Breakfast Buffet: Sean Miller insists he didn’t condone the brawl

1. Arizona coach Sean Miller received a lot of flack for saying Saturday he was "proud" that opposing teams could not "bully" his former Xavier players, so the ex-Musketeers coach issued a statement on Monday backing off those remarks. Miller insisted his comments were unrelated to the brawl with Cincinnati and were aimed at his admiration for Xavier's "on-the-court toughness." "In no way was I condoning a fight," he added.

2. My solution to Memphis' tepid 5-3 start would be to get the Tigers to play with more consistent effort and to encourage them to feed the ball inside to Tarik Black whenever possible. Josh Pastner's first move was to encourage his players to "ignore the noise" and focus better, which led to Chris Crawford and Adonis Thomas shutting down their Twitter accounts on Monday.

3. The best news from Washington's 0-2 trip to New York was that center Aziz N'Diaye's knee injury was just a sprain. An MRI did not reveal any ligament damage, meaning the 7-footer will miss just a few games and should be back in time for the start of Pac-12 play. "I'm not playing Friday or this weekend at all," he told the Seattle Times. "I know my knee is not ready for that. I'm going to start rehab today or tomorrow. Go from there. Miss the next couple of games, but I'll be back."

4. The fallout from Saturday's brawl between city rivals Cincinnati and Xavier inspired the Richmond Times-Dispatch to ask coaches and administrators from Richmond and VCU if they were concerned a similar incident could happen at one of their games. The answer? A resounding no. "While we want to beat them as badly as they want to beat us, I don't think there's ever been anything brewing that would cause something like that," VCU athletic director Norwood Teague said.

5. Cal State Bakersfield assistant Bryan Goodman feels fortunate to have three healthy children born six minutes apart six years ago, but he and his wife were supposed to have quadruplets. Sophia Goodman got sick from an infection and died 60 days after she was born, a loss the family is still trying to overcome. "I'd like to say I'm over it, but we're not over it," Goodman told the Bakersfield Californian. "Every time we're having a good time with the family, we kind of look at each other and say, 'Almost perfect.' "

Debuts don't get much better than the one UC Riverside guard Robert Smith enjoyed on Sunday at Montana State. The Santa Clara transfer grabbed the rebound of a missed free throw and nailed a last-second fallaway three, capping a comeback from a four-point deficit in the final six seconds and giving the Highlanders a 75-73 victory. Smith finished with 14 points in 23 minutes off the bench.

"I really don't have very high expectations with every freshman coming in on how much they can absorb without being bothered by it. That's what has been the most pleasing thing about his evolution so far. As he's come in, we're just continuing to give him more and more and he's showing no frustration when he makes mistakes." — Michigan coach John Beilein on freshman point guard Trey Burke. (Big Ten coaches teleconference)

• Boston University at Villanova, 7 p.m. EST

• Wisconsin at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 8 p.m. EST

• Belmont at Middle Tennessee State, 8 p.m. EST