Big Ten M5: 11.13.12 Edition

Posted by Deepak Jayanti on November 13th, 2012

  1. Michigan State guard Travis Trice is questionable for the Spartans’ game tonight against Kansas due to “concussion symptoms.” Trice played 18 minutes against Connecticut and had to leave the game after getting hit on the head. The Spartans flew back from Germany to Atlanta and may not have one of their experienced guards ready for tonight’s game against the top 10 Jayhawks. Brandon Kearney played only seven minutes in the first game and is still recovering from a sickness as well. Freshman guard Denzel Valentine will have to step up with the likelihood of increased playing time. Tom Izzo will need whatever he can get from the younger guards to avoid another 0-2 start for the season (recall that MSU started with the same record last season).
  2. Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan is very impressed with freshman wing Sam Dekker after the home opener. The Badgers led 43-17 but during his halftime speech, Ryan asked Dekker if he knew the score of the game. Dekker replied “zero-zero” which caught his head coach by surprise in a positive way. Dekker is a 6’8″ wing who perfectly fits in Ryan’s offense and will have plenty of opportunities to shine as Ryan tries to fill in the shoes of Jordan Taylor and Josh Gasser. Dekker scored eight points in just 17 minutes of his collegiate debut but will play an integral role in the offense as the season progresses.
  3. Michigan fans are extremely happy to see forward Jon Horford return from a foot injury. The fans gave him an ovation when he entered the game against Slippery Rock after missing most of last season with the December injury. Horford, a 6’10” junior forward, will back up Jordan Morgan and Mitch McGary to provide much-needed depth for John Beilein’s frontcourt. McGary can find himself in foul trouble once conference play begins and Beilein needs Horford to provide some additional size off the bench. Horford played eight minutes against Slippery Rock and five minutes against IUPUI last night but should see increased playing time as he returns to game shape.
  4. Minnesota assistant coach Saul Smith pleaded guilty for his DWI charges and has been sentenced to 40 hours of community service by a judge. Smith is supposed to re-join the Gophers today after being suspended by the athletic director following the arrest about a month ago. He registered a 0.18 blood alcohol level while driving on October 20 in Minneapolis. Tubby Smith should be glad to get all of his program’s off-court troubles in the past as the Gophers begin their campaign to contend for the conference title and make a run at the NCAA Tournament. The Gophers beat Toledo 82-56 last night at home.
  5. Illinois head coach John Groce has the Illini off to a 2-0 start and continues to lock up quality talent for next season. Another top 100 recruit, Austin Colbert, verbally committed to the Illini on Monday. Colbert is ranked in the top 100 by ESPN and is a 6’9″ forward who also considered Villanova and Miami. Groce has put together a class that will likely be ranked in the top 30 or 40 next season. Guards Kendrick Nunn and Malcolm Hill will join Colbert in Champaign along with another big man, Maverick Morgan. In addition to the freshmen, Groce will also add wing Rayvonte Rice, a transfer from Drake.
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Morning Five: 10.22.12 Edition

Posted by rtmsf on October 22nd, 2012

  1. Most schools held their Midnight Madness extravaganzas more than a week ago, but a couple prominent schools around college basketball nation didn’t get in on the act until this past weekend. At Indiana, Hoosier Hysteria on Saturday night was just that — a standing room only celebration of Indiana basketball past and present, replete with a three-point shooting Cody Zeller (he made 10 in one round of the contest) and even a Bob Knight sighting (in photo form, on the big screen). For a nice highlight reel from IU’s event, check out this video put together by CityLeagueHoopsTV from the event. Over in Durham, Duke‘s Countdown to Craziness began a festive on-campus weekend (Duke’s football team defeated UNC on Saturday night), as Coach K emphasized “togetherness” among his players and the fans while debuting his squad for the first time this season. For more Coach K hugs than you can possibly imagine, check out this video running along this theme played at the conclusion of the event. Jeff Goodman spent Friday with the Blue Devils, and reports back with 11 thoughts and observations about Coach K’s latest team (including who he thinks will take over for the all-time great upon his eventual retirement). At this point, most every school is finished with the pomp and circumstance and moving into the harsh realities of practice, but more on this in a moment.
  2. Practice makes perfect, so the saying goes, but it also provides opportunities for the imperfect to rear its ugly head in the form of injuries. Two prominent players on teams with high hopes for this season were hurt recently — Oklahoma State’s Brian Williams and UCLA’s David Wear. Williams is the more serious injury of the two, as he injured his left wrist in a fall after dunking in practice last week and needed to have surgery to repair the damage done. He’ll have to wear a cast for three months and go through rehabilitation after that, essentially rendering Williams unavailable to build upon a very promising freshman campaign this season. Wear, on the other hand, suffered an ankle sprain during practice on Sunday and will have an x-ray on his foot today. Hopefully this injury isn’t as serious as Williams’ and we’ll see Wear back on the court very soon.
  3. Wear might be sidelined with an injury, but his UCLA teammates Kyle Anderson and Shabazz Muhammad have now entered their second full week of practice with no timeline as to when the NCAA plans to make a decision on their eligibility. This report from the LA Times suggests that neither player may be close to becoming eligible as the governing body has not given the players any feedback on the status of its investigation nor a timetable for its resolution. According to the piece, Anderson’s issue relates to the relationship between his father and an NBA agent named Thad Foucher, while Muhammad’s problem involves money given to both himself and his AAU team from friends of the family. There’s nothing new here, obviously, but one caveat from the piece must irk UCLA fans hopeful that things are progressing at a reasonable pace — with only 35 days left for the duo to continue practicing with the team until they must sit out, the NCAA has yet to formally interview Muhammad’s parents about any of this.
  4. If you consider yourself at all versed in the analysis of college basketball, you are familiar with KenPom‘s numbers. What you may be less knowledgeable about are the occasional yet insightful blog posts that he publishes from time to time. On Sunday night he presented the results of his analysis of the validity of the preseason AP poll (which has yet to release this season). His finding is that, at least with respect to NCAA Tournament seeding in March, the top half of the AP poll is highly predictive. As he writes: “The chances of being a one-seed get really slim once you get past the top 12 or 13, while the chances of missing the tournament altogether are very real for the teams in the bottom half of the poll.” There’s a better than half chance that a preseason top 10 team in the AP poll will receive a top three seed at the end of the season — that makes sense. What we’d be interested in knowing, though, is what are the common factors that allow us to predict why the other half of teams fall from those original estimations. Great analysis by Pomeroy.
  5. Finally, today, let’s talk discipline. Tubby Smith’s son and Minnesota assistant coach, Saul Smith, has been placed on administrative leave by the school related to his Friday night arrest for suspicion of DWI. Meanwhile at Maryland, senior forward James Padgett pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of reckless driving stemming from his arrest back in June for driving while impaired. Under the school’s code of conduct for alcohol-related driving arrests, he will not be suspended from the team since he is not guilty of a DWI — a true example of legal hair-splitting if ever there was one. Over at Louisville, Chane Behanan must sit out the Cardinals’ first exhibition game this season and has been banned from talking to the media (this is punishment?) for the rest of the semester. Head coach Rick Pitino didn’t specify what led to Behanan’s restrictions other than to say that there were “incidents” over the summer, but he did say that further slip-ups could cause the talented forward to miss more game action.
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