1. It is beginning to seem like eventually every conference tournament will be held in the New York metro area. The latest conference to join the trend is the Big Ten, which hold its 2018 tournament at Madison Square Garden. According to the Big Ten, this is only part of a rotation as they will be going through different cities over the next four years:  Chicago (2015), Indianapolis (2016), and Washington, D.C. (2017) before going to New York City. While the conference is saying all the right things about this being part of rotation the need to play in New York City is apparently great enough that they were willing to move up their conference tournament that year by a week (Big Ten title game will be a week before Selection Sunday in 2018) that year. If you are a sportswriter you might want to go ahead and book a long-term room in New York City for March 2018 as that year the Big Ten Tournament will be followed by the ACC Tournament (Barclay’s) and Big East Tournament (MSG) going on simultaneously.
2. Binghamton suffered a big blow on Friday as two-time All-America East selection Jordan Reed announced that he will be transferring at the end of the semester. Reed, who averaged 16.6 points and 9.5 rebounds per game as a freshman and 15.4 points and 8.9 rebounds per game as a sophomore, had been on leave from the team since November 26 with the reason reportedly being disagreements with head coach Tommy Dempsey. Given Reed’s production and his experience he should have no shortage of high-major suitors assuming whatever happened between him and Dempsey isn’t enough to scare off programs. As for the Bearcats, we don’t think they can get that much worse as they sit at 1-8 after a loss at home against Pennsylvania in their first game with Reed officially off the roster.
3. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were writing posts asking when New Jersey Institute of Technology would actually win a game (it was actually six years ago, which in terms of this site’s existence is actually fairly long) so we have to admit that we were shocked when we saw that they have knocked off Michigan on the road. While much of this can be focused on just how bad Michigan was (hey, at least they have a bowl game to… oh, right) we would rather focus on the winning side, which as a 24.5-point underdog is the biggest such underdog to win since Gardner-Webb beat Kentucky in 2007 (favored by 26-points as part of the magical Billy Gillespie experience). We aren’t sure if there is a trend to have more bigger name programs losing to smaller-name programs in recent years (a little help, Pomeroy?), but it certainly seems that way with what we have been seeing recently.
4. Gerald Hamilton, Skal Labissiere’s legal guardian and the target of quite a bit of criticism, finally responded to his critics. According to Hamilton, they have met with Kentucky, the school that Labissiere committed to, and discussed Labisserie’s history with the NCAA with all parties being satisfied. Of course, this is coming from Hamilton and neither Kentucky nor the NCAA so it obviously could be quite biased and given what we have heard about Hamilton we have to admit that we have a hard time taking anything he says at face value. Our guess is that Labisserie’s eligibility will be one of those cases that is not decided until next season starts.
5. Speaking of legal guardians and questionable eligibility, Ed Smith, Thon Maker‘s legal guardian, has come out and stated that Maker (the top recruit in the class of 2016) will reclassify to the class of 2015 if he is academically eligible. This isn’t exactly a surprise given all of the movement that Maker has had in the past few years, but it is the first time we have seen them openly discuss it since Maker was moved to Canada. According to Smith, the issue isn’t so much Maker meeting NCAA requirements as he reportedly has a solid GPA, but instead the requirements of the school he just transferred to. While this isn’t the first time we would have seen a transfer backfire it might be the first time we see it backfire because of school-specific academic requirements.

1. After legal haggling between the school, state, and the new AAC, Rutgers has agreed to pay $11.5 million as an exit fee to leave the AAC and join the Big Ten. The sum might seem fairly small compared to the numbers thrown around for other schools attempting to leave a conference, but it is worth noting that Rutgers had already announced its intention to join the Big Ten even before the AAC played its first game. We hope that other schools and conferences can reach relatively quick compromises as well, but realize that might be hoping for a little too much. At the very least these legal battles should not interfere with the school’s ability to compete.
2. Speaking of conference realignment there is still one team that remains independent: New Jersey Institute of Technology. Unlike Notre Dame in football, which benefits from its ridiculous NBC contract and even more ridiculous BCS (or whatever they are calling it today) exemption, NJIT wants to join a conference. The school, which was once the laughing stock of Division I for its long losing streak has gained some measure of respectability in recent years so we would not be surprised to see a mid- to lower-tier conference in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic region add the school fairly soon.
3. Normally Ken Pomeroy focuses his work on topics that might seem a little esoteric to the casual fan, but his latest post on how important home-court advantage is should be accessible to most fans even if the degree might strike them as a bit far. Pomeroy frames the post around Syracuse and Wichita State (the last two undefeated teams). Most observers would probably say that Syracuse is the better team and has played a tougher schedule. Pomeroy is not going to try to argue with that point, but thinks it is important to point out just how important home/road games are in determining how difficult games are. Of course, one can argue with Pomeroy’s win probabilities (we are not even going to try to get into the mathematics involved in coming up with those numbers), but it is an important point to consider as Selection Sunday draws near.
4. Duke‘s more well-known men’s basketball team might not have been able to make the arduous trek to play North Carolina yesterday leading to the game being postponed until next week. The student managers for the two schools were able to meet for their game and the administrators at the two schools probably wish that they had not. Over the years there have been several (relatively) memorable moments in the game, but this year’s moment–a fight between the managers of the two schools–is one that the administration at both schools would prefer we all forget. The fight (all we have is a grainy video clip) might draw headlines, but should not be that much of a surprise for anybody who played intramural sports, which are often more violent than actual NCAA games.
5. We might be ambivalent about the neutral sites for many of the early-season match-ups, but we love seeing teams play who might otherwise not agree to play at an opposing arena. Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis has been the driving force behind many of these events and his latest idea–creating a barnstorming tour in 2018–is one of the more unique ones that he has come up with. The four schools–Florida, Michigan State, North Carolina, and Texas–would play in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles then get a home game against an opponent that has not been determined yet. While the idea sounds a little crazy the schools have apparently signed off and we do not see any of the huge issues that we saw with his plan to have multiple games going on at the same time so we do not see why this event would not happen.

On the heels of transfer announcements from Gerard Coleman and Bilal Dixon, the rumors started swirling at Providence in early April that yet another guard — then-sophomore Bryce Cotton — asked for his release and was set to leave the program. The thought was that with Vincent Council returning for his senior year and at least two superstar guard recruits entering the program, Cotton saw the writing on the wall and was headed for a place that offered more playing time.

The Friars Have A New Star Of The Show, But The Team Should Be Happy It Has Him At All

Friars’ fans did not take the news well  but the discussion was never about losing a starting guard, it was about losing “depth” and a solid player who could back up Council and uber-freshmen Kris Dunn and Ricardo Ledo. Never mind that the then-sophomore was coming off a season in which he had averaged 38.6 minutes and 14.3 points per game, the message was already clear. Cotton was a nice player, but he wasn’t Council, or Dunn, or Ledo.

Fast forward to present day and you can bet that the Providence faithful is thanking its lucky stars that Cotton decided to stick around.   The backcourt logjam that was supposed to eat into Cotton’s minutes never materialized. In fact, the backcourt has gone from an area of strength to an area of weakness almost overnight. First Dunn had shoulder surgery, then Ledo was ruled ineligible, and then, early in the team’s season-opening win over the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Council injured his hamstring, leaving him sidelined for an undetermined amount of time.

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College basketball tipped off Friday and as the weekend drew to a close, all but two Big East teams have played and only two of them lost. From Connecticut’s shocking win over Michigan State to South Florida’s disastrous debut against Central Florida, Big East fans who weren’t able to get to their televisions this weekend missed a lot of good action. Rather than recap each game individually or only focus on some of the games, we figured the best way to get the uninformed up to speed was with a broad look at some of the best and worst from conference programs this weekend.

The Good

UConn’s Surprising Victory in Germany Represented a Big East Highlight of the Weekend

• Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie’s debut. The first year coach couldn’t have scripted a better start to his career than his team’s gritty 66-62 win over No. 14 Michigan State in Germany. Not only did the rookie head coach beat a legend in Tom Izzo, but his team played with passion and determination, especially considering they don’t have a postseason to look forward to. The good Shabazz Napier (25 points and zero turnovers) showed up for the Huskies and the defense held the Spartans to just 37.5 percent from the field for the game. Ollie isn’t going to earn a long-term contract after one game, but if he can get his team to play that hard all season, he may win over the decision-makers in Storrs.
• Jack Cooley’s first game as Notre Dame’s offensive focal point. The team effort wasn’t great and if it wasn’t for the all-around performance of Cooley (19 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks) the Fighting Irish may have lost their season opener to Evansville. The obvious elephant in the room is that the Aces didn’t have anyone in their frontcourt remotely capable of dealing with Cooley’s size and strength, and that will definitely not be the case every week. But Cooley was ruthlessly efficient, active defensively and on the glass, and smart with the ball in the post. The Fighting Irish will need to be better on the perimeter if they want to meet expectations this season, but it is always nice to have an anchor in the post if they need it. Read the rest of this entry »