Eamonn Brennan, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Afternoon Links: Texas two-step

What we're reading while Dayton goes after UConn. Submit links via Twitter.

  • We lead with a pair of personnel stories from Texas, the first -- and by far the most impactful -- being this afternoon's announcement that Texas guard Isaiah Taylor will miss at least a few weeks with an injured wrist. Taylor was fouled hard late in Thursday night's double-digit win over Iowa, and an awkward fall on his left wrist required heavy wrapping and postgame X-rays. Taylor doesn't look likely to miss the season, but he will be out for a while -- robbing the Longhorns of their most dynamic perimeter player.

  • The second comes from College Station, Texas, where former Houston transfer Danuel House was cleared by the NCAA to play this season. House, you may recall, was a top-20 player in the Class of 2012 who chose Houston over Baylor, Georgetown, Kansas, Ohio State and Texas. House asked for his release when Kelvin Sampson was hired last season. His presence is huge for A&M, as the Aggies desperately need at least a slight uptick in performance this season. And if House remains in school next fall, he'll pair with the four four-star players Billy Kennedy is bringing to campus in 2015. A&M could get good in a hurry.

  • Writing for the Washington Post, Matt Giles reiterates a valid point, one that still gets lost in discussions about John Calipari: His young guys buy in on defense. That might be the greatest feature of his last eight to 10 years in coaching. His teams are always very young, and sometimes extremely so, and those young guys (except for in 2012-13, of course) always guard.

  • Another injury note: New Mexico leading scorer (and coach Craig Neal's son) Cullen Neal is out indefinitely with a left ankle injury he suffered in Thursday's Puerto Rico Tip-Off loss to Boston College. There's no major fracture, Neal told the Albuquerque Journal, but ligament damage is still a possibility. Not good.

  • Mark Titus' Big 12 preview is his best yet, mostly because it has a legendary Ric Flair gif in the lead. But there's also this sentence: "The league was so deep that West Virginia had the conference’s leading scorer and fourth-leading scorer and the Mountaineers still couldn’t crack the top half of the league standings. Texas and Oklahoma were surprising overachievers. Melvin Ejim had one of the best individual seasons in Iowa State history. He was so good that he caused me to forget that Iowa State is cursed in the NCAA tournament. Kansas State had a solid season. Texas Tech pulled off some upsets. TCU was also in the conference." Aww. Poor TCU.

^ Back to Top ^