What we're reading while realize that we still have Christmas gifts to buy. Submit links via Twitter.
So you say you think college basketball players should be paid. Preach! But how much? Using a fair market value metric modeled on the NBA collective bargaining agreement -- wherein players receive at minimum a 49 percent split of all league revenues -- Business Insider found player value ranges from $1.5 million at the high end (Louisville) to about $500,000 per athlete per year at the low end (Northwestern) for the 20 men's basketball programs with the most annual revenue. Four programs break the $1 milliom mark: Louisville, Syracuse, Arizona and Duke. Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio State come in above $800,000 each.
With almost all of the nonconference schedule finished, MLive.com ponders the quality of Big Ten basketball.
Speaking of the Big Ten, one of the problems with conference realignment is it runs the risk of creating inbalanced intra-conference schedules. When you have 13 teams in your league, your choice is to either a) hope the league office does a fair job scheduling games several months in advance or b) play 26 conference games. The latter isn't really a choice at all. The Quad City Times, my hometown paper, wonders what will happen when the Big Ten has too many teams and too little time.
Lexington Herald-Leader columnist Mark Story takes a look at the state of Indiana basketball, mired in a longer "slog through relative mediocrity" than any blueblood program in the country, and asks if Kentucky fans might be able to muster a little sympathy for their northern frenemies. The headline? "C'mon, UK backers, don't you feel a little sorry for Indiana basketball fans?" I'm going to take a wild guess here: No. They don't.
Our own C.L. Brown's latest Coach Speak column sat down with St. John's coach Steve Lavin, who talked about his program's long road to relevance, Chris Obekpa's short-shorts, and whether he could be convinced to don a Lou Carnesseca sweater: "On the right occasion and if it fit well. I might have to drop 20-25 pounds because at this point, I might look like Winnie the Pooh with this Buddha belly I'm carrying around. If I do some ab work and cut out the carbs and drop 20-25, I'd be willing to put on a Coach Carnesecca sweater to honor the Hall of Famer and everything he represents about basketball and St. John's history in particular." Silly old bear.