Just when it looked like the Blue Hens were going to run away with the CAA, Delaware announced Wednesday that starting point guard Jarvis Threatt and forward Marvin King-Davis had been suspended one month for an unspecified violation of team rules. If the nebulous infraction sounds familiar, that’s because it is — star shooting guard Devon Saddler was also suspended for an unspecified violation back in November, missing seven games as a result. Now without its leading distributor and a key frontcourt piece, Monte Ross’ team must once again adjust to playing short-handed for an extended period. And although that might spell trouble for an already-thin bunch, the good news is this: The Hens still have a big enough lead in league play and plenty of remaining offensive talent to weather the storm and claim the conference crown.

Devon Saddler and Delaware showed Wednesday that they can still win big short-handed. (AP)

If you were to examine Wednesday night’s effort at William & Mary in a vacuum, you might even think Delaware could thrive in the absence of Threatt and King-Davis. The Hens dispatched the second-place Tribe, 89-72, behind Davon Usher’s 28 points and Carl Baptiste’s career-high 23, along with team-wide 10-of-22 shooting from behind the arc. It was an impressive outcome, prompting Ross to label it “one of the most unbelievable performances” he’s been associated with as head coach. The bigger story, though, might have been Saddler — who recorded seven first-half assists in his interim point guard role — and Cazmon Hayes, whose 24 minutes were by far his most since early December. If Saddler can adapt to being both a scorer and distributor, and Hayes and forward Devonne Pinkard can be dependable contributors, Ross’ club is capable of winning more games like it did on Wednesday.

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1. The news that McDonald’s All-American Chris Walker had been cleared by the NCAA to play for Florida has been widely considered a win-win for Florida and we would tend to agree. On one side the Gators are adding a potentially explosive inside force to add to what is already a top-five team. To make it even better for the Gators it took them so long to get Walker eligible that unless he has a ridiculous February and March he will probably be back in Gainesville next season. As for the NCAA’s findings, they eventually concluded that he received impermissible benefits from five people including two agents. As punishment, Walker will need to donate $270 (the amount he reportedly received from agents) to charity and serve 80 hours of community service. Walker’s first game as a Gator is expected to be February 4 against Missouri and we are sure that everybody will be watching to see how much an impact he can have on the Gators.
2. Speaking of McDonald’s All-Americans, the latest group of McDonald’s All-Americans was announced yesterday. Looking through the list there are not any major snubs there although we are sure there are some high schoolers out there who feel left out. With the proliferation of high school all-stars games the moniker high school All-American has lost some of the luster that it had years ago, the McDonald’s honor is still the gold standard in our eyes. While the game is full of interesting match-ups (all presumably played without a bit of defense as is the tradition for all-star games) we are curious about their definitions of East and West as players from Chicago are on both squads and two players from Florida are on the West team.
3. Delaware appeared to be on the verge of running away with the CAA regular season title, but their chances took a big hit when they announced that junior guard Jarvis Threatt and sophomore forward Marvin King-Davis would be suspended for at least a month. According to the school the suspensions are for unrelated violations of athletic department policy. While both players have significant roles on the team, Threatt is by far the biggest loss as he had been averaging 17.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 2.3 steals per game (leading the CAA in both assists and steals). The Blue Hens have a 2.5 game lead in the CAA standings, but with the loss of these two for at least a month that lead might not last.
4. After starting the season 13-0 and looking like they were a potential threat to Arizona in the Pac-12, Oregon has fallen apart losing five straight before beating Washington State on the road. Now they may have to try to bounce back without the services of starting point guard Johnathan Loyd, who underwent surgery on his nose after breaking it in practice. Loyd, who leads the team with 5.7 assists per game, has not been ruled out for tonight’s game against UCLA, but if he does play he will most likely be wearing one of those masks that Richard Hamilton became well-known for wearing.
5. Although it does not happen that often sometimes margin of victory can be warped by a team going on a big run in overtime making the outcome seem like a blowout when the winning team could have easily lost the game just five minutes earlier. To determine the utility/predictive value of margin of victory in these situations, Ken Pomeroy analyzed games between teams where they played twice with one game going to overtime and the other being decided in regulation and attempted to correlate the margin of victory in the two games. The results were variable, but as you might expect they essentially found that while the margin of victory was not that strongly correlated in overtime wins it should not be thrown out based on the idea that the two teams were essentially equal that night.