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Marcus Camby, the former 6-foot-11 NBA center, wasn't a one-and-done player but was a one-and-could've-been-graduated. That was until this past month.
Watch above.
Mo Alie-Cox, a basketball player who just wrapped up his collegiate career with Virginia Commonwealth, announced his intention to hold a workout ahead of the 2017 NFL draft with an eye on potentially playing tight end.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Network confirmed Alie-Cox is considering the switch to football and will showcase his skills on April 11 to interested teams.
The 23-year-old Virginia native averaged 9.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.0 blocks across 35 appearances for the Rams during his senior campaign.
His 6'7'', 250-pound frame made it unlikely he'd become an impact performer at the NBA level. He doesn't have the height to become a prototypical power forward or the perimeter game to excel as a small forward, leaving him in the "tweener" category as a basketball player.
Alie-Cox's body does set him up to become a worthwhile development project as a tight end, though. He possesses terrific athleticism—which is why he blocked so many shots despite his middling size—and a wide wingspan to help him make plays in traffic.
Paul Myerberg of USA Today noted Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten saw the change coming after meeting the forward two years ago. The 10-time Pro Bowl selection felt the basketball player's build and hands made him a perfect NFL candidate.
"He told me I could make the transition to football," Alie-Cox said in 2015. "He said if it's something I wanted to do I should look into it."
It's not uncharted territory, of course. Longtime Los Angeles Chargers star Antonio Gates jump-started the trend after a standout basketball career at Kent State, and the likes of Julius Thomas and Jimmy Graham have since followed in his footsteps.
The biggest question is how much work Alie-Cox needs. The USA Today report noted he last played football as a freshman in high school. The April 11 workout should give teams a better sense of the timetable to transform him into an NFL player and an idea of whether he'd be worth a late-round pick.
Pat Kelsey won't be the head coach at UMass after all.
According to ESPN.com, Kelsey—who coached Winthrop the last five seasons—asked to be released from his contract Thursday. Winthrop announced Kelsey will remain the team's head coach later in the day.
ESPN.com noted UMass announced his hiring Wednesday.
"For personal reasons, I have asked the University of Massachusetts to allow me to be released from the offer I accepted to be the head men's basketball coach," Kelsey said, per ESPN.com. "To be clear, this decision is entirely personal and in no way an assessment of the commitment UMass made to me personally or to the resources available at UMass to have a nationally-recognized program."
UMass athletics director Ryan Bamford responded with a statement, per ESPN.com: "Again, his reasons were personal in nature. I know that the unforeseen circumstances surrounding his decision were not in our control."
Minutemen forward Zach Coleman and guard DeJon Jarreau responded to the change of circumstances on Twitter:
Dude said he loved us like his sons.. Riiight 藍
— Zach Coleman (@zcole_14) March 23, 2017
What's really going on man?!
— DeJon Jarreau.. (@LaDeeky) March 23, 2017
Kelsey led the Eagles to a 26-7 record and an NCAA tournament appearance this season.
As for UMass, this is another blow in a difficult stretch. The Minutemen were just 15-18 in 2016-17 and made the NCAA tournament one time during head coach Derek Kellogg's nine seasons at the helm before he was fired.
UMass made the Big Dance seven seasons in a row from 1992-98 and even reached the Final Four under John Calipari in 1995 but has struggled to maintain its competitive status in the college basketball world.
Bamford was looking forward to better days Thursday when he said, "At this time, we will resume our search for the next leader of our program," per ESPN.com. "I am confident that we will hire a remarkable coach who will return our program to national prominence."
Rice University head basketball coach Mike Rhoades is reportedly leaving the Owls program to accept the same position at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gary Parrish of CBS Sports first reported VCU's choice of Rhoades to replace Will Wade. Jeff Goodman of ESPN confirmed the Rams' expected hire.
Rhoades previously served as a VCU assistant coach under Shaka Smart. He left the Rams in 2014 to accept the Rice job and returns after the Owls showed progress during his three years in charge.
The 44-year-old Pennsylvania native guided Rice to a 47-52 record. Nearly half those victories came during the 2016-17 campaign, however, as the Owls went 23-12 to earn a berth in the 2017 College Basketball Invitational postseason tournament.
They were eliminated by Utah Valley in the second round Monday.
In February, Rhoades explained the most important takeaway from his first stint at VCU to Craig Broadman of the Rice Thresher.
"Make it a player-first program," he said. "It's all about the players and their growth moving forward. Winning is a byproduct of our daily approach and how we treat each other. Take care of those things and you give yourself a better chance at winning."
Along with his time at Rice and VCU, Rhoades also spent 13 years with Division III program Randolph-Macon as both an assistant and head coach.
Now he'll be tasked with continuing the progress made by Smart, Wade and Anthony Grant to make VCU one of the most consistent basketball programs in the nation. The Rams have won at least 24 games in 11 consecutive seasons, earning nine NCAA tournament trips along the way.
Successful recruiting will be necessary to keep that streak alive. VCU is slated to lose six seniors during the offseason, including leading scorer JeQuan Lewis and five of the team's top eight scorers overall.
Third-seeded Oregon used some timely shooting in a game defined by streaks to avoid an upset at the hands of No. 11 Rhode Island on Sunday, escaping 75-72 during a Midwest Region encounter at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California.
Rhode Island led by as many as 11, but the Ducks kept it close most of the game before turning it on with less than five minutes left in regulation, highlighted by Tyler Dorsey hitting two clutch deep shots in the game's final two minutes.
NCAA March Madness provided a look at the dagger:
Dorsey paced the Ducks, shooting 9-of-10 with a game-high 27 points, good for his fifth straight game north of 20 points. Dillon Brooks found himself in foul trouble yet had 19 points on 7-of-20 shooting. The Ducks won the battle on the glass (35-28), 15 coming on the offensive end.
The Rams flexed depth many teams seeded higher wish they could, with Stanford Robinson (six points per game) exploding off the bench for 21 points on 10-of-12 shooting. Freshman Cyril Langevine added another nine off the bench in a game where star forward Hassan Martin got into foul trouble early and didn't score.
Call it a total team effort, as the Rams shot 50.8 percent from the floor (30-of-59) compared to Oregon's 48.1 percent (25-of-52). Among starters, Kuran Iverson scored nine, Jared Terrell 15 and E.C. Matthews 13. The Rams were particularly scrappy on defense, forcing eight steals and two blocks. Maybe the biggest negative was the lack of offensive aggressiveness, with the Rams shooting just eight free throws compared to 27 for Oregon.
Both teams came in with an impressive win on Friday. Oregon (ninth in ESPN's RPI rankings) dropped 93 points to breeze past 14th-seeded Iona. It had four starters with 16 or more points. Rhode Island (RPI 37) upset sixth-seeded Creighton 84-72 with all five starters in double digits.
The first half of Sunday's game felt like a boxing match, both sides trying to impose their will and trading blows. Rhode Island wanted to slow down and play the half-court game, while Oregon mostly ran with four guards.
One would think Oregon would be ahead after winning the first-half rebounding battle 18-13, but Rhode Island took a 46-38 advantage into the half.
Oregon did plenty of chirping during the opening stanza, with Dylan Ennis even getting under Rhode Island head coach Dan Hurley's skin, as captured by John Canzano of KGW News:
Later, referees hit Brooks with a technical for jawing, to which he had an interesting explanation, per Bri Amaranthus of CSN Northwest:
In other words, Brooks pulled a bit of this, both with the referees and Oregon head coach Dana Altman:
Rhode Island set the tone with this early block:
And its late-half momentum is best summed up by two plays:
The Rams closed the half by hitting 11 of their final 12 shots. They finished that hot stretch with a 14-2 run.
This pace kept up for the first 11 minutes of the second half, with the Rams forcing turnovers and Robinson and Dorsey continuing to duel.
ESPN's Fran Fraschilla summed up the vibe of it best:
Counting out an uptempo team is never wise, though, as Oregon got hot and went on a 23-10 run to take its first lead of the game with 4:51 to go since the first half (3:29 mark).
And when Oregon fell behind again, Dorsey came through with this massive shot:
As captured above, Dorsey hit the eventual game-winner a little later, leading to quite the celebration:
Oregon advances to take on a red-hot shooting team in the form of seventh-seeded Michigan, which turned it on late and upset second-seeded Louisville on Sunday, 73-69.
After Sunday, fans can expect something akin to a track meet between two of the best backcourts in the country.
Postgame Reaction
After, a sense of relief swept the Oregon locker room.
Altman led the charge in this regard, joking with Dorsey about his stat line, according to Rob Moseley of GoDucks.com:
On a more serious note, Altman said he was “disappointed” about the technical foul on Brooks, according to Aaron J. Fentress of CSN Ducks. As for Brooks himself, Fentress captured his reaction: “Dillon Brooks said that all he said to Rhode Island players to get the tech was ‘This is a big man's game.’ He called the officials biased.”
For Rhode Island, Hurley shed some light on Martin, saying the forward has been dealing with a knee issue, according to Bill Koch of the Providence Journal.
Advanced metrics courtesy of ESPN.com.
Rhode Island's Stanford Robinson plays with confidence and is not wasting his opportunity with the Rams in the second round of the NCAA tournament against Oregon.
Robinson made space for himself as he navigated his way around one defender and then showed off a nifty spin move on Dylan Ennis to rise up for the jumper.
Robinson and Rhode Island can smell an upset as they are keeping things close late in the second half.
The Rhode Island Rams became the third No. 11 seed to win in the first round of the 2017 NCAA tournament after they upset the sixth-seeded Creighton Bluejays 84-72 Friday afternoon in Sacramento, California.
In January, the Jays lost starting point guard Maurice Watson Jr. for the remainder of the year after he suffered a torn ACL. Creighton entered the NCAA tournament with a 7-8 record following his injury, compared to an 18-1 mark before he went down.
The absence of their dynamic player was a glaring problem for the Bluejays. Compounding their problems was the fact their top two leading scorers, Marcus Foster and Justin Patton, shot a combined 9-of-29 from the field for 23 points.
Patton also fouled out with 3:50 left in the game.
Sporting News' Sam Vecenie tweeted the 7-footer's future will be a major storyline around Creighton in the offseason:
Rhode Island was in the driver's seat for much of the game. Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis praised how the Rams looked early on:
Rhode Island led by seven points at halftime, 33-26, and the team's advantage grew to 10 points early in the second half when Hassan Martin scored inside despite contact by Patton, courtesy of NCAA March Madness:
A little less than seven minutes later, E.C. Matthews made it a double-digit game again, 51-41, after getting the steal and finishing at the other end:
Matthews was one of five Rams starters to score at least 12 points. Although he only shot 3-of-12 from the field, he was a perfect 10-of-10 from the charity stripe to finish with 16 points.
Jeff Dowtin also sunk all 10 of his free-throw attempts en route to scoring a game-high 23 points.
Rhode Island won't able to celebrate Friday's win for too long. The Rams will play the third-seeded Oregon Ducks on Sunday.
The Ducks are without a key player as well after Chris Boucher suffered a torn ACL. Oregon didn't look much worse without him in a 93-77 victory over the Iona Gaels.
The Jays got to the line 31 times Friday and missed only three free throws, which helped offset their dreadful game from beyond the arc (4-of-21).
In order to beat Oregon, Rhode Island will need more consistent shooting on the perimeter.
Creighton head coach Greg McDermott praised a senior class that helped the Jays return to the NCAA tournament after two years of missing out on the Big Dance, per Josh Planos of KETV in Omaha, Nebraska:
McDermott also had a strong assessment of the Rams' quality.
"That's a team that on the right night, can beat anybody in this tournament," he said, per the Independent's William Geoghegan.
Rhode Island may benefit from head coach Dan Hurley's familial ties. His brother, Bobby, coaches the Arizona State Sun Devils. The elder Hurley has plenty of experience facing off with Oregon, which Dan said he'll use to his advantage.
"It was kind of a vacation trip for Bob," he said of his brother watching the tournament, according to Bill Koch of the Providence Journal. "Now facing Oregon it's kind of a working trip for him."
The Atlantic 10 men's basketball tournament looks to be a four-team race on paper, as Dayton, VCU, Rhode Island and Richmond have been a cut above the rest of the field this year.
Anything can happen in March, however, so it wouldn't be a huge surprise if someone else emerges from the A-10 pack to steal the conference title.
Here's a look at the A-10 conference tournament schedule, bracket, championship odds and a quick preview.
Schedule
| Date | Time (ET) | Game | Round | Matchup | Television |
| Wednesday, March 8 | 6 p.m. | 1 | First | No. 13 St. Joseph's vs. No. 12 UMass | ASN |
| Wednesday, March 8 | 8:30 p.m. | 2 | First | No. 14 Duquesne vs. No. 11 Saint Louis | ASN |
| Thursday, March 9 | Noon | 3 | Second | No. 9 Davidson vs. No. 8 La Salle | NBCSN |
| Thursday, March 9 | 2:30 p.m. | 4 | Second | Game 1 winner vs. No. 5 St. Bonaventure | NBCSN |
| Thursday, March 9 | 6 p.m. | 5 | Second | No. 10 Fordham vs. No. 7 George Mason | NBCSN |
| Thursday, March 9 | 8:30 p.m. | 6 | Second | Game 2 winner vs. No. 6 George Washington | NBCSN |
| Friday, March 10 | Noon | 7 | Quarterfinals | Game 3 winner vs. No. 1 Dayton | NBCSN |
| Friday, March 10 | 2:30 p.m. | 8 | Quarterfinals | Game 4 winner vs. No. 4 Rhode Island | NBCSN |
| Friday, March 10 | 6 p.m. | 9 | Quarterfinals | Game 5 winner vs. No. 2 VCU | NBCSN |
| Friday, March 10 | 8:30 p.m. | 10 | Quarterfinals | Game 6 winner vs. No. 3 Richmond | NBCSN |
| Saturday, March 11 | 1 p.m. | 11 | Semifinals | Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner | CBSSN |
| Saturday, March 11 | 3:30 p.m. | 12 | Semifinals | Game 9 winner vs. Game 10 winner | CBSSN |
| Sunday, March 12 | 12:30 p.m. | 13 | Final | Game 11 winner vs. Game 12 winner | CBSSN |
Information from atlantic10.com. All games will be played at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
Bracket
Odds
| Team | Odds |
| Dayton | +200 |
| VCU | +205 |
| Rhode Island | +260 |
| Richmond | +850 |
| Davidson | +1500 |
| St. Bonaventure | +1500 |
| George Washington | +2000 |
| George Mason | +3000 |
| La Salle | +8000 |
| UMass | +15000 |
| Fordham | +15000 |
| Saint Louis | +25000 |
| Saint Joseph's | +30000 |
| Duquesne | +50000 |
Odds via OddsShark.
Preview
Of the four teams leading the A-10 pack, Dayton and VCU are assured NCAA tournament bids, regardless of how they do in the A-10 tournament.
Rhode Island is on the outside looking in to the NCAA tournament field in Joe Lunardi's latest tournament projections, so URI will need a deep run (including a win over No. 1 Dayton in the semifinals) to stay alive. Richmond needs to win the A-10 tournament outright to make March Madness.
Rhode Island has a deep team this year with 10 players averaging at least 11 minutes per game. The Rams are led by four upperclassmen: junior guard E.C. Matthews (14.4 points per game), senior forward Hassan Martin (14 points, 7.1 boards per game), junior guard Jared Terrell (12.6 points per game) and senior forward Kuran Iverson (9.5 points and 7.6 boards per game).
URI is going to have to make a long A-10 run (the guess here is, at minimum, an appearance in the championship game) to keep its tournament hopes alive. Of course, URI can erase all doubt by winning the tournament outright.
Barring upsets in the field, however, it's going to be difficult for URI to beat its to-be-determined quarterfinal opponent, Dayton and VCU to accomplish that feat, though it's certainly not out of the question.
Dayton has a 24-6 win-loss record this year, and only one of those defeats was by over six points (a 67-55 defeat to UMass). The Flyers play hard every game and will be a very tough out for any team in the NCAA tournament this year.
Senior point guard Scoochie Smith, who played significant minutes during Dayton's run to the Elite Eight in 2014 when the Flyers were a No. 11 seed, earned A-10 First Team honors this year. His most notable performance this year occurred against Davidson when he scored 11 points in overtime to give the Flyers an 89-82 win over the Wildcats.
Like URI, VCU has a lot of depth this season, as 10 players have averaged at least 10 minutes per game.
They also have a lot of experience, as VCU's three best players—senior guard JeQuan Lewis, junior forward Justin Tillman and senior forward Mo Alie-Cox—are all upperclassmen. Their efforts this year did not go unnoticed by the A-10:
Finally, Richmond is led by two seniors—A-10 Player of the Year and forward T.J. Cline and guard ShawnDre' Jones—who average 18.6 points and 17 points a game, respectively.
The Spiders also have the A-10 Rookie of the year, De'Monte Buckingham, who posted 9.9 points and 5.9 rebounds per game and improved immensely as the season progressed. He averaged 4.9 points per game in his first nine contests before scoring in double digits in 14 of his next 21.
The prediction here is that the top four seeds hold serve and meet in the conference semifinals. Once there, Dayton will hold off URI, VCU will do the same with Richmond and Dayton will squeak by VCU in the conference finals.
George Mason's Marquise Moore is rewriting the definition of a point guard.
The senior leader for the Patriots is averaging 17.9 points and 3.7 assists, but Moore's 10.5 rebounds per game are breaking the mold of a primary ball-handler.
The point guard is the heart and soul of a basketball team. A team can get by without a center, a wing-forward or any other position, but it's almost impossible to consistently win without a quality point guard. He calls the plays, runs the offense, drives the lane, passes the rock, shoots the three, spearheads the defense, breaks the press, sets the tempo, etc.
The only thing a point guard doesn't do is crash the glass.
Until now.
"If you don't fit the quintessential stereotype of how a position is played, you have to be elite at something," George Mason head coach Dave Paulsen told Bleacher Report. "Marquise is elite in his ability to get to the rim, to get to the foul line and to get to the defensive glass."
Despite standing just 6'2", Moore's 8.74 defensive rebounds per game rank third in the nation, according to NCAA.com. The only other player shorter than 6'6" who is averaging at least 6.8 per game is Notre Dame's 6'5" frontcourt wrecking ball, Bonzie Colson.
According to KenPom.com, Moore is corralling 26.4 percent of possible defensive rebounds while on the court, which puts him in uncharted territory for his size.
Dating back to 2006-07, there have been just two other players shorter than 6'5" with a defensive rebounding percentage of 24.5 or greater—Gardner-Webb's 6'3" Joshua Henley and Radford's 6'4" Javonte Green. Neither of those Big South players was a point guard. Rather, they were the de facto power forwards in four-guard starting lineups who ranked among the shortest in the nation in average height in their respective seasons.
But even taller point guards have been unable to match what Moore is doing. BYU's 6'6" Kyle Collinsworth had six triple-doubles in 2014-15, and he only grabbed 22.4 percent of available defensive rebounds that year. UCLA's 6'6" Lonzo Ball has been lauded as the next Jason Kidd because of his triple-double potential, but his DR% is merely 14.1.
No matter how you slice it, Moore is one of a kind—a shrink 1 in the golden age of the stretch 5. And he might be just the catalyst we need in order to fully embrace positionless basketball.
If anything, Moore is being generously listed at 6'2". I'm a flat 6'0" on a good day, and I was standing shoulder to shoulder with him following his 16 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, two steals and one block in a recent win over Davidson.
He spent the majority of the night chasing Jack Gibbs around the perimeter, limiting Davidson's star scorer to just 12 points and two three-point attempts—his fewest numbers of attempts in a game since December 2015.
But even when ball screens forced him to switch onto 6'8" Peyton Aldridge, Moore kept fighting. During one Davidson possession in the first half, he repeatedly denied an entry pass to Aldridge in the paint, spun around and boxed out the man half a foot taller than him and snagged one of his 10 defensive rebounds.
"I'm a 6'0" guard, but I'm pretty strong," Moore told Bleacher Report. "I just try to use my strength, try to make them work for it. It's not that easy to post me up."
Moore has recorded a double-double in each of his last four games and now has 16 on the season. He has at least 10 points and eight rebounds in all but one game since the beginning of January, and the lone outlier in those 13 contests was due to a stomach virus.
It's hard to believe this is the same guy who was held without a single rebound (or assist) in the season-opening loss to Towson.
"After the first game this year, I'm like, '''Quise, we're not going to win if you don't rebound,'" Paulsen said. "Since then, he's had a greater level of focus on the need to get on the glass."
That's an understatement. Less than one month later, he had a triple-double (17 points, 16 rebounds, 10 assists) in a win over Penn.
Consistently drawing the opposing team's best perimeter player has been both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, it's exhausting. Moore is already expending a ton of energy on offense as George Mason's primary ball-handler, averaging 7.3 free-throw attempts per game as one of the most aggressive, driving guards in the country. Playing through contact on one end of the floor before tailing three-point shooters like Gibbs at the other end is something of a CrossFit workout that Moore endures for 34.9 minutes per game.
Moreover, guarding the player who generally takes the most shots might be the worst possible formula for getting into position for defensive rebounds. Save for the occasional bizarre ricochet off the rim, it's almost impossible to contest a three-point attempt and be the one to get the rebound from it.
But the best perimeter shooters tend to be the least interested in crashing the offensive glass. As a result, for the majority of possessions on which Moore's guy isn't the one taking the shot, he can seek out the ball without worrying about boxing anyone out.
Focus your eyes on Moore during defensive possessions, and it feels like you're watching a free safety rather than a point guard. His head is always on a swivel—which he credits to his days of playing cornerback and running back. From the day you start playing organized basketball, you're taught on defense to always keep an eye on your man and an eye on the ball. But Moore takes that principle to an admirable extreme.
"You need to really know when the ball is going to go up," Moore said. "Having to guard their best player is hard sometimes. You gotta chase him around, and then after that you don't really feel like crashing. But I just try to make an effort every possession just when the ball goes up, just go after it."
Sounds simple enough, and yet he's the only one doing it with any semblance of regularity.
Because of his commitment to crashing the defensive glass, Moore is on a short list with some of the greatest power forwards of the past quarter-century.
According to Sports-Reference, only five players in the last 24 years have averaged at least 17 points, 10 rebounds and three assists per game in a season. Three of those five players are 6'11" 1997 AP Player of the Year Tim Duncan, 6'9" 2003 AP Player of the Year David West and 6'10" 2016 No. 1 overall draft pick Ben Simmons.
Moore will need to keep up this pace for another couple of weeks to officially join those CBB legends, but his nightly contribution through the first 27 games has been almost unfathomable.
"I don't know in 23 years of coaching if I've had as physically as dominant a player in a guard's body," Paulsen said. "Never did I know that he would put up the numbers that he has on the defensive glass. But he's strong. He's tough. He's got a nose for the ball, and he's obviously really athletic, and he has embraced that."
Perhaps the only thing that kept him from putting up numbers like these in previous years was the presence of 6'11" center Shevon Thompson. Mason's big man from Jamaica averaged 16.6 rebounds per 40 minutes over the course of the past two seasons, ranking top 12 in the nation in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage each year.
Moore did record three double-doubles last season, but there weren't that many rebounds to be had. With Thompson now out of the picture, the Patriots have been thriving with a four-guard lineup that Moore's presence on the defensive end allows them to play.
This past Tuesday, The Ringer's Jason Concepcion published an article titled "We'll Never See Another Rajon Rondo." Concepcion notes that while some may try to play the same style, "Three-point shooting is simply too important. A perimeter player who can't space the floor is a liability."
But (early-career) Rondo is exactly the player Paulsen told Moore he can become.
"When I talked to 'Quise at the beginning of the year, I asked him, 'Do you have an NBA jump shot?' He looks at me and he's like, 'Well...' And I said, 'No, you don't. Neither did Rajon Rondo. Neither did Elfrid Payton. But don't focus on the things you're not good at yet. Be the dominant attack-rim guy. Be the guy who gets to the foul line. Be the guy who brings the motor every single possession defensively on the glass. Then the NBA people can figure out on their own terms what to make of you.'"
Here's the thing, though: Moore is starting to make perimeter shots.
He entered February 0-of-20 from three-point range in his previous 46 games, but he is 8-of-16 from downtown in his last six contests.
It's not the prettiest jumper you'll see, but that's never going to be his primary source of offense. It just needs to be effective enough to keep the defense honest—to reopen the lanes that opponents have been trying to clog.
"Teams have been sagging off me, but I've got a lot of confidence in my shot right now," Moore said. "I've been working on it. I don't know if teams are going to adjust. Right now, they're still playing me down in the paint, but I'm going to keeping shooting it if it's there."
He was already an anomaly before he was making three-pointers.
Now he's the 6'2" total package.
Whether you want to consider Moore a point forward, a power guard or something else altogether, he's a versatile stud who has George Mason playing its best basketball since Jim Larranaga left for Miami six years ago. And as the NBA continues to embrace small ball, his unique combination of skills and drive could be a valuable commodity.
That isn't to say he's likely to be drafted in June, but George Mason does know a thing or two about Cinderella stories.
All quotes and information obtained firsthand, unless otherwise noted.
Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com, NCAA.com and Sports-Reference.com.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.
The Saint Louis men's basketball team had a rough night on the court Wednesday against St. Bonaventure, and it got even worse when the Billikens tried to leave St. Bonaventure's Reilly Center.
According to Stu Durando of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the team bus left without the players and coaches after the game:
Myron Medcalf of ESPN.com reported that Linda Edmister, the driver, "had taken the bus 40 miles away to Randolph, New York, where she was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated." Edmister had a 0.22 blood alcohol content.
Senior guard Mike Crawford joked about the situation after the bus was found:
St. Bonaventure beat Saint Louis 70-55, outscoring the Billikens 44-23 in the second half.
This has been a challenging season for Saint Louis, which is 8-16 with a 3-8 record in the Atlantic 10. Head coach Travis Ford is in his first year with the program after spending the previous eight campaigns with Oklahoma State.
The Billikens have posted back-to-back losing seasons and are headed toward a third straight unless they make a surprising run through the conference tournament.
Losing the bus adds to a tough year.
