1. College basketball fans (particularly the students) love to find any part of an opposing player’s past to use to get under his skin. They will not have to look very far for Cimneon Bowers, a Florida State junior college recruit and one of the top junior college players in the country, after he was arrested along with two teammates for eating marijuana after police attempted to search their car when they smelled marijuana. Bowers and his teammates were charged with tampering with evidence and have been suspended indefinitely until the legal process is sorted out. FSU also says that they will let the legal process play out before making a decision on Bowers, but we doubt that they will back away from him based solely on this.
2. When we mentioned Notre Dame‘s Under Armour deal in this space earlier this month we wondered how much money a second-tier athletic apparel company could offer one of the most prestigious brands in college sports. It turns out that the answer is a lot of money–reportedly $90 million over 10 years. Now it is worth pointing out that this figure, which would be the biggest in college sports history, is based on the school receiving some of the company’s stock making the figure more variable than if the contract was all cash-based.
3. George Washington suffered a major setback yesterday when they announced that Kethan Savage, their second-leading scorer, would be out 6-8 weeks with a fracture to the fifth metatarsal in his left foot. Savage is averaging 13.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game so it is obviously a big loss for the Colonials who are 15-3 and looking at a potential NCAA Tournament appearance if they can keep up their current level of play in Savage’s absence. Fortunately for the Colonials they do have a fairly balanced attack with five other players averaging between 8.1 and 14.5 points per game so there is a reasonable chance that they can hold on until Savage returns.
4. A large portion of the US population enters into pools of various sizes for the NCAA Tournament with the hopes that their bracket will bring them small fortunes and/or fleeting glory. No pool (at least that we are aware of) is offering what Quicken Loans is, which is $1 billion. Sound too good to be true? There is one catch. Your bracket needs to be perfect to collect the $1 billion. The odds of doing so are 1-in-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 based on the number of potential ways to fill out a bracket, but the number drops down to an much more manageable 1-in-128 billion (the other number is quintillion) if you eliminate some stuff that has never happened before (like a 16 beating a 1). The $1 billion is payable in 40 payments of $25 million per year or one lump sum of $500 million. If you are thinking of working on 9 quintillion brackets for this March, you are only allowed to submit one per household.
5. Like nearly everybody else we were stunned by Creighton‘s ridiculous three-point shooting at the start of their game against Villanova on Monday although probably not as stunned as the Villanova staff who apparently was not aware that Creighton could shoot before the game. If you were wondering how rare that was, it appears that it is not as rare as you think. Ok, maybe it is fairly rare according to Ken Pomeroy’s play-by-play database that goes back to the start of the 2008-2009 season, but as you can see it has been done a couple of other times in that period just usually not on as a big of a stage with the exception of West Virginia against Kentucky in the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

Like most cities on the East Coast, Washington DC is a professional sports town where its NFL team is king. But for two hours on Tuesday night, Foggy Bottom transformed into a full-fledged campus town like one might find in Big Ten country. The reason? A budding intra-regional and intra-conference rivalry between George Washington and VCU. And for the first time in this young feud, the outcome of the contest had significant implications for both teams with respect to league standings and postseason prospects. George Washington made a statement with its 76-66 win over VCU and made clear that it is a serious contender to win its first Atlantic 10 title since 2005-06.  For VCU, it’s another bump in the road for what was supposed to be its most promising season since a run to the 2011 Final Four, and has Shaka Smart’s squad doing a bit of soul-searching. The outcome of this game has certainly changed the perceptions of these two teams from what was expected of them at the beginning of the season.

Sophomore Patricio Garino scored a career-high 25 points to lead the Colonials over VCU.

George Washington has quietly turned in one of the most surprising seasons in the country thus far. Picked to finish 10th out of 11 teams in the Atlantic 10 Preseason Media Poll, the Colonials now find themselves with a 14-3 overall record that includes wins against Creighton, VCU, Maryland and Miami (FL). A major reason for their turnaround has been the dramatic improvement of their offense from last season (jumping from 0.98 to 1.09 points per possession), which has been driven by the addition of Maurice Creek, a transfer from Indiana, and the emergence of players like Kethan Savage and Kevin Larsen. Against VCU on Tuesday, Larsen and reserve Patricio Garino stepped up and led the Colonials to shred the Rams’ stellar defense (it came in at 0.91 points per possession, 9th nationally) — George Washington shot 56.3 percent and scored 1.04 points per possession. This win signals that the Colonials are ready to make the Atlantic 10 a four-team race, joining the likes of VCU, UMass, and Saint Louis vying for a conference crown. They may not get the national attention their turnaround warrants, but what Mike Lonergan has done with his team has been nothing short of remarkable.

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