Bair decides to hang up the gym shoes...

Things just got a little bit more complicated for this year's USU basketball team with another player stepping away from the program. Freshman wing Quincy Bair has left the team according to numerous reports Wednesday night.

While not wanting to comment specifically on reasons, Bair at least told Kyle Goon that it had nothing to do with the team. Another report from a credible source stated that Bair has simply lost the passion for playing basketball. If that's indeed the case, tough to really fault the dude for not wanting to go through the rigors of practicing and playing when you're not enjoying it.

Speculation is that Bair won't be transferring to play elsewhere, but feels content with calling it a career in competitive basketball. It's a situation not too unlike running back recruit Tavarreon Dickerson from last year's football signing class. He was a highly-touted running back who decided to walk away from football because he had lost his passion to play.

THIN ON THE WINGS
Bair's departure, along with the injury to Danny Berger and previous departure of Riley Bradshaw gives USU a somewhat stressful situation in the back court for the rest of this season. Marcel Davis and Tenale Roland will hold down the point guard position, but it leaves only the trio of Preston Medlin, Spencer Butterfield and Marvin Jean to hold down the wings.

In other words, foul trouble could seriously complicate things for the team in some games. If either one of Kyisean Reed or Ben Clifford could make ample contributions at the small forward spot in an emergency situation, things will be fine. Still, it's more of a headache than any coach would want.

TOO MUCH OF A PATTERN...
It's been pointed out before that every year, at least one freshman on the roster calls it quits. It's seen the departure of a handful of a guys who turned out to be good players, and more recently guys with the potential to be very good. The circumstances are often unknown, and it's usually safe to assume that much more goes into these decisions than the masses will ever know...

Still, the pattern is officially a tiny bit disturbing at this point.

And now we play basketball...

The Danny Berger story has no doubt been the focus of headlines all over this week, and for good reason. There were heroes, dramatic rescues, trials, emotions, and all other kinds of things that you usually only see on TV.

At some point though, it had to have hit Stew and the boys that, "Hey, we've still got other games to play!"

Luckily Berger's condition appears to have been rapidly improving. From the looks of things, this story is going to have an alright ending. Eventually though, we've got to get back to doing and talking about what Danny obviously loves... So let's talk some basketball, shall we? If anything is going to help restore a sense of normalcy, playing basketball will be it.

BERGER'S FUTURE
This is a tough one. Admittedly, when I first heard all this news, I thought there was no chance Berger would be able to take the court again in an NCAA game. Having heart troubles can be such a delicate thing, and especially after a scare like he's had, it seemed tough to imagine facing that risk once again.

But doctors are apparently pretty good at what they do, and according to reports of the presser that Berger and his doctors are doing down in Murray, there's a possibility that basketball might still be in the picture!

That right there is nothing short of amazing, and if Berger does indeed get to take the court again in The Spectrum, that's going to be one absolute hell of a moment!!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here... There's still a long road to recovery ahead, and the fact that Berger even might be at Saturday's game is a miracle already! Oh, and will probably be quite the hell of a moment itself (so don't miss it!)

How the rest of this story goes will pan out over the next few months as his recovery continues. Should Berger be able to suit up in an Aggie uniform once again, this year would likely be ended with a medical redshirt and he'd return again as a junior again next year.

ENTER QUINCY BAIR
Rather than go with a three-man rotation on the wings, Stew Morrill said Friday that freshman Quincy Bair will no longer be redshirting this season. That definitely shakes things up moving forward, but with one veteran and two rookies manning the wings, you can't really fault Stew Morrill for wanting to be able to go four-deep on the wings.

Bair brings another solid mix of size and athleticism to the table, much like Marvin Jean does. But when it comes to the possibilities of foul trouble, slumps, or whatever, the safety net of a fourth guy is never a bad thing. Assumption right now is that Bair will be the fourth man in, but with the team only being five games into the season, plenty could change as we move forward.

For anyone critical of Stew's pulling of the redshirt for a guy who might only see sparse minutes, remember that once upon a time it was Preston Medlin only seeing a few, if any minutes per game behind Tyler Newbold, Pooh Williams and Brian Green. Bair might get the chance to redshirt next year much like Medlin did in second season, and have a much bigger role awaiting him after the graduations of Medlin, Butterfield and Jean.

WESTERN OREGON
Welp... Sucks to be these guys. Yeah, the team might be a bit unprepared from the missed practices and trauma of this week. My gut tells me that any lack of prep will be more than compensated for with inspiration to kick loads of asses in honor of their teammate. 

It's going to be an emotional night at The Spectrum regardless, and a whole lot more so if Danny Berger is indeed able to make it up to the game. Maybe, just maybe, this is the will all end up as the kick in the ass to jump start Aggie basketball back into dominance. It would have been nice to not have to face tragedy, but the whole team certainly has a lot more to play for now! Few things will bring a team closer than something like this.

Said it a bunch of times already, but you're not going to want to miss this game!

Recapping basketball's first look of 2012-13

I can't help but speculate that at least some part of the reasoning for scrapping the Blue and White game this year has to do with some guys getting over-hyped from a good showing in a lowly scrimmage. First impressions go a long way, and those scrimmages were often the forum for those first impressions. So when a guy makes a great first impression, it's going to get talked about and that performance will often be referenced throughout a season by sites like this one.

Can't really fault Stew Morrill for wanting to keep those first impressions limited to at least an actual game situation... But that's not going to stop anyone from giving thoughts on everyone's performance!

So... Let's break down each player's performance from Friday's win over Grand Canyon, and hopefully not have to be eating any of these words in a month or two when we have a better feel for everyone. Doing it position-by-position.


POINT GUARDS
 
Tenale Roland - Among projected starters, Roland is the newest to the show, but still fit in quite nicely! Shot 3-6 from the field and 1-2 from 3-point range for eight points. Not bad for a first rodeo! He also added a Quayle-esque six rebounds, but more of the "in the right position to get the bounce" rather than the "jump way higher than everyone else" kind of boards. Not going to read too much into him only having one assist as he's still learning things. But considering the learning curve, not having a single turnover in 20 minutes of play is very encouraging!

The 2012 USU basketball recruiting guide

With the signings of Marvin Jean and TeNale Roland earlier this week, Utah State looks to be done with basketball recruiting for the 2012 class.Now, it's time to break it all down!

To give a first impression, this looks like it very well could, and probably should turn out to be Stew Morrill's best recruiting class since, well... ever! Looking back at the 2005 class that brought in Durrall Peterson, Chaz Spicer, Chris Session, Nate Bendall and Tyler Newbold (who came later because of a mission), that's got some quality star power across that board. 2006 wasn't half-bad either with Kris Clark, Steve Ducharme, Brady Jardine and Pooh Williams.

But for each of those classes there were a couple of misses as well, which really can be said for every year. If you ever get a year where every guy in a class pans out to be a solid contributor, chances are a nice little NCAA tournament run is in your near future.

So if the basketball gods wouldn't mind smiling down on Utah State University this coming season, we'd really enjoy it if this were to be the class where everyone pans out to be studs. The ensuing result of such an astrological alignment (that's part of the Mayan 2012 thing, right?) would create something so unstoppable that not even John Cusack could save the rest of the WAC from USU's wrath (kind of like how he couldn't save that apocalyptic movie from being s***ty).

Davis and Bair shine in tournament opener

Like I said in the last write-up on Marcel Davis and Quincy Bair, American Fork's team goes way deeper than just those two. They are indeed, a complete team. On top of Davis and Bair, the Cavemen have two other guys capable of taking over a game in Zac Hunter and Austin Waddoups.

Tuesday was Davis' takeover, but each of the other three were spectacular at times. The biggest thing about all of them though is their defense. West simply could never get into any kind of offensive flow as  the Cavemen smothered everything they tried to do. High-flying blocked shots and forced turnovers were almost too high to count. The end result was just 40 points allowed, which is the lowest total given up by the Cavemen all season.

The game started a little bit sloppy, but American Fork didn't take long in putting things together. Behind some vocal leadership from Waddoups and some offensive assertion from Davis, the Cavemen got things going full-throttle in the second quarter.

But let's get into the specifics.