentucky faithful would like to see dropped from the schedule if necessary. The SEC could add two additional conference games to each team’s schedule with the addition of two league members beginning next season. Calipari writes, “If we had to – and this doesn’t mean we have to at this point because we still have 16 league games – but if we had to drop one series and there were no other options, who would it be? Would it be North Carolina, Indiana or Louisville?” For what it’s worth, college basketball is better with these high powered non-conference games, but it’s understandable if that is not in the best interests of Kentucky basketball. Regardless, Kentucky and Louisville is one of the best rivalries in the game, and it has to keep going if for nothing more than the drama of Calipari vs. Rick Pitino.
5. Auburn set a school record with 17 blocked shots in their win on Friday night against Nicholls State.  Rob Chubb and Willy Kouassi led the way with five blocks each. Kenny Gabriel blocked four more. The 17 blocks put Tigers tied for second with Kentucky (17 blocks against Morehead State in 1998) for the all-time single-game SEC list. Auburn head coach Tony Barbee was impressed, but wants to keep seeing improvement. “We still, as a program, have to grow and develop that confidence,” Barbee said. “The only way you do that is by winning. These guys are hungry, but I want them to be better and they know that. We can be better.” The Tigers improved to 3-0 with this win, and face a rebuilding Seton Hall team on Friday. The Tigers have been a solid club defensively, but offensively are still a work in progress. According to KenPom.com, Auburn ranks 170th in adjusted offensive efficiency. Barbee will have to find some scoring to continue to see his team accumulate victories.

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1. This Bernie Fine/Syracuse story deserves more space than what we typically include here so we will keep it simple. Yesterday morning news surfaced of an audio tape recording a conversation between Bobby Davis, Fine’s initial accuser, and Fine’s wife in 2002 in which his Fine’s wife admits to knowing that Fine molested Davis, but there was nothing to do about it, as well as an indication that Fine gave Davis money to pay for student loans that he used as leverage for sexual favors. Fine’s wife also reportedly became sexually involved with Davis when he was older. The tape was turned over to ESPN in 2002, but they did nothing with it including turning it over to authorities at the time, because they could not corroborate the information. Meanwhile, another person, a man from Maine, has come forward claiming to be the third Fine victim, although the man’s father claims that the man never even met Fine and in fact is being charged with sexually abusing a child himself. Late last night, Syracuse decided to fire Fine with a short statement. Jim Boeheim, who had initially defended Fine and accused the alleged victims of chasing money, issued a much less aggressive statement that appears to have been run through a PR agency before being released. We will have more on this subject later when we find the time and can wrap our head around what is becoming an increasingly bizarre case.
2. Black Friday was not a good one for Notre Dame as they lost Tim Abromaitis for the season after he tore his right ACL in practice. Not only did the Irish lose their best player, but they also lost one of their two seniors on the roster (Scott Martin is the other). Abromaitis had only played in two of Notre Dame’s six games this season as the result of a suspension by the NCAA resulting from a misinterpretation of NCAA rules by Notre Dame. While the Fighting Irish lost both games that Abromaitis played it would be foolish to read too much into that. Their four games without Abromaitis (all wins) were against weak competition. Their two games with Abromaitis (both losses) were against solid competition. This injury should move Notre Dame from a potential middle-of-the-pack Big East team to one that will be hanging out near the bottom of the conference standings.
3. Minnesota may similarly devastating news coming their way as Trevor Mbakwe injured his right knee last night during a loss to Dayton in the championship game of the Old Spice Classic. While the extent of the injury will not be known until later today when Mbakwe has an MRI, initial reports from the scene and Mbakwe’s tweet (“Lord please get me through this”) do not appear promising. Mbawke, who came into the game averaging 14.8 PPG and 10 RPG, is the key to the Gophers this season and without him they may struggle to stay out of the Big Ten cellar.
4. Steve Lavin missed Saturday night’s loss to Northeastern for what is being reported as management of his stamina andenergy. So far this season Lavin has missed three of the team’s seven regular season games (the season-opener, which happened more than a month after his surgery, and the last two games). As we said before we are not going to get into the medical stuff that Lavin is going through (PSA test results, post-operative complications, etc), but we will get into the basketball stuff. Right now St. John’s is not a very good team. They are young and missing a lot of what they expected to have on the court this season after the NCAA ruled that many of their incoming freshmen were academically ineligible. Now they have a game at Kentucky coming up on Thursday. Unless Lavin thinks he is going to get his energy and stamina back very quickly he might want to think about taking a longer leave of absence rather than making decisions on a game-by-game basis. For a team this young the change between Lavin and interim coach Mike Dunlap along with the uncertainty of who will be coaching will adversely affect the team’s development. For Lavin’s sake and that of his team, he should make a longer term decision about how he wants this team to be run.
5. President Obama caught his second college basketball of the season as he took some time off from a variety of pressing issues to watch his brother-in-law Craig Robinson coach Oregon State against Towson in a game that the Beavers won easily. Interestingly, the President was not the only well-known person in attendance as Bill Murray was also there rooting for his son Luke Murray, an assistant coach at Towson. We are guessing that President Obama will not get the chance to see many more college basketball games this season with all the other things that he has to attend to, but with the way the Beavers are playing he may have to schedule some time during March to catch them in the NCAA Tournament.

There is a formula for an upset, and it is as old as the three-point line: make your shots from beyond the arc, slow the pace, and play physical, punishing defense. UNLV did two of the three, opting to keep the pace up, but their execution was perfect. Since last season, the flaws of this North Carolina team have been no secret: John Henson and Tyler Zeller get frustrated by strong physical defense, Kendall Marshall is a mediocre on-ball defender, and the UNC defensive system that relies heavily on rotations and recovery is susceptible to three-point shots from the weak-side, particularly after collapsing against a drive. If you are experiencing an odd sense of déjà vu, it is because this is almost exactly the blueprint that Kentucky exploited to beat the Tar Heels in the Elite Eight. It worked then, it worked last night, and there is a good chance that it will work in the future.

Marshall's On-Ball Defense Will Remain A Liability in North Carolina's Defensive Scheme

Specifically the near future. Against Wisconsin on Tuesday, North Carolina will be dealing with one of the nation’s stingiest interior defenses, coupled with elite three-point shooting, and a punishingly controlled tempo. Kentucky’s surplus of talent becomes more apparent each and every game and the Wildcats ability to play tough, muscular defense as well as athletic guard play seems designed to give the Tar Heels fits. North Carolina was going to go into both of these games regardless as the underdog, regardless of who won in Vegas or what the polls said. Both of these match-ups are tough, and weirdly, by losing on Saturday, North Carolina should be able to go into these two games with appropriately readjusted expectations.

This can be a very good thing. The 2005 team’s season-opening loss to Santa Clara had the eventual national champions on the defensive, playing catch-up all year against an Illinois team that nearly went undefeated in the regular season. The 2007 Elite Eight team lost to Gonzaga in November. Last year’s squad lost to Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Illinois, and Texas in a span of a month yet finished the season playing in the Elite Eight while all of these other teams were sitting at home. Roy Williams-coached squads, for a variety of reasons, often lose in the fall. Last night’s loss, or even a series of three straight losses by this time  last week might feel terrible for North Carolina, but it won’t be as meaningful as pundits might say (excepting a series of blowouts). Teams grow and change between November and March, and a loss or three won’t cripple the psyche of this young team. Losses don’t hurt forever especially in November games.

When college basketball fans wake up in the morning they will have a new #1. Ok, maybe that will not officially come until Monday when the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls are released, but for all intents and purposes Kentucky is your new #1 team in the country. Around 12:40 AM, while much of the East Coast was already asleep, UNLV took down top-ranked North Carolina, 90-80. While the loss will inevitably send Tar Heel message boards into a panic, it isn’t the end of the world, but it is instructive in some of the weaknesses that it revealed (or refreshed in our minds).

Moser And UNLV Exposed Some Of UNC's Weaknesses (Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

• Kendall Marshall: Like every other college basketball fan we love some parts of his game. His court vision is exceptional and he makes a lot of great passes without making the “And 1 Mix Tape” pass. Having said that, he is not very athletic nor is he a good shooter. We don’t expect our point guard to jump out of the gym, but there are times (and there will be times) where Marshall’s lack of lateral quickness will cost the Tar Heels. Marshall does enough things well and he has enough help inside when he gets beat that this will not be an issue, but against a team with a quick point guard and good interior players that UNC’s big men cannot help off of without giving up easy points, this could be an issue. As for his shooting, we cringe every time Marshall takes an outside shot. He can make them (37.7% from three-point range last year on just 53 attempts), but if we were a defender we would happily concede that to fall back on occasion to block some of his entry passes.
• Free throw shooting: The Tar Heels shot 60.6% (20-33) from the free throw line tonight. We would be willing to let this go, but they were shooting 60.7% coming into this game, which puts them at 299th in the nation. This wouldn’t be such a big issue except that UNC’s strength is on the inside, which means they should get to the free throw line a lot. Tonight they were in the bonus with almost 10 minutes to go, but their inability to hit free throws and then their reluctance to go into the post (perhaps a fear of missed throws?) cost them a relatively easy opportunity to get back into the game. What is even worse is that they do not have a single player on the team who can be counted on to consistently hit free throws. After tonight’s game they only have two players shooting over 70% from the free throw line (P.J. Hairston at 83% on 12 attempts all year and Marshall at 75% on eight attempts all year). We don’t want to go “sample size” on you, but those are really small sample sizes. Hairston is a freshman so we don’t have a reliable prior free throw percentage for him, but Marshall shot 69% last season. As for the players on the team that actually get to the line? None of them even hit two-thirds of their attempts. You are probably thinking that 60.7% isn’t that bad and there is some data to suggest that we tend to overrate the importance of free throw shooting. Still 60.7% is really, really bad. How bad is that? Do you remember the most famous bad free throw shooting team of all-time? The 2007-08 Memphis Tigers? The ones that shot so poorly from the line that their coach went on-air to defend them before their season collapsed when they missed key free throws down the stretch? They shot slightly better at 61.4% from the free throw line as a team.

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1. Alabama’s 6-0 start has put the college basketball community on full alert. Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports writes about the ten things that have impressed him so far in this early season, and Alabama’s solid play is the first mention. He cites the excellent defense from Anthony Grant‘s Crimson Tide and assertiveness of forward Tony Mitchell. Mitchell and his thunderous dunks have been impressive thus far, helping this Alabama squad enter the discussion as one of the SEC’s best teams, an exclusive club of which they were not a member in the preseason. Grant’s exciting athletes and intense defense has brought praise not only for the Crimson Tide, but the legitimacy of the Southeastern Conference.
2. But don’t get too comfortable, Alabama fans. The injury bug that has hit multiple SEC teams thus far is headed to Tuscaloosa. JaMychal Green was held out of Wednesday’s game Alabama A&M with a hip pointer. And the Tide’s leading scorer, Mitchell, left the game on crutches. The Daily Bama Blog reports that Mitchell’s injury appears to be only a sprained ankle.  “When it happened I’m sure it was painful, but I think our medical staff will do a great job making sure he’s healthy,” coach Grant said. A huge sigh of relief for Alabama as both Mitchell and Green are crucial to the Tide’s success. Alabama returns to action Sunday against VCU, and both players should be back in action.
3. The guys at Anchor of Gold spent some time praising Jeffery Taylor’s outstanding defensive presence. Taylor was assigned to Oregon State star Jared Cunningham who was coming off a 35-point effort against Hofstra and a 37-point massacre of Texas. When Taylor matched up with Cunningham one-on-one, Cunningham went 2-6 and managed 7 points in 28 minutes of action. Defensive specialist Dai-Jon Parker spelled Taylor for spurts and held Cunningham to 2 points in 8 minutes. Taylor and Parker’s perimeter defense remains key to Vanderbilt‘s success this season. A number of athletic and high scoring guards from Kentucky, Florida, and others will come into Nashville this season, and Taylor will need to repeat his “ferocious” defensive effort for the Commodores to continue to string together victories.
4. John Calipari‘s Kentucky Wildcats played a little 2-3 zone in their 88-40 route of Radford on Wednesday night. “I think it’s something that we need to think about doing some,” Calipari said. “And we’ve got to get better than we are right now.” A zone could be a viable option on defense for the Cats because of Kentucky’s length and athleticism.  “I don’t see us giving up wide-open shots because we’re so big,” Calipari said about the possibilities of playing more zone. “I would probably do it with a big lineup so that every shot is a contested shot.” Kentucky has just over a week and a half to figure out what defense to play before the Cats take on the number one ranked North Carolina Tar Heels.
5. It’s an abbreviated Morning Five today as we encourage you to enjoy the holiday. And of course, enjoy lots and lots of college basketball. Happy Thanksgiving to all SEC fans. May your dunks be thunderous and your defense be ferocious.

1. After suffering a rash of injuries early in the season, Louisville finally got some good medical news when it cleared Rakeem Buckles to return to practice today. Buckles is coming back from surgery on his right knee after tearing his ACL at the end of February. We are not sure what kind of shape Buckles is in now, but we hope that he is in better health (and has better luck) after an injury-riddled sophomore season in which he had to sit out three different times due to various injuries (ACL tear, concussion, and a broken finger). If Buckles comes back in shape, he could provide the Cardinals with some much needed toughness in the paint.
2. The investigation into allegations against Bernie Fine appears to be getting messier. While there are additional details coming out about how the case came back into spotlight, the real action is happening between the Syracuse DA’s office and police department. After initially serving the police department with a subpoena and being met by claims of wanting to present the case in whole rather than pieces, the DA is now claiming that the police department illegally leaked the reports from the alleged victims in an attempt to embarrass the DA’s office for the way it originally handled the case. The way things are going it appears like this case may not have the tawdriness and explicit details of a school orchestrated cover-up that some are speculating may have happened at Penn State, but we may have a much messier legal situation because two of the primary prosecuting entities are bickering, which may compromise whatever case there is here.
3. Sunday was a rough day for Washington. Not only did they get blown out at Saint Louis, but sophomore C.J. Wilcox also suffered a concussion after running into a screen. He has been limited in practice this week, but is expected to play tomorrow. Prior to Sunday’s game, which he had to leave early and did not come back, Wilson had been leading the team in scoring with nearly 19 points per game. According to the report it appears to be a relatively mild concussion so they expect he will be able to return at full strength. In any event, the Huskies probably will not need Wilcox’s services that much until two weeks from now when they play Marquette and Duke.
4. Steve Alford may have a somewhat unique recruiting situation on his hands as his son Bryce is putting up some big numbers as a junior in Albuquerque. In a win on Tuesday night, Bryce scored 44 points to break a school single-game scoring record held by former Arizona star A.J. Bramlet. While Bryce is not considered one of the truly elite recruits in his class at this time, he is highly regarded and probably would fit in well at his father’s school assuming he wants to stay in the area and be coached by his father. Steve will not only have the advantage of being in his son’s ear everyday (assuming the NCAA doesn’t have a rule against fathers talking to their sons); he will also have other advantages that nobody else can match. As USC’s legendary coach John McKay said of recruiting his own son, “I had a rather distinct advantage. I slept with his mother.”
5. As we mentioned in a column yesterday, Kentucky’s team is fascinating on a number of levels. We choose to focus on the variability of each player’s individual performance and how they are relying on individual excellence rather than a team-based approach. Andy Glockner has an excellent piece on how John Calipari is dealing with coaching such a young team, an experience that is not that new for him. As Glockner notes, this type of young talented team is increasingly common at Kentucky and its legacy will be determined by how well it reacts to Calipari’s coaching.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Jarnell Stokes Still Ineligible For His Senior Season

Jarnell Stokes Is Ineligible For His Senior Basketball Season. (Wildcat Blue Nation)

Top-20 Recruit Left Searching For Other Options. The TSSAA Board of Control, the body of people responsible for deciding whether Class of 2012 power forward Jarnell Stokes can play basketball his senior season, announced Monday that they denied his appeal to the August ruling that said he cannot play in the 2011-12 season. Stokes was initially ruled ineligible by Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association executive director Bernard Childress after transferring from Central High School (TN) to Southwind High School (TN). Stokes has lived in the same address for the past nine years in the Southwind district but was able to attend Central on an academic exemption as a freshman. However, Stokes’ academic record over the last three years doesn’t meet any of the ten TSSAA guidelines that would have allowed him to transfer and become eligible at Southwind this season. Despite the setback, Stokes and his family still have several other options. One option, something that Stokes’ father says is a possibility, is that Stokes can graduate early and enroll in college in January (keep in mind though that he is still uncommitted). Another option he has is to return back to Central, but his father says that almost certainly won’t happen. Stokes is a good enough player though that, even if he doesn’t player basketball this year, the likes of Arkansas, Memphis and Kentucky will still recruit him and his recruitment should be unaffected.

What They’re Saying

• Senior standout Ricardo Ledo on who Providence is going after: “We’re trying to get [Class of 2012 power forward] Chris Obekpa, we’re trying to get [Class of 2013 center] Nerlens Noel, we’re going hard at him. We’re trying to get [Class of 2012 small forward] JaKarr Sampson.”

Ricardo Ledo Says Providence Is Going After Chris Obekpa, Nerlens Noel And JaKarr Sampson.

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What’s wrong with this Kentucky team? They “only” won by 10 points against the front-runner in the Big 12. They “only” won by 10 against one of the best and most physical mid-major teams in a day game in which they had been away from home for about a week. By now we have heard at length how Marquis Teague is not leading this team like the great point guards (Wall, Knight) before him. Twitter inevitably arose with chants of “overrated” during the first half of the Kansas game where UK struggled in its first true test. Even our own national overlords at Rush The Court questioned whether or not this team is more than a collection of highly talented individuals. Suspicions are high, as this team is under the microscope of critics looking for any little thing to nitpick.

For the record, this Kentucky team is fine. They are young, and will only get better as they come together through tough games in December. They may even lose a game or two throughout the season. But for my money, they are still the best team in the country.

Get down low big fella...

That doesn’t mean the Wildcats are without faults. Turnovers are an issue, and have been mentioned with the shaky play of Teague at the helm. But improvement will come with time and experience, something Teague will get plenty of with big December games against UNC and Louisville. Interior defense has been somewhat of a concern as physical post players can take advantage of the lack of a true center in the middle of the Kentucky defense. Old Dominion’s 6’9″, 230-pound bruiser, Chris Cooper, showed what can happen when someone bodies up to Kentucky’s front line as he poured in 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Monarchs. But have you seen Kentucky’s 6’10” freak of nature, Anthony Davis? Give him time, folks. He will adjust to the physical nature of the college game. And then we’re all really in for a show.

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The old adage is that for many great teams the whole is greater than the sum of their parts, but for this year’s Kentucky team the opposite may be true. While John Calipari and the rest of Big Blue Nation hopes that this changes by the end of the season, the team’s performance early on indicates that this may not be the case. If the Wildcats continue to excel as individuals playing well in moments, but doing so inconsistently, the question is whether these Kentucky Wildcats are loaded enough to win a title by relying on their extraordinarily talented parts as opposed to becoming an efficiently functioning team. We have seen plenty of instances where supremely talented teams fail to live up to their potential because they rely on spectacular individual performances rather than cohesive play as a unit. However, few college basketball teams have boasted this amount of talent (all five Kentucky starters could be selected in next year’s NBA Lottery), particularly in an era where much of the top-level talent spends so little time in college.

Are The Wildcats A Group Of Individuals Or A Team?

The suggestion that the Wildcats function more as a talented group of individuals rather than a team should not be taken as a condemnation of Kentucky’s basketball team or John Calipari’s coaching methods even if some within the Big Blue Nation will take it as such. It is more a reflection of the extraordinary talent on this team and the lack of experience (outside of two seniors, the rotation is essentially two sophomores and four freshmen). You can make a compelling argument that the Wildcats still have ample time this season to come together as a team, but an equally compelling argument can be made that the skill sets of the players in their rotation tend to overlap so much that it is unrealistic for Calipari to put a rotation of his five best players on the floor and not have at least one of the players be somewhat redundant. As a result, it is unlikely that Kentucky will use all five players on the court at their optimal level, particularly on offense.

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1. Ready to debate? By all means, grab a cup of coffee first and let’s get to it. Ron Chimelis of The Republican says John Calipari doesn’t need to win an NCAA title to be a Hall of Famer. Chimelis thinks Calipari already has the resume to make it in. He cites Cal’s 512 wins (42 of those were later vacated by the NCAA leaving him with 470 official wins), three Final Fours appearances (two of those were wiped from the record books), and his remarkable turn-arounds with Massachusetts and Memphis. Chemelis thinks Calipari will in fact win the title that has evaded him throughout his career, but he has a Hall of Fame resume without it. What say you? Will there be a HOF ballot more criticized and talked about than Calipari’s? Does he need a national title to punch his ballot into the Hall? Or do you despise Calipari so deeply that you don’t want him in no matter how many championships he wins?
2. Regardless of your feelings for Calipari, you have to agree that he has produced a long line of talented point guards dating back to his days in Memphis. Cal has taken up for his newest floor general, Marquis Teague, by taking to Twitter. Teague has been erratic in his first four collegiate games for Kentucky, committing 18 turnovers and never quite settling in to the flow of the game. Calipari tweets, “Gotta love the #BBN, only our fans would point out that my last two PG’s also had 18 turns in the 1st 4 games. DRose & Tyreke had a bunch 2.” He quickly followed with another tweet, “Marquis will be fine. I’m gonna spend more time w/ him & once we get it figured out everyone will be talking about how good he is.” Freshmen, especially point guards, almost always take a little time to adjust to the speed of the college game. Remember, Teague has only played in four college games. Give the young man time. Cal has proven that he has an outstanding track record with point guards, and Teague will be another first round draft pick after developing in the Kentucky system.
3. As was mentioned here in the SEC Morning Five on Monday, Arkansas forward Marshawn Powell injured his knee in practice last Thursday. The results of his MRI revealed torn ligaments that will cause the Razorbacks’ star to miss the rest of the season. This is unfortunate news for Powell and Arkansas. “This is definitely a setback, but I told him that sometimes you have to have setbacks in order to have a great comeback,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. “He is in good spirits and looking forward to helping his team in any way that he can.” The Razorbacks are down to nine scholarship players. It is crucial for Anderson’s system to have the depth to sub in and out for his fast-paced style of play. Powell was averaging 19.5 points per game and his absence will require another (or several) Razorback(s) to step up to fill the scoring gap.
4. John Gasaway writes that Vanderbilt’s defense has not been nearly as bad as the discussion has indicated. He says the Commodores are an excellent defensive rebounding team and create a good amount of turnovers to offset the high number of two point field goals that they allow. Gasaway has been somewhat impressed with the Commodores saying “this will be the best Commodore team of recent years when (Festus) Ezeli returns.” The problem according to Gasaway is that Kentucky, Alabama, and Florida are all better than they have been in recent years as well. League play will be brutal at the top of the conference, as the top four are sure to trade off tough losses. The notion expressed in Basketball Prospectus is the same one shared here — while the SEC may not be the best conference from top to bottom, the top four is as good as any conference in the country. Vanderbilt certainly belongs in the top tier, and their defense will only improve once Ezeli returns.
5. Speaking of Ezeli, Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports says that Ezeli’s return will be a game-changer on both ends of the court for Vanderbilt. Ezeli’s defense and shot blocking ability gives the Commodores an inside presence to guard the low post, which has been a concern in the early going. On offense, he demands respect from opposing defenders, opening up the floor for the shooters – John Jenkins, Jeffery Taylor and Brad Tinsley. His presence will mean the difference between a Vanderbilt team that is hanging by a thread at the bottom of the latest Top 25 poll, and the team that was ranked in the Top 10 in the preseason. “He’s as important to us as a guy like Jared Sullinger is to Ohio State,” coach Kevin Stallings said. “I’m not saying he’s as good, but he gives us the same presence. You have to game plan for him.”