Michael Dixon was expected to be a key contributor for the Missouri Tigers in their first SEC season, but after a second accusation of forcible rape, the senior guard revealed Thursday in a leaked text message to a friend that he would be leaving the program:

“Yea I’m done here bro I’m not gonna be here anymore another girl my freshman year pulled this … on me now it’s coming out and everyone is gonna think it’s real so I’m thru bro I appreciate you tho just let as many (people) as u can know”

Dixon’s Exit Leaves Missouri’s Backcourt in a Bind (Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Frank Haith, Missouri’s current coach, is not implicated in the situation, but current Arkansas coach and former Tiger Mike Anderson can’t say the same. Reportedly, Dixon’s initial accuser met with Anderson after the first incident [as he refers to in his freshman year], and though the coach didn’t pressure her to sit on her story, questions have to be asked about his treatment of Dixon in the aftermath. Anderson, through a Razorbacks spokesman, declined comment.

Dixon was the college basketball equivalent of James Harden for Missouri last season. On a team that featured four guards in the starting lineup, he was the best bench scoring option in the nation. The Kansas City product averaged 13.5 points and 3.3 assists per game, while shooting almost 49% from the field. In addition, he showed an outstanding ability to get to the free throw line, averaging almost four free throws per game and converting them at an 88% clip.

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Missouri‘s chances of replicating the (regular season) magic it had last year took a big hit this afternoon when it was revealed that senior guard Michael Dixon would no longer be part of the team. We still aren’t sure if Dixon or the school made the decision or if it was the always popular “mutual decision,” but Dixon, who has been battling an allegation of sexual assault, reportedly texted a friend the following message:

Dixon’s Departure Leaves A Lot Of Questions At Missouri (Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Yea I’m done here bro I’m not gonna be here anymore another girl my freshman year pulled this … on me now it’s coming out and everyone is gonna think it’s real so I’m thru bro I appreciate you tho just let as many (people) as u can know

Dixon followed that with this message:

I have never harmed anyone

Dixon is apparently referencing not only a current investigation by the school’s student council into a sexual assault charge that local prosecutors determined did not have enough evidence to press charges against him, but also apparently an accusation of forcible rape against him from January 2010. The other incident is explained in fairly graphic detail in the story at the link above, but the woman from 2010 reportedly did not press charges because she did not want her family to know about it and didn’t want to deal with the public fallout of accusing a basketball player of rape. According to an anonymous source (are there any other kind?), former Missouri coach Mike Anderson was aware of the accusation and suspended Dixon for “first few games because it wasn’t in the real season, and they needed him to play during the actual games.”

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1. There has been a lot of speculation and curiosity as to why Missouri‘s Michael Dixon was suspended indefinitely without reason a few months ago. On Tuesday, the Kansas City Star reported that the star Tigers guard had been accused of forcible rape on August 20 but not charged by the district attorney due to insufficient evidence. The police report, disclosed earlier this month, states that the case was “a thorough investigation” and that it “was determined that the evidence was not sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury,” according to Tracy Gonzalez of the Boone County (MO) Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Dixon, who is still serving his team suspension, will not be punished criminally, but he could face additional consequences from the school after decisions are made by the Student Conduct Committee and the Chancellor (see: Dez Wells).
2. After putting a terrible Maui Invitational performance behind them and accepting the changes needed to make from the trip, Rick Ray and the Mississippi State Bulldogs are looking forward. The first step is to get players (and coaches) back healthy. Ray returned to the sidelines Tuesday night versus Alcorn State after battling a stomach virus that kept him ill during the trip to Maui. Also, the Bulldogs got forward Colin Borchert back from a three-game suspension for a violation of team rules. Borchert contributed six points on 2-of-5 shooting in the Bulldogs’ 60-44 win. While only scoring 60 points, the Dogs held ASU to only 28.3% shooting and 18 rebounds, a subtle move in the right direction.
3. Veteran head coach Billy Donovan knows when to turn a negative situation into a teaching lesson. It has been two weeks since Florida guard Scottie Wilbekin was reinstated by the university but the savvy coach will still not yet start Wilbekin in his normal place in the lineup. Wilbekin was replaced by veteran Mike Rosario due to Wilbekin’s suspension and will continue to come off the bench until otherwise determined. Rosario has averaged 11 points a game in his place, compared to only nine points a game for Wilbekin off the bench. Donovan is using this situation as a teaching moment for Wilbekin until he can earn his spot back in the starting rotation.
4. There isn’t much hype about Arkansas shooters in the SEC when they have to contend with the likes of Kentucky, Florida, and Tennessee, but Sports Illustrated‘s Luke Winn is determined to make sure one of the Razorbacks’ top scorers receives some publicity this season. Junior Mardracus Wade was recently named one of the 16 best shooters in the country by Winn in an SI.com slideshow. Wade leads the Hogs in minutes played this season and he is shooting 40% from beyond the arc. The recent high praise for Wade and his team hopefully proves true soon, especially with a brutal non-conference slate still ahead on the menu. If things work out, Wade could join stellar sophomore BJ Young as another solid scoring option and could help lead Arkansas to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five seasons.
5. With talk about Trevor Releford and Andrew Steele as major contributors to Alabama‘s offense, the star veteran guards had to sit out Tuesday’s game versus Lamar due to injury and illness. Luckily, the Crimson Tide did not need them as they routed Lamar, 75-47. While a win over lowly Lamar was expected, what was more interesting was coach Anthony Grant‘s positive comments regarding his bench players who played significant minutes tonight. Grant was quoted in saying that he “believes in each and every one of these guys that we coach on a daily basis” and that’s the “motivation for me is to try to help them achieve the things they want to achieve and help our team achieve the things we want to achieve.” Grant’s mindset and coaching ability will help maximize the potential from these bench players who would not normally get time if Releford and Steele were healthy. Hopefully, Alabama can get both Releford (stomach virus) and Steele (groin) back quickly as they have to face #17 Cincinnati, Dayton, and VCU all within the next three weeks.

1. We might as well call this the “Realignment Day” edition of the Morning Five because it will be the dominant theme. Rumors have been swirling all week that the ACC was poised to counteract the Big Ten’s raid of Maryland over the weekend by adding another team in the Terps’ place. According to Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com, the ACC presidents are meeting this morning (probably while you’re reading this blurb) to decide if it wants to add a 14th school in all sports, and an “industry source” expects that the choice will be Louisville. Cincinnati and Connecticut are reportedly the other two schools under consideration, but the ACC feels that it can grab those two at a later date if it decides to expand to 16 members — figuring they will be there in the future with a lack of other viable options. Louisville in the ACC makes about as much sense as any of the other crazy realignment moves, but in terms of sheer basketball prowess, can a league harboring Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino and Jim Boeheim really not self-combust into nucler winter wormhole of egomania? If true, this news is astonishing.
2. Speaking of Maryland, top brass at the school have openly contemplated a reduced exit fee when it ultimately leaves the ACC for the greener pastures of the Big Ten. Only one problem with that idea — the ACC isn’t having it. In fact, the conference slapped a lawsuit on the Terps Tuesday that quite clearly states it expects a check for the sum of $52.26 million payable to league offices as a result of Maryland’s decision to leave. Upon the addition of Notre Dame in all sports except football back in September, the league presidents voted to nearly triple the exit fee to prevent situations like this from occurring — all of the 12 signed except for two, Florida State and Maryland. Whether the league ultimately gets the total amount paid is important in that it could set a compelling precedent if another school — namely, those Seminoles — also feels the draw elsewhere in pursuit of endless television dollars thrown their way by another conference. Even for big-time athletic programs, $50M is a lot of money, and especially so for broke ones like Maryland. This could get ugly before Maryland ever steps foot onto a Big Ten playing surface.
3. The only “real” realignment news of yesterday was that the Big East added Tulane (in all sports) and East Carolina (in football only) to its ongoing transformation from the best basketball conference in all of the land to a watered-down Conference USA. We are assuming it will only be a matter of time before East Carolina joins for all sports, of course, but it has to be said that this league is becoming an absolute joke. This is clearly a panicked move, but at this point the Big East is probably looking for anything fill in the gaps before the conference falls apart. We have to wonder, though, that if the Big East could put the genie back in the bottle and go back to that ridiculous but ultimately sublime premise of a northeastern-based basketball league anchored by the likes of Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova, and St. John’s, if they’d now be willing to turn back that clock. It’s too late now.
4. Yesterday we referenced an investigation into Missouri’s suspended guard Michael Dixon and later Tuesday a police report surfaced in which the narrative shows that Dixon was accused of forcible rape in August, but was not charged with a crime by local prosecutors. Somewhat similar to the Dez Wells story at Xavier, there was insufficient evidence to reasonably bring charges against Dixon and so the case against him was closed on November 16. Presumably this may have caused some of the strange tweeting by Dixon, Kim English and a woman who claims that Dixon assaulted her over the Thanksgiving weekend, but without knowing the details of the Dixon case, it’s difficult to speculate too much further. A school certainly has discretion to punish Dixon if it feels the facts are warranted, but we have trouble with situations like this one appears to be, where there is insufficient evidence to accuse a player of a crime but a school still feels the need to punish someone. Let’s hope this all resolves itself soon.
5. The ACC might be bolstering its basketball presence for years to come with a presumed addition of top 10 historical program Louisville, but as of now, the first night of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge fell squarely on the side of their midwestern-based counterparts. Not only did #2 Indiana lambaste #14 North Carolina in the headliner game, but #23 Minnesota ripped #25 Florida State in Tallahassee and Nebraska did likewise at Wake Forest. With #3 Michigan’s solid home win against #21 NC State and Maryland’s strong win at Northwestern coupled with Virginia Tech’s surprising blowout of Iowa, the Big Ten has taken a commanding 4-2 lead into tonight’s action. Why is it commanding — the answer lies in the conference’s two road wins. With three home team all favored tonight — Wisconsin, Illinois, and Penn State — along with a reasonable chance for one of Purdue, Michigan State and Ohio State to pull off a road upset, it appears that the Big Ten is well-positioned to win its fourth Challenge in a row. It says here that the final tally will be 8-4.

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

• I LOVED… Ohio State. Maybe I’m jumping on the bandwagon too early, but I grew to really enjoy this team by the end of last year and feel strongly that they have two unique pieces in Aaron Craft and DeShaun Thomas. An elite (albeit annoying, in my view) point guard and a versatile wing scorer are two of the more important components in the college game, and any team that possesses them has a chance to be a tough out.
• I LOVED… as I do every year, trying to figure out how deep this Gonzaga team can go. Each season I really get a kick out of trying to imagine the Zags playing against good competition all year, eventually accepting the reality that they don’t, and then trying to piece together a mental image of what team will show up in March when they inevitably get hit in the mouth by a legit squad with good guards. Still, it’s hard not to like Mark Few’s lineup this season. Not many teams will shoot it better than Gary Bell, Jr. and Kevin Pangos, and even though Elias Harris is turning 32 or so next week, he’s an active presence on the glass to complement a VERY underrated Sam Dower. I guess the Zags can’t be a sleeper in the traditional sense, but this might be their best (and most well-balanced) team in a while.
• I LOVED… Tom Crean showing no shame with his stick of Wrigley’s finest. How can you not love this? If strict adherence to the five-second rule and the world’s weirdest/creepiest Tweet ever doesn’t appeal to this generation’s high-schoolers, I don’t know what does.

• I LOVED… reading this Sports Illustrated article on Michigan’s Tim Hardaway, Jr. and Glenn Robinson III. It seems like we get plenty of stories every year about father-son relationships gone bad, but this was a rather refreshing example of two kids that have really gone about things the right way and made it through the tougher parts of living in the shadows of their NBA All-Star dads. Read the rest of this entry »

1. It probably seems just yesterday for Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings when the Commodores won their first SEC Tournament title in 60 years, or that’s how he would like to remember it. With the departures of all of the starters of that title-winning team, Vanderbilt knew years of rebuilding would be ahead but probably did not expect starting from the ground up. In Friday night’s game versus Marist, a team that has been averaging only 55 points per game this season, the ‘Dores recorded their lowest offensive result since the shot clock era began — 33 points. Stallings was quoted regarding the loss that his guys “are so uptight and have a lack of self-confidence right now.”  Still under indefinite suspension from the team, heralded sophomore guard Dai-Jon Parker was unable to contribute in the Marist loss. Vanderbilt rebounded nicely to beat UTEP on Sunday to close out its participation in the Old Spice Classic, but regardless of the team’s mindset or current suspensions, Stallings now knows how far they have fallen (and how far they have to go) since their league championship in New Orleans last March.
2. Speaking of suspensions, Missouri‘s Michael Dixon continues to ride the pine for a rules violation until he can show improvement to coach Frank Haith and the rest of his teammates. His support from the bench hasn’t kept him from tweeting his rage about the situation, though. The Columbia (MO) Tribune‘s Steve Walentik reported that Dixon quickly tweeted (and even more quickly deleted said tweet) his innocence after the team’s loss to Louisville in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament over the weekend. Walentik describes the situation with Dixon, Haith, and the university as pending, and none of the specifics have been released by anyone associated with the university. Meanwhile, former Mizzou guard Kim English, now with the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, defended his former teammate, also on Twitter, by calling out the university’s student committee board ‘a joke’ and believes Dixon’s chances for reinstatement are good and lie with the university chancellor.
3. The mystery surrounding Kentucky point guard Ryan Harrow’s situation has ceased. Harrow, who practiced Sunday with the team in Lexington, left the squad due to an illness after the Wildcats’ opening-season win versus Maryland and was forced to tend to “a family situation over the holiday break” as soon as he began his recovery. A healthy Harrow back in the lineup alleviates some of the point guard duties for starting shooting guard Archie Goodwin, who played the lead role in Harrow’s absence, and backup point guard Jarrod Polson, as UK prepares for its match-up versus Notre Dame in the SEC/Big East Challenge on Thursday.
4. In only his two years in Knoxville, Tennessee coach Cuonzo Martin has quickly saved what could have been a disastrous next half-decade or more for the Volunteer basketball program. How has he done it? Not only through his tough-minded defense, game planning, and hard work, but also by dreaming big. Brendan Quinn writes a brilliant piece about the struggles Martin faced as he grew up in the drug-laden projects of East St. Louis, Illinois, while his mother, Sandra, encouraged him to “dream big” and act on all the great opportunities life presents. It is this upbringing that Martin has used to not only achieve his personal and professional dreams, but also a reminder to stay humble throughout the more difficult times in his career.
5. We all gripe and offer our opinions as to certain things should be changed, whether it’s the BCS football system, the current political situation, or just a problem in your local community. But, what about college basketball? An interesting article written by Will Blythe at The New Republic discusses how college basketball has become a ‘dumpster fire’ and how four changes (one-and-done rule, AAU circuit, fouls, and basketball minor leagues) could return the game to the state where it once was from the 1960s to the 1990s. Blythe’s argument is that the coaches and players have lost the loyalty and school spirit that they once had in the game’s “heyday” and these four changes would help restore some of the luster to college basketball across the nation.

1. The ongoing suspension of Michael Dixon remains one of the most confusing elements of the season so far. When Missouri coach Frank Haith initially reported the indefinite suspension the decision on when Dixon would return was supposedly in Haith’s hands, but now reports are coming out that it might not be in Haith’s hands and the inciting incident may not be as benign as Haith and the Missouri basketball program initially reported. Based on a series of tweets from former Tiger star Kim English the case that Dixon is involved in is in front of the school’s Student Conduct Committee indicating that it is a fairly significant issue. We have heard several rumors about the case, but without confirmation it would be reckless (and unprofessional) to post them, but they are out there if you want to find them. If the rumors are true, we should be hearing about this case (officially) in the near future.
2. One of the great things about getting talented recruits is that you get the talented recruits. The downside is that it often pushes your older players down the bench or in some cases out the door. The latter is the case for UCLA as Tyler Lamb has decided to transfer from the school. Lamb, a junior who averaged 5.8 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game as a Bruin, saw his minutes shrink after returning from arthroscopic knee surgery and seeing the incoming freshmen–Kyle Anderson, Jordan Adams, and Shabazz Muhammad–take away many of his minutes. Lamb has not revealed any of his potential destinations, but it is worth noting that his last four before he decided on UCLA were Arizona, USC, San Diego, and UC Santa Barbara. With the first two almost definitely out because of restrictions against transfers within the same conference that leave just San Diego and UC Santa Barbara unless Lamb decides he wants to continue to play at the BCS conference level.
3. You will not being seeing Morehead State coach Sean Woods tonight when his team plays against Norfolk State as Woods was given a one-game suspension for his treatment toward Devon Atkinson late in the team’s loss at Kentucky last week. The suspension shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the media’s reaction to it, but it is refreshing to see a school take action when a coach behaves badly instead of always seeing the athlete punished (obviously the athlete wasn’t going to be punished here, but you usually see the coach get away without anything more than a slap on the wrist). As we said last week, the bigger issue for Woods and Morehead State should be how recruits view Woods’ actions and whether they will want to play for him.
4. We have to give the NCAA credit for sticking by its guns no matter how misguided they may be as it upheld its ridiculous nine-game suspension for Indiana freshmen Hanner Perea and Peter Jurkin. We already have discussed our thoughts on this case (their sponsor was technically a booster based on an old $185 donation) so we won’t go into too much detail here about why this is so ridiculous, but it is unfortunate that “the kids” have to be punished here because of the NCAA’s disapproval of a certain AAU program. However, now that it is known this should be a warning to all players and programs that the NCAA will treat these interactions in this manner so we won’t feel bad for the next player that gets stuck in this situation.
5. We have seen plenty of amusing attempts to lure a recruit to a school, but we have to tip our hats to a pair of students at BYU who printed 6,300 shirts saying “Chicago to Provo” in hopes of convincing Jabari Parker, considered by many to be the top recruit in this year’s class, to come to BYU. The shirts were a small part in a campaign that has gone viral (see the attached video in the above link) in hopes of getting Parker, who would be by far the biggest recruit to ever end up in Provo. Parker isn’t expected to announce for another month or two at earliest and he hasn’t commented on the campaign, but we doubt that it hurt BYU’s chances.

Bonus: Just after we completed the Morning Five the news came out that Louisville center Gorgui Dieng would be out indefinitely with a fractured scaphoid in his left wrist. This is a big blow to the Cardinals, who depend on Dieng’s interior defense as they lack an adequate back-up for his interior presence and solid if unspectacular inside game. The school should release more information about how long Dieng is expected to be out after he meets with an orthopedic surgeon later today.

1. Point guard is widely considered the biggest question mark in Kentucky’s title defense, and Wildcat fans were hoping to see new floor general Ryan Harrow satisfy the skeptics with a strong debut against Maryland. However, with the NC State transfer battling flu-like symptoms, it wasn’t to be. Instead, Jarrod Polson provided fans with a performance that won’t soon be forgotten. The former walk-on played 22 minutes (by far a career-high), scored 10 points on 4-5 shooting, and coolly sank two clinching free throws in the dying seconds. Why was a complete unknown able to have such an impact? Practice. “One of the overlooked benefits to all those No. 1 recruiting classes Calipari reels in year after year is the daily competition,” writes John Clay, “where terrific players and accomplished athletes go head to head as a matter of routine.” In Brandon Knight, Marquis Teague, and Harrow, Polson has faced a murderer’s row of opposing ball handlers in his three years of practice in Lexington. With competition like that, Maryland’s Pe’shon Howard couldn’t possibly be a problem.
2. When Rick Ray was hired to replace coach Rick Stansbury at Mississippi State, he wasn’t only responsible for retooling a basketball team. He was charged with rebuilding a program’s reputation. They’ve had plenty of talent over the last few seasons, but the Bulldogs couldn’t shake the dreaded “underachiever” label. Off the court issues plagued the team as well, with Renardo Sidney’s countless shenanigans the most notable. Fortunately, Ray isn’t seeing any lingering signs of questionable character in his players. “The biggest thing I’m happy about with the team so far is they are giving the effort,” Ray told Starkville Daily News, “That is one thing I have not had to coach here so far.” That effort may be all Ray can count on from a team that returns very little talent and boasts very little depth. These deficiencies were exposed in a 56-53 defeat to Sun Belt also-ran Troy (the SEC’s only opening weekend loss). Ray is optimistic about what he sees from his squad, but consider it a surprise if the Bulldogs aren’t sitting in the SEC cellar by the end of the season.
3. Tennessee wins the award for most misleading score of the weekend. The nine-point margin doesn’t inspire much confidence when the opponent is Kennesaw State (3-28 last season), but the Volunteers were predictably dominant in their season opener. “You have to take pride in dominating teams when you have the opportunity,” coach Cuonzo Martin said after the game. Tennessee held a 25-point lead midway through the second half, before mental slippage (Martin’s term, not mine) allowed the Owls to chip away at the lead. The Volunteers put on a clinic for their Atlantic Sun opponent, shooting over 60% from the field and hitting 58% from long range. Usual high scoring and rebounding forward Jarnell Stokes displayed his versatility by tallying five assists and five steals, both career highs. Tennessee heads to Puerto Rico next, and with possible matchups against Oklahoma State and NC State in the Caribbean, mental slippage will have to be avoided.
4. Which SEC team utilized the most guard-heavy lineup on opening night? Has to be Missouri right? Wrong. In Alabama’s buzzer-beating win over South Dakota State, coach Anthony Grant relied greatly on his backcourt options, with guards accounting for 66 of the Crimson Tide’s 70 points. Trevor Releford led the way with 18, while Trevor Lacey’s buzzer-beating three gave Alabama the win over a quality Jackrabbits team. The Trevors lead a deep unit, but Grant will need Devonta Pollard to provide some balance in the form of low-post production. The highly touted recruit hasn’t delivered thus far, but his coach isn’t worried. “He’s going to be terrific,” said Grant, “This is a heck of a game for a freshman to come into.”
5. Missouri will need Michael Dixon to compete with the elite in the SEC, but his indefinite suspension for the Tigers’ 83-69 win over SIU-Edwardsville gave coach Frank Haith quite a bit of freedom to see his backcourt newcomers in action. Dixon and point guard Phil Pressey have unquestioned starting positions, but with no other returnees, developing chemistry and finding the right rotation is paramount for Missouri. Transfers Earnest Ross and Keion Bell joined the starting five, but in going 2-for-10 and 3-for-8 from the field, respectively, neither impressed. Canadian freshman Negus Webster-Chan made a case for more playing time, however, displaying a nice shooting stroke and active hands on the defensive end.

1. For the third week in a row, a player on an SEC team has been suspended indefinitely. This week’s ‘winner’ is Florida starting point guard Scottie Wilbekin, who joins the list of Missouri’s Michael Dixon (still suspended for Missouri’s game on Friday), Vanderbilt’s Dai-Jon Parker, and Mississippi State’s Shawn Smith of suspended players for indefinite and undisclosed reasons. Rush the Court‘s own Brian Joyce wrote a great piece on how Wilbekin’s suspension could hurt the learning curve of the Gators early this season.
2.  The preseason Wooden Award list was released on Thursday by the Los Angeles Athletic Club, who has sponsored the Wooden Award for the last 45 years. The SEC was represented well with six players on the list, including: Kenny Boynton (Florida), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Georgia), Phil Pressey (Missouri), Jarnell Stokes (Tennessee), BJ Young (Arkansas), and Patric Young (Florida). The Wooden Award list prohibits freshmen from its initial release because the LAAC “has not seen them play on the college level” and thus prevents notable freshman players such as Kentucky‘s Nerlens Noel or Alex Poythress from being included. All transfers and medical redshirt players are also off this exclusive list, but they will have a chance to play their way onto it later this season.
3. Switching coaching jobs, especially across the country and into a different conference is never easy, but South Carolina’s Frank Martin has handled the move with ease. What has been Martin’s first test as the head coach of the Gamecocks before their first regular season game on Friday? Finding a regular point guard, according to Martin, who recently spoke to Darryl Slater of the Post and Courier (SC) newspaper regarding his options at the position. Junior point guard Bruce Ellington will miss the first half of the season as he wraps up his wide receiver duties with the football team and even more time could be missed until he can learn Martin’s style of play. South Carolina’s best option at this point, as described by Martin, is returnee Eric Smith, who took over the point guard duties for the last 15 games of last season. Smith was described as a more natural fit but will need to work on his consistency to keep his starting job.
4. Ever wonder why there isn’t a well-documented fantasy college basketball leagues across the country? Well, the witty folks at NBC College Basketball Talk have a solution for your inquiry. They have drafted a league using FCBLZone.com to track fantasy stats for all of the top college basketball players this season. You can follow them by searching the Twitter hashtag #NBCtheLeague. Let’s hope it turns into the college basketball version of FX’s comedy show The League. Who will play the part of Taco and his explicit ability to sell a special kind of wine?
5. What should be expected from Tennessee this season? CBSSports.com breaks down the potential best and worst-case scenarios for the Vols this season, including the opportunity for a stellar frontcourt combination of Jarnell Stokes and Jeronne Maymon in the post. Daniel Martin predicts Cuonzo Martin will get his squad back to the postseason, including a win or two in the NCAA Tournament, and we can’t necessarily disagree with him.

1. The list of ineligible players in the SEC adds another as Texas A&M’s Shawn Smith was ruled a partial qualifier over the weekend. Smith, a freshman guard on the Aggies’ roster, will only be allowed to practice with the team this season. He will be eligible next season as a redshirt freshman and still have four years of eligibility remaining. Smith joins Missouri’s Michael Dixon and Dominique Bull as well as Dai-Jon Parker from Vanderbilt as the most recent SEC players to be removed from action. Those three suspensions are ongoing and the respective schools have not released any information as to the causes for their sanctions.
2. The expectations for typical freshmen are usually low but not at a school like Kentucky. John Calipari’s system of high-caliber freshmen coupled with the ridiculous love and support of the Wildcat fans raises the expectations of their freshmen exponentially. Will  Totten at Kentucky Sports Radio wrote a piece comparing the statistics of freshmen in the Calipari era to other freshmen across the country and the reasons why the Wildcat freshmen’s numbers are slightly higher than the national averages. With everything involved with Kentucky basketball, those reasons seem pretty obvious.
3. After his visit to Auburn where he was quoted by stating he wanted to be “the face of the program,” class of 2013 recruit Austin Nichols will not be committing to any SEC school this fall. Instead, Nichols chose Memphis on Monday over Auburn, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt, becoming the fifth commitment to the Tigers program in the class of 2013. Each of the SEC teams he considered could have significantly benefited from adding a five-star recruit next year, as Kentucky and Florida have recently been the only league programs regularly signing that level of high school talent.
4. Many coaches have mutual respect for one other, stemming from their success on the court and character off it. But does that respect come from actions that took place in a high school decades ago? Frank Martin thinks it does. Martin, who is in his first year as the head coach at South Carolina, stated in an Alabama.com article that his first college essay was about Alabama head coach Anthony Grant, describing his hard work ethic and humble attitude when both he and Grant attended Miami Senior High School together. The same degree of respect goes the other way from Grant to Martin as well, as Grant has in the past described his relationship with Martin as like a ‘relative,’ stating he has been very close to him in almost every aspect of life.
5. With a healthy Jeronne Maymon in tow, Tennessee is considered by many as a dark horse pick for the SEC crown. The problem is that Maymon is not healthy. The 6’7″ senior who spent the offseason rehabilitating the second knee surgery of his career is still on the sidelines for the Volunteers with still no timetable for his return. Cuonzo Martin and the rest of his squad is learning how to practice without Maymon in the lineup and are drafting a strategy for the season once he is healthy. With Maymon out, that means more practice time for Quinton Chievous, a redshirt freshman who could take Maymon’s place because of his speed and perimeter shooting. The injury also forces highly touted returning sophomore Jarnell Stokes to take a more pivotal role in the Vols’ game plan as well as providing leadership on and off the court.