Friday Morning Dump

Today is the day. The college basketball season is upon us.




Yes it is.

It's time for college basketball to begin.

- Seth Davis answers ten burning questions in his season-opening edition of "Hoop Thoughts"

- Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman publish their preseason Top-25 rankings (Not sure I'm buying Michigan at #20 though)

- Luke Winn highlights the top 16 instant impact freshman to watch for this season

- In case you missed this yesterday, Corey Schmidt dropped some serious knowledge on how exactly you measure and analyze "being clutch"

- I like what Andy Katz is thinking here: Air Force would be a good fit in the West Coast Conference

- As recent as just three years ago, seven of the twelve ACC head coaches were African-American. Now, just one, Florida State's Leonard Hamilton, remains

- Speaking of ACC head coaches, North Carolina's Roy Williams received a contract extension that will keep him in Chapel Hill until 2018

- Jeff Eisenberg ranks the 15-best non-conference games featuring Big East schools

- ESPN's Pat Forde will be leaving the World Wide Leader in order to join Yahoo Sports. Earlier in the week is was announced the Jason King of Yahoo Sports would be leaving in order to join ESPN (I will miss his "Forde Minutes" column. It was one of the best-reads on the entire site)

- Will the 2011-2012 season be "a golden year" for college hoops?

- The National Basketball Report releases their 2011-2012 preseason All-Junior Team

- So it looks like President Obama will in fact attend the Carrier Classic

- The latest Bottom's Line college basketball podcast (Featuring B.I.A.H). Speaking of podcast, here's our Q-and-A with CBS Sports' Gregg Doyel

- Word on the street is that Mississippi State's Renardo Sydney has been working hard to improve his conditioning as well as his teamwork

- With the return of Jared Sullinger, William Buford and Aaron Craft, Ohio State has high hopes for 2011-2012

- I'm very excited to see how Rutgers-transfer Mike Rosario fits in with Florida's deep backcourt. Speaking of Florida, the Gators got new uniforms

- This is why expansionocalypse won't work: Everybody is trying to block everybody else

- Did Luke Walton already commit a recruiting violation at Memphis?

- A position-by-position look at the Big-Ten Conference: The big-men

- The NCAA is exploring the possibility of reducing the number of scholarships it gives out

- Another Hoosier get sidelined with an injury. Junior forward Christian Watford will have to miss "Hoosier Hysteria" tonight because of a minor foot injury. He should be able to return in the next week

- Siena small forward Trenity Burdine is still struggling to recover from foot surgery that took place last April, and will be forced to sit out of the opening week of practices

- Washington Huskies' senior captain Scott Suggs was seen on crutches yesterday and is likely to miss the first week of practices

- Pittsburgh's Nasir Robinson injured his right knee and will be sidelined for the next 3-4 weeks. Hopefully he will be able to return by the first or second game of the year

- For what seems like the 15th year-in-a-row, Xavier has been picked by the coaches and media to win the Atlantic-10

- Rush The Court takes a in-depth look at the Texas-Kansas rivalry (Which will probably end soon when Texas becomes an independent and Kansas joins the Atlantic-10)

- Duke's back-to-back National Championship teams will be featured in a Turner Sports documentary coming out in March

- Former Fab-5 member Jimmy King faces trial in child support case

- Pittsburgh will play in the 2012 Preseason N.I.T. Tip-off, the 2013 Champions Classic and the 2014 Maui Invitational

- The five things Diamond Leung can't wait to see from the Mountain West Conference

- Who will be the breakout performers in the SEC this season?

- Click here for all of ESPN's coverage of the Big Sky Conference

- John Calipari would be disappointed if his team won a national Championship but nobody got drafted

- Thanks to a bizarre 4-game suspension to their best, most experienced player, Notre Dame will be looking for new players to step on and make a presence

- A solid Q-and-A session with the Penn State blog "Black Shoe Diaries"

- Texas got a verbal commitment from 6-foot-10 big-man Prince Ibeh

- Rush The Court's "Whose Got Next?" column is your weekly source for all the recruiting news form across the country

- The Arena Pulse previews the the Big West Conference and the Southland Conference

- A quick conference preview of The Ivy League

- An excellent preview of the Colonial Athletic Association, provided by The College Hardwood

- A preseason conference primer for The Summit League (Home to the best college nicknames in the country: Mastodons, Jaguars, Jackrabbits, Kangaroos and Leathernecks)

- Reason #25 why Rush The Court loves college basketball

- instead of jumping back in to the coaching profession, ex-Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl is getting his feet wet in the upholstery business