Virginia forward Austin Nichols has been dismissed from the basketball team three days after making his 2016-17 season debut.  Per VirginiaSports.com, head coach Tony Bennett announced Nichols' dismissal on Friday.  "It’s a privilege to be a part of this program, and Austin has lost that privilege," Bennett said. "We have standards for our student-athletes, and when those standards aren’t met, there are consequences, and this is the unfortunate consequence." Nichols transferred to Virginia last year after playing the ...

It has only been one week, but highly touted freshmen Josh Jackson and Edrice "Bam" Adebayo aren't comparing favorably to their Andrew Wiggins and Julius Randle predecessors. There are still seven months until the 2017 NBA draft, but every game in a scout's notebook matters. What kind of marks are this year's freshmen studs receiving thus far? Using Scout's ranking of the 2016 class, we've assigned letter grades for the top 10* freshmen in the country. Keep in mind that ...

Now that the early signing period has come to an end, it's time to take a look at the schools that are off to great starts in the class of 2017. With the amount of uncommitted 5-star prospects still available, this list is far from set. But a lot of these schools have done most of their future recruiting for this year. Most of these classes already feature four or five commitments and look like the ...

Now that the early signing period has finished, it's time to re-examine the uncommitted class of 2017 prospects who are still available during the rest of the season. In past years, we've seen this list include a handful of 5-star prospects with a mix of some 4-star prospects, but this year's list is dominated exclusively by 5-star-caliber players.  With so many impact players still available at this point in senior-year recruiting, it should make for a few ...

The 2016-17 college basketball season has only just begun, but we've seen enough to throw preseason projections into the trash in favor of slightly outlandish, knee-jerk reactions. Don't act like you don't do it, too. Y'all were all over Twitter crowning Indiana as the best team in the country after one game and burying Connecticut after both of its losses. We're all guilty of it. There's no earthly way you managed to watch every game that has ...

Early season non-conference games matching up highly rated teams set the groundwork for the rest of the season. Although the top teams typically schedule a number of early games against overmatched opponents, most schedule a game or two against other top teams, often at the request of television networks. The games in November and December establish which teams are likely to exceed expectations, which may be overrated and which will be contenders in their conferences. A number of ...

The Miami Hurricanes made a major splash on the recruiting trail Wednesday when shooting guard Lonnie Walker joined their 2017 class. Walker made the announcement official on Twitter and expressed his excitement to join the University of Miami: ESPN's Jeff Goodman expressed surprise that The U was able to score such a major coup: The 6'4", 175-pounder is a 5-star prospect, per Scout, and is the No. 23 overall player, the No. 3 shooting guard and the No. 1 ...

The point guard class in college basketball is as deep as its been in years, and there are so many NBA prospects that they'll be pushing players out of the league in 2017. You're going to hear a lot over the next few months about the talent of Washington's Markelle Fultz, UCLA's Lonzo Ball, NC State's Dennis Smith Jr., Kentucky's De'Aaron Fox and on and on. But the player who hit the biggest shot thus far in ...

Everybody mentions the Toyota Avalon when they talk about the Vanovers. This includes the Vanovers themselves, who are aware of what a sight it is to see 21 feet of teenage boy come spilling out of the back seat of a four-door Japanese sedan. Chris and Robyn Vanover spawned three 7-footers: twins Brandon and Justin, and Connor. With the 6'3" parents included, the Avalon is routinely asked to haul 406 linear inches of Vanover to restaurants ...

The Kansas Jayhawks earned their first win of the 2016-17 season with a 77-75 victory over the Duke Blue Devils on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden in New York, and Frank Mason III played the hero. Duke went on a 7-0 run in the final two minutes to tie the game at 75 after it appeared Kansas had done enough to earn the win, but Mason responded by drilling a step-back jumper in the waning seconds. ...