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KenPom is getting started, everyone is cheating, and rules are written for a reason

Hooray for holidays that celebrate the displacement of indigenous people!

Ask Fran anything!
Ask Fran anything!
Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

First things first, from the patron saint of Banners:

Heck yeah. The part of me that loves basketball and the part of me that is a complete spreadsheet nerd nicely intersect at KenPom.com. It's the best $20 we spend every year; every college basketball fan should at least consider purchasing access to Pomeroy's work.

Report: Former UCLA adviser alleges academic wrongdoing | nbcsports.com

The player, Mr. Collier explained, had received a C-minus in a communications class but needed a B to participate in team activities. The assistant coach, according to Mr. Collier, proposed a plan: Approach the professor about changing the player's grade.

I have a communications degree. The bigger scandal here is how anyone could pull a C- in a comm class and still be able to function in the wild. Beyond that, just about everyone is cheating or being accused of it. At what point in time do we have to acknowledge that the term "scholar-athlete" is a joke at the highest level of NCAA sports?

Conditioning and all that garbage is done; yesterday was Xavier's first official practice of the year.

You've gotta be a little bit excited about that, right?

I'm ESPN College Basketball Analyst Fran Fraschilla. Ask Me Anything! | reddit.com
I don't see eye-to-eye with Fraschilla on everything, but I really like him on Twitter and he does a good job with this. He places Butler in the top three in the Big East and cites Xavier nemesis Tyler Lewis as a big reason why.

Chase Utley's dirty slide and MLB's rules are both to blame | groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com
The MLB's so-called unwritten rules allowed Chase Utley to break the leg and end the season of the New York Mets' Ruben Tejada over the weekend, which is lame. Am I missing something, or is baseball the only major US sport that has codified a certain way to play the game that results in damage like this? I mean, basketball is played with "no easy buckets" and other similar ethoses (what in the world is the plural of ethos?) in mind, but you get called for a foul if you commit it. Not so in baseball, though the MLB is looking to change that.

Enjoy your long weekend, public servants!