Pull up a chair and sit down at the breakfast buffet, an assortment of all the freshest newsworthy college hoops stories on the net. To make a submission, contact me via email or Twitter.
• After serving his one-game suspension during a win over Prairie View A&M last weekend, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo would like to stop answering questions about it and shift the focus back to basketball. "It was one of the worst and most embarrassing things of my coaching career," Izzo told the Lansing Journal. "I served my sentence and I'm moving on. That's it."
• Did you catch the dark red lunar eclipse Monday night? It's fitting that it happened on the night Duke's Mike Krzyzewski tied longtime rival Dean Smith at 879 all-time wins. The undefeated Blue Devils achieved that milestone for their coach with a routine 98-72 victory over Elon, leaving only Bob Knight ahead of Krzyzewski.
• Jacksonville recorded the biggest upset of the day on Monday, toppling Florida 71-68 in overtime just two days after the Gators appeared to validate their preseason hype by pounding Kansas State. Here's a nice breakdown of what went wrong with the final play of regulation for the Gators (Hint: it's the same thing that went wrong for most of the rest of the game).
• Freshman-heavy Memphis can't seem to dominate bad teams in the early stages of the season, but credit the Tigers for finishing strong enough in those tight games to avoid any damaging losses. Memphis improved to 9-1 on Monday night by holding off Texas A&M Corpus-Christi behind a career-high 23 points from freshman guard Joe Jackson.
• Missouri was already shorthanded at point guard before freshman Phil Pressey broke a finger in practice that will sideline him for about two weeks. Either Missouri coach Mike AndersIon will have to activate previous starter Michael Dixon from his indefinite suspension, or the Tigers may have to ask Matt Pressey and off guard Marcus Denmon to share point guard duties against Illinois.
• A sign that March is getting closer: SI.com's Andy Glockner released his first bubble watch of the season. Andy notes that the non-conference season suggests this could be another NCAA tournament field dominated by the power six conferences considering that mid-major leagues such as the Atlantic 10 and Missouri Valley have performed below expectations thus far.
• Cal will host Kansas on Wednesday night for the first time since 1954 when a Jayhawks team headlined by Wilt Chamberlain won 66-54 in Berkeley. The Contra Costa Times has a cool retrospective piece on that game that includes quotes from the late Pete Newell and numerous other ex-Cal players on what it was like to face Chamberlain.
• Considering how much Syracuse center Fab Melo has struggled so far this season, Monday night's performance was a mini-breakthrough for the highly touted freshman. Melo scored nine points on 3-for-4 shooting, blocked four shots and finally appeared to be getting healthier, though he did make minimal impact on the boards once again with only two rebounds.
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