C.J. Henry left practice in a hurry Wednesday afternoon after getting word that his younger brother, Xavier Henry, was in a car accident at home in Oklahoma City.

Early indications are that Xavier Henry, who is arguably the No. 1 high school senior in the country and the Tigers’ top recruiting target, will be OK. But this is a scary situation for any family member, obviously, and C.J. Henry wanted to get home quickly to be with his brother.

C.J. Henry is sitting out the next few weeks after surgery on his left foot to repair a broken bone. Xavier Henry is deciding between Memphis and Kansas.

Here are some quick hitters from the Tigers’ morning practice:

- The Tigers didn’t shoot the ball well at all. No use reading too much into it this early, but suffice it to say, not a lot of 3-pointers were going down today.

- Lots of guys look like they have no clue what’s going on when the Tigers are working on offense, which isn’t surprising this early.

- There’s a huge banner on a wall inside the Finch Center with a picture of last season’s team on it and the words “38-2. Winningest Team in NCAA Div. 1 History.” I now realize why John Calipari put that banner in there. It’s a pretty effective thing to point at whenever the intensity level of practice dips.

- John Wilfong was there watching and made the comment that Angel Garcia, in his opinion, is a potential NBA player.

- I think John Calipari should be praying that Willie Kemp plays in games as well as he’s practicing. If he does, the Tigers won’t have much of an issue at point guard.

I’ll do the best I can to do some live blogging during this thing, though deadline issues for the newspaper may prevent me from doing too much. It’s now 7:13, and the lower bowl is filling up. Interesting to see what the crowd looks like tonight. Here’s a spoiler, by the way, for those of you who can’t be here. There was some discussion in the offseason about what the banner would say. They did a little dry run on the banner before the doors open. It says “South Regional Champs, Final Four, NCAA Finalist.”

7:36 p.m. - Seth Davis is on the Pierre Niles bandwagon! I talked to Seth, the college basketball writer for SI and analyst on CBS, what his impressions were of the Tigers after watching them practice a bit on Friday afternoon. Perhaps to the surprise of some Tiger fans — Remember a couple years ago, when Seth slammed the team’s shooting after watching them practice? — he said this team is better than he expected them to be. He was impressed with Niles as a physical presence. When I said, “I think he can definitely give them a good 10 minutes per game,” Davis thought I was low-balling him.

7:56 p.m. - The Tigers get a standing ovation as they’re coming down from the concourse after signing autographs. They’re back in the locker room at the moment, and the dance team just got done doing a routine. The crowd is about what I expected. The lower two bowls are full, and there are a few thousand people sitting in the upper deck. It’s about like a crowd the Tigers would get for Tulane.

8:02 p.m. - OK, I understand that many fans were sorry to lose TOM II this week, but was it really necessary to start the evening with a moment of silence for the deceased mascot?

8:09 p.m. - You can tell women’s coach Melissa McFerrin is new around here. She hasnt learn how to pronounce Cal-uh-PARE-ee yet.

10:33 p.m. — Well, it proved to be beyond my capabilities to live blog and write a story on deadline. But here’s a quick recap. CDR’s entrance was very emotional, as was the video tribute to last season’s NCAA Tournament run. Lots of cheering on the highlights (Dorsey’s first-half dunk against Michigan State, “The Dunk” by CDR against UCLA). Not a lot of cheering for the highlights from the Kansas game.

Shawn Taggart won the 3-point shooting contest (Is that a good or bad sign?), and some of the other guys looked quite nervous to me. The dunk contest was kind of a wash. No winner declared (Huh?). The scrimmage was kind of a joke (No defense. None at all), but Tyreke Evans had a couple nice plays including an awesome dunk where he threw the ball off the backboard, took off from the free-throw line and slammed it home. Wesley Witherspoon also looked pretty good, but again the no defense thing (He still needs to get stronger).

Everyone left the building very happy. John Calipari was thrilled with the crowd (best ever by far for a Memphis Madness; we estimated 14,000 or so). Lots of local recruits were there and a couple from out of town. It was definitely the kind of night that would charge you up for the start of the season.

Practice starts for real tomorrow, and I’ll be there to report on it for you guys.

The Tigers were hoping to hear something official today on freshman forwards Matt Simpkins and Angel Garcia being able to practice, but no word had come down from the NCAA by late afternoon. The best I can gather, at this point, is that Simpkins and Garcia will be cleared to practice with the team when things start up this weekend but it will probably be next week before the NCAA determines whether they are academically eligible to play this season.

The C-USA office just sent out its preseason poll and all-league team, as voted on by the coaches.

No surprises in the poll, though opinions will vary on the order of 2-4:
1. Memphis
2. UAB
3. Tulsa
4. UTEP
5. Southern Miss

The coaches made a major omission, however, on the all-league team:
Robert Dozier, Memphis
Stefon Jackson, UTEP
Jerome Jordan, Tulsa
Jermaine Taylor, UCF
Robert Vaden, UAB*
* Player of the year

This is the same silliness that kept Derrick Rose off the preseason all-league team last year. Anybody who thinks Tyreke Evans won’t be one of the top five players in Conference USA is delusional. Jermaine Taylor? Nice player, but come on.

- I’ve talked to a bunch of people who saw Darnell Dodson play some basketball during his visit last weekend, and every one of them has said the same thing: He can flat-out play. This will be one of the more interesting situations to monitor as the year goes on because the Tigers are getting a guy who is essentially unknown. Obviously, he signed with Pitt out of high school, so he’s not a total reach. But he redshirted at junior college last year, so it’s been a long time since he was evaluated by anybody. There was obviously something that John Calipari saw in him initially, but several folks saw it too last weekend.

- Anybody who thinks Tyreke Evans is going to be a chemistry problem or is inherently a selfish player has bought into a mythological narrative and should be dismissed out of hand. I have watched the Tigers work out several times now - most recently on Tuesday - and this entire notion becomes more ridiculous to me every time I see him.

…will be on Oct. 17, a week from Friday at FedExForum. More details forthcoming. A couple things.

- There WILL be a tribute to last year’s Final Four team that fans won’t want to miss. And it will be more than just raising a banner

- It WILL be a huge recruiting night for the Tigers. Possible/probable visitors include John Wall, Dominic Cheek and Derrick Favors.