rick pa knew [Patrick Barron]

Smearing the Pitinos' good name. Minnesota suddenly suspended center Reggie Lynch a few days ago because he was ruled "responsible" for a sexual assault by Minnesota's Title IX office. He is banned from Minnesota's campus until 2020, pending a potential appeal.

The best-case scenario here is that Minnesota pulled a Brendan Gibbons: they played a guy who they had to know was very likely to be booted off campus, telling no one and hoping that they could sweep it under the rug. That does not appear to be the case:

Gopher athletics knew about Reggie Lynch & his behavior from the beginning. I literally sat them down last year & brought it to their attention even further. They know there are multiple victims. They knew about this active report. They still did nothing https://t.co/7rnHrzYtFb

— Abby Honold (@abbyhonold) January 5, 2018

There are a lot of extremely pissed off locals on Twitter talking about how Lynch's behavior was widely known and nothing was done about it. Honold did have that meeting:

Honold said Friday that she told Coyle months ago that she knew of “multiple other victims” of sexual misconduct involving Lynch.

“This is a pattern,” she told Coyle and urged him to investigate further.

“But it did not really fall on open ears,” Honold said. “The only person who really responded told me, ‘Well, this sounds awfully personal, how would you even know all of this?’ And, ‘This is irrelevant because they didn’t report to police.’

Minnesota's Athletic Director pleads incomprehensible corporate nothing-speak:

University of Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle's responses when asked about a meeting with @abbyhonold in which she said she, "literally sat them down last year & brought (Reggie Lynch's behavior) to their attention even further." pic.twitter.com/bfl4H2rRmp

— Chad Graff (@ChadGraff) January 5, 2018

That is a bald-faced lie in an attempt to cover his own ass and dude should get fired like Minnesota's previous sexual assault idiot AD. And their former associate athletic director. Or a gymnastics coach. Burn the whole department to the ground.

This sounds educated, so that's good. The Daily transcribed a bit of new S&C guy Ben Herbert's philosophy:

“From a weight room development standpoint, the most important thing right out of the gate for our young guys when they come in is developing their Lower Body and developing their back,” Herbert said. “A lot of guys spend a lot of time (bench) pressing in high school. They don’t spend a lot of time pulling and they don’t spend a lot of time training their lower body. That’s where we see our biggest gains.

“Teach guys how to eat well, teach them how to hydrate properly, teach them how to train the right way, focusing on lower body and back development, and we set them up for a great result.”

One of Herbert’s biggest success stories at Arkansas, former tight end Hunter Henry, tweeted out support of the hiring on Dec. 30.

“One of the best hires in the country!” Henry, a second-round NFL Draft pick, wrote. “This guy is legit. Might have to make a trip up to Ann Arbor now.”

I'm looking forward to the inevitable war between Herbertites and Anti-Herbertites that erupts the first time anyone has a ligament injury.

I did not know this. Apparently when Kirby Smart was hired at Georgia the first guy he wanted to call was Dan Enos, but Jeff Long had created a contract that prevented him from making a move:

“Kirby called me early (Monday), asked me for permission to talk to Dan," Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema revealed. " (I) just basically said … ‘I understand if you’ve got to talk to Dan if that’s something you want to do, but he’s got a non-compete clause in the SEC. So that kind of null and voids those things from really becoming real within our conference.”

It's tough to judge Enos's ability in a vacuum since he's going up against Alabama with a shooter and only one bean, but he appears to be well-respected in the SEC.

TV Teddy has a sad. Embarrassing toolbox Ted Valentine may have finally gone too far with his on-court antics after this flatly disrespectful action in the aftermath of a call he obviously missed:

UNC's Joel Berry tried to discuss a non-call with referee Ted Valentine.

Valentine was not interested. pic.twitter.com/dP5jeL90pK

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 4, 2018

Valentine was yanked from a couple of Big Ten games this weekend, including OSU's surprising mud-stomping of MSU, and now THREATENS TO RETIRE as a result.

"I'm thinking about retiring," Valentine told The Athletic's Seth Davis. "I've had enough of people blowing up stuff. I think I've had a stellar career, and I think it's time to get ready to walk away."

At least he thinks he's making a threat. The rest of the world sick of his histrionics looks at that as a promise. Valentine might not be the worst ref in the world, but he is the most annoying. It's long past time for that dude to hit the bricks. Hopefully his Big Ten ban is permanent. Something ain't right with that man.

So much for that defensive logjam. Michigan Hockey Winter strikes twice, with 2019 D Mike Vukojevic defecting to the OHL in the middle of a USHL season—bizarre—and 2018 D Mattias Samuelsson apparently decommitting so he can join his brother at... Western Michigan?

FWIW, Lukas Samuelsson was a Michigan commit but is now a WMU freshman... with zero games played. He's got to be a walk-on. Tremendous, tremendous screw-up on Michigan's part to let Lukas walk for another program where he wasn't going to play. Since Samuelsson dropped off Michigan's commit list more than a year prior to his enrollment at WMU this is more of a Red thing than a Mel thing.

Michigan does still have a top-ten-ish pick coming in in Bode Wilde, so it's not a crisis or anything. But the mega-D does not appear to be happening.

David DeJulius gets after it. He took on Clarkston, which features MSU-bound PG Foster Loyer, and went to work:

Very much a Walton vibe there. He's comfortable pulling up from three and the midrange and attacks downhill like Walton did early in his career. Dunno how well that aspect of his game will translate to college—Zavier Simpson was a huge scorer in HS and that went away—but the shooting and all-around dawg-ness should stick.

Etc.: Vital stuff. Equanimeous St Brown leaves ND, enters draft, avoids getting worked by Lavert Hill and David Long next year. Ditto ND RB Josh Adams. Greg Roman staying in NFL. Season summary of Wolverines in the NFL. Isaiah Livers is comin'.