Meister der Farbe » Jones to be a cheat, but acknowledged his

CINCINNATI -- Last season, the Xavier Musketeers were a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and had some pundits listing them among the Final Four favorites.That was March. National recognition in November is something new on Victory Parkway.Xavier, which opens the regular season against Lehigh on Friday (7 p.m.) at Cintas Center, is ranked No. 7 in the preseason Associated Press poll, the highest preseason rating in school history.The Musketeers highest previous ranking in the preseason was 10th in 1997-98 and 2002-03. However, coach Chris Mack said he is not concerned about his players absorbing that praise.I dont worry about the attention, Mack said. It helps that people talk about you. It helps in recruiting. I know fans get excited. But, its really about what we do between the lines. I do think we have some older players that are used to having a businesslike attitude.It helps to have the top two scorers returning, junior guard Trevon Bluiett (15.1 points per game) and sophomore guard Edmond Sumner (11.0 ppg).Bluiett lost around 20 pounds during the summer to become quicker and more athletic to the rim.Sumner missed three games last season with a head injury but still compiled 112 assists. He is poised for a huge year, one that could propel him up the NBA Draft ladder.Both Bluiett and Sumner were named preseason first-team All-Big East Conference. Junior guard J.P. Macura, the Big Easts sixth man of the year last season, also returns.The Musketeers will be without a couple of key contributors on Friday. Sophomore forward Kaiser Gates is out with a knee injury, and senior guard Myles Davis is suspended due to allegations in an ongoing domestic-violence case.Xavier, which was ranked ninth in the final AP poll last year, is picked to finish second in the Big East behind defending national champion Villanova. Still, the Musketeers arent thinking too highly of themselves.We dont really focus too much on preseason rankings, Macura said. Last year we werent ranked (in the preseason) and we had a great season. We just have to take every day, practice with energy, and everything else will take care of itself.The Friday game is Xaviers first since losing to Wisconsin on a buzzer-beater in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a defeat that took months for the Musketeers to move past.Xavier wont look past Lehigh on Friday, though. As Sumner said earlier this week, the Mountain Hawks are not a slouch.Xavier is 2-0 all-time against Lehigh, including a narrow 69-63 win in 2004. This season, the Hawks are a near-unanimous favorite to win the Patriot League title, receiving all but three first-place votes. Senior forward Tim Kempton, a two-time Patriot League player of the year, is picked to win it for a third time. Junior guard Kahron Ross is a first-team all-league selection.Lehigh returns its top four scorers from last years squad that won 11 consecutive games before losing a heartbreaker in the Patriot League championship game.I think this team learned a lot from going through the journey last season, said coach Brett Reed, who is in his 10th season as Lehighs head coach. They are hungry for a new opportunity. However, they will need to take the lessons learned and apply them this upcoming year if were going to be even stronger, which will be needed to win a championship.Air Max 90 Essential Saldi . In taking its goal tally to 99 in all competitions already this season, City delivered another demonstration of its lethal firepower at Etihad Stadium to set up a fourth-round match at home to another second-tier team -- Watford. Balenciaga Scarpe Replica Italia . Kyle Denbrook, a soccer player from Saint Marys University, took the CIS male athlete of the week honour. Stanley, a fourth-year business administration student from Charlottetown, scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Dalhousie on Friday and tallied again in a 1-0 win over Saint Marys on Sunday. http://www.outletscarpesaldi.it/air-max-90-prezzo-basso.html . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. Air Max 270 React Outlet . For the Wild it was their first win of the season and they now have a record of 1-1-2 while the Jets fall to 2-2. Jets start a six game home stand Friday with another divisional game, home to the Dallas Stars. Air Force 1 Off White Saldi . Team physician Dr. Steve Traina performed the surgery Friday. Robinson was injured in a spill underneath the Nuggets basket during the first quarter of Wednesday nights loss to the Charlotte Bobcats.Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has reached an agreement with the Nevada State Athletic Commission on a one-year suspension, paving the way for him to return to fighting next summer, according to an MMAFighting.com report.The suspension is retroactive to July 6, the date Jones was pulled from a UFC 200 pay-per-view title fight against Daniel Cormier after results from his failed out-of-competition drug test were revealed.Jones, 29, also received a one-year suspension, retroactive to July 6, from the United States Anti-Doping Association (USADA) last month. He became the first UFC athlete to enter arbitration with USADA in October, but an independent arbitration panel upheld USADAs ruling and suspended Jones for the maximum length of one year.Jones tested positive for the banned substances clomiphene and letrozole. His attorney, Howard Jacobs, asserted the banned substances entered his system in the form of a sexual enhancement pill he believed was Cialis, a brand form of tadalafil.Jones stated he received a pill he believed to be Cialis from teammate Eric Blasich on or about June 14. Jones said he checked with his agent, Malki Kawa, to confirm Cialis is not listed on the World Anti-Doping Agencys (WADA) banned substance list before ingessting the pill.ddddddddddddAccording to Jones arguments, he later found out the pill was not Cialis, but another form of tadalafil that Blasich had purchased from AllAmericanPeptide.com.In recent months, USADA independently obtained and tested a supply of tadalafil from AllAmericanPetptide.com and found it to be contaminated with the banned substances for which Jones tested positive.In its written epilogue on the case, the arbitration panel stated it did not find Jones to be a cheat, but acknowledged his lack of caution resulted in a major financial loss.After USADAs ruling in November, Jones told ESPN: I have always maintained my innocence, and I am very happy I have been cleared in any wrongdoing pursuant to the allegations made that I had intentionally taken a banned substance. I am pleased that in USADAs investigation they determined I was not a cheater of the sport. Widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, Jones has fought only twice since the start of 2015. He was the undisputed light heavyweight titleholder from 2011 to 2015, but he was stripped of the title last year because of legal issues. ' ' '