Thursday Morning Dump

Things you may have missed: The best hairdos in college hoops. Missouri's Kim English is more than just a basketball player. Jim Boeheimm comments on his epic postgame presser. Cincy is back in the bubble picture. Purdue gets some revenge.

- Dan Wetzel, who in my opinion, is maybe the best in the business, put together a fantastic piece about two coaches with trouble pasts finding a home for themselves in Conference-USA

- George Dohrmann, the author of "Play Their Hearts Out" provides his insight and analysis on the mess-of-a-season Oregon State is having (Roberto Nelson, one of the kids highlighted in his book, plays at Oregon State)

- Dana O'Neil provides a great story on CS-Northridge's Mike Lizarraga. The six-foot-seven senior has been deaf since he was an infant, but that has not stopped him from reaching his goals and inspiring others to do the same. This is a pretty special moment as well.

- Each member of ESPN's college hoops braintrust provides their opinion on the state of the at-large bid (One link, five articles)

- Gary Parrish explains that while there may not be one dominant team in the C-USA, there is power in numbers. He also talks about Joe Jackson spending late-game situations on the bench.

- Eamonn Brennan opens up the hoops mailbag and answers questions regarding the RPI, the bubble and #1-seeds

- Braketology-extraordinaire Joe Lundari provides this week's lesson of bracket math

- Mike Miller wonders if maybe SDSU is deserving of a #1-seed

- Although the tournament has added four teams, the committee has stated that the tournament selection process has remained the same

- Dave Ryan details the reasons why Michigan State won't make the tournament this season

- In the latest edition of "The Starting Five", Mike DeCourcy believes it's a "no-brainer" that SDSU head coach Steve Fisher should be named Coach of the Year

- Asher Fusco reminds us that no team from the Northeast Conference has ever won an NCAA tournament game, but that Long Island or Central Connecticut State may be able to do that this year.

- Rob Walden relays the notion to us that depth in the ACC is almost non-existent

- Speaking of lack of depth in the ACC, the absence of a supporting cast is plaguing many of the conference's teams

- Kyle Whelliston put together a nice summary of the dominant mid-major teams that have all suffered a single head-scratching conference loss

- Dave Telep details why the state of Indiana has gotten off to an early lead in the recruiting race

- Jeff Esienberg critiques another failed ESPN broadcast innovation, the timeout interview. Listen, these work in Major League baseball because the games take forever, but something like this should never ever be tried in college hoops ever again

- Jeff Borzello takes a look at four teams that are virtual-locks to win their respective conferences

- Arizona State beat reporter Doug Haller had a quality Q&A session with Washington's Isaiah Thomas. Thomas mentions that he believes there is an "east coast bias" in the college hoops world. (Well Isaiah, there's a deep south bias in college football. It's just the way things work)

- Speaking of Arizona State, the university will retire Byron Scott's No-11 jersey on Thursday night when they host Washington

- More reactions from the epic post-game presser given by Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim. Matt Jones drops the hammer on Boeheim. I kinda wish this is how the press conference would have gone down

- Speaking of media criticism, former-CBS broadcaster Billy Packer had some choice words about the CBS/Turner Tournament plans

- Kemba Walker scored 31-points last night to lead the Huskies to victory over Georgetown. Jeff Eisenberg wonders if this big performance is enough to erase Kemba's recent struggles

- During the post-game presser following his team's victory over Maryland, Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg gave a pretty good Lefty Driesell impersonation

- Tom Osbourne, the AD and former football coach at Nebraska says his university will stay committed to building up the basketball program

- Other than Xavier, the A-10 is kinda difficult to decipher. Dayton might be the most puzzling team to figure out.

- Georgia and Vanderbilt played last night, with Vandy coming away victorious 64-56. The two teams look to be headed in opposite directions

- An in-depth look at Marquette's resume

- Vermont was one of two teams to clinch regular season conference titles last night (Fairfield was the other). The Catamounts will be led into the post-season by Evan "The Marvelous Mustache" Fjeld

- It seems like all season Cincinnati has been looking for that signature-win, well they need to find it soon if they want to make the NCAA tournament

- St. John's isn't a tournament-lock yet, but they are close. On Tuesday night they helped their cause and got a taste of NCAA tournament conditions with a big road-win at Maruqette,

- Wisconsin's Jordan Taylor was originally snubbed from the Cousy Award watch list, but the comittee has since flip-flopped and decided to add the stand-out point guard

- Syracuse sophomore Brandon Triche is starting to heat up. The guard has scored 41-points in the last two games and has given the Orange another legitimate scoring threat, something the team desperately needs

- A good-read on Iona's Scott Machado. The junior guard has become the quarterback for the Gaels and is second on the team in points-per-game. Plus, as a kid, he hated his first name.

- Walk-ons are student-section-favorites but ussually overlooked by the general public. But the bench-warmers at Michigan are helping their teammates rise to the occasion

- Jimmer Fredette is so popular, there is practically a new sect of Mormonism(sp?) devoted entirely to him

- Speaking of JimmerJam2011, the oddsmakers in Sin City favor "The Mormon Moneymaker" to win the Player of the Year award

- Remember last year when Mississippi State students got the cell phone number for DeMarcus Cousins and put it all over campus? Well on Tuesday night, Kentucky fans got back at them by getting Renardo Sidney's

- A look at how the freshman at Wake Forest are performing compared to first-years from around the country. Speaking of freshman, here's a solid-read on the freshman struggles at UPenn

- Since it's highly-unlikely that Terrence Jones returns to Kentucky for his sophomore year, you might want to brush-up on his NBA draft scouting report

- Former-DePaul commit Walter Pitchford Jr. has verbally committed to Florida. Pitchford joins shooting guard Bradley Beal as standouts in Florida's recruiting class of 2011

- Purdue picked up a commitment from class of 2013 guard Basil Smotherman (A lock for B.I.A.H All-Name Team recognition)