The Morning Fade – 1.12.11

One thing I love about college basketball? Players can’t be traded so we don’t have any ‘Melo-drama like there is in Denver right now. Thank you, I’ll be here all year.

Berry Tramel with a non-conformists guide to getting a football playoff – “Start talking about a $12 million field goal, start talking about some poor guy in Boise, Idaho, whose right foot is responsible for the financial security of a school and a conference, and university presidents and NCAA decision-makers will listen.”

Schlabach has OSU at #6 for 2011 – “Fresh off its first 11-win season in school history, Oklahoma State seems poised for even more in 2011, as long as the Cowboys learn to keep their poise in big games. The key pieces from the Pokes’ record-setting offense, which set school records for points scored (575) and total offense (6,763 yards) in 2010, are coming back, including quarterback Brandon Weeden and receiver Justin Blackmon (as long they don’t enter the NFL draft). Tailback Kendall Hunter is a big loss on offense, along with offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen, who left to become West Virginia’s coach-in-waiting. Six defensive starters will have to be replaced, including leading tacklers Orie Lemon and Justin Gent. The Pokes play nonconference games against Arizona (home) and Tulsa (road) and play Big 12 road games at Texas A&M, Texas and Missouri.” Pretty presumptuous on the Weeden/Blackmon front, no?

There’s a thread of people paparazzi on OP studying Blackmon’s every move – I don’t know whether to be disturbed by this or if it’s awesome. Leaning towards disturbed.

John Jenkins is no longer a soft verbal to OSU – This was never a sure thing (this the ‘soft verbal’) but OSU can’t have 4-star DTs de-verbalizing and expect to be taken seriously.

Jimmie Tramel with a great Keiton story via Moses – “When did Moses know Page was for real? ‘His freshman year when coach had to take him out of drills,” the senior forward said. “He was on the scout team … and we were trying to do something defensively and we couldn’t even work on it because every time he got the ball, he would just shoot it from 40 feet out and make it. And coach would be like ‘get somebody else in here that is going to actually miss so we can do the drill.’ ”

John Helsley on Moses’ emotions – “Marshall Moses’ mood may change at any moment. And if it does, he’ll let you know, as a wearer of emotions on his sleeve and his Twitter account.” For some reason I see this ending badly.

Ubben with a lot of OSU stuff yesterday including a review of Gundy’s speech in Dallas on Monday that I want to make its own post later this week. He also has OSU at #2 in his final 2010 power rankings and #3 in an early 2011 version.

Hilarious style guide for the rest of the 2011 hoops season by SIs Luke Winn – John Stockton’s son (of all people!) doing the Sam Cassell big-balls dance killed me.

Oh yeah, Jimmer had 47 last night.