McCray Ruled Ineligible, Plus Other Monday Notes

-- Maryland's Chris McCray is academically ineligible and will not play again this season. This is just the latest bump in the road for Maryland's senior class. McCray was arrested last summer for refusing to leave the scene of a fight; Travis Garrison was recently charged with assault and served a one-game suspension; and Nik Caner-Medoodily was arrested for disorderly conduct back in the summer of 2004.

Some initial reaction to McCray's situation is up at Turtle Soup and there's plenty of discussion on the TerpTown message boards.

It's a shame that McCray's career had to end this way...he was in the midst of a very good season. Maryland, which already had the lowest 3FGA/FGA ratio in the ACC, loses the guy with the most three-point attempts on the team. It'll be interesting to see if their attempts fall off or if someone steps in and takes more threes. Mike Jones will be getting a lot more playing time and he's already a prolific three-point shooter, so he'll definitely be trying to fill the void. Beyond him, though, who knows...

The O Rtgs of Maryland's other guards don't stack up well to McCray's stellar O Rtg. Those guys can't match McCray's shooting efficiency, and they're more turnover-prone as well.

-- Big Ten Wonk offers some numbers and perspective on Wisconsin's stunning loss to NDSU. Aside: every time I see "NDSU" on ESPN's bottom line (which, admittedly, ain't often), I mistake it for "NCSU." I'm like, "Wait--we played Montana State today?!" until I realize my error two seconds later. But that's a scary two seconds, let me tell you.

-- Gregg Doyel tossed his bait out to NC State fans last week and received plenty of responses.

Speakin' of Gregg, I've noticed that his name is constantly misspelled. It's right up there with rediculous and your/you're as the most common mistakes made on internet message boards. Anytime there is an angry "Look What Doyel Said!" thread, the misspellings come out in bunches. In the last week alone, I've seen Greg Doyel, Greg Doyell, Gregg Doyle, and on and on. I guess that extraneous g really throws people off.

-- Frank Burlison was impressed by NC State's performance in Derm:

Although Duke pulled away down the stretch and won by 13 points in Cameron Indoor Stadium Wednesday night, the game just served to reinforce the belief that North Carolina State is the second strongest team in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Herb Sendek's Wolfpack look fully capable of another run to the Sweet 16. And you might be able to tack on another round to that projection if sophomore post Cedric Simmons (28 points, nine rebounds, seven blocked shots and three steals against the Blue Devils) continues his rapid rate of improvement.

Second place is a likely result and a nice accomplishment, but it'll still be disappointing to watch another season go by without an ACC title. It has been too long.

-- Individual leaderboards are now available through Ken Pomeroy's scouting reports. Click on a column heading to see the leaders in each category.