Friday, January 26, 2007

News and light reading

Some light reading while you think about which is worse:

A) The inbounds pass Duke’s Josh McRoberts threw.

B) The time keeper and officials at Cameron Indoor.

C) Jay Bilas’ explanation given his background.

Ethics.

Check out the final seconds of the Duke-Clemson game from last night.

SOME LIGHT READING

1) A.J. Price is back as the starting point guard for UConn.

2) This comes from central New York. Cornell’s Khaliq Grant dove for a loose ball in practice and now faces his future. Good read from the Post-Standard’s Mike Waters.

3) You think you hold a grudge? Check out what Gilbert Arenas thinks he can do on the college level against Duke.

Some background: Coach K cut Arenas from the national team.

4) Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer going out on a limb with his evaluation of Ohio State freshman Greg Oden.

5) Found this buried among all the other Bob Knight stories. Here are some first encounters with the man and the myth.

6) Finally, in case you missed colleague Chip Malafronte’s personal retrospect on the New Haven Coliseum, go about three entries down on his blog. As a transplant, these are memories I’ll never own.

Seems to be a lot of Van Halen in there.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Louisville

Some extras from the UConn-Louisville game.

First off, a quick question.

Does Tim Higgins officiate every UConn game?

Moving on.

Here are some tidbits from Rick Pitino's postgame press conference.

On Hasheem Thabeet
"He will be a wealthy man one day if he listens to Jim," Pitino said. "Calhoun puts more guys into the pros than the NBA does."

On his team's mental level
"Edgar (Sosa) is still in the locker room, thinking he can still take it to Thabeet."

On the 3-pointer
"The college three is a joke. You're laughing because of how my team shoots it."

On his cream-colored suit jacket, which was worn in conjunction with the Freedom Hall promotion "White Out".
"I love it," Pitino said, "because I spent a lot of money on this jacket."

After five road trips, here's a list of fans and where they rank based on knowledge, noise, and the occasional witty anecdote.

1) LSU
2) Louisville
3) West Virginia
4) St. John's
5) Pitt

Lost in the statistics
1) Even though UConn shot just 3-for-20 from the 3-point range, Louisville finished 6-for-23, but 5-for-12 in the second half.
2) The last time UConn handed out more assists than turnovers was against South Florida on Jan. 2. Against Louisville, the Huskies had eight assists and 20 turnovers.
3) Louisville attempted just one foul shot in the first half. It was 25-for-32 in the second half.
4) The 18 points the Cardinals scored in the first half were the second-lowest output by a UConn opponent this season (Coppin State, 15)
5) The 21 points UConn scored were the lowest this season for the first half (Pitt, 22).

Things you did not see on ESPN
Louisville's Terrence Williams staring down Dick Vitale after making a 3-pointer (though you probably heard about it).

Jim Harrick finds a home.

Also, ever wonder what one shot can do to a group of people?

This is how at Louisiana's Northwestern State.

And finally, if you've never read anything from Pat Jordan, you should.

This is an excerpt from his book about his father and gambling.