Some random items for your Monday early afternoon.
- From last night, Miami center Reggie Johnson was declared ineligible by the school over impermissible travel benefits provided to his family by an assistant on former coach Frank Haith’s staff. Miami says Johnson was unaware of the benefits and would seek reinstatement from the NCAA per the normal procedure. Johnson was not on the floor when Miami scored a surprising win over FSU Sunday night in Coral Gables. FSU is now in a tailspin and Miami is looking to make a late run at an NCAA Tournament bid. Whether Johnson takes the court again or not obviously has a major impact not just on the Hurricanes but NC State, Miami’s opponent this Wednesday. In addition to Miami, it is entirely possible things are about to get really dicey for Frank Haith who has Missouri in the top ten. Nothing says awkward like having you coach lead your team to a very successful season then having him get a show cause penalty at some point down the road.
- Speaking of the Miami win over FSU, it did lead to a little shuffling of the RPI. FSU dropped to 26th and Miami rose to 48th. UNC is now fifth overall in the RPI rankings with a 2-3 record against the Top 25 and 6-4 vs the top 50. None of UNC’s losses are ranked worse than FSU at 26th. Three of those four losses came on the road. At this point UNC’s #1 seed chances may hinge on beating Duke twice which would simultaneously push Duke down and lift UNC up while getting some help from elsewhere.
- Through 29 games Kendall Marshall has 281 assists on the season. Marshall needs just four assists vs Maryland to break Ed Cota’s UNC single season record. Marshall is 24 away from breaking the ACC single season record for assists which is current at 303.
- And something to make you laugh and wonder out loud about what passes off as journalism these days. Via the Augusta Free Press is this piece from Chris Graham who claims that there is a mass conspiracy against ACC schools not named UNC and Duke. His proof? Why the past few days where UNC and Duke both won crucial games during which they benefited from a questionable call or two. As you know questionable calls always favor UNC and Duke. There are never odd calls that go against those two schools. Ever.
In UNC’s case he is referring to Mike Scott’s foul situation including his fourth where John Henson may have embellished some and in turn got the call. This is proof you see of the conspiracy. Since that is I can only guess that UVa missing 11 straight three pointers in the second half was the ACC’s doing. I can only assume UNC’s putrid offensive performance which resulted in a paltry 54 points and 33% shooting was part of the master plan. John Swofford had a chip planted in Mike Scott’s brain that caused him to go 3-13 and take an ill advised three with UVa down only one late in the game. Swofford hit the Buffalo Wild Wings buttin and some photographers flash blinded Sammy Zeglinski causing him to miss a wide open three that would have tied the game. Reggie Bullock didn’t bother covering the shot because he knew the game was in the bag. Wait…you mean the Cavaliers made all those mistakes, missed those shots and didn’t play well down the stretch of their own accord? But what about the conspiracy!?!? You can’t just blame the officiating for a loss and cite questionable calls as the evidence of some sort of conspiracy. Only ignorant, shortsighted fanboys who spend most of their time on message boards do that sort of thing.
