1. BYU is still a serious contender for the No. 1 player in the country in Jabari Parker. How so? Parker made an unofficial visit to Provo on Thursday and met with coach Dave Rose, according to multiple sources. Parker, who is Mormon, has made multiple unofficial visits to various schools. The 6-foot-8 forward out of Simeon High in Chicago has a laundry list of program that would take him in a second: BYU, DePaul, Duke, Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina and Stanford. But getting Parker on campus for the Cougars is still a major coup. The Cougars have quite a weekend ahead after the football team blasted Washington State in its home opener Thursday: Point guard Nick Emery and center Eric Mika, committed 2013 top-100 players out of Highland (Utah) Lone Peak High, are making official visits
2. Gonzaga coach Mark Few and his wife, Marcy, raised $572,000 at their Coaches vs. Cancer Weekend event to give them an 11-year total of more than $6 million to the American Cancer Society and local cancer-fighting organizations, as well as over $1 million to Camp Goodtimes ($158,000 of the total from this year’s event goes to the camp). Meanwhile, the Zags’ top recruit, 7-1 Polish big man Przemek Karnowski, is due on campus on Sept. 10 after playing for the Polish national team. Karnowski hasn’t played with the current players but that shouldn’t be an issue if he’s as good as advertised. The Zags checked to make sure it was OK that Karnowski delayed in entering the fall semester.
3. Syracuse and Pitt are expected to be a part of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in 2013 when they are members of the ACC. There was initial talk of not including them because they were new -- but that was never going to fly. The ACC hasn’t officially decided how it will decide the 12 teams that will go against the 12 from the Big Ten. But one proposal that will be discussed is to pair the top 12 RPI teams from the previous season in the ACC with the 12 Big Ten teams. If that’s the case, the bottom teams will get frozen out. But the ACC will need to let those two teams know as soon as the season ends so that they can prepare their non-conference schedule to omit a Big Ten game.