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.

•    You are aware that Josh Pastner is in the midst of putting together a monster recruiting class at Memphis, right?

•    Tom Izzo may have himself a sleeper find in freshman forward Derrick Nix, who set a Michigan State freshman debut record with 14 rebounds against Florida Gulf Coast. Nix still needs to lose about 30 pounds, but he has worked hard to get his weight down to 280, and he has nice feet and hands for a kid his size. The Spartans are going to miss Goran Suton more than people realize, but if Nix can give them 20-25 quality minutes off the bench, that will make a big difference.

•    Two Manny Harris thoughts: First, congrats on the triple-double Sunday, but since it came against a Division II team (Northern Michigan), it shouldn't count as an official T-D. Second, I watched much of that game, and it looks to me like Harris is really emphasizing his passing. (He had 10 assists to go with 18 points and 13 rebounds.) Harris has a reputation as a gunner, but he showed some nice decision making with the ball and made his teammates better.

•    Speaking of Michigan, they've got a freshman guard named Matt Vogrich who has incredible range. He went five for five from three-point land. I'd love to see Vogrich take on Arkansas's Rotnei Clarke (13 for 17 from three against Alcorn State) in a game of HORSE.

•    Any day where Taylor King has more rebounds than three-point attempts is a good day for Villanova.

•    Losing top recruit Harrison Barnes was a devastating blow for Duke. Not only did the Blue Devils not get a great player and student, but they lost him to Carolina. Duke needed Barnes far more than UNC did because he was their ticket back to playing championship-level basketball, and Coach K put in an inordinate amount of time personally recruiting Barnes. Now it becomes doubly important that Duke convinces Austin Rivers, a high school junior who has verbally committed to Florida but has opened his recruitment up to Duke, to come to Durham.

•    Great nugget from my guy Jimmy Dykes during the broadcast of the Kentucky-Morehead State game: Over the last 10 years, 100 players have started in the national championship game, and only 10 were freshmen. And only two teams have won the title with true freshmen playing point guard: Arizona in 1998 (Mike Bibby) and Syracuse in 2003 (Gerry McNamara). That's the historical challenge facing Kentucky, which starts three freshmen, including true point guard John Wall.

•    I know there is a lot of excitement about Texas's freshman point guards, but don't discount the importance that the two wily vets, Verez Ward and Dogus Balbay, will play for this team. Those two guys combined for 10 assists and zero turnovers in Sunday's win over UC Irvine, while the freshman who started at the point, J'Covan Brown, had no assists and five turnovers.

•    You never want to overreact to one game, especially this early in the season, and I know Jermaine Dixon is still hurt. But when I see that Pitt only beat Wofford by three points at home, I have to believe this Panthers team is going to have a tough time just making the NCAA tournament.

•    For those of you who wondered how Siena would fare after Kenny Hasbrouck graduated, consider that his replacement in the starting lineup, junior guard Clarence Jackson, put up 24 points (four for five from three-point range) in the Saints' win over Tennessee State.

•    The season is barely a week old and already Cal junior forward Markhuri Sanders-Frison is angling for a spot on the all-foul team. Sanders-Frison played 19 and 16 minutes, respectively, in the Bears' first two games, and he committed four fouls in each game.

•    The good news: Seton Hall guard Jeremy Hazell scored 26 points in Sunday's win over Monmouth. The bad news: He took 23 shots to do it. So much for efficiency.

•    Jay Bilas had an interesting idea when he suggested that practice should start Oct. 1 instead of Oct. 15 because the games start so much earlier than they used to. I say, why stop there? In fact, I don't think there should be any rule dictating when practice should start. Let the coaches decide. And I don't want to hear concerns that a coach might overwork his players. No coach is going to run his guys ragged two months before the first game because they would get sick of basketball.

•    Freshman alert: Solomon Hill had 17 points and eight rebounds in 25 minutes off the bench for Arizona in Sunday's win over Northern Arizona. I'd say that's a pretty solid collegiate debut.

•    I've really enjoyed hearing college students call preseason exhibition games on the Big Ten network. It's a neat idea to give the kids that experience, and it reminded me of days back at Duke's Cable 13. Was I ever really that young?

•    The most common knock you hear about Syracuse forward Wesley Johnson is that he doesn't take enough advantage of his athleticism and settles for jump shots instead of driving to the hoop. Through two games, Johnson has attempted five three-pointers to four free throws. Keep an eye on those numbers.

•    Someone who should know told me recently that Tyler Zeller was North Carolina's best player. Just sayin'.

•    Guess that didn't take long: Illinois coach Bruce Weber tried bringing his two freshman studs, D.J. Richardson and Brandon Paul, off the bench during the preseason, but for the season opener they were both in the starting lineup. Paul had 22 points and Richardson had 14 in a win over SIU-Edwardsville.

•    How about Oklahoma's Willie Warren dishing out 11 assts in the Sooners's opener against Mount St. Mary's. He has already shown he can score, but now he's out to prove he's not one-dimensional. Guys like that usually make a ton of coin playing this game.

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