1. In a somewhat shocking turn of events at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in Latvia, Team USA lost 79-74 Friday to Russia in a quarterfinal game where the Yanks simply could not throw the ball in the ocean from outside the arc (0-9).  Nor, apparently, could they defend it, as Russia dropped 12 threes on its end, making it virtually impossible for a team lacking much of an inside presence to win the game.  The American team regrouped to throttle Poland on Saturday before finishing the tournament by beating Australia, 78-77, Sunday to take the fifth place trophy (USA’s worst showing since 2003, also a fifth place finish).  Connecticut’s Jeremy Lamb was the undisputed leader of this team, averaging 16/4 in taking 53 more shots than anyone else on the team, but the surprise of the squad may have been Creighton’s Doug McDermott, the 2010-11 MVC ROY but someone that most national fans haven’t yet heard of.  The rising sophomore went for averages of 11/6 in the tournament and proved the only player on the roster capable of reliably hitting threes (39.3%) — keep an eye out for this future March Madness hero in coming seasons.
2. So what happened to cause a disappointing fifth place finish (Team USA was expected to win gold or silver) in Latvia this year?  Luke Winn writes that the hordes of A-list stars who opted to stay stateside this summer — from UNC’s Harrison Barnes to Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger — had an obvious impact; but he also mentions some of the chatter from NBA GMs and scouts who openly suggested that some of the players didn’t take the competition seriously enough.  Whether this is yet another indictment of the infernal AAU system in America, or simply a matter of players foolishly failing to recognize that the rest of the world can play too, we’re not sure.  But the fact remains that USA Basketball is nowhere near as fearsome of an entity as it once was — especially at the younger levels.
3. We always talk about ranking the programs on the measure of how well they put players into the NBA, but that doesn’t always give us the entire picture.  For example, a school might have ten players in the League, but they may all ride the pine.  Another school might have half that many total players, but three or four of those could be All-Stars.  Dollars for Ballers took a stab at this problem by considering player salaries.  While @SportsGuy33 persuasively argues that NBA salaries are not always commensurate with talent and productivity (hello, Rashard Lewis!), it’s a better proxy than none at all.  So given this, would you believe that Michigan State’s five players — Jason Richardson, Zach Randolph, Morris Peterson, Shannon Brown, and Charlie Bell — had the highest salary average at $7.76M than any other school with at least three players?  Duke, with its 13 total pros, many of whom have been around for a while, collected nearly $90M in salaries last season.  Really, the only way to do this kind of analysis accurately is to tie programs to individual and team outcomes, but this is a decent start.
4. Some players get tattoos and carve messages into their hair to rep for their families; incoming Kentucky freshman Michael Gilchrist decided to change his name.  According to his tweet on Friday afternoon, one of the best freshmen in the country has officially changed his name to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.  He chose to add Kidd to his existing surname to honor his deceased uncle, Darrin Kidd, a mentor who suffered a fatal heart attack on the same day MKG signed his letter of intent last year; and, of course, his father, Michael Gilchrist, Sr., was shot and killed fifteen years ago.
5. On a sad note, former TCU head coach Neil Dougherty died last Tuesday during a jog in Indianapolis.  He wasn’t carrying identification and is not a local resident — he was in town as part of his current job with iHoops, an NBA/NCAA joint initiative — so after passing during the run, his body was kept as a “John Doe” until last Friday when his identity was revealed.  Dougherty was a long-time assistant throughout the 80s and 90s, most notably at his home-state school of Kansas under Roy Williams, and his age of only 50 years has many folks in Lawrence and Fort Worth shaking their heads.  He leaves a wife, Patti, and three children.  RIP, Coach Dougherty.

1. Well, this is certainly interesting.  According to this piece from wralsportsfan.com, the aircraft carrier on which public enemy #1 Osama bin Laden was buried at sea could be the same one used for the Veteran’s Day event featuring an outdoor game between North Carolina and Michigan State next November.  One of two ships will be used for the game — either the USS Ronald Reagan or the USS Carl Vinson — and the Vinson is the carrier which received  and disposed of the body of the world’s most wanted terrorist last week.  If we get to cover this game on November 11, we’ll definitely do some looking around for evidence of this — perhaps a marker of some kind, or a Kilroy Was Here insignia.  Oh, and ESPN will carry this game — no surprise there.
2. Minnesota’s Tubby Smith on Tuesday announced that he has been dealing with prostate cancer for the last year, but his most recent check-up revealed that he is now 100% free of the disease and he is “feeling great” as a result.  This is great news, of course, and Tubby joins a number of prominent head coaches who have been treated for this illness in the past several years — names including Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, UConn’s Jim Calhoun, and most recently, St. John’s’ Steve Lavin.  We’re pretty sure that this is not something confined to Big East coaches and Tubby Smith, but it does prove again the necessity for men over the age of 50 to have regular testing in this area, as it could ultimately save your life.
3. More on this later today, but the $200,000 raise that Rick Barnes received after his second straight disappointing season (and fourth in five years) proves that the Texas head coaching job is a plum position for someone who can simply tread the water of reasonableness year after year.  His new salary will be $2.4M per year now, but a 6-5 NCAA record in the last five years considering the number of top prospects that have passed through Austin is somewhat shameful.  At a basketball school, he would have already been run out of town for this level of performance; but at Texas, it’s worth a  9% raise.
4. Now that rosters are mostly set for the 2011-12 season (knuckleheads over the summer notwithstanding), Luke Winn is ready to present us with his Power Rankings for next saeson.  How awesome is it that he dropped some Belmont on us in the #16 slot.  Keep workin’ it, Luke.  While on the topic of rankings for next season, Jeff Goodman also came out with his Top 25 yesterday.  He, however, shamefully did not rank the Bruins from Belmont.
5. And now for something completely different.  Remember that Venoy Overton story from the latter half of the season that involved him being investigated and later exonerated for a sexual assault?  Seattle Weekly dishes the details from the 227-page police report that paints a somewhat different picture than the one bandied about the Seattle area for the better part of two months last season.  It’s well worth a read, especially with respect to holding our tongue the next time we roll our eyes when a player gets accused of some kind of sexual assault — you just never know.   Read it.

1. Might there be a Gus Johnson reprieve?  Yesterday we wrote about how incredibly disappointed we were that Gus had decided to take his talents to Fox Sports in coming years, effectively ending his career with CBS and seemingly eliminating any more future chances for Heartbreak City! Michael Hiestand of USA Today writes, though, that his new employer would have no problem with ‘loaning out’ Gus to CBS/Turner during future NCAA Tournaments should they want him for their wall-to-wall coverage (see: ESPN’s Jay Bilas, for example).  That last bit is the key part, right there.  As popular as Gus was among college basketball fans under the age of 40, his departure was in some ways political in nature, and we figure it would be tough for CBS to bring back someone who rejected their final offer and left for another network (jilted girlfriend theory).  Still, a glimmer of hope in what appeared to be cavernous darkness…
2. Now that the Maryland job search is over, it’s Texas A&M’s turn.  Athletic Director Bill Byrne has quite a tough job ahead of him given the success of his two previous hires, Mark Turgeon and Billy Gillispie, but according to TSN, native Houstonian and Memphis head coach Josh Pastner is not available.  The Houston Chronicle reported on Tuesday that Marquette’s Buzz Williams was now A&M’s primary target, but his buyout and salary were probably too rich for TAMU to match.  This leaves a reported list of three intriguing names — Nebraska’s Doc Sadler, Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall, and Colorado’s Tad Boyle.  Of the three, Marshall would appear to be the kind of coach in the Gillispie/Turgeon vein to seem the best fit, with demonstrated success at the mid-major level and the requisite ambition to make it at the highest level.
3. Luke Winn breaks down the somewhat embarrassing coaching searches that went on at four ACC schools so far this offseason — NC State, Miami (FL), Georgia Tech, and most recently, Maryland.  Among the four schools, roughly eight to ten candidates (depending on who you ask) turned these  programs down in favor of their current schools that, by and large, would have represented stepping stones to bigger things in the not-too-distant past.  Mark Few at Gonzaga began this trend last decade: an absurd notion that a coach could build an A-list program at a non-BCS school, short of the pressures of insane fan bases but with nearly as much exposure, recruiting penetration and success as many of the big boys.  More recently, Brad Stevens at Butler, Tommy Amaker at Harvard, Shaka Smart at VCU and Chris Mooney at Richmond have decided to stick with the devil they know rather than the one they don’t, and we can’t truly say we blame them.  This is especially true in a league like the ACC, where the twin titans of Duke and Carolina lord over the league nearly every year and it’s extremely difficult to challenge and (even temporarily) overcome them.  Gary Williams did it as well as it’s been done in the last twenty years, but we don’t blame coaches who think they’d be walking into situations where they’re mostly set up to fail.
4. A bit of transfer news from Tuesday… Kansas State forward and overall disappointment Wally Judge has decided that he will play his final two seasons at Rutgers, ultimately betting on the future of Mike Rice’s program rather than to take a chance at Maryland with new head coach Mark Turgeon.  The 6’9, 248-lb former McDonald’s All-American averaged 6/4 in around fifteen minutes per game last year before leaving the K-State program in late January.  Meanwhile, NC State point guard Ryan Harrow has announced the schools he will visit in coming weeks, including Kentucky, Louisville, St. John’s, Georgia and Texas.  The odds-on favorite is SJU, as both of Harrow’s folks are products of Queens and consider the Johnnies their hometown school.  Whoever gets the freshman will be getting a talented floor leader, as Harrow averaged 9/3 in 23 minutes per game and started most of the Wolfpack’s contests at the end of last season.
5. Love or hate the man as a comedian-cum-superstar center or lazy, out-of-shape impresario who wasted some of his best playing years getting involved in things other than basketball, but there can be no question that Shaquille O’Neal possesses a heart of pure gold when it comes to his generosity.  Anyone who has watched his Shaq-a-Claus bit each winter, or has heard the numerous off-record stories about his many random acts of incredible kindness to regular Joes, knows this truth.  So when we read that Shaq was resisting the placement of a life-sized statue of himself outside the new LSU practice facility that he helped pay for, consider us completely unsurprised.  It turns out that the Big Aristotle has been anonymously putting millions into LSU infrastructure for years, including to help pay for an on-campus hotel and an academic center, contributions to the point that two LSU Board of Supervisors members demanded that Shaq’s statue go up first — even ahead of the man whose name adorns the arena, Pete Maravich.  We’ve said for a long time that we’ve never seen another player at 19 years old who could do the things at his size that Shaq could do, but we were always referring to his athleticism and stature; it turns out we might have been unwittingly also referring to the big fella’s ticker, and we didn’t even know it.  Here’s what the statue will look like, if Shaq ever approves its completion.

Best Collegian We've Ever Seen At His Size

1. George Washington University fired longtime coach Karl Hobbs on Monday, and it appears to have been a complete surprise to him.  In ten seasons at the helm in Foggy Bottom, he went 166-129 (84-76 A-10), but after a nice run in the middle part of the decade where GW averaged 24 wins and made three straight NCAA Tournaments, his teams have been consistently mediocre for the last four years (averaging 13 wins and finishing near the bottom of the Atlantic 10 in three of the four years).  Given its academic and international focus in addition to its location in the heart of DC, GW isn’t the easiest school in the world at which to build a great basketball program, but Hobbs did as well as could be reasonably expected for a little while.  He eventually wore out his welcome, though, with a tendency to recruit academically questionable kids and a stubborn refusal to fix a strained relationship with both fans and the local media — it’ll be interesting to see who GW brass gets to replace him.
2. Former San Diego star and current accused pointshaver Brandon Johnson made his first appearance in federal court yesterday as a result of his arrest for allegedly fixing a 2010 game and soliciting a former teammate to do the same in a 2011 contest.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, he pleaded not guilty to all charges and informed the judge that he could not afford his own counsel and would need an appointed one.  He will remain free on a $25,000 bond until trial is set for later this spring — he may want to spend his time in the next month or two prepping for routines.
3. From players facing time to those who have already done it, Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery announced over the weekend that his team would add JuCo transfer player Anthony Hubbard to its roster next season.  The reason this is a little different than your typical offseason transfer is that Hubbard spent four years in prison as a result of a robbery conviction that he suffered as an 18-year old in Woodbridge, Virginia.  The 6’5 wing will start at small forward, but according to McCaffery, he has a versatile skill set that will allow him to play multiple positions as a Hawkeye.  From what Hubbard is saying, it appears that his head is on straight and is thankful for the opportunity he has to play Division I basketball — still, he should expect to hear all kinds of things on the road in places like West Lafayette and East Lansing next season.
4. As we mentioned yesterday, the NBA Draft deadline came and went on Sunday night.  The early entrants who have not yet signed with an agent will have a grand total of two weeks to decide if they’re going to stick with the draft or head back to their college campuses for another year.  Luke Winn breaks down the ten schools with the most to lose in the next two weeks, and unsurprisingly, Kentucky with its possible loss of three starters is at the top of the list.  Mike DeCourcy names his four schools who have been hit hardest thus far (with players not returning), and it might surprise you the school he has listed at the top.
5. This article by the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Rick Bozich takes a look at the NBA Playoffs from the perspective of a college hoops fan.  While we take issue with his choice of “top fifty playoff scorers” as the only metric to determine playoff performance, he still found some interesting results from the analysis.  For example, which school do you think has gotten the most scoring bang for its buck in this year’s playoffs so far?  Any clues?  Would you believe… UCLA, with Russell Westbrook, Trevor Ariza and Jrue Holiday?  Yeah, go figure…

1. The biggest news on Monday was that UNC’s Harrison Barnes announced that he would return to Chapel Hill for his sophomore season.  His decision makes UNC the presumptive #1 team in most prognosticators’ preseason top 25s, but the real winner of his and others’ (notably Perry Jones and Jared Sullinger) returns might just be the sport of college basketball in general.  With these stars joining a strong freshman group from the Class of 2011, many teams will be considerably stronger than they otherwise might normally be in a year without an NBA lockout looming, and if you’re not already excited for a possible blockbuster rematch of bluebloods UNC and UK  in Lexington next December, then you should have your motor checked.
2. In keeping with the theme of Barnes return to the Research Triangle, Luke Winn goes one step further (when doesn’t he?) and analyzes the relative impact of the player who got progressively better as the year went on in 2010-11.  He points out that the Heels with Barnes, Tyler Zeller, John Henson and James McAdoo in the lineup next season could join only 1999 Duke and 2005 UNC as two schools with four lottery picks on the roster — it says here that while an extremely impressive feat if it occurs, the 2012 Heels will be nowhere as good as either of those other two teams were (and he points out why in the later part of the column, weaknesses of their guard play).
3. Over the weekend, Winthrop mascot Big Stuff — a bird representing the Winthrop Eagle — walked “basketball-mad” fan Johannes Schneider down the aisle of his wedding to marry bride-to-be Michelle Waters.  While mascots getting involved in superfan nuptials is nothing new, the best part of this story relates to the mascot asking a date to the wedding and how he tried to describe that he would be acting as Big Stuff in the proceedings.  Great stuff, Big Stuff.
4. SEC Commissioner Mike Slive spoke in an informal Q&A on Monday about the logic behind the unprecedented eight-game suspension he placed on Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl last season as a result of NCAA and SEC violations.  He also said that the conference had no role in Pearl’s dismissal from UT (“sole purview of the institution”), and that he still keeps a good relationship intact with the now-unemployed coach.  Obviously, you can believe what you want, but a quick review of the comments at the bottom of that article certainly relates a general feeling that most UT fans do not particularly care for Mr. Slive nor his logic.
5. As top dog at Indiana for three decades, Bob Knight was rarely on the Christmas list of the blue-and-white faithful living one state to the south.  But the Sweatered One has reserved a special place in hell for John Calipari, as he has used his bully pulpit as Crotchety Commentator in Chief to repeatedly goad and rip the current Kentucky head coach as pretty much a horrendous person with no ethical compass whatsoever.  The latest incident occurred during a speech over the weekend in Wabash, Indiana, where Knight referred to UK’s 2009-10 team as having “started five players…who had not been to class that semester.”  He’s referring in vague terms to the four one-and-done players (plus junior Patrick Patterson) whom Kentucky put into the NBA Draft last summer.  UK fired back almost immediately, stating that “every starter from the 2010 season finished the spring semester in good academic standing,” but the damage was once again already done.  Whether fair or not, Knight expressed the perception that many (most?) sports fans around the country have about Calipari, and it’s an open question to us if he or Kentucky can do anything to change that (erroneous?) sentiment.  Here’s the clip from the speech:

1. Add Illinois forward Jereme Richmond to the group of disappointing freshmen exhibiting their selfishness by skipping the year-end team banquet in favor of “preparing” for the NBA Draft.  As if spending two to three hours eating, laughing and commiserating with your teammates will derail that dream.  Kansas guard Josh Selby did the same thing last week, as he was “working out” in Las Vegas during the KU banquet and couldn’t be bothered with celebrating a 35-3 season with his team.  Interestingly, both players routinely found themselves in their head coach’s doghouse this season, and each at times seemed to think he was a lot better than he was actually performing — Richmond averaged 7/5 RPG in 22 MPG, while Selby went for 8/2 APG in roughly the same amount of time last season.  This is yet another reason why the one-and-done rule needs to go; it gives players like these two prima donnas a false sense of their talent based on high school rankings made not even a year ago.  Speaking of Selby in particular, Gary Parrish deconstructs the Rivals #1 recruit’s draft prospects (being compared to Willie Warren, ouch!) and how he got there — very instructive stuff.
2. Of course, the biggest NBA Draft news of Wednesday was Arizona’s Derrick Williams taking his prodigious talents to the League.  Thanks to a great March including a game-saving plays against Memphis and Texas and a statement performance against Duke in the Sweet Sixteen, Williams has shot up most draft boards to the point where he’s considered one of the top two picks in the draft.  He will sign with an agent, leaving no doubt that his fantastic two-year career in Tucson is now over.  He will also undoubtedly go down as one of the players who led Arizona back into the national consciousness, something that probably didn’t seem possible so soon a couple of short  years ago.
3. And a couple more…  Butler’s Shelvin Mack has decided to test the waters but will not sign with an agent, while Memphis’ Wesley Witherspoon announced that he will return for his senior year.  Mack in particular is an interesting case — he performed extremely well last summer against both professional players and his peers, and although he struggled with his shot for much of last season, he came on very strong in the Bulldogs’ run in this year’s NCAA Tournament.  He’s considered a late first round/early second round pick.  Witherspoon is making a good decision, as he had an injury-plagued junior year that didn’t allow him to show the true talent that he possesses — coming back healthy for a senior season will do him a lot of good.  One other note with respect to testing the waters, John Calipari is encouraging all three of his draftable players — Terrence Jones, Brandon Knight and DeAndre Liggins — to explore their professional options over the next few weeks.
4. Note we said “weeks” with respect to the UK players exploring their options above.  The actual deadline for a player to return to school is May 8 this year, which gives players some, but not a lot, of time to assess their prospects before making a final decision.  Yet with today’s shameful ruling by the NCAA Legislative Council to further reduce the amount of time players have to make such a life-altering decision, it begs the question as to who these people are actually working for — the student-athletes that need valid information about their prospects, or the coaches who want to get out onto the golf course (as Mike DeCourcy eloquently argues)?  MD is much more tactful than we’ll be here, but in case you’re wondering where this all came from, a certain ACC coach got very annoyed by having to wait until the very last day of the deadline in 2008 (which was then mid-June) to see what his players would do.  The irony is that Ty Lawson, Danny Green and Wayne Ellington ultimately stayed in school, and that coach won a national title the next season because of their late decisions.  Makes sense, right?
5. Enough about that.  How about a little post-championship analysis from Luke Winn to finish things off?  The Brooklyn Bohemian comes strong as always with a put-it-to-rest analysis of whether Butler’s miserable shooting night in the title game was a result of an off night or great defense.  You’ll need to read it to see his conclusion, but you should open the link assured that he leaves very little room for debate about the correct one.

Sullinger & His Buckeyes Perform Well in the Metrics

I obviously place a great deal of trust in respect in Ken Pomeroy’s statistical rankings that use Pythagorean expectation-based offensive and defensive efficiencies. Well, Ken has upped the ante by running a log5 analysis of the tournament field which breaks down the expectation of a given team to reach each round. Even more fun, Neil Paine at Basketball Reference ran Monte Carlo Simulation of the tournament 10,000 times using Pomeroy’s values and posted the very interesting results. Jeff Sagarin’s list uses scoring margin and a clever use of the Elo rating system (originally designed to rank chess players) to come up with his list of things to pick. Naturally, Nate Silver can’t resist weighing in with his method of making picks, which basically does for March Madness what Five Thirty Eight did for electoral math. His system, much like his polling methodology, is a weighted aggregation of different sources like Ken Pomeroy and Sagarin’s ranking plugged in with other factors that Silver thinks are important like geography, player ranking, and pre-season ranking. The sources he pulls from are exhaustive and smart while his methodology is well-reasoned. That said, it’s worth mentioning that a dumb “wisdom of the crowds” type list, such as ESPN’s national bracket (an average of all individual brackets) tends to outperform the majority of individual brackets.

Now, here’s the question: are you trying to predict the winner of games or are you trying to win a pool? These are not the same thing and it’s important to make the distinction. The national bracket, as I mentioned, usually gets a lot of the answers right. For the big questions, common sense is usually close enough. You want to know who has the best chance of winning the NCAA? Ohio State.  Pretty much every system, rankings, and analytics have Ohio State as the best team in the country. I happen to think this as well. I also think that the four number one seeds have the best chance of making it to the Final Four. Lots of folks agree with me and lots of analytics back it up.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. The biggest news of Tuesday was undoubtedly the loss of BYU’s Brandon Davies, a sophomore forward who was banging his way to 11/6 nightly, picking up scraps left over from Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery, the two leading scorers.  Davies allegedly broke the school’s honor code, and he was suspended for the rest of the season.  The Cougars are tracking toward a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but they’ll need to prove that they can play just as well without Davies in the lineup as they have with him to satisfy the NCAA Selection Committee.  Forward Noah Hartsock is expected to move into Davies’ vacated center position, but Hartsock’s power forward spot will need to be filled by a less experienced player such as Kyle Collinsworth or Charles Abouo.  Very tough break for Dave Rose and the BYU program in its best season in a generation.
2. In other news involving personnel losses (or non-losses), UNC backup guard Reggie Bullock will miss the remainder of the season with a torn lateral meniscus that he suffered during the weekend’s Maryland game.  This is not a huge loss for the Heels, as Bullock was only contributing 6/3 in about fifteen minutes per game this season, but he was third on the team in three-pointers made (29) and this will make Roy Williams’ team a little more suspect against zone defenses the rest of the year.  In much better news, Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen had his right wrist x-rayed after banging it in Monday night’s game against Texas, and although it was sore and swollen, there is no broken bone.  He is expected to play this coming weekend in Senior Day festivities at Bramlage Coliseum against Iowa State.
3. Luke Winn gives us his top eight potential bid stealers for the next two weeks — teams who could make strong runs through their conference tournaments to knock someone like Virginia Tech or Michigan off the ‘last four in’ line.  Winn’s list is a good one, but we’d perhaps add a few more names to the discussion: Washington State (Pac-10), Alabama (SEC), San Francisco (WCC) and any number of teams from Conference USA.
4. Remember former Binghamton guard DJ Rivera, the former America East star whom coaches refused to vote for POY in 2009 even though he was clearly the best player in that league?  Oh, he also was partially responsible for the implosion of the Binghamton program when he was arrested in the fall of 2009 for swiping a debit card and subsequently using it to purchase snacks, cigars and a large-screen television before getting caught.  His arrest along with Tiki Mayben’s commensurate arrest for selling crack cocaine resulted in several players getting kicked off the team and a national scandal that the school is still recovering from.  Why is this relevant now?  On Monday, Rivera pleaded guilty to the crime — fourth degree criminal possession of stolen property — and he will face nine months’ probation, which, if he keeps his nose clean, will allow him to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor and pursue a basketball career overseas.  This plea marks the final chapter in the scandal — BU has gone 20-40 since the program was destroyed that summer.
5. Maybe these guys should talk to our friends at HSAC so as to learn how to properly perform an interesting study.  Virginia Tech, fresh off three straight years on the wrong side of the bubble, commissioned statisticians at the College of Science to determine what the biases are that go into making bubble selections into the NCAA Tournament.  Their conclusion: a team’s RPI, its strength of schedule, and its historical pedigree factor prominently into successful bids.  In other words, everything you already knew.  Across campus, no doubt, Hokie researchers have recently proven that water is indeed wet and sunshine comprises the majority of daylight.  Here’s a memo to Seth Greenberg: how about instead of hanging your hat on a few big-time wins every season, you beat the teams you’re supposed to beat, especially at home.

1. You know about the NCAA sanctions against UConn and Jim Calhoun already… so get yourself ready for another day of discussion about NCAA allegations, as Tennessee has learned and will release later today its notice of allegations as a result of the Bruce Pearl scandal and several other alleged violations.  Pearl in particular is “expected to be accused of unethical conduct and failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance,” according to FoxSports, one of the most serious allegations that can be levied against a head coach.  Mike DeCourcy points out that the UConn sanctions do not allow Pearl to rest easily, given that former Husky director of basketball operations Beau Archibald was given a two-year “show cause” penalty for unethical conduct, the same thing that Pearl is charged with.  Yikes.  UT won’t have its day in court against the committee of infractions until June, so it won’t impact this season any further, but the Volunteer program and fans cannot be feeling very comfortable today.
2. Ohio State may have lost two of its last three games, but head coach Thad Matta is keeping things in perspective in realizing that the Buckeyes lost their games in two of the toughest road environments in the country against teams who could get to the Final Four.  We’re generally in agreement with Matta.  It took an insane performance by E’Twaun Moore last weekend to take down OSU in Mackey, and the Badgers were equally ridiculous in its comeback against the Buckeyes the weekend prior.  In our view, Ohio State is still the most balanced and capable team in America, and on a neutral floor we’re not sure anyone will beat them in March.
3. Is it even possible that the lunatic fringe known as the Mississippi State basketball program could be surging at the right time to make a run just in time for the postseason after a tumultuous season of disappointment?  From Renardo Sidney’s haymakers to Ravern Johnson’s tweets to Dee Bost’s credits to Rick Stansbury’s hair turning gray seemingly by the minute, it’s been a wild ride in Starkville this year.  And the answer is a resounding NO, despite what these southern fried writers (this one believes that Sidney is deserving of praise, not criticism) are trying to sell their local fans — MSU might end up with a Thursday bye into the quarterfinal round of the SEC Tournament, but to expect them to (most likely) beat three solid East teams to win the event is all kinds of ridiculous.  They haven’t won three in a row since the start of the season playing a bunch of nobodies.
4. Speaking of concerns, Butler’s Brad Stevens has had a lot to worry about this year as his Bulldogs have spent most of the season looking for a post-Final Four identity with returnees Matt Howard, Ronald Nored and Shelvin Mack back in the fold.  In keeping with his cool cat persona, though, Stevens said recently that he didn’t “freak out” over Butler’s nine losses, all of which came before February 3.  Now, with his team on a six-game winning streak and having pushed itself back onto the NCAA bubble, Stevens believes that his team was always “pretty close” to being good.  With one more regular season game and strong opportunity to receive a double-bye in the Horizon League Tourney again (the tiebreaker scenarios are incredibly complicated), the Bulldogs appear almost there.
5. Luke Winn is back with his Late Season Style Archive feature.  This is obviously a must-read, but which of his twenty different looks are your favorites?  For our money, Jay-R Stowbridge’s Yellow Man, Norris Cole’s high fade, Mike Bruesewitz’s Redhead Revival, and Justin Graham’s Flying Spicoli.  Submit your favs below…

1. One of the great offshoots of the partnership of CBS with Turner Sports for the upcoming fourteen years of NCAA Tournament is that they’ve finally figured out a clean and easy way for fans to watch every game live if they want to.  No more signing up for Mega March Madness or waiting on Greg Gumbel to shoot you to a better game (after a commercial break, of course).  Now, they will have four different channels through which to put the games, and with a more realistic staggering of tip times, there will be fewer scenarios where three games are coming down to a final possession at the same time.  As Mike Aresco, CBS’ executive VP for programming said, this will allow for “wall to wall coverage from Noon to Midnight.”  How awesome is this?
2. Is former Kentucky and Texas A&M head coach Billy Gillispie interested in the open Wyoming job?  Frankly, we don’t understand why he would have any interest at all.  Texas Tech is going to have an opening next month and the Longhorn State is his recruiting base.  And despite all the troubles he ran into in the Bluegrass State, he is a perfect fit for football-oriented schools in the footprint of the old Southwest Conference.  This potential move just doesn’t make a lot of sense to us.
3. The 2011 McDonald’s All-Americans were announced yesterday for the March 30 game in Chicago featuring the stars of tomorrow.  The big winners:  Kentucky (4), Duke (3), Louisville (3), Syracuse (2), UNC (2) — sooooo… what else is new?
4. Here’s a solid analysis of the Duke-UNC game from Wednesday night.  The thing that jumped out at us from this game was just how dominant UNC looked against Duke in the first half.  Sure, we all knew that the Blue Devils would come back, make the game competitive, and probably even win the game.  But we never thought that this collection of North Carolina players were capable of dominating this collection of Duke players at any time, anywhere, even for one half.
5. Luke Winn’s Power Rankings are always fun, but the little animated graphic he came up with to illustrate the assist difference between Larry Drew II and Kendall Marshall really cracked us up for some reason.  We half-expected the scientists from the Dharma Initiative to show up and tell us why we need to keep pressing that infernal button.