Think the NCAA may want to ask a few questions?

Police said that an apartment belonging to Ohio State football players A.J. Hawk and Nick Mangold was burglarized in the days following the team’s win over Michigan.

According to a Columbus Division of Police report, the burglary occurred sometime between Nov. 22 at 6 p.m. and Nov. 23 at 8 p.m.

Hawk, Mangold, and a third roommate, Jonathan Thomas, told police that their apartment in the 100 block of West Norwich Avenue was broken into and about $3,000 in cash, $1,425 in movies, two laptop computers, a $500 Gucci watch, two Microsoft X-Box games valued at a total of $500, a Sony Playstation game valued at $250 were taken.

“I don’t have a lot, and now that little bit that I have is now gone,” Mangold said.

Mangold, the Buckeyes’ center, told NBC 4’s Duarte Geraldino that he received a phone call from Hawk, telling him that their apartment was burglarized.

Police were not told about the crime until Nov. 28, according to their report.

[Emphasis added.]

About the best non-booster payment explanation I can come up with to explain college kids having around $3K sitting in their apartment, is that one of them was in charge of the booze/party slush fund. Maybe they were planning on one hell of an end of the semester bash?

A little shifting around from #3-15 and then at #25. Otherwise, not a lot of movement. Probably no more polls until the end of the bowl season. Others who have cast their ballots can be tracked here if you want to see their justifications.

1. Southern California — Did nothing to change this spot
2. Texas — Ditto
3. Penn State — Everyone keeps talking about those 2 seconds in Michigan, that cost them a chance. I see a different alternate reality where they don’t convert that 4th down play against Northwestern in Late September to lose. A game where Michael Robinson would have been a goat with a handful of interceptions, the fans completely turn on him, the coaching staff loses trust and goes more conservative and risk averse, and calls for the Morelli era to begin are intense
4. Ohio State — Speaking of alternative realities, Troy Smith could have been sitting out this year following a transfer from OSU if Justin Zwick hadn’t been injured midway through last season
5. Notre Dame — Charlie Weis with a month to scheme, prepare and practice.
6. West Virginia — They earned the BCS bowl without backing into it, now they have to actually win a bowl game. Something they just haven’t been doing
7. Georgia — If not for the Shockley injury for a couple games, they’d get to be this year’s Auburn
8. Auburn — That Georgia Tech loss to start the season seemed to buried them in the polls for half the season
9. Oregon — East coast bias. Screwed by Domers. Yeah, whatever. Consider it the price you pay for being the athletic apparel test dummies for Nike
10. Louisiana State — I’m still waiting for them to show up for the SEC championship game
11. Miami (Florida) — I’m still trying to figure out how they choked so badly against GT
12. Virginia Tech — As the Hokies choke on turkey bones for the rest of the year, they also can suffer this thought: if Miami had won against GT, they would have faced FSU in the ACC championship and regardless of the outcome, VT probably would have ended the season in contention for an at-large bid in the top 8
13. TCU — A very good season in mostly anonymity after blowing the SMU game
14. Louisville — Another team possessing a WTF loss on their resume. Don’t like their chances in the Gator Bowl without QB Brohm
15. UCLA — End of season example of the gap between USC and the rest of the PAC 10
16. Florida — What should have been a positive, respectable start became a disappointment because the offense was Meyer’s expertise, and that was the big struggle
17. Wisconsin — It’s hard to generate any strong feelings one way or another regarding Wisconsin
18. Alabama — Lack of depth really caught up at the end
19. Michigan — Completely unimpressive this year
20. Texas Tech — For some reason I picture Mike Leech in his office drawing up offensive plays and cackling “I am the puppet-master!”
21. South Carolina — Count me among those who are now convinced that Spurrier can contend and win here.
22. Boston College — It doesn’t matter the conference, BC is usually the reliable demarcation team between the upper and lower teams
23. Georgia Tech — Along with Al Groh, the flipside to Pete Carroll. Winning just enough to keep people unsure.
24. Toledo — If someone could lure Amstutz from his alma mater, he would be a great get as a coach
25. Florida State — Quiz time. Did FSU’s victory in the ACC Championship make a mockery of a) VT; b) conference championship games; c) the BCS system (again) by garnering the auto-bid despite obviously not being that good; d) all of the above

IN: FSU
OUT: Oklahoma
Games seen in whole or in part: Akron-NIU; Army-Navy; Texas-Colorado; UCLA-USC; Georgia-LSU; and VT-FSU

Aaron Gray is starting to get some love in the Big East. This year, with 16 teams the Big East is doing the co-player of the week thing and also listing several other players in the “honor roll.” Gray made the honor roll list this week. He was also the recipient of the lead story in the Hartford Courant’s Big East notebook.

Center Chris Taft was a big part of everything Pittsburgh accomplished last season – a very big part at 6 feet 10 and 250 pounds. It isn’t easy to replace 13.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and the physical presence Taft gave the Panthers inside.

But Aaron Gray is trying. And it doesn’t hurt that Gray is 7-0 and 275 pounds.
…
Gray, who scored 10 points against Auburn, is averaging 13.6 points and 9.2 rebounds. He is playing 25 minutes, almost double what he averaged last season as a sophomore. And coach Jamie Dixon couldn’t be happier.

“It’s been pretty steady, but all in all, it’s been a dramatic improvement from the day we signed him,” Dixon said. “People wouldn’t recognize him now. He’s getting better and better. The obvious things are his body and conditioning. Those are the things that really stand out.

“But his biggest improvements this year have been defensively, away from the ball, and he is scoring more around the basket. He’s just more comfortable. He’s doing the little things that big guys have to do. He’s keeping the ball up, getting his balance, playing without the ball, and working for position. When you look at the whole picture, it’s been a dramatic improvement over three years.”

The AP Writers poll took some notice of Pitt’s blowout of Auburn. Pitt isn’t ranked, but got 18 points in the “others receiving votes” portion. Roughly making them #34.

Okay, let’s not even pretend that this will be a big deal because of the opponent. This game is important because Pitt has to show it can avoid the letdown. It is also the first televised game of the season for Pitt. Time to see if the players respond differently with cameras on them.

Duquesne isn’t that good, and are in even worse shape with the loss for the season of last year’s “most improved player” award recipient in the A-10 and pre-season 2nd team all-A-10 player Kieron Achara.

Achara was supposed to be a bigger part of the Dukes. So far while coming off the bench and not producing a lot so far Now it is clear as to why. He has a torn labrum in his left shoulder. The injury occurred last month during a scrimmage with Cleveland State, and limited his play (no kidding — struggling to lift one arm over your head can make shooting, defense and rebounding tricky). He will be having surgery and is done for the year.

According to the Duquesne game notes (PDF), Achara was the second tallest player on their squad at 6’9″. They do not have a lot of size inside.

Pitt’s game notes are also available (PDF). This is only the 3rd game at the Palumbo Center between the 2 teams (1-1). Pitt has won 23 of the last 26 meetings.

In light of the way, Pitt absolutely shut down Auburn and the absence of a dominate scorer, the theme today on Pitt is the defense. Both papers go with that as the story.

“That’s the best we’ve played defense all year, and it really showed how that carried over to the rest of our game,” Pitt forward Levon Kendall said. “It was fun to be out there. Everybody enjoyed doing it. Things were clicking, and it was good to see.”

Kendall, who grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds to go with nine points in only 15 minutes of work against Auburn, recalled a scene at halftime in the Panthers’ locker room, when senior Carl Krauser told his teammates: “You know, this is really fun. We’re all having a good time.”

Kendall paused to reflect on Pitt’s continuing dominance of Auburn, even after rolling to a 24-point halftime lead.

“You know, I kind of agreed with Carl,” he said. “It wasn’t that we were really focusing on doing everything the same way. We just said, ‘Why bother letting up? We’re having a good time.’ “

That has to be one of the more laid back ways of saying, “We have to play hard for 40 minutes.”

Coach Dixon has been stressing it and the players are embracing playing defense.

“Coach has been stressing [defense],” senior guard Carl Krauser said. “That’s what we’re known for. We’re known for playing good hard-nosed defense, [being] a blue-collar-type team. We need to get back to that. That’s what we tried to do last night.”

Through five games, Pitt is giving up 55.6 points per game. That record-setting pace isn’t likely to continue when the competition gets stiffer. But with new starters at four positions and three freshmen playing an average of 15 minutes per game, the Panthers’ prowess on defense has been a pleasant surprise for Dixon.

“We’re further ahead than where I thought we would be,” Dixon said. “Especially the younger guys. They’ve done a good job of picking things up.”

Part of the reason, apparently Dixon hasn’t just been stressing it. He’s been making it clear that is how players will get on the court.

“A lot of times last year we lacked defense and that’s why we let teams back into games and maybe lost a few games,” Gray said. “It’s definitely been what coach Dixon has been stressing. With everyone fighting for playing time, the way you’re going to play is by rebounding and playing defense. It’s been our main stress point.”

This team is too young and inexperienced to rival Pitt’s defensive teams from two and three seasons ago. The 2003-04 team set the school record by giving up 56.4 points per game. But Krauser believes that this group of players, with their newfound attention to defensive detail, is capable of playing better defense than last season’s squad that gave up 63.5 points per game.

“We’re playing 11 guys out there, so there’s no reason why anyone should be slacking on defense,” Krauser said. “The younger guys are doing a good job of coming in and picking things up, and the older guys are doing a great job of helping them through.”

Teamwork. Go figure.