Traci Carter is headed home to Philly

The Morning Fast Break - BIG EAST news you can use for January 19th, 2017

Former Marquette guard Traci Carter is going back home to Philly:

In an interview last month, Carter expressed to the Journal Sentinel that his decision stemmed from wanting to be closer to home in order to be closer to his family as there had been problems back home. In order to play for the maximum amount of time, Carter will sit out until the end of the 2017-'18 season. He will then have two full seasons of eligibility remaining.

“Traci loved his visit to La Salle,” Carter's guardian, Donnie Carr, told Zagoria. “He loves the coaching staff, his future teammates and everyone in the program.

“He loves the style of play. He thinks they will have a chance to win a lot of games and he thinks the coaching staff can help him develop into a great college point guard.”

Rush The Court’s Mike Knapp wrote about St. John’s Fantastic Freshmen:

But what makes the freshmen pair so difficult to defend is how interchangeable they are. LoVett may technically be the starting point guard — he logs 81 percent of the total minutes at the position — but Ponds regularly slides over to that role, even with LoVett on the floor, to give the opposing defense a different look. And while Ponds may play off the ball more often — he takes 66 percent of the shooting guard minutes — LoVett regularly assumes this role as well. Even better, they do so with excellent efficiency — both have effective field goal percentages over 55 percent and assist rates over 20 percent.

Brad D at Banner’s On The Parkway tries to find the positives in a tumultuous season:

Trevon went 4-5 inside the lane against the Bluejays, which was a large part of the reason that he scored the most he had since he ripped Providence for 22 back on December 28th. Not coincidentally, he also shot 10 free throws and dished out three assists. Xavier is almost immeasurably better when Bluiett gets into the lane on offense. No, the threes didn’t drop on Monday, but they may at some point.

Jon Nyatawa goes into depth with Creighton players about the loss of Maurice Watson Jr.:

They just need someone else to emerge as the new go-to guy. They need someone else to orchestrate the offense. They need someone else to get them fired up.

It doesn’t have to be just one guy, either. And that’s the thing about this team, according to Watson. He doesn’t think that folks outside the Creighton locker room truly know what its auxiliary pieces are made of — because they’ve not been forced to emerge yet.

Brendan Reilly notes Villanova’s record breaking season at VUHoops:

Back in the pre-season I took a look at what records might fall this season. Some already have, some are well on their way, and others might still be in reach. I’m going to limit this to just the records recorded by Villanova in the 2016-17 Media guide, otherwise we’d be here a while. That eliminates a lot of the records Jay Wright could set this season, but I’ll get into that more in my upcoming series as he approaches 500 career wins.

White & Blue Review released their latest podcast where tears are (allegedly) shed

Is St. John’s turning a corner? Rumble in the Garden’s Nick Diamantis ran the numbers

NJ.com’s Jeremy Schneider had some musings about the Seton Hall - Villanova game

The OWH’s Tom Shatel compared the impact of Tommy Frazier’s loss & injury to Mo Watson’s

Marquette is getting a new residence hall named after a Wild Golden Eagle

Tim Raines is finally in the Hall of Fame

Omaha Bryan High’s girls’ basketball team snapped a 91 game losing streak

Tinder is all fun and games until you go back home

The transcendence of 7-footers in the NBA, as players, as well as marketable products

The Esquire Network is going all-digital which begs the question: what’s the Esquire Network?

Here’s your Onion story of the day

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