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DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke packed its roster full of star freshmen. The Blue Devils already will be without one of them for a while.The presumptive Atlantic Coast Conference favorites wont have Harry Giles for a few weeks after he had his left knee scoped.Better to take care of cleaning up the scar tissue and loose bodies inside Giles knee now, coach Mike Krzyzewski said Tuesday, rather than allow it to linger through what could be a special season.Will we have all the talent available at the time you have the opportunity to win the championship? Krzyzewski said. Thats why were making sure that Harry is good right now. The championship is not going to be won in October and November. The championship we want to win is the national championship. ... I dont know how many programs have that (as a legitimate) goal. We do, so were going to try to conduct our season appropriately.The Blue Devils enter the season as one of the favorites to win their sixth national championship, and third since 2010, and Giles is a big -- though certainly not the only -- reason why.A centerpiece of whats considered one of the nations top recruiting classes, the 6-foot-10 Giles had an arthroscopy on his left knee earlier this week, his third procedure on one of his knees. He tore several ligaments in that knee three years ago, then tore the anterior cruciate ligament in the other knee last November and wound up missing his senior season in high school.This procedure was nowhere near as severe as the previous two -- team officials say the typical recovery time is six weeks, putting it close to the Nov. 11 season opener against Marist -- but it does create an early test of adversity for a team coming off a season defined by its struggles to replace a key player lost to injury.Duke was never the same team last season after high-energy forward Amile Jefferson broke his foot in December and eventually was lost for the season. Those Blue Devils essentially went with a six-man rotation, and their lack of depth helped lead to losses to Louisville, Notre Dame and, ultimately, Oregon in the West Regional semifinals.Depth doesnt seem like an issue on this team, which is full of five-star freshmen -- Jayson Tatum, Javin DeLaurier, Marques Bolden and Frank Jackson, in addition to Giles -- and talented returnees including third-team AP All-American Grayson Allen and Jefferson, who received a medical hardship waiver that allows him to play an extra season.Really talented -- maybe one of the most talented Duke teams here, Jefferson said.Indeed, these Blue Devils have options, and an abundance of them.They can use the 6-11 Bolden and the 6-10 DeLaurier inside. Or, they could go small with some combination of Jefferson, Allen, Tatum, Jackson, sophomore Luke Kennard or senior co-captain Matt Jones.We have to be careful that we dont try to do too many combinations and options, Krzyzewski said, so that, what are the best things we can do with the group? ... Id rather have it, instead of doing too many things, doing a number of things with people doing them from different positions. ... Itll take on different looks. Florida Panthers Pro Shop .5 seconds to play in the game, Kevin Love never stopped believing that they would come out of there with a win. Florida Panthers Shirts . It was hard for Luck to pull off another comeback, or even get into the end zone, while standing on the sideline. Rivers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keenan Allen and Nick Novak kicked four field goals to give the Chargers a 19-9 victory against the Colts on Monday night. https://www.panthersjerseycheap.com/ . 8 Kansas to a 64-63 win over Texas Tech on Tuesday night. The freshman from Vaughan, Ont. Panthers Jerseys China .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. Florida Panthers Store . Anthony Davis had 31 points and 17 rebounds in his seventh straight game with more than 20 points, but that was only enough to keep the Pelicans competitive into the final minutes. Andrew Bogut had 10 points and 15 rebounds for Golden State, which rebounded from a loss a night earlier in Oklahoma City and snapped a two-game skid. In case you missed it during this week devoted to indigestion and brawling during Black Friday over that toy your child just has to have, the NCAA dropped the hammer on Notre Dame for academic shenanigans that occurred in its once-storied football program.It was an all-too-familiar lapse in the charade of professional sports franchises operating within our institutions of higher learning: a student trainer handled the schoolwork for several football players who couldnt be bothered with doing it themselves, which led to the Fighting Irish being stripped of two seasons worth of wins.The NCAA delivered a relatively swift punishment that, frankly, appeared a bit too harsh. Notre Dame acknowledged that rules were broken and cooperated in the investigation. There was no indication that the higher-ups were aware of what was going on.But were not here to cry for the Fighting Irish.Were more concerned about another case.Remember North Carolina? The Tar Heels have been mired in a massive academic fraud scandal going back more than two decades that has led to five NCAA charges, a corruption scandal far more troubling and far-reaching than the substitute schoolwork that went on at Notre Dame. Heck, what the Irish did sounds downright quaint by comparison.Yet, the NCAA has still not levied any punishment on Tobacco Road, allowing the case to devolve into a legal mumbo-jumbo that seems to be sending a clear message to future rule-breakers: its best to delay, delay and delay some more.Its now been more than six years since the NCAA first arrived in Chapel Hill to investigate allegations of improper benefits and academic misconduct within the football program.That led to the uncovering of something even worse: sham courses within a department devoted to African-American studies, which were really nothing more than a conduit for athletes to pick up an easy A without being burdened with going to class or doing much in the way of actual schoolwork.An independent investigation by former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein found that some 3,100 students -- roughly half of them athletes from numerous sports -- took bogus courses between 1993 and 2011. At least one prominent former basketball player has come forward to say he was caught up in the scam: Rashad McCants, who helped lead the Tar Heels to the 2005 national championship.Despite a massive body of evidence, North Carolina has yet to face any sort of justice.Instead, this has become the worst episode of Law & Order ever.TThe NCAA leveled its initial set of charges, including the dreaded lack of institutional control.ddddddddddddThe school had 90 days to respond, and went right up to the deadline before sending along additional information for the NCAA to review. That led to an amended set of charges, with the most serious allegations still in there. The school responded again, this time with a bunch of procedural arguments that most notably challenged the NCAAs jurisdiction in the case. That led to another hearing, lots of sniping back and forth by the attorneys, and ... well, you get the idea. To get a true glimpse into what this case has become, check here .Clearly, theres no end in sight for this convoluted mess.Meanwhile, Notre Dame is already preparing to appeal the sanctions the NCAA handed down on Tuesday, which included stripping the school of all 21 wins it had during the 2012 and `13 seasons. That wiped out the Fighting Irishs best showing since the 1980s -- a 12-0 regular season and No. 1 ranking before a humiliating 42-14 loss to Alabama in the national championship game. It was another tough blow for the current team, which has endured a 4-7 season heading into Saturdays finale against Southern Cal and faces questions about the future of coach Brian Kelly.Its just a couple of guys made a mistake, and the whole team goes down with it, said offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey, a team captain. We know we won the games. Theyre not going to take that away from us. They can take it away in the record books all they want, but we won the games.The Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dames president, called it unprecedented to strip a school of wins without serious underlying institutional misconduct. He said the NCAAs ruling wouldnt punish those responsible for the misconduct, but rather will punish coaches, student-athletes and indeed the entire institution who did nothing wrong and, with regard to this case, did everything right.If the folks at Notre Dame sound a bit frustrated, they have every right to be.Theyve felt the wrath of the NCAA, while the Tar Heels remain on the lam.What a travesty.---Paul Newberry is a sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963 . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/paul-newberry .---For more AP college football coverage: www.collegefootball.ap.org ' ' '