Color me unimpressed. Any team that beats Siena and St. Josephs at home and by single digits on consecutive nights does not deserve to be ranked in the Top 25.

The Missouri Valley Conference went only 7-4, with Missouri State losing to Toledo (Mid-American Conference) and Bradley falling to Illinois-Chicago (Horizon League).

The MVC's best win? Creighton over DePaul (Big East). Its other losses? Drake to Saint Mary's (West Coast Conference) and Evansville to Samford (Ohio Valley Conference).

The league's poor start doesn't bode well for its March future.

This "preseason," however, David has been younger than Goliath. The heroes of the past week's upsets have all been underclassmen.

Mercer beat USC behind James Florence, a sophomore guard who collected more points (30), assists (4) and steals (4) than any other Bear.

Gardner-Webb defeated Kentucky thanks to Grayson Flittner, another sophomore guard. The former walk-on scored a career-high 22 points on 7-for-10 shooting.

Division II Findlay upset Ohio State (exhibition) courtesy Marcus Parker, a sophomore guard who stands only 5-foot-9 but led all Oilers with with 18 points.

Division II Grand Valley State bested Michigan State (exhibition) because of Justin Ringler, a freshman forward who contributed 16 points and seven rebounds off the bench.

Wouldn't it be nice, however, if Georgetown, didn't have to play at the Verizon Center? I wish more sports teams followed the approach taken by the University of Wisconsin's business school and eschewed corporate sponsors.

When he became dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business in 2002, Michael Knetter went looking for a big donor, someone who would give $50 million in exchange for putting their name on the school.

No one was interested.

So, Knetter decided to do something radical: find contributors willing to pay to keep the school's name off the market.

After years of conversations, 13 alumni announced last month that they were giving $85 million in exchange for assurances that the business school would not be named for any donor for at least 20 years...

In clearly one of the strongest statements to date on class attendance, the university adhered to its policy of taking away 10 percent of a player's games if he misses three classes. The percentages are tiered depending on how many study hall or appointments with academic advisors that are also skipped.

Unfortunately, I'd guess more than one.

The process through which the Hoosiers discovered Sampson's rule breaking raises an interesting question: How many college sports department interns around the country notice a violation, but fail to report it, either for fear or retribution or because of their allegiance to the university?

"Tubby's tipoff revs up fans" -- LINK.

"Weber lands 3 in-state prospects" -- LINK.

"Williams tightens up a once-roomy uniform style" -- LINK: "The (older, baggier) Terrapin men's basketball jersey heads to the closet in favor of a new, tighter-fitting uniform."

For context, we go to Stanford's student newspaper.

Stanford will be heavily favored in nearly all of its first nine games - Harvard, Northwestern State, UC-Santa Barbara, at Northwestern, at Siena, Yale, Colorado State, Sacramento State and at Colorado - so Lopez's loss will have less of an effect than if he were to miss conference games.

Lopez should return in time for the Cardinal's first test (at least by 2006 standards), a mid-December game against Santa Clara.

Truth is, Monson -- now back in the less-stressful world of mid-major basketball here at Long Beach State -- did what many reasonable people would do in similar circumstances. He weighed the possibility of sustaining success at Gonzaga with a $125,000-per-year salary against the possibility of achieving success at Minnesota with a contract that was essentially guaranteed for a total of $7 million.