Thursday Morning Dump

- When Dana O'Neil starts pumping out her feature articles on Wednesdays, you know that college basketball season has officially arrived. Here she is on Joe Jackson of Memphis. Terrific stuff.

- Jeronne Maymon has been cleared. I guess he passed his bowling class.

- Seth Davis answers some solid reader mail. He assesses the state of the undefeateds (He must be another one of the ardent followers of The Emery Board), gives his opinion on the use of different styles of play, and addresses the problems plaguing Gonzaga

- Oregon State coach Craig Robinson discussed the state of college coaching in a great-read from BeyondTheBeat.Net. Robinson believed that leaving "corporate america" meant leaving the sleaze and grime of underhanded business practices. He was wrong.

- Lost Letterman spends an entire week detailing Northwestern's quest for their first ticket to the big dance. Part one - the glory years, part two - the decline, and from Wednesday, part three - the dark ages

- Andy Staples with an interesting read on the similarities and differences between Cam Newton and Renardo Sidney

- Rick Pitino believes Kentucky has raised the bar in the Battle for the Bluegrass State rivalry. Kentucky and Louisville was face-off on the last day of 2010

- Mike Miller details why Wyoming is on speed-dial for many bubble-seeking mid-major teams

- She's a snitch. Isn't this reaction obvious?

- The Audacity of Hoops put together a great graphic about teams that beat a top-10 squad on the road, then follow it up by laying an egg

- The Boston University ticket sales department pulls out all the stops (and the thesaurus) in order to get people into their seats, their palatially-posturpedic seats

- Ken Pomeroy determines his first annual kPOY

- What if I told you back in October that through five weeks of college basketball, Cincinnati would be one of the three remaining unbeaten teams in the Big East? Would you have believed me? Of course you wouldn't have. But an experienced Bearcat squad playing with poise and a team-first mentality are proving people wrong for not giving them a chance

- This isn't the first season that Gonzaga has played a brutally-tough non-conference schedule. But it is the first time that the Bulldogs have struggled, I mean really struggled. The 4-5 start is Mark Few's worst in his tenure at Gonzaga, and some serious questions need to be raised about this team

- Seton Hall guard Keon Lawrence has been sentenced to five years probation for his 2009 drunken wrong-way car crash on the Garden State Parkway

- Asher Fusco from the Basketball Prospectus takes a look at The Big Apple programs in the not so big NEC. When you think New York City basketball, the Northeast Conference is not usually the first thing to come to mind. But a few programs are trying to change that.

- Syracuse's Fab Melo has been hurting for the past week due to what was thought to be an injured achilles tendon. It turns his entire lower-right leg may be injured

- A Sea of Blue provides Santa Clause with a list of those in college basketball who have been naughty and who has been nice

- The NCAA made a trip to Newark, NJ to inspect Seton Hall's new student section placement (right behind the opposing team bench). Maybe the NCAA should have chosen a game other than the one against cupcake Longwood. (Personally, I think all student sections should be in one of two places: 1) The entire stretch of seats behind both team benches, or 2) the entire section of seats behind both baskets. Then again, I am an adamant believer that heckling is an integral part of college sports. Maybe that's because the most popular and dominant sport at my college was soccer.)

- Five college coaches: IUPUI's Ron Hunter, Kansas' Bill Self, Kentucky's John Calipari, South Dakota Scott Nagy and Tennessee Tech's Mike Sutton have been honored as nominees for the first United Nations NGO Positive Peace Awards, presented by Celebrate Positive

- Speaking of Bill Self, he is auctioning off a chance to have a skpye conversation with him for his charitble foundation

- Oklahoma freshman TJ Taylor is transferring to a JuCo.

- College Hoops Net has two great interview series going featuring "Coaching Greats" and Forgotten Legends". This week, Jon Teitel caught up with Stephen F. Austin coach Danny Kaspar and Rhode Island legend Ernie Calvarley. I love a good Q%A session

- Michigan bloggers shouldn't be the only ones trying to learn more about the Oakland Golden Grizzlies. I know the Wolverines aren't anything special this year, but another win over a BCS-conference team would do wonders for their resume, even though they are a stone-cold-lead-pipe-lock to win the Summit League, again.

- Finals week is tough for students and college basketball fans. But luckily the ACC has provided a video vault for us to peruse instead of having to watch Wake Forest play

- Jeff Borzello provides the nightly awards on behalf of Jeff Goodman. (Is it safe to assume that Borzello has become Goodman's apprentice?, his paduwan, his Scoop-in-Training? Or maybe Goodman brought on Borzello because he needs wants to add a bit more pastel into his wardrobe)

- The bloggers who follow Ohio State must have been reading the Emery Board, because they too believe tOSU could make a serious undefeated run

- In case you didn't read our post about why Louisville lost, here's another link that explains the contributing fact0r to their home loss to Drexel

- Indiana seems to be the clubhouse leader for the services of class of 2011 power forward Walter Pitchford

- A breakdown of the Saturday loss handed out by Charles Jenkins and the Hofstra Flying Dutchmen Pride to the Florida Atlantic Owls. Jenkins had 32 of his team's 59 points, but it was not enough to keep the Pride's four-game winning streak intact

- Ronald Nored is clearly a smart man. He chose a field of study (elementary education) that does not require finals. So this week he get's to hang out and watch episodes of Dr. Phil. Listen to him talk about his week over at Victory Firelight

- Mike DeCourcy answers five topical questions in his starting-5 column

- What's with all the crazy business going on at non-Division-I basketball games. A 72-year-old lawyer and former mayoral candidate got ejected from a women's community college game

- Casual Hoya takes a look back at some of the best and worst cupcakes in Georgetown history

- Best.T-shirt.Ever. (Big-Ten edition)

I hope who ever made this isn't friends with anybody on the basketball team