Morning News: Jordan Goodman Out, Leslee Smith Returning?, And Donnie Tyndall Problems

Does this really look like the face of somebody who could break NCAA rules?

Just three days until the regular season kicks off! While we wait, let's get to some news from the past few days:

Jordan Goodman Out Until December The Juco transfer to New Mexico is now 6'10" and is expected to play a significant role for New Mexico this season. But he's still recovering from offseason knee surgery, and is now not expected back before the start of December. In my offseason projections, I did not have New Mexico as a tourney team. A major impact from a Juco transfer like Goodman is the type of thing that can turn things around for the Lobos. But having him potentially miss all of their key non-conference contests is not a help.

Leslee Smith Could Return? When Nebraska forward Leslee Smith tore his ACL, it was announced as an injury that would cost him the season. But now there's buzz about him potentially returning as early as January. Normally players would just bank the redshirt year, but Smith already took a redshirt year, and an appeal for a sixth year of eligibility would be far from a sure thing. So even if he can only play for two or three months, it would make sense for him to try to get back and play. Particularly with a Nebraska team that has a good chance of getting back to the NCAA Tournament.

Donnie Tyndall Investigation Impacting Recruiting? Southern Miss is under investigation for potential violations while Donnie Tyndall was there. Nothing has been proven yet, but this creates two potential problems for Tennessee, who hired Tyndall during the offseason. For one thing, this is pretty awkward after the Bruce Pearl situation. Second, this could be impacting recruiting.Top 100 recruit Chris Clarke decommitted from Tennessee just hours after the Tyndall news broke, and only a week after originally committing. It's certainly plausible that the potential violations are not why Clarke decommitted, and Tennessee's two other 2015 commits say that they're sticking with their original decision, but it's something to keep an eye on going forward.