Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. Some conferences are halfway through their season as we head into February, and we’ve had some off-court news take over the headlines of late as well.
We start with the news out of Miami, where Dewan Hernandez was declared ineligible and all of his appeals have been exhausted. With that, he is off to the professional world, but there is something about this story that doesn’t seem right – and the Hurricanes and college basketball are not the better for it. As Paul Borden wrote a couple of days ago, an already challenging season just got even more challenging.
Related to that is the news of former South Carolina and Oklahoma State assistant coach Lamont Evans becoming the third former coach to plead guilty to charges stemming from the FBI’s investigation into the sport. At this point, one has to wonder just where this entire investigation is leading, who else will be snared, and will any head coaches get nailed? There are still more questions than answers right now.
We then go into some detail on the Big 12, where Kansas is not in first place and looks as vulnerable as ever. On the flip side, it’s not clear that any of the other nine teams will play well enough and consistently enough to finish ahead of them.
The Big East is the next subject area, and aside from Villanova an Marquette, it looks wide open. St. John’s got a much-needed win at Creighton and appears likely to win enough games to be an NCAA Tournament team, but after that, it’s anyone’s guess who might make it.
Finally, we look at the ACC, which has a very strong top but also some depth, even with Pittsburgh coming back to earth lately.
Ted then hands out his midseason awards, then we close by looking ahead to the weekend’s contests.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in next week as we continue to talk about college basketball.
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