Just a few notes on what went down while you were sleeping (or losing sleep, depending on how you’re dealing with the news of the suspensions yesterday):
For UNC football, finally a bit of good news comes their way in the form of Quan Sturdivant and Bruce Carter being cleared to play vs. LSU tonight - the NCAA still wanted more information on Deunta Williams’ situation and opted not to put him in the same category as the previous two.
So at least Carolina will have its starting linebacking corps intact for the game against the Tigers, which is a nice boost considering what they were looking at in terms of the alternative. However, this still means the secondary is basically the second team all the way around and is relatively thin - I worry about them getting tired at the end of a game. That is, if it’s still close…
Speaking of which, if you’re looking for reasons to be upbeat be sure to read Tar Heel Fan’s “5 Reasons for Optimism vs. LSU,” which, depending on the outcome of the game, could be seen as underlying causes for the Heels coming out strong or a marvelous case of self-delusion. Let’s hope it’s the former.
However, that good news was inevitably trumped by word coming down the wire that Marvin Austin was being handed a subpoena by NC Secretary of State Elaine Marshall that relates to her investigation of possible violations of North Carolina state law involving sports agents. There was a lot of talk on Twitter (take that fragment for whatever it’s worth) from journalistic sources saying that Marshall likely wouldn’t have issued the subpoena unless there was significant evidence mounting that involved Austin. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but it does seem likely that either Austin or an agent is going to get hit hard, and I’m pretty sure Austin doesn’t care enough about a sports agent to take the fall for him/her… that is, if he’s even guilty of anything. (Riiiiiiiiight….)
Meanwhile, Duke fans that are probably used to just sleeping right through football season Saturdays might be waking up to some eyebrow-raising news as they find out apparently Kyle Singler underwent knee surgery yesterday afternoon. Apparently it was just arthroscopic and he’s expected to make a full recovery before Duke begins official practices October 15, but as the Dagger points out, the timing is a little unnerving, as is this quote from assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski:
“Kyle had some discomfort in his knee following a very busy summer, so we elected to go in and clean it up prior to the start of the season,” Wojciechowski said. “By all accounts, today’s surgery was a success and Kyle will be back at full strength before the start of practice.”
Singler had been making waves this summer as he and Nolan Smith impressed quite a few coaches and scouts while training against the US National team, and while Duke would still be an incredibly strong team without him, the Devils need Singler at full strength to remain the overwhelming title favorite they currently are.
Maybe “Kyle Singler’s knee” is going to become the newest fan-obsessed-over superstar body part, a la “Tyler Hansbrough’s shin” in 2005.
