Friday Morning Dump

- Luke Winn's Power Rankings! Nothing better to start off of a Friday morning.

- A must-read for anybody interested in college basketball media relations. Matt Norlander tries to ponder why a highly-respectable publication would be denied credentials to an early-season non-con game, and explains why what Virginia Tech did makes absolutely no sense.

- The swan song of the Pac-12/Big-10 Pac-10/Big-12 Hardwood Series began last night (well actually it began earlier in the week) and Andy Katz explains one of the few reasons why the loss of this "conference showdown" might actually hurt a few schools

- Rush The Court discusses and debates the practicality of "conference showdowns"

- ESPN's Mark Adams wrote a great piece on Morehead State's Kenny Faried. He elaborates on a comparison Florida's Billy Donovan made about Faried and Dennis Rodman

- Mike Miller from Beyond the Arc provides a list of winners and losers from the Big-10/ACC Challenge. Sippin' On Purple lets us know what they learned from the ACC/Big Ten Challenge

- Mike DeCourcy ponders a very intrguing question: Why isn't Enes Kanter getting the same treatment as Auburn quarterback Cam Newton?

- Florida? Selfish? No way

- Matt Norlander at The Dagger is tracking the progress of all the unbeaten teams in the country. (Hey, wait a minute! That was my idea. I knew I should have gotten a patent on it.)

- John Gasaway reveals an unlikely candidate for Player of the Year

- Finally, a credible news source backs me up on something: SDSU is the best in the west

- The UCLA Bruins are making strides to improve. After all, they cannot possibly be as bad as they were last season. But the process of rebuilding is not easy, and requires patience. Lots and lots of patience

- Speaking of UCLA, Bruins fans are kinda pissed at the referees with how last night's game ended

- Bubble, this is Virginia Tech. VaTech, say hello to the bubble. Oh, you already know each other? Nevermind then.

- Kentucky center Josh Harrellson walked away from the Boston U. game on Tuesday with a solid 12-point, 11-rebound performance. He also walked away with a new nickname - "Mother Hen"

- In case you missed it, Marcus Jordan and the golden knights of Central Florida upset the #16-ranked Florida Gators and are now 6-0. Jordan is certainly making a name for himself, and for once it's because of his on-court play. Jeff Goodman has more on the significance of this victory

- A stellar video analysis of Kyrie Irving's abillity to get to the basket

- It must be difficult to be the son of a legendary basketball coach. It must be really difficult to play basketball at the same university. I must be beyond all realms of difficulty when it's you mom that is the head coach. I can't fathom what it's like to be the son of Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt. Speaking of Summitt, Deadspin had an interesting-read about how the Vols head coach refuses to grow with the times and play UConn

- College Chalk Talk put together a terrific breakdown of the best post-players in the Big Ten

- Draft Express evaluates the rising stars of the young hoops season

- North Carolina State could get star forward Tracy Smith back in 10-12 days. Smith has been out since the second game of the season, when he injured his knee early in a game against East Carolina.

- Seton Hall guard Jeremy Hazell had sucessful surgery on his broken wrist

- I'm a huge fan of UNLV's grey uniforms, but their new black ones, yeah, those are bad-ass.

- Testudo Times tries to determine if the ACC is going to have another "down year"

- Michael Jordan is being inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame

- Pittsburgh beat Duquesne on pretty convincingly on Wednesday night, 80-66. But Ray Mernagh of the NBE explains why Pitt was so dominant. Hint: It wasn't because of talent

- Once upon a time, Rick Pitino had his own "LeBron returns to Cleveland" game

- Kentucky's Terrence Jones is on pace to break most of the freshman records set by John Wall

- I'm kinda getting sick of all these Kentucky-related links, but this one is worth your next five minutes, I swear. A Sea of Blue explains why the progress made by Brandon Knight is more important than the performances put up by Terrence Jones

- Is it possible that the Great West, the laughingstock of D-I conferences everywhere, could be getting better?

- The Dayton Flyers are struggling, and their fans are struggling to find answers. They go way back on the timeline to try and search for clues

- Now this my friends, is what you call "a facial"

Enes Kanter and Doron Lamb comit a serious Man-Code violation: Paint is only permissable on a man's body if it's full-body paint with numbers or a giant letter.


Man Law.

This is awesome from Mason Plumlee. I may have turned to the dark side, but this Duke team is very likeable: