Tom Smile made 572 free throws from 1964-67, most in Bryant’s history.

Journal files

One of the most surprising scores of the year so far was Duke 82, Xavier 64. Last weekend’s battle between the 6th- and 7th-ranked teams was startlingly one-sided. The Blue Devils opened the game with an 18-1 run and were up, 22-3, before the Muskies scored a field goal. Ouch.

Xavier entered the game 8-0 after a nice win over Cincinnati, but compounded the Duke loss with a 74-65 defeat at the Cintas Center to Butler.

The Bulldogs are seemingly always good, and that’s certainly the case again, but Xavier had won 16 straight at home and appears to be the Atlantic 10’s best team.

Who are the best mid-majors thus far? Go with Butler, Brigham Young, St. Mary’s, Creighton and Charleston, to name a few.

Devendorf practicing

Eric Devendorf’s community service requirement is over at Syracuse, and he is back practicing with the Orange.

After originally suspending Devendorf for the remainder of the school year for hitting a female student in the face on Nov. 1, an appeals board made up of two faculty or staff members and one student modified the sanctions set by the judicial board.

Devendorf’s penalty was reduced to an indefinite suspension, which can be lifted if he meets requirements established by the appeals board. Devendorf was ordered to complete 40 hours of community service; that requirement was completed on Friday.

Devendorf did not challenge the appeals panel, which also called for the junior guard to complete another 40 hours of community service once he is readmitted as a student.

Devendorf’s lawyer, William Sullivan, said the appeals panel decision also includes some additional requirements for Devendorf to meet once he is reinstated, but the lawyer declined to reveal what they were. “He’s going to comply with each requirement,” Sullivan said.

It is not clear when Devendorf can return to game action, but initial reports indicated that once Devendorf completes his first 40 hours of community service he’d be re-admitted to school. If so, he could play in Tuesday’s Big East opener against Seton Hall. Without the shooter who was averaging nearly 14 points a game, SU went on the road and beat nationally ranked Memphis and then came home and cruised past Coppin State.

It’s quiz time

Who’s the all-time leader for college games coached? If you guessed Harry Statham of McKendree University, you know your hoops.

Statham became the all-time leader for games coached at any division of four-year college basketball recently when his Bearcats defeated Concordia University in St. Louis, 70-48.

Statham is in his 43rd season as the head coach at McKendree, and has coached in 1,355 games. That pushes him past former Mt. St. Mary’s head coach Jim Phelan for the all-time mark. Stratham has 976 career wins for McKendree, an NAIA school in Lebanon, Ill.

Looking back

I’m not sure whether these numbers make any sense, but in flipping through the Bryant hoop media guide this week, it became clear that Tom Smile shot a lot of free throws back in the mid-1960s. Smile made 572 free throws from 1964-67, easily the most in school history. But it’s hard to believe that he’s 279 ahead of the second-place shooter, big man Mike Williams. In 1966, Smile, a former Tolman High star, averaged 33.4 points. He made 208 free throws, the most in school history in a season. The second-place finisher was Romuald Augustin, who was 70 behind.

Obama’s hoop connections

Two members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation are close associates of President-elect Barack Obama.

Arne Duncan, a former Harvard player who has served as Chicago’s superintendent of schools, is Obama’s nominee for secretary of education. John Rogers, the founder and chairman of Ariel Investments in Chicago and a close friend of Obama and former Brown coach Craig Robinson, is one of the leaders in planning Obama’s January inauguration.

Duncan and Rogers were instrumental in the development and expansion of the NABC Foundation’s Ticket to Reading Rewards (TTRR) program. The program is a reading incentive that encourages middle-school students to read books outside the classroom and obtain rewards for reading. The program began in the Chicago public schools and has grown to 12 school districts nationwide. Students have read an estimated 5 million books and attended 150,000 local men’s and women’s NCAA basketball games at no cost to the school districts or students.

kmcnamar@projo.com