Weekend Rewind

We found this year's Tyrus Thomas!. Who is it? You may have guessed it, Arizona's Jordan Hill!. Mark it down!

Teaching Brad Nessler: It is fascinating that after doing hundreds of college basketball games over many years, Nessler does not know the difference between a "true freshman" and a "redshirt freshman" when talking about NC State's Brandon Costner.

Congratulations to Herb Magee for becoming the winningest coach in Division 2 history in men's college basketball.

Congratulations to Iona and Jeff Ruland for getting their first win. They were quite possibly one of the best last-D1-teams-to-win-a-game. But regardless, don't go anywhere near Jeff Ruland this year...

Basketball coaches did you watch the SuperBowl?. You can win it all without being an obnoxiously abusive bully like Bob Knight and Bill Parcells. Tony Dungy should be your new role model!

Wednesday is college football's national signing day. ESPNU will be having a seven hour extravaganza, two hours of which will be on ESPN2. CSTV will throw its own signing day party with a three hour Generation Next.

It's hard not to feel bad for Riley Wallace. Not only he is shown out the door Denny-Crum-style by Hawaii after many many years there, but the zebras blatantly gave the game to the Nevada Foxes (Mark Fox, foxes, wolves, Wolfpack).

Why isn't Florida on national TV more often? What else do they have to do? They are the defending National champions and all of their stars returned to college. So many tv channels, not enough common sense?

Words of wisdom by the Duke Zen Master Jay Bilas: "Concentrate on your path"

Great job by Seth Davis on his One to One documentary/interview with Rick Pitino that debut on CSTV last week and will repeat many times more. It was an insightful look with good questions that covered most of Pitino's career in about 25 minutes. One of the things mentioned was the 1986 Sports Illustrated cover with Rick Pitino portrayed as "possessed". Pitino was offended by the word "possessed", he's rather see "obsessed". Check local listings for repeats!

Being Michael Jordan's son is not guaranteed NBA greatness. Eric Gordon played more like a Jordan than his sons. Granted those are unfair expectations to put on anyone. So after that I have to change my rankings of the "Best Embryos, Class of 2025" ;-)

Congratulations to Sidney Lowe!. He managed to do what Herb Sendek couldn't, despite having just six players. NC State fans were unhappy because Sendek could not beat Duke or Carolina. Sidney Lowe just did!

Are the Arizona Wildcats back? The return of Brett Brillmaier (a steadying influence off the bench) and the emergence of Jordan Hill as a game changing performer in the paint have allowed his favorite five ball-handlers to return to their more natural positions: Radenovic doesn't have to battle centers all the time, Marcus Williams and Budinger don't have to battle power forwards. Even if Lute doesn't reduce their minutes significantly, they won't take as much beating from bigger players. In fact he tried M-Will at the point against the Huskies, instead of Nic Wise and Daniel Dillon. So why did Arizona slide so much? Part of it was because Lute Olson, despite his 1000+ game experience, made a big mistake: he fell in love with the five ball-handler line-up (Shakur,McClellan,M-Will,Budinger,Radenvoic). Yes he had his excuses (meltdown at Virginia, Kirk Walters unavailability), but by playing those five guys all the time in the preseason he didn't give the bench a chance to get valuable playing time and in-game development. Had he done so in the preseason, Jordan Hill could have emereged in late December instead of late January... So Lute, start reading my blog :-)