FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Renardo Sidney is still waiting on NCAA approval/AP

Stop me if you've heard this before: There has been a significant development in the Renardo Sidney case.

Sidney, of course, is the 6-foot-10 man-child of a freshman who is currently enrolled at Mississippi State but has not yet been certified to play. That's because the NCAA is investigating claims that Sidney and his family lived well beyond their means while residing in southern California and therefore may have received improper financial assistance. After months of attempting to extract information from Sidney, his family and their attorney, the NCAA officially changed the status of Sidney's case this morning from "not certified due to non-response" to "under review." That does not mean the NCAA is through asking for information, but it is an important acknowledgement that it has enough data to begin officially assessing Sidney's case.

"The change basically centers on the fact that we have received some of the documentation that we have requested. Not all of it, but some of it," NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said. "We're going to try to get this thing resolved as quickly as we can…. If we can make a determination based on what we have then we will. If we can't, then we won't."

Jerime Anderson reacts after a short-staffed UCLA squad fell to CS Fullerton Monday night/AP

Herewith your Tuesday morning box score read:

•  Upset Special: Cal State Fullerton 68, UCLA 65 (2 OT). But is this really considered an upset? The Bruins only have eight players right now. Michael Roll played 49 of a possible 50 minutes. Every other starter played at least 38. Maybe there were bubbles on the baskets: Bruins shot 31 percent, including 5-29 from three. (Tip: If they're not going in, stop shooting 'em.) Jerime Anderson was awful: three points, 1-11 fg, and worst of all just three assists in 40 minutes. Salt in the wound: UCLA 8-17 from the line.

•   Kentucky 72, Miami (Ohio) 70.  RedHawks forward Nick Winbush scored 26 points on 8 for 10 three-point shooting. John Wall had 19 points, five assists, five turnovers, 10-14 free throws, plus the game-winning bucket with 0.5 seconds left.  DeMarcus Cousins went for 5-15 from the field for 10 points. Cats were 14-24 from the foul line.  Eric Bledsoe had just two points on 1-5 fg shooting.

•   Villanova 103, Penn 65.  Six players scored in double figures, including Taylor King who had 14 points (plus seven rebounds) in 23 minutes off the bench. Nice work. Freshman Mouphtaou Yarou fouled out in just 17 minutes. That's not easy to do when you win by 38.

•   Duke 74, Coastal Carolina 49.  Jon Scheyer played 37 minutes, Kyle Singler played 36. No Mason Plumlee (broken wrist) or Nolan Smith (suspension). Singler had 23 points and 11 rebounds. Scheyer has five assists, zero turnovers. Freshman Andre Dawkins was 3-11 from three.

•    UConn 77, Colgate 63.  Five players scored in double figures. The only starter who didn't, freshman Alex Oriakhi, continued to demonstrate value with eight rebounds in 31 minutes. Jerome Dyson shoots 3-15 fg and has 10 points. Another freshman, Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, chipped in 11 points off the bench.

Kevin Coble/AP

Happy Monday, Hoopheads. I have a batch of Hoop Thoughts to get your week started right:

•    Here I was, so excited to see if Northwestern could get its first-ever NCAA tournament bid, and last week we learned that senior forward Kevin Coble, who has led the team in scoring and rebounding for each of the last three years, may have been lost for the season because of a foot injury. To make matters worse for the tournament-less Cats, they received another huge blow in their opener when senior swingman Jeff Ryan went down with a torn ACL.  Is there any point in continuing this college basketball season?

•    Major red alert for West Virginia: Sophomore swingman Devin Ebanks, the lynchpin to the team's hopes of winning the Big East, did not play in Sunday's win over Loyola for what Bob Huggins described as "personal reasons." Huggins would not elaborate and said he did not know when Ebanks would return.

•    Freshman guard Xavier Henry had 27 points for Kansas in his first game. Imagine when the kid gets adjusted! To me, this means the Jayhawks are even better than I thought –- and I already thought they were as strong a preseason No. 1 as North Carolina was last year.

•    Isiah Thomas showed bad form during FIU's 81-49 loss at Tulsa on Sunday. According to the Associated Press, with his team trailing by 28 points midway through the second half, Thomas, who was apparently unaware Tulsa only had eight scholarship players, got angry at Golden Hurricane coach Doug Wojcik during the game for not taking his starters out. Thomas wouldn't directly answer a question about it afterward, but on his way out of his press conference he said, "By the way, I'd like to invite them back to play us next year. I hope he accepts." Be careful what you wish for, Zeke.

Harrison Barnes is announcing his decision 4 p.m. Friday/AP

It's going to be one lucky Friday the 13th for some college basketball program. That's because Harrison Barnes, the 6-foot-7 forward from Ames, Iowa, who is widely considered to be the No. 1 prospect in the senior class, will announce his college choice at 4 p.m. on ESPNU.

Barnes' list is down to six schools. They are, in alphabetical order: Duke, Iowa State, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and UCLA. The question of where Barnes will end up has titillated recruitniks for months now. So I burned up the phone lines on Thursday to see if I could read the tea leaves.

Turns out, it was hard to find the tea leaves, much less read them. Since it is against NCAA rules for coaches to comment on high school players before they sign a National Letter of Intent, I can't tell you whom I spoke with, but here's a sampling of the comments I got from people who had, shall we say, direct knowledge of Barnes's recruitment:

"He's the greatest poker player of all time."

"I have no idea what he's going to do. Nobody does. If anyone tells you they know where he's going, they're guessing."

"I've never seen a situation where a family kept things this close to the vest. I'm going to find out the same way you are."

Zen question of the day: When does one win count more than another win?

Answer: When one win comes in mid-November and the other comes in late February.

This might not be technically true in terms of a team's win-loss record, but when it comes to selecting and seeding teams for the NCAA tournament, it is a logical answer. Yet, for some reason the men's basketball committee has gone counterintuitive on us and decreed that all wins are created equal.

As you may recall, for many years the committee included a team's record over its last 10 games as part of its criteria for the NCAA tournament. This nugget probably got more attention from the public than it deserved, because it was rarely the determining factor. But it made sense: A team playing well entering the tournament should get a very slight edge over a team that was playing poorly.