Gary Parrish

Remember what I wrote two nights ago, the thing about how Nike will rescue UCF?

The Orlando Sentinel's Mike Bianchi echoed the thought this morning.

So this idea is clearly gaining momentum, and unless the folks at Nike are stupid they're going to realize that signing an apparel deal with UCF will not only help Michael Jordan's son but also aid -- follow me here -- Nike. Think of it as a $3 million PR move. Suddenly, UCF basketball (or at least this aspect of it) is a national story, and what better way for Nike to capitalize on it than to step in and help a cash-strapped non-BCS program that Adidas just ditched? It would garner tons of good press, and after a summer of bad press -- you haven't forgotten the confiscation of the tape of the Jordan Crawford dunk on LeBron James, have you? -- Nike sure could use a few positive headlines.

This is the way to get them.

So when the lawyers give the OK, Nike should sign UCF.

It would be a better PR move than any current advertising campaign.

And that's why it's going to happen, because it makes too much sense to not happen.

The NCAA has cleared Cincinnati freshman Lance Stephenson to play immediately, UC coach Mick Cronin told CBSSports.com on Thursday afternoon.

"Clear," Cronin texted to CBSSports.com. "No games."

Stephenson came off the bench Thursday night and made 4-of-14 shots in the Bearcats' 86-58 exhibition victory over Saginaw Valley State. He finished with nine points and four rebounds in 18 minutes. Earlier this week, CBSSports.com named Stephenson, a 6-foot-5 guard, the Big East Preseason Newcomer of the Year. He'll make his national television debut on Nov. 23 when the Bearcats play Vanderbilt in the Maui Invitational.

The NBA D-League Draft is tonight on NBA TV.

Tune in and you'll hear the names of all sorts of former college players -- guys like Deron Washington (Virginia Tech) and  Paul Harris (Syracuse) -- who have been forced to take the tough path to the NBA. Meantime, you'll also hear the names of some guys who never actually played in college, among them Latavious Williams, who must want to shoot his "core of very competent people" about now.

As my pal Jonathan Givony at DraftExpress.com pointed out -- click this link for a nice breakdown of the D-League Draft -- Williams has gone from a guy being told he could get a contract in the "six-figure range" to somebody on the verge of playing in the D-League for a non-guaranteed contract worth $19,000. For this, he passed up college?

In fairness, Williams had academic problems, and it's unclear if he would've been cleared to play in college this season, or whether he had any interest in actually going to college. If that's the case, fine. If this was his only real option, then maybe this isn't terrible. But it's still rough to see a talented young person be so misled by adults -- in this case, it was a dumb mentor/amateur agent named Trey Godfrey -- that he ends up surprised by reality, and that's why it's difficult not to feel a little badly for Williams, because he was told he was worth way more than he's really worth.

I mean, do you remember the quote from Williams when he announced he was skipping college? If not, here you go: "It was a difficult decision, but after consulting with a number of people, and taking my family situation into consideration, playing overseas is the best move for me. It will not be an easy transition, but I have surrounded myself with a core of very competent people who I trust and who have my best interests at heart, so I am confident that things will work out very well."

Or not.

There is no good overseas option.

There is no six-figure contract on the table.

Consequently, Latavious Williams will have to "help his family" by playing in the D-League for $19,000.

I just hope he has a small family.

Shirley Barnes, the mother of top-ranked recruit Harrison Barnes, confirmed to CBSSports.com that her son will announce his college decision Nov. 13.

"H called the coaches," she wrote in an email. "They are aware that he's going to announce by signing his Letter of Intent on Nov. 13."

(That's next Friday, if you don't have a calendar handy.)

Barnes is a 6-foot-6 wing from Ames, Iowa.

He'll pick between Duke, Iowa State, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and UCLA.

His final visit will be to Iowa State this weekend.

Here's Thursday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: What grade would you give Tom Crean at this point on the rebuilding process at Indiana? Also, how would you grade Hoosier fans' support and patience up to this point?

-- Mick

I'm not really into grades, so I'll stay away from that unless you'll let me offer an 'I' for Incomplete. But if your question is whether I believe Crean will get it turned around at Indiana, the answer is yes, absolutely. He's just too smart and too focused to be unsuccessful at a place like IU.

Speaking of, I spent some time with Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor a few weeks ago, and we got to talking about Crean. Remember, Taylor signed with Crean at Marquette, then got a release when Crean went to Indiana and later enrolled at Kansas. So that's the connection. Anyway, we were talking about Crean, and Taylor said nothing but great things. He wasn't mad that he was put into a bad spot by Crean's departure, wasn't negative at all. He just talked about how much he liked Crean, and basically said there's no doubt he'll get it going at Indiana, in time.

And that's what I believe, too.

But it's going to take three years, at least.

Surely, UCF administrators knew what would happen if Marcus Jordan wore Air Jordans Wednesday night.

They can't be that stupid.

Which is why I'd bet my best pair of Sambas that before long we'll learn UCF is on the verge of becoming a "Nike" school, because I can't imagine MJ letting his son's athletic department scramble after his son's allegiance to Nike cost UCF a sponsorship with adidas . I mean, do you really think MJ will let adidas get over on his son?

Absolutely not.

So yeah, UCF has lost its adidas contract.

That's too bad.

But the Knights will have Swooshes on their jerseys in no time, guaranteed.

The funniest thing about the video of Tim Floyd breaking up a fight in a casino is that it's not the first time I've seen him break up a fight. Seriously, I don't know what it is about Floyd, but he has no problem stepping into the middle of things when things get rough.

You might remember (but you probably don't) that I filed a column two years ago from the Nike Peach Jam in which I sort of touched on some unusual things I witnessed at the event. One of those things was how three players from the New York Gauchos were trying to start a fight with a kid from the Georgia Stars. I was standing in the lobby talking with Floyd when it all went down, and, well, here's what I wrote:

On Thursday, some Gauchos got into a fight with each other at a local McDonald's (see what happens with you eliminate super sizing?), and three of them were sent home. On Friday, I'm told they behaved. But on Saturday I witnessed three other Gauchos about to jump a player from the Georgia Stars in the lobby of the Riverview Park Athletic Center. They were cursing and doing whatever it is tough/idiotic kids do, and the situation would have exploded had a high-major Division I coach not stepped in and demanded the three Gauchos walk away.

Their response?

They started cursing the coach.

That high-major Division I coach who stepped in and got cursed was Tim Floyd.

I didn't name him at the time because the NCAA could've technically hit him with an illegal contact charge for talking to recruits, and I didn't think that was right because all he was doing, honestly, was preventing a kid from Georgia from getting his ass kicked; that's why I kept Floyd anonymous. But I don't mind naming him now because he's out of college basketball, and a little illegal contact seems like the least of his problems these days.

Plus, it's hilarious.

Nobody breaks up fights better than Tim Floyd.

I've seen it on the internet.

And I've seen it with my own eyes.

He's like that Dalton character from "Road House."

He really should be a bouncer at a bar somewhere.

The Division II school that beat Syracuse has a new home page.

Click this link to check it out.

The Le Moyne Dolphins are celebrating this appropriately.

Good for them.

Here's Wednesday's Dear Gary (courtesy of a distraught Syracuse fan who emailed late Tuesday) ...

Dear Gary:   After taking my anger out at the bar and trying as hard as possible to make this email legible, I am coming to you for advice. I am a Jet, Met and Knick fan. Clearly, sports have failed me my whole life. I am also a die hard Syracuse college basketball fan, (notice I didn't include college football even though I've been to every football game this season), and tonight my college basketball season just ended before it ever began. I am writing to now to ask: What the hell is left in my life to possibly look forward to?

--  Gregory

Probably nothing.

That's the harsh reality.

But I would like to remind you that it can't possibly get worse than losing to a Division II school from across town, if only because Syracuse isn't playing any more Division II schools from across town. So in that sense, things are looking up. But in all seriousness, this isn't going to be as bad as you think or as bad as it was Tuesday night.

I can't find proof right now (I've been looking for 15 minutes), but I believe UMass lost an exhibition in the 1995-96 season, then went on to make the Final Four. Grand Valley State famously beat Michigan State in an exhibition two years ago, and the Spartans still made the Sweet 16. So losing a game like this isn't necessarily a prediction of what's coming, but it does suggest the Orange will miss Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris more than some wanted to acknowledge.

Anyway, I guess my advice is to take a deep breath and relax.

Or get another drink.

And just know that Syracuse is still going to be a team capable of making the NCAA tournament.

As for the Mets, man, I don't know what to tell you.

Hang in there.

And it's too bad you weren't alive to enjoy the Doc/Darryl years.

Those were good times.

I laugh when recruits spend months talking about how they want to win and play in the NCAA tournament before ultimately committing to a bottom-tier program in a BCS-affiliated league. Brilliant! I always want to tell them that the secret to winning and playing in the NCAA tournament isn't picking a major conference program regardless of the program, it's making sure you select a program that's good-or-great relative to its league, regardless of the league.

I was reminded of this while looking at some facts about Western Kentucky.

Forget Memphis, Xavier and Gonzaga, i.e, the three programs widely recognized as the best of the non-BCS.

I'm not even talking about them.

Just look at freaking Western Kentucky.

Because the Hilltoppers are the class of the Sun Belt -- picked to win it again this year, by the way -- they've been to five NCAA tournaments (2001, 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2009) this decade. Now look at the list of schools from power conferences that cannot match five NCAA tournament appearances this decade:

• Clemson
• Florida State
• Georgia Tech
• Miami
• Virginia
• Virginia Tech
• Arizona State
• Oregon State
• Washington
• Washington State
• Iowa
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Northwestern
• Penn State
• Auburn
• Georgia
• Ole Miss
• South Carolina
• Vanderbilt
• Baylor
• Colorado
• Iowa State
• Kansas State
• Nebraska
• Texas A&M
• Texas Tech
• DePaul
• Georgetown
• Providence
• Rutgers
• St. John's
• Seton Hall
• South Florida
• West Virginia

So the lesson is clear: The key to playing in the NCAA tournament is picking a program that is dominant relative to its league. If that's North Carolina in the ACC, great. If it's Western Kentucky in the Sun Belt, that's fine, too. But what you don't want to do is sign with a perennial loser in a major conference just because it's in a major conference, because in that case you're probably going to spend four years watching the NCAA tournament on CBS. And though I love CBS, it's much more fun to participate in March Madness than it is to watch March Madness, I'm assuming.

Here's Monday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary:   I cannot believe that the Pac-10 will receive only three bids to the tournament. The league is always underrated.
 
-- Tobin

Why is it so hard to believe that the Pac-10 might only receive three bids?

(The SEC only got three last season.)

I mean, we know Washington and California will be good, and UCLA is still UCLA and Ben Howland is still Ben Howland. But beyond that, I don't know why anybody would put another Pac-10 school in the field.

Could a fourth emerge?

Perhaps.

But I can't see why one should be projected to emerge, not at this point.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- I spent the afternoon at the Finch Center watching Memphis coach Josh Pastner conduct his final practice before his first exhibition. While there, I got a glimpse of the roster for Tuesday's opponent (LeMoyne-Owen), and I was shocked to see the name "Taurean Moy" on it, if only because I hadn't heard or thought about Moy in years.

I'm confident that name means nothing to most of you.

But Moy -- nicknamed "T-Head" from way back -- is an interesting story.

He played his senior year of high school at Booker T. Washington in Memphis in 2001. He was Mr. Basketball in the state of Tennessee, most famous for hitting a national record 24 3-pointers in a game before winning a state title on a team that also featured Andre Allen (i.e., the Memphis point guard who was banned from the 2008 Final Four for failing a drug test). Academics prevented Moy from doing anything significant, and he ultimately ended up in jail in Nebraska on a sexual assault charge.

Anyway, I ran a search on Moy to see if anything popped up, and I was reminded that one of the last stories I did before coming to CBS was a story about him. I went to Nebraska and visited Moy in jail just before he was to be released, wrote about him for The Commercial Appeal . You can read that story below, if you're interested.

Again, Moy graduated high school in 2001.

He'll play against the Memphis Tigers in an exhibition Tuesday night.

------------------------------

(This story was published in The Commercial Appeal on May 6, 2006.)

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Three weeks later and they're still talking about it, how the little guy with the sweet stroke got going one night and delivered the best performance this 25-year-old gym has ever seen. He made one shot, then another and another. Before anybody knew what was going on, he had smashed the scoring record, the fans watching from the aluminum bleachers were hollering, and some were yelling to others still outside to come on in and get a load of what was happening.

There were still five minutes left in the game.

"He had 77 points, and then at the buzzer he stopped at that red line and pulled," says the man who runs this league, Rob Treptow, as he points to a spot measuring 32 feet from the rim. "When it went in, everybody went crazy."

Seventy-seven plus three.

That's 80 points in one game.

He made 20-of-27 3-pointers.

Topped the league record by 14 points.

"We've had some good players come through this prison," says Winfield Barber, an assistant to the warden here at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, his head shaking in amazement. "But I don't think we've ever had anybody quite like Taurean Moy."

T-Head's tragic tale

In a metal chair in front of a green chalk board in what the people at the Nebraska State Penitentiary call a classroom, Taurean Moy sits quietly. He's wearing a UPS-colored, soft brown uniform with a white undershirt. His black boots have laces that aren't tied. His tired eyes have circles that aren't going away.

Five years ago, Moy was a Mr. Basketball winner in Tennessee, a star at Booker T. Washington High and a Bluff City legend known simply as "T-Head." Now he's a prisoner in Middle America, a Bluff City felon, an inmate serving a three-year sentence following a guilty plea to an amended charge of attempted first-degree sexual assault 713 miles from home.

What happened?

"I got into a little trouble, came to the penitentiary," said Moy, his voice still filled with the South, though hardened and mature. "It's not nothing to brag about."

Quite a contrast from those good old days, when everything was something to brag about. That jumper, so pure and certain. That swagger, so clear and confident. As he came out of BTW there seemed to be no limits for this 5-11 gunner who would routinely steal passes in the backcourt, start a breakaway and opt to bury a 3-pointer rather than go in for an uncontested layup. He was that good.

Moy made headlines in 2000 when he set a national record by hitting 24 3-pointers - for 83 points - against Manassas. The next day, he was arrested and charged with assault and possession of marijuana. It seemed like a small, sad story at the time. Now that 24-hour period looks like a microcosm of Moy's 24 years on Earth, of a life that started in South Memphis, that found glory on the basketball courts, that traveled through Oklahoma, and ground to a stop at 4201 South 14th Street, in the capital of Nebraska, where pronged fences and barbed wire enclose roughly 1,100 prisoners.

You did good last night, but you done (messed) up tonight.

That's what one of the Memphis Police Department officers who arrested Moy after his 83-point performance said as he pushed the budding star into the back of a patrol car. It's an 11-word sentence that sums up a life.

"Here's a story," said Keith Easterwood, a prominent Memphis AAU coach. "It was the summer between Taurean's junior and senior year, and I was doing an AAU Tournament in Memphis. (Georgia Elite coach) Linzy Davis brought a team up here with (former University of Memphis player) Anthony Rice and (former Florida State player) Alexander Johnson and about six more Division 1 players, and before tipoff he asked me who he should watch and I told him 'that little kid over there.' He just kind of laughed, but I told him that I was serious. Then T-Head scored 42 points and beat them.

"So the next morning he's got a game at 9, and when I get to the gym there are college coaches lined up waiting to come see him, and you know college coaches, they aren't getting up and going to a gym that early for nothing," Easterwood added. "But they all wanted to see T-Head."

And?

"He didn't show up," Easterwood said. "That's the history of Taurean Moy."

'He had other things on his mind'

On March 17, 2001, BTW beat Knoxville Austin-East and won the TSSAA Class AA state title. Despite scoring only 13 points in the championship game, Moy solidified himself as one of the great shooters to ever play in Tennessee by hitting a state-record 19 3-pointers in three tournament games, including 11 in a quarterfinal win over Chattanooga Howard.

"When Taurean shot the ball, you could bet your life it was going in," said Fred Horton, coach at BTW for 33 years. "He's not only the best shooter I've ever had, he's probably the best shooter I've ever seen."

The best a lot had ever seen, specifically at schools like Florida State, UAB and Houston, which all inquired about Moy despite his legal and academic troubles. But Moy was so far from being eligible after BTW that going straight to a Division 1 institution wasn't realistic. He never graduated from high school, and only later got his GED. So Horton pushed Moy to enroll at Southwest Tennessee Community College instead.

"It was very important for Taurean to get into school at that time," Horton said. "I talked to him religiously about getting his body into school. But he was not mature. He had other things on his mind."

The next year, Moy didn't do much of anything. But during the summer of 2002 he enrolled at Eastern Oklahoma State Junior College and took the required classes to attain eligibility for the upcoming season. After a brief look at Moy in pickup games, Eastern Oklahoma State coach Jimmy Voight told The Commercial Appeal "the only thing that can keep (Moy) from getting to a big-time level is himself. ... So far it's a good situation."

Twelve games into the season, the good was gone. Moy was dismissed for a violation of team rules. He returned to Memphis and considered enrolling at Southwest Tennessee before opting to leave home again.

"I left Memphis because I couldn't stay focused; I knew everybody," Moy said. "So I tried to get away. That's when I came to Nebraska."

'I didn't know how old she was'

Nebraska must be the most unexciting of all the states. Compared with it, Iowa is paradise.

That's what New York Times best-selling author Bill Bryson wrote in his book "The Lost Continent." Far as Moy could tell, that made Nebraska the perfect place to relocate. Unexciting meant no temptations or distractions. In an unexciting place, Moy wouldn't be undone by his lack of discipline. So he left Memphis around Christmas 2002, moved in with some cousins in Lincoln and developed a plan to get his life together, get into school and get on with his basketball career.

Roughly five months later - on May 14, 2003 - the police knocked on the door.

"It was in the afternoon, and I was in the back of the house watching TV," Moy recalled. "One of my cousins came back there and told me there were some investigators who wanted to talk with me. But I didn't think anything about it. I was like, 'Why they want to talk to me?' So I went out there, and BOOM . I was in handcuffs."

According to police records, a female told authorities Moy raped her more than a month earlier, on April 11, 2003. Moy denied this from the beginning. But he did acknowledge having consensual sex with his accuser, someone with whom he said he had "been dealing with" for about two months.

"And they told me she was 15 years old, but I didn't know that," Moy said. "I was new here, fresh in Nebraska. I didn't know how old she was."

It didn't matter, at that point. Moy was 21. The girl was 15. Moy was charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

"When I heard the sentence," Moy said, "I dropped."

Moy began his sentence at the Lincoln Correctional Center (LCC), a facility where mostly medium/maximum and/or young inmates are housed. When his security level was decreased about 18 months ago, he was transferred to the Nebraska State Penitentiary where he now lives in a dorm of sorts that hosts 90 inmates, all of whom live in one big room and sleep in bunk beds.

Moy has no bunkmate.

He sleeps on the bottom bunk.

"The bottom bunk is better because you don't have to always climb," he said. "Every time you want to get out, you just sit up and go."

As prisons go, Moy said, it's not that bad. He has daily access to phones and talks to friends from Memphis "two or three times a week," sometimes even former BTW teammates Antonio Burks of the Grizzlies and Andre Allen of the University of Memphis. There are two TVs in what is called the "Day Room." One is for movies. The other is for sports. They stay on until midnight (1 a.m. on the weekends). Sometimes they cause fights.

"There's a signup sheet for the 'Movies TV' and certain people get to sign up to watch what they want on certain days," Moy explained. "So sometimes somebody might sign up to put the TV on wrestling, and not a lot of people like wrestling. So they'll start fighting. But I don't have to worry about that. The 'Sports TV' is all I watch."

That's where Moy watches basketball. He saw the Tigers lose to UCLA (once) and the Grizzlies lose to the Mavericks (four times). And while he hated to see those hometown defeats, none of the games haunted him quite like a documentary on Blazers point guard Sebastian Telfair that aired on ESPN in March.

In prison, you're not supposed to cry.

Moy couldn't help it.

"When Sebastian got drafted and signed that Adidas contract, I felt that and shed a couple of tears," Moy said. "All he wanted to do was get his mom out of the projects and into a big house, and that's all I wanted to do too. There were just a lot of sidetracking things that kept me from doing it."

Teresa Moy - Taurean's mother - breaks up at this story.

She's a single mom and wants what any other mom wants.

"I never needed that house," she said. "I just want my son to succeed in life at whatever. I want Taurean to make it for Taurean. I just want my son to be happy."

Coming home

Today is a big day at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. They'll play the semifinals and the finals of the "The Buddy League Tournament," the formal, prison-version of May Madness with refs and a stat crew and everything. Moy led the league in scoring by averaging 31.7 points per game in the regular season. His team finished 12-2. That earned the No. 1 seed.

"But I didn't play in the two losses," Moy said. "That's why we lost."

The semifinals are at 1 p.m. The championship game is at 5. Everybody expects Showtime to take the title.

Where's Moy going to celebrate?

Home.

He's set to be released from prison Thursday.

"I might have to catch the bus," Moy said. "But I want to get there as quickly as possible."

Moy has a 4-year-old son (Taurean Jr.) and a 2-year-old daughter (Tariunna). Both children are mothered by Moy's high school girlfriend, Mildred Redmond. He has never met his daughter.

"But Mildred always shows the kids pictures of me, and when I talk to them they always call me 'Daddy,'" Moy said. "Kids are smart. Mildred has shown my daughter pictures of me and told her I'm her dad. She'll know me when she sees me."

As will college coaches.

According to people within the basketball community, there are already a handful of schools trying to figure out a way to get Moy into their program. It may be a Division 2 or an NAIA institution. It may be a junior college. But it's not a stretch to suggest that six months after leading the Nebraska State Penitentiary in scoring, Moy will be playing college basketball somewhere next season.

"It's going to take a particular place," Easterwood said. "It's going to have to be a place where the president, athletic director and coach know what they're getting and understand what they're dealing with. But somebody will give him a chance. He can play."

And score.

"I'm not going to be surprised when in a year from now you're writing another article about Taurean putting up some sick-type numbers," said Moy's friend, Kevin Cheatham. "Wherever he plays, a lot of records are going to be in jeopardy."

Cheatham - known around South Memphis simply as "Catman" - is the person Moy talks to most regularly from prison. He worked at the Southside Boys and Girls Club when Moy was in elementary school and became something of a mentor.

"Catman was the one who always told me that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to get where you want to be, and now I really understand what that means," Moy said. "I hear him now. Back then I was just listening, but I wasn't understanding because I was just living in the fame of being T-Head. But now - and this is why I know I'm a better person now - I can sit and think about things like that. Now when I get out I know I'll be a better person. I have kids. I can't live for the streets anymore. I have to live for me and my kids, do the right things and be a success story."

Still recognizable

On Monday and Wednesday of each week new inmates are brought to the penitentiary. Upon arriving, they sit in a holding area and wait for assignment.

"T-Head!" yelled one of the new inmates when he saw Moy walking by last Monday. "I didn't know you were still in here."

The two talked for a moment. The new inmate is Randy Billups, who claimed to be the cousin of Pistons star Chauncey Billups and remembered Moy from when they were both at the Lincoln Correctional Center.

"I've been telling people about your talent, man; I've been bragging on you," Billups told Moy. "I've been telling them you're going to get out of here and do your thing."

T-Head just nodded his head. Then he sat down on a wooden bench and waited for an officer to escort him back to his bunk bed, that bottom bunk, the one that allows you - as Moy described it - to just get up and go.

Shortly, he'll do that for good.

At least, he hopes so.

"I would still like to buy my mom that big house," Moy said. "I want to play basketball. I want to make it. I don't want to just be some playground legend. I don't think it's too late."

-- Gary Parrish

Here's Monday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: If Vandy finishes 5th in the East I will eat my hat. They smoked North Carolina [Sunday in a scrimmage]. ... Bottom line, they are going to be totally balanced, experienced, hungry, etc. It's Stallings best team he has ever had. Florida and USC are not interchangeable with Vandy, you should know better, and I like you. Vandy has a better shot at finishing 1st than 5th....Guess we wait till February to get your apology.
 
-- Adam

Vanderbilt fans sure don't follow directions well. Here's what I wrote in Monday's SEC preview: "Hold the e-mails, Vanderbilt fans. I know the Commodores could be better than this, understand I'm likely to look stupid for picking them fifth in the East. I don't need you to remind me."

So the Vandy fans read that, and guess what they did?

They spent all day reminding me!

All. Freaking. Day.

Again, I understand this is the prediction I'm most likely to regret, and you don't have to wait till February for an apology because I've pretty much offered it in advance. Please accept it. But with that said, it's not like the Commodores were on the verge of greatness last season and are necessarily worthy of the benefit of the doubt. They went 8-8 in the SEC, lost to Alabama in the SEC tournament and finished 19-12. Nothing special about that. So while I realize everybody is back and freshman John Jenkins is supposed to be great, basically writing that I think Vandy will fight with South Carolina and Florida for third in the SEC East isn't the craziest thing ever written.

Will I be wrong?

Perhaps.

Just like I might be wrong about Mississippi State winning the West.

And if I'm wrong, I'll acknowledge it.

I almost always do.

It's a big blow to Minnesota that Trevor Mbakwe won't be able to play until his legal matter is resolved.

The guy averaged 16.3 points and 13.2 rebounds last season in junior college.

He could help.

But credit Minnesota as an institution for taking a stand and not using the "innocent until proven guilty" card so many programs play in the spirit of winning at all costs. Right or wrong, Mbakwe has been accused of attacking a woman, and Minnesota isn't OK with trotting him under that cloud. So athletic director Joel Maturi said Monday that the junior college transfer will sit until the issue "has been resolved in a satisfactory matter," and if we never reach that point then Mbakwe will never step on the court.

Good for Minnesota.

Too often, we tend to only highlight when schools don't take stands.

So I just thought it was worth pointing out that Minnesota is handling this the right way.

I've forever rejected the premise that college is the best place for prospects to develop.

Sure, they can develop in college.

No argument there.

Brandon Roy is a great example of how it sometimes work.

But those who suggest any path to the NBA that doesn't involve college is a wrong path frustrate the hell out of me because they're so obviously incorrect. And that's why I'm thrilled to report that Brandon Jennings -- the 'knucklehead' who went to Europe and 'struggled' rather than play at Arizona last season -- finished with 17 points, nine assists and nine rebounds in his NBA debut.

Somewhere, Sonny Vacarro is smiling.