1. Knowing what we know about NC State, this idea to use a real wolf as the team mascot will not end well.  Then again, maybe the wolf can “escape” and devour Sidney Lowe during a rampage — that might make some of their fans happy.
2. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan pulled no punches in his address to the NCAA yesterday, stating that college basketball is tainted by ‘renegade’ coaches and that the one-and-done rule is essentially an academic sham.
3. The hits keep coming for DePaul.  Just days after firing their coach Jerry Wainwright, the Blue Demons lost their best player Mac Koshwal 2-4 weeks with a foot injury.
4. Luke Winn is back with his power rankings in the best read of the week, as usual.  It’s a little scary that we remember those LJ/Augmon t-shirts from the days when the high fade was still rockin like Marley Marl and De La Soul.
5. OJ Mayo continues to hide behind his agent when it comes to substantive answers while maintaining that he loves USC and would have never done anything inappropriate like, oh, maybe take money to attend the school.  Look, we know he’s not legally obligated to say a word, but just once we’d like to see an athlete come out in his prime and say, “yeah, I did all that stuff and more.  So what?”  Maybe by thumbing his nose at the NCAA, it’ll help embarrass the organization into re-assessing how they do business.

1. Fordham transfer player Jio Fontan has resurfaced all the way across the country at USC, and he will be eligible to play next season at the semester break.  This is a good pickup for Kevin O’Neill, as Fontan averaged 15/5 assts in a season-plus at Fordham and will be able to move into the PG slot vacated by Mike Gerrity.  Speaking of USC, the self-imposed sanctions on the basketball program may not become official until February, when the school will appear in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee.  Does this mean that, if the Committee imposes much harsher penalties than proposed that this year’s Trojans could actually still play in the postseason?
2. Jerry Tarkanian never wasted an opportunity to take a shot at the NCAA, and his guns were blazing at a speech he gave in Arkansas Monday where he called the NCAA the “crookedest organization in this country.”
3. Charlotte’s Shamarr Bowden, a freshman shooting guard averaging 5.7 PPG in ten minutes per game, will transfer from the school to a destination unknown.  Former Ohio State guard Walter Offutt has transferred to Wright State, and Georgetown forward Nikita Mescheriakov is enrolled at Wake Forest.
4. Mike DeCourcy suggests that the problems at DePaul go well beyond Jerry Wainwright and indicts the administration itself.  His point about firing Wainwright in the middle of the season after an 0-18 Big East slate is a great insight.
5. More aftermath from the Tennessee upset over #1 Kansas on Sunday, including Parrish’s take on Skylar McBee and how he’s living his dream at Tennessee.   As for Kansas, maybe they should have taken more half-court shots during the game.  They seem to be pretty good at making them.

1. Chairgate 2010.  Did Karl Malone or did he not throw Nevada’s folding chairs into the dumpster after a recent game between Louisiana Tech and the Wolfpack (on ‘his’ court)?  We have no idea but the mere thought of it is awesome on about twenty-four different levels.  Please, please let The Mailman do an interview with someone over this soon.
2. Jim Calhoun is becoming a specific target after last year’s presser incident about his salary, as this exchange with a crank caller documented by Adam Zagoria on today’s Big East coaches conference call attests.
3. OJ Mayo’s agent wants everyone to know that he took no inducements to come to USC nor during his one year in Los Angeles and, um, it was all Rodney Guillory’s fault and it was OJ’s love of California that drew him to a football school with virtually no basketball history.  And please, no more questions.
4. One of our favorite ACC bloggers broke down the twelve teams of the ACC using “NBA Jam” and concluded that Georgia Tech’s trio of Gani Lawal, Derrick Favors and Mfon Udofia would be sicknasty.  He’s probably right because Paul Hewitt wouldn’t be around to coach them.
5. Luke Winn’s Power Rankings don’t see much movement, but is there a more interesting read on in the entire canon of college basketball coverage on a weekly basis than this feature?  Not for our money.

1. Cal’s hustle and glue guy Jorge Gutierrez will be out of both Bear games this week (vs. UCLA and USC) with a sprained right knee that he suffered in a game against Stanford over the weekend.  Along the same lines, UCLA’s Jerime Anderson will be benched in the Cal game for missing a rehab session, meaning that Tyler Honeycutt will get the first start of his career.
2. Former Wolverine and current Domino’s Pizza CEO David Brandon will take over as the new Michigan AD.  We know there’s a joke here somewhere.
3. The first Korean to ever earn a D1 basketball scholarship, Maryland’s Jin Soo Choi, is returning to his home country to pursue basketball opportunities there.
4. Kalin Lucas is prepping for MSU’s game with Wisconsin by calling the Badgers a “dirty” team.  Should be fun tonight in East Lansing.
5. Were the self-imposed penalties that USC placed on its basketball program too light?  CNNSI’s George Dohrmann thinks so.

Most of the national news on Florida State losing its appeal today for academic misconduct will focus on the impact on the football program and, in particular, the fourteen wins that Bobby Bowden may lose. But there are basketball implications in this decision today as well. According to the NCAA’s Public Report, academic tutors at the school provided answers and other assistance to tests and assignments for student-athletes in ten different sports, including men’s basketball. The school will be on probation in all ten sports until 2013, and Leonard Hamilton’s team has already self-imposed a one-scholarship reduction last year and apparently this year as well (FSU has eleven players on scholarship this season).  It’s also likely that FSU will have to vacate a number of wins from the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons when the ineligible player(s) competed in games, but it’s currently unclear who those player(s) are and how many wins that will be (FSU won a total of 42 games those two seasons).  All in all, the penalties for the basketball program aren’t huge, but they’ll have to be careful to make sure there are no other problems in the next three years or face the prospect of becoming a multiple offender (where the penalties are more severe).

1. Joe Dumars’ son, 6’5 freshman forward Jordan (is that a joke?), has already left the South Florida program and enrolled at Michigan for the remainder of his career.  He’s only played 27 minutes so far this season, scoring all six of his points in a single game against Kent State.
2. Oklahoma State’s Marshall Moses was suspended for one game almost immediately after his arrest for possession of marijuana and driving on a suspended license.  Averaging 11/10 on the season, he will miss tonight’s game against Coppin State.
3. Tennessee update from the AD himself:  “we start at dismissal and work our way backwards.”  Sounds about right.  Let’s hope he means it.
4. USC’s Kevin O’Neill said that delivering the news to his seniors that they would not have a chance to play in the postseason was much harder than ever getting fired (and he would know!).
5. Here’s Seth Davis‘ annual Stock Report.  This is always a fun read, and his UNC “sell” looks particularly prescient after last night’s loss to Charleston, but there will always be a few quibbles on something like this.  We will not, for example, be buying anything Florida is selling, and we are definitely unloading what little Louisville stock we still have lying around, but overall, pretty good assessment.

1. Mike DeCourcy correctly skewers USC officials for throwing its basketball program under the bus to save the cash-cow football program.  It’s a classic negotiation technique that nobody will ever admit on the record to doing — give up something you don’t really care about to protect the thing that you do (apparently others have seen through this mirage as well).  Sad for Mike Gerrity and company.  The hope here is that these players win the Pac-10 regular season and celebrate in style (see: Kentucky 1991). 
2. Bill & Mary: the plucky little Tribe that could. 
3. Bruce Pearl apologized to anyone who would listen — including Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summit — for his four players’ arrests last week where they were found with drugs and guns in a rental car.  That’s all fine and well, but what’s going to be the verdict on these guys, Coach? 
4. Jeff Goodman analyzes what people are calling Kentucky’s x-factor this year: the head of talented center DeMarcus Cousins.  If he keeps it, the Cats could go all the way; if he doesnt’…
5. Step right up!  Get your official signed logo UConn basketball from “HOF Legend” Alex Oriakhi.  Yes, for $99.99 you can be the proud owner of this certain treasure as you watch its value exponentially grow on your mantle!  (for those of you wondering, Oriakhi is a nice player… he averaged 5/9/2 blks in 29 MPG… he has a long way to go to be worth paying $100 for a signed ball, though)

1. Matt Doherty appears ready to forgive and forget (mostly) his exit from North Carolina five years ago, but one quote in this probing article is revealing.  Speaking as to whether he was forced out because Roy Williams was ready to return to Chapel Hill, he said, “I don’t think that was the case.  But I also do know – I don’t think schools make changes like that without having feelers out there.”  Sounds like Doherty doesn’t believe himself.
2. Doctors are shutting it down for South Carolina forward Dominique Archie yesterday, after realizing that his rehab would not allow him to return to full strength this season.  He injured the knee in a game against Miami (FL) four weeks ago and had not played since.  This will quite obviously hurt SC’s chances of getting through the rugged SEC East, especially considering the Gamecocks’ troubles on the glass (Archie was leading the team with 6.0 RPG).
3. UCLA’s Nikola Dragovic pleaded not guilty yesterday to a charge of felony assault deriving from an incident outside a Hollywood (always up to no good) concert on October 28.  He is alleging self-defense for tackling a guy into a plate glass window which severed the man’s Achilles tendon.  Dragovic is averaging 8/6 for the struggling Bruins, but he has already served a two-game suspension as a result of this ongoing distraction.
4. Remember this anecdote about Rob Senderoff, the assistant coach caught up in the Kelvin Sampson phone-call fiasco at Indiana, when Memphis gets its final ruling from the NCAA in a few weeks, or whenever.   Does anyone else feel that with Myles Brand not steering the ship that the NCAA is listing frightfully to starboard?
5. First Laettner, now Bobby Hurley.  If we were Coach K or Grant Hill’s investment manager, we’d probably make sure that their financial tentacles never touch the Bluegrass State.  Those Kentucky people will get it back someway, somehow.  It, of course, meaning $946,961.58.

1. Will Brandon Knight become the next Derrick Rose Tyreke Evans John Wall for John Calipari at Memphis Kentucky?  One of the top players in the Class of 2010 has, according to Zagsblog, listed his final four schools:  Kansas, Kentucky, UConn and Florida.  He’ll sign in the spring, but you have to believe that with Wall leaving Lexington in April, the Wildcats would be very well situated for another one-and-done point guard prospect to enter the school.
2. Arkansas can’t seem to get anything right lately.  It’s a small violation, but the Hawgs self-reported a violation involving photo images of players in a magazine.
3. This was rumored last week, but it became official yesterday.  The Big Ten will formally explore the option of adding a twelfth team to its mix, ostensibly to have a football championship game.  We hope to have an analysis up later on this, but how will it affect basketball?  John Gasaway thinks it will come down to Pittsburgh or Missouri.
4. Do you know anything — anything at all — about the Western Carolina Catamounts and their star player Jake Robinson?  Educate yourself.
5. Roy Williams explained himself further on his radio show Monday night.  Let’s just say that he didn’t apologize for overreacting, instead choosing to contextualize his thinking of the incident to excuse his behavior.   Here’s the relevant excerpt, but we suggest you read the entire thing here.

Saturday night, all of a sudden, some guy stands up and starts yelling at Deon and it came from behind our bench. And you know how when some things happen, you instantly think of something? My first thought was, ‘Now our parents are having to listen to somebody else, and it’s in our own building.’ And so I turned around and I said, ‘Who said that?’ And about 40-50-60-70-80 people started pointing up at this guy. The guy gets up and starts gyrating with his arms and everything like, ‘Yeah, it was me,’ and that kind of thing. And it really did tick me off. I turned and said something to the ushers behind the bench and they started up through there, and I turned around and coached the game. I have no idea what happened. I never turned around to the guy again. But my feeling was immediately that our parents who sit right behind our bench have to put up with that stuff again in our own building. So that was it. And after the game, they told me that they had escorted the young man out. Supposedly what had happened was they had asked him for his ticket and he didn’t have a ticket or wasn’t supposed to be sitting in that seat. Supposedly, and I want to emphasis the word supposedly, he didn’t cooperate as much as they wanted, and they chose to take him out.

1. Rutgers inside force Gregory Echinique will miss approximately a month due to eye surgery to correct a pre-existing condition recently.  Which begs the question – if it was pre-existing, why not have the surgery during the offseason?  Did it become aggravated?  The 6’9 forward is averaging 13/8/2 blks on the season, and the Scarlet Knights will undoubtedly miss his presence in upcoming games against beefy frontlines at North Carolina, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
2. This is rich.  Binghamton continues to pay coaching disaster Kevin Broadus his full $230k yearly salary while interim coach Mark Macon draws one-quarter as much money for, you know, actually coaching the remaining players on the team.  At least Macon is getting a raise, although the amount of the increase was not disclosed by the university.  As for Broadus, the “job” he’s earning six-figures for right now is to assist SUNY with their investigation into the Binghamton athletic department.  What does that mean exactly?  Get coffee?  Make copies?  Do both at the same time?
3. Luke Winn probably knocked this article about the first Irianian player in D1 basketball out in fifteen minutes while surfing his blackberry iPhone and eating a bran muffin, which should probably tell you something about the talent he has for research and writing.  It would take us three straight weeks just to pen the first paragraph.
4. Memphis filed an appeal against the NCAA’s decision to vacate its 2008 season based on the Derrick Rose SAT scandal, even with the distinct possibility that the school could face a harsher punishment than currently imposed if they did so.  We’re not really keen on the NCAA Committee on Infractions using this heavyhanded method of leverage to try to force schools to swallow their initial decision just because they said so.  Memphis correctly argued that this creates a “chilling effect” for schools that wish to use their legal right to appeal, and even cited language from a 2001 case against UNLV to that effect.  We’re starting to wonder if someone at the NCAA lost a lot of money on Memphis that season, because this is taking the appearance of vindictiveness.
5. Jumping back to Tuesday’s discussion on Expansion 96, Andy Katz weighed in yesterday on his blog.  He noted that recently deceased NCAA President Myles Brand was steadfastly opposed to expansion along with several of the other traditionalists, and we’re wondering if the power vacuum in Brand’s absence hasn’t created a bit of a money grab among some of the dissenters within the NCAA heirarchy.  Let’s hope tradition wins out, or at worst, the option that Katz describes (four play-in games, pushing the Tourney up to 68 teams) is the preferred result if things must change.