It’s official, Kentucky freshman Enes Kanter will not be allowed to play basketball in the NCAA.  Kanter was ruled permanently ineligible on Friday due to his receiving impermissible benefits whole playing for a pro team in his native Turkey.  Kanter was one of the top recruits in this freshman class and is widely seen as a potential Top 5 pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.  The Wildcats are still one of the best teams in the SEC, even without the big man.  However, it remains to be seen if Kanter will now go play overseas leading up to the draft.  One has to think he’ll enter his name.  His reputation and dominance of Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger last summer could be enough to get him into the Top 5 even without playing at all this season.

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The Top 9 teams remained the same in ESPN’s NCAA Basketball Power Rankings this week.  Duke still tops the list with their 14-0 record, as they’ve been fine even without star freshman Kyrie Irving.  “With limited exception — a hard-fought home win over Miami on Jan. 2 — the Blue Devils are chugging along and beating vastly inferior opponents (UNC Greensboro, UAB) as expected. ACC play heats up this week, and with it comes a pair of marginal tests vs. Maryland and at Florida State,” it says on ESPN.com.  I don’t think there is a better team than Duke right now, but they’re beatable with Irving.

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ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan recently posted a primer for the Big 12 on ESPN.com.  He proclaims Kansas as the team to beat in the conference, which is becoming an annual theme in the Big 12.  “Yes, Kansas is the Big 12′s best team,” Brennan writes.  ”It’s rather remarkable that a team could lose two first-round NBA picks (Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry) and its senior all-everything point guard (Sherron Collins) and still be this good, but such is life at the helm of one of the nation’s best programs.”

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The Mountain West Conference certainly appears to be a group on the rise in the NCAA ranks, which prompted ESPN’s Diamond Leung to write a rundown of the conference.  He starts by talking about the powerful San Diego State Aztecs.  “The Aztecs made a statement early by scoring a program-changing win at Gonzaga and have continued to build on that,” Leung writes.  ”They played their first five games away from home, while notching solid double-digit victory margins against Saint Mary’s, Wichita State and Cal.  The success is unprecedented for a program that has never won a NCAA tournament game, and if the Aztecs can win a conference title they’ll be in position to end that drought and possibly more.”

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ESPN’s NCAA Tournament expert Joe Lunardi recently released his first bracket projection for the 2011 NCAA Tournament.  He followed it up with a chat addressing readers’ questions.  One such question concerned the #7 San Diego State Aztecs and their chances at a one seed in the tourney.  “Probably not, Joe,” Lunardi writes.  ”The Committee in recent years values perceived quality over demonstrated performance.  This is how Tennessee was left off the top line (’08, I think) despite a No. 1 RPI and No. 1 SOS.  This is another area in which I disagree with the Committee’s approach.  I would pick the four teams which have done the most, not the four who should have given their talent.  There’s no right or wrong.”

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The number one-ranked Duke Blue Devils improved to 13-0 on the season yesterday with a 74-63 win over the Miami Hurricanes.  Duke guard Nolan Smith led the way with a season-high 28 points in the first conference game of the season.  “You don’t win one of those [banners] without showing up every day in our conference,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said after the game.  ”It’s just different.  You don’t play for your total record.  You play for your ACC record.  That’s the way we’ve approached it, especially since the mid ’90s.  And we get better as a result of doing that.”

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The No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes dismantled the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles with relative ease last night on their way to moving to 9-0 on the season.  The Buckeyes had the game in hand by halftime, heading into the locker room with an 42-16 lead.  OSU senior guard Jon Diebler was red hot from distance, hitting nine consecutive three-point attempts in the contest.  “I knew I missed my first two of the game and Coach told me I wasn’t ready to shoot and to just get ready and get my feet set,” Diebler told reporters after the game.  ”I started doing that and they started falling for me.”

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The seventh-ranked Tennessee Volunteers fell to the Oakland Golden Grizzlies, a team that plays in Michigan, in a huge upset last night.  The Vols blew an 11-point halftime lead to be outscored by 18 in the second half on their way to the 89-82 loss.  The Grizzlies came into the game with a 5-5 record, while the Vols were a perfect 7-0.  What’s even more surprising is that this game was played in Knoxville.  It was a huge win for the Grizzlies and likely the highlight of this team’s season.

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The Top 4 teams in ESPN’s NCAA Basketball Power Rankings remained the same, with Duke, Ohio State, Pitt and Kansas topping the list.  The 9-0 Syracuse Orange jumped up from number nine to fifth.  “What Happened: Picked up a six-point win over NC State and handled Michigan State at the Jimmy V Classic to improve to 9-0,” the article says.  ”What’s Next: A home game against Colgate on Saturday night should make it a perfect 10.”  Kansas State and UConn held their spots at sixth and seventh, respectively.  Georgetown and Tennessee round out the Top 10.

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The Buckeyes returned to a place that the team played in for decades, St. John Arena, yesterday to take on Western Carolina due to their usual venue being used for fall graduation.  The Buckeyes did their school proud in taking home the 85-60 victory.  “I love it.  It’s loud,” freshman forward Jared Sullinger said of the atmosphere in the arena after the game.  ”It’s way smaller than [home court Value City Arena], but St. John has a lot of history here.  I was just happy to be a part of it.”  Sullinger led the team in scoring with 17 points despite nursing a cold.

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