For release weekend Jan. 19-20
There are other unbeatens besides Division I powers
AP Photo KSOW103
By JIM O’CONNELL
AP Basketball Writer
You haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention if you don’t know there are three unbeaten teams in Division I entering the weekend. North Carolina (18-0), Memphis (16-0) and Kansas (17-0), the top three teams in the Top 25, are the only ones yet to lose a game this season.
There were several other men’s teams yet to taste defeat through Thursday’s games:
NCAA Division II: Grand Valley State (19-0), Bentley (15-0) and West Liberty (13-0);
NCAA Division III: Massachusetts-Dartmouth (14-0) and Rochester (12-0);
NAIA Division I: Georgetown (Ky.) (19-0), Mountain State (17-0), LSU-Shreveport (15-0), Lee (Tenn). (15-0);
NAIA Division II: Morningside (Iowa) (19-0).
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FAB FROSH: Michael Beasley of Kansas State has put up a pretty good case to be considered the best freshman in what has become a special freshman class.
The 6-foot-10 Beasley scored 32 points against Oklahoma last weekend in his first Big 12 road game. It was his sixth game of 30 or more points in 15 games this season. The six 30-plus games is second-most in Big 12 history behind the 11 of Texas’ Kevin Durant, last season’s super freshman, and one behind the school record set by Bob Boozer in 1958-59 and matched by Norris Coleman in 1985-86.
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M’s Mark Turgeon has learned plenty from the coach who earned career win No. 900 against him this week.
Texas Tech beat Turgeon’s 10th-ranked Aggies 68-53 this week, Bob Knight’s 900th victory as a Division I head coach.
Turgeon, who played for Larry Brown and worked under Roy Williams at Kansas, faced Knight as a coach for the first time. It wasn’t the first time Turgeon scrutinized the Hall of Fame coach. As a 23-year-old graduate assistant under Williams, Turgeon attended one of Knight’s coaching clinics at Indiana and discovered things he still uses.
“I still do drills that I learned at that clinic,” Turgeon said. “I’ve followed him for a long time and studied him, even from afar, even when I wasn’t in his league, watching his teams play, trying to get a feel for things they did offensively.”
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TWO-SPORT ATHLETE: Jarrett Brown, a backup quarterback for West Virginia, has joined coach Bob Huggins’ basketball team.
Brown sat on the bench for the Mountaineers’ home victory over Syracuse last weekend and started practicing with the team during the week.
He said would occasionally play in the rec center with some of the basketball players.
“I guess somebody was impressed with what they saw,” Brown said.
Huggins said he and the coaching staff will try to get the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Brown caught up as quickly as possible.
“Hopefully he will give us a physical guy and maybe even a leader. He is a quarterback after all,” Huggins said.
New football coach Bill Stewart says he’s behind Brown’s decision to play basketball “100 percent.”
Brown says he had thought about joining the basketball team before but never had the time because of football training.
“I always wanted to play basketball and I didn’t want to regret not doing it,” he said. “I think this will make me happier.”
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GAMEDAY DEBUT: ESPN’s College GameDay begins its fourth season this weekend at the Kentucky-Florida game.
Comprised of two one-hour shows, 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. EST, GameDay features analysts Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps and Hubert Davis and, like its football counterpart, is broadcast live from a game site.
The other GameDay matchups are: Creighton at Southern Illinois, Jan. 26; Arizona at UCLA, Feb. 2; Georgetown at Louisville, Feb. 9; Michigan State at Indiana, Feb. 16; Tennessee at Memphis, Feb. 23; Kansas State at Kansas, March 1; North Carolina at Duke, March 8.
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INELIGIBLE BLAZER: UAB forward Walter Sharpe, who said he was recently diagnosed with narcolepsy, has been declared academically ineligible for the spring semester and will miss the rest of the season.
The 6-foot-9, 245-pound junior, a transfer from Mississippi State, averaged 14.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in 12 games for the Blazers. He has missed the last four games while dealing with academic issues, UAB said.
Sharpe plans to remain in school for the spring semester and can still practice with the team.
He missed a team flight as a freshman at Mississippi State and was suspended for being late to meetings and practices. Sharpe was academically ineligible for his first semester as a sophomore and was dismissed from the Mississippi State team after playing in just six games that season.
After sitting out last season under NCAA transfer rules, Sharpe was among five UAB basketball players arrested by Birmingham police for disorderly conduct following a fight at a dance club last September.
Sharpe said he was diagnosed during the fall with narcolepsy, a neurological disorder in which people cannot regulate sleep-wake cycles normally.
“Since high school, I’ve been always falling asleep but I never attributed it to narcolepsy, never thought anything like that,” he said. “Even at Mississippi State, I never would have guessed it. But that’s something you can’t fake.
“They really took the tests to determine what it was, and now I have to deal with it.”
Sharpe said the tests were suggested by UAB coaches. He said finding out there was a medical reason behind his frequent sleepiness was a relief.
“Mostly it’s just always being tired even when I get enough sleep,” Sharpe said. “I could come in to practice just really tired and think, ‘I’m just ready for this to get over so I can just go lay down.”’
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WEB FACT: Richmond beat La Salle 75-74 in triple overtime last week in the Atlantic 10 opener for both teams. The Spiders improved to 8-0 all-time in triple-overtime games.
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THREE STREAK: Hofstra went 0-for-11 from 3-point range in last weekend’s 59-49 loss at Virginia Commonealth, ending the Pride’s 334-game streak of making at least one 3-pointer, a run that started in the 1996-97 season.
That impressive streak was just about halfway to the ongoing record.
UNLV has made at least one 3 in 685 consecutive games, a streak that started on Nov. 26, 1986, or since the 3-point line was officially introduced by the NCAA.
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BIG NUMBERS: The most impressive stat lines don’t always come from Division I games.
Henry.
Wooldridge was 17-for-25 from the field and 11-for-11 at the free throw line. Teammate Jeff Langrock, also a sophomore forward, also had a career high with 31 points on 14-for-16 shooting.
Lynchburg shot 68.6 percent from the field for the game (48-for-70), including going just 1-for-2 from 3-point range.
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