Monday Morning Dump

- The big news from over the weekend was that the Birmingham School District announced that they would not be changing Eric Bledsoe's grade despite an independent law firm conducting the investigation determining that Bledsoe's grade change was not credible. Reactions varied. Gary Parrish says that the determination that the grade change was no credible should, in and of itself, be reason enough to render Bledsoe ineligible. Tom Arenberg of the Birmingham News thinks the school system needs to look deeper into the situation. Some Kentucky fans are questioning whether or not the sports journalists of the world will go after one another, while the rest are busy celebrating. Me? I'm just glad its over with. Retroactively determining a player to be ineligible, and then vacating a season as a result, has got to be the stupidest punishment of all time.

- On Thursday, a Jay Bilas article went up on ESPN's Insider, and it created quite a bit of discussion. Essentially, Bilas was arguing that the NCAA does not need to get involved with the eligibility process, that a school is perfectly capable of determining who they allow into school. If they want to disregard their normal academic requirements in order to get a kid that can play a sport into school, who is the NCAA to stop them?

The argument against Bilas' theory is that school's already can determine who they let into school. Stanford and Alabama probably don't have the same requirements when it comes to their athletes. The NCAA is simply there to set the baseline. Bilas responded to the dissenters with another post over the weekend.

- Cal will begin the season even more shorthanded, as 7'3" center Max Zhang will not be coming back to school until the spring semester. Zhang played with the Chinese National Team at the FIBA World Championships, and he is going to play with them at the Asian Games in November.

- Kansas got some bad news as well, as 7'0" center Jeff Withey broke a bone in his foot and will miss 4-6 weeks.

- Pitt redshirt freshman Lamar Patterson is ok after crashing through a building over the weekend.

- One of the storylines that I can guarantee you get sick of hearing about over the next six months is the redemption of North Carolina. 

- Kevin O'Neil bought a $2 million mansion near LA's Skid Row. So many questions ... why is this news? There are $2 million homes next to LA's Skid Row? O'Neil has the money to buy  $2 million house?

- Two notable commitments -- Norman Powell to UCLA and Mike Taylor to Rutgers.

- Magic's college teammate pleads guilty to two charges related to an internet scam that earned his $2 million.