Since the early signing period begins on Wednesday, I reached out to Northgate High School girls' basketball coach Matt Trucks to see if the school had any plans of holding a ceremony for UConn commit Brianna Banks to sign her national letter of intent. His prompt response caught me off guard as he wrote "Brianna Banks no longer attends school here at Northgate."

You would have thought I would have picked up on this earlier but she is now attending Fayette County High School in Fayetteville, Ga. There's no link on the Fayette County HS website for the girls' basketball schedule but according to the schedule I found on Max Preps, Fayette County opens its season on Wednesday (the same day that the early signing period kicks off) with a game in Atlanta against Westlake. Banks will face her former school on Jan. 11 when Fayette County plays at Northgate.

Also, it looks like Kiah Stokes will be signing her letter of intent Wednesday afternoon at a ceremony at Linn-Mar High School. Kiah's father said it is a Linn-Mar tradition to have all the Division I athletes sign their letters at the same ceremony. Obviously, the time of the ceremony figures to be determined by when the Linn-Mar volleyball team returns from its opening match in the Iowa state tournament.

CPTV SCHEDULE UPDATE
I meant to post this the other night but CPTV has gotten clearance for the Jan. 12 game against St. John's at Madison Square Garden leaving the games at Cincinnati and Rutgers on Jan. 26 and 29 as the only ones yet to be finalized according to the schedule on the CPTV site.

SCOUTING IUP
For those hoping for a more competitive game on Wednesday against Indiana (Pa.) in the exhibition finale than what UConn got against Franklin Pierce, it does not look promising.

The Crimson Hawks lost to James Madison 76-58 and American 73-47 and have been outrebounded 81-51 in the two games. They don't start a player standing taller than 5-11 and the only 6-footer on the roster is freshman Taylour Alston, who has not played in either exhibition game so I'd expect UConn's post players could make a splash in the 7 p.m. contest at the XL Center.

IUP, located about an hour or so outside of Pittsburgh, has used the same starting five in both preseason games: freshman guard Alex Vega, sophomore forwards Brianna Johnson and Sarah Pastorek, junior forward Amber Dubyak and senior guard Lacey Claar.

Reserve senior guard Eryn Withers has averaged a team-high 11 points in the two preseason games followed by Pastorek (9 PPG) and Johnson (8 PPG).