Monday Morning Dump

- During the off-season we discussed how Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury made strategic changes to the schedule to allow his best players to be able to play in the important games. Well, because of that MSU has to play five games in five days. It's a monumental challenge for the Bulldogs, but Stansbury is hoping that it pays off in the end

- Dana O'Neil explains what is going on with West Virginia. The Mountaineers have been struggling, and their recent outing against Duquesne showed, as they had to hang on for a 64-61 win against the Dukes.

- Gary Parrish gives us his updated top-25 list. Jeff Goodman does the same. Don't forget about the Non-BCS Top-25, which includes Gonzaga's freefall

- Matt Norlander details one of the coolest hoops traditions in the country, the "Silent Night game" which takes place at Taylor University, a NAIA school.



- NAIA school West Virginia Tech defeated Ohio State-Mansfield by 100-points, 157-57. WVTU lost Cleveland State by 32, Marshall by 23,and Coppin State by 13. So the real question is, just how bad is OSU-Mansfield? The crazy thing is, the 100-point margin of victory isn't even that close to the NAIA record, which is 117. When can we get West Virginia Tech and West Liberty to play?

- Freshman guard Matt Carlino is transferring from UCLA

- Jeff Goodman reiterates one of the golden rules in college basketball: Don't ever count out Tom Izzo and the Spartans. Seriously, even with three losses already, you can probably go ahead and pencil in the Spartans for an Elite-Eight birth, or Sweet-16 at least.

- Memphis center Angel Garcia will leave the team after the fall semester to play professional hoops in Spain

- Western Kentucky point guard Kent Brown has been dismissed from the program due to violation of a team academic policy

- Villanova narrowly defeated Big-5 foe La Salle on Sunday. The Wildcats have some glaring problems that need to be addressed

- Davidson and Charlotte meet in the battle for the Hornet's Nest (I like this, I really like this. College basketball needs to have more rivalry trophies. Football has golden spitoons, bronzed pigs, egg bowls, and peace pipes. College hoops needs to have this)

- Talk about mid-major madness. Three of the most dominant mid-major programs in recent history, Butler, Gonzaga and Xavier are all struggling. Is it possible that all three of these teams miss out on the tournament? Butler is not remotely close to the team it was late in the year last season, Gonzaga is having their worst season in a long time, and Xavier does not look the the A-10 powerhouse they have been for the past half-decade.

- Mike Miller rounds up some solid quotables from the weekend in college hoops

- Free throw shooting and other familiar problems plague the Terrapins in their ACC-opener against Boston College

- Big East officials will visit Seton Hall this week to inspect and deal with issues regarding the new location of the student section


- Louisville had a huge weekend. The feather in the cap was the committment from "Never Nervous" Rodney Purvis (Whoa whoa whoa, I don't think you can use that nickname.)

- Word on the street is that there was a really-really-hot-chick at the Syracuse/MSU game. Let's help The Orange Fizz find out who this mystery smoke-show is

- Speaking of hot chicks and basketball, apparently two female Nebraska fans started making out in order to distract a TCU player shooting free-throws

- The New York Times had a interesting article that looked back at Notre Dame's historic upset of John Wooden's UCLA Bruins