This is the week we put football in the rear-view mirror and focus exclusively on college hoops. Yeah I’m talking to you, Joe Casualfan. The Morning Mix is the place you need to go every morning for the latest news and notes from the CBB world.
Let’s hit the links.
Tuesday’s Top games:
7:00 p.m. - No. 2 Florida @ Arkansas
7:00 p.m. - Boston College @ No. 8 Miami
7:00 p.m. - Wake Forest @ North Carolina
7:00 p.m. - Villanova @ DePaul
8:00 p.m. - No. 13 Kansas State @ Texas Tech
8:00 p.m. - Wichita State @ Southern Illinois
8:05 p.m. - Illinois-Chicago @ Valparaiso
9:00 p.m. - No. 10 Ohio State @ No. 2 Michigan
9:00 p.m. - Florida State @ Georgia Tech
9:00 p.m. - South Carolina @ Kentucky
Read of the Day:
A powerful story from Alex Prewitt of the Washington post on Jamar Board, one of the most revered streetball players in the Washington metro-area. Known as “The Silent Assassin”, who was cousins with former-Tennessee guard Bobby Maze and set a Goodman League single game record with a 75-point performance in a 2011 game. Board was found dead on December 29th with a gunshot wound to the head. It has yet to be determined if it was a murder or a suicide. Seriously, read this. (Washington Post)
This one is pretty cut-and-dry. Virginia lost to Georgia Tech this weekend. You rank the ‘Hoos in the top-25, you get skewered in the Poll Attacks. Read It. (Eye on College Basketball)
Top Stories:
The top 10 dunks of the college basketball season: With the football season in the books, College Basketball Talk fills you in on what you’ve missed. Here are the ten best dunks of the college basketball season thus far.
Contenders and Pretenders: College Basketball Talk is helping you get situated now that the football season is over. Here is our list of National Championship contenders and pretenders.
Five sleepers and five upset specials to keep an eye on: College Basketball Talk briefly breaks down five teams that can make deep tournament runs and five teams that may bow out early.
UNLV forward Anthony Bennett leads CBT’s Freshman of the Year rankings: Here’s what you need to know about the top freshman in the country.
Michigan sophomore Trey Burke sits atop CBT’s National Player of the Year rankings: Michigan guard Trey Burke leads our Player of the Year rankings through three months. Doug McDermott and Mason Plumlee aren’t far behind.
Creighton/St. Mary’s highlights ‘BracketBusters’ line-up: ESPN announced the pairings for the final installment of BracketBusters are Monday night. The marquee game features Creighton’s Doug McDermott and Saint Mary’s Matthew Dellavedova. In other action: Ohio @ Belmont, South Dakota State @ Murray State and Detroit @ Wichita State.
Shabazz Napier is UConn’s closer: Despite not being able to play in any post-season games this season, the UConn Huskies continue to play hard, especially down the stretch. Shabazz Napier has been a big reason why, especially in overtime.
Wyoming’s Luke Martinez has court date set for arraignment:
Hoops Housekeeping:
- We got horrible news out of Irvine, Calif., yesterday as it was reported that an assistant coach on the Cal State-Fullerton’s women’s team was murdered on Sunday night. (Orange County Register)
- The North Carolina Tar Heels are really banged up. Three key contributors are questionable for their game tonight against Wake Forest. (ESPN Tar Heel Blog)
- Michigan State guards Gary Harris and Travis Trice are questionable for participation in the Spartan’s game on Wednesday against Minnesota. Harris is still battling back spasms and Trice is recovering from a concussion. (Detroit Free-Press)
- A Detroit-area businessman has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a point-shaving investigation involving the University of Toledo basketball team from 2004-06. (Yahoo Sports)
- Former-Murray State guard Zay Jackson will 60 days in jail as part of the plea deal he reached stemming from his charges of wanton endangerment. (SB Nation)
- The court date for Wyoming guard Luke Martinez has been set. Martinez is facing a felony charge of aggravated assault and battery stemming from a Dec. 30 incident at a bar. (Casper Star-Tribune)
Observations & Insight:
- Why does everybody think college basketball sucks this season? (The Big Lead)
- The Towson Tigers got 20 points and 12 rebounds from Jerrelle Benimon en route to a 81-68 win over UNC-Wilmington on Autism Awareness Night. Jeff Goodman tells the story about how Towson head coach Pat Skerry coordinated this tremendous event. (Eye on College Basketball)
- Andy Katz got a bunch of good quotes from coaches regarding the BracketBuster pairings that were announced yesterday. (ESPN)
- In case you aren’t too familiar with the slate of mid-major basketball, here are the rankings for the 13 televised BracketBuster games. (Big Apple Buckets)
- Ten things to know now that college basketball is suddenly relevant. (USA Today)
- Anybody else excited for the Trey Burke-Aaron Craft match-up tonight? Craft got the best of Burke in the first game. Could tonight be Burke’s “Naismith Moment”? (UMHoop.com)
- Michigan will wear all-maize uniforms for the Ohio State game tonight. You might wanna put on sunglasses before you click the link. (The Dagger)
- It took Illinois just one month to plummet from the top-15 to the bubble. That’s impressive. (The Dagger)
- Once a month Matt Norlander puts together a collage of the best college basketball photos. Here are January’s best. (Eye on College Basketball)
- It looks like Jalen Rose had himself a good time in Bloomington for last weekend’s edition of ESPN College GameDay. (Deadspin)
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