basketball Page 451 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Lithuanian Man Fined For "Nazi Gestures" and "Monkey Chants" Directed At Nigeria
A couple of Olympians have gotten in trouble for making some racist comments. Not wanting to be left out, a Lithuanian man decided to join in on the fun....

Team USA Just Barely Survived A Gut Check From Lithuania
The final score—99-94—doesn't tell the whole story: Lithuania had a lead in the fourth quarter, and there were moments where it looked like just about everything that could go wrong for the US team would: atrocious free throw shooting, no rhythm from outside, easy scores for Lithuania's guards, and ...

Hoosiers Coach Tom Crean Is Sweet-Talking Someone—A Recruit, He Says—And It's Creepy
This strange series of events unfolded on Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean's timeline this afternoon. If our tips line is any indication, that clarification in the second tweet ("That was to a new recruit") was a wise move. The first, weirdest tweet has been deleted. We thought we'd leave it here ...

Remembering When Bill Russell Played A Corrupt Judge On <em>Miami Vice</em>
I'd love to know the backstory behind this inspired bit of casting. Who is it that looks at a script calling for a corrupt Miami judge and says, "Get me Bill Russell on the phone now!" Indeed, in a second-season episode of Miami Vice, Russell makes a star turn as a crooked judge who pays off gambl...

This Was The Only Positive For Nigeria In The Basketball Game They Just Lost To The U.S. By 83 Points
The final was 156-73, and as we watched the end of it here in the Deadspin office, we kept marveling at how Andre Iguodala, James Harden, Deron Williams, and Kevin Love kept chucking three-pointers in the final minutes. It was as if the U.S. would lose if it didn't win by 70....

The Russia/Brazil Basketball Game Ended On This Wild Three-Pointer
The Russians led by 11 at one point in the third quarter, but they blew it. Enter Alexey Shved and Vitaliy Fridzon. Trailing 72-67 with 26 seconds to go, Shved scored five straight points to tie the game. But Brazil went back in front when Marcelinho Huertas scored on a layup with 6.1 seconds left...

Remembering The Joyous, Tie-Dyed All-Stars Of The 1992 Lithuanian Basketball Team
In the summer of 1992, a pair of teams from freedom-loving nations took the Olympics by storm. At the end of the Games, both stood proudly on the medal stand as their flags rose to the rafters. 20 years later, two documentaries were made about their exploits....

Recruiter In UCF Scandal Tries To Clear His Name With Bizarre YouTube Explanation
The University of Central Florida football and men's basketball teams were hit with one-year postseason bans Tuesday for allegations that both squads conducted under-the-table business, primarily with a man named Ken Caldwell, that basically amounted to shady recruiting tactics between a third par...

After The Expected Ass-Kicking, A Tunisian Player Had Kobe Bryant Autograph His Shoe
The U.S. overcame a slow start to thrash an unexpectedly tough-playing Tunisian team 110-63, which meant the usual courtesies extended to the losing side of handshakes, hugs, and the occasional picture. Tunisian forward Mohamed Hdidane—who surprised a lot of us with basketball we didn't expect fro...

The Tunisian Basketball Coach Slapped The Shit Out Of One Of His Players In The Huddle
As we told you earlier, the Tunisian men's basketball team were 54-point underdogs heading into their preliminary game against Team USA. The stress of facing such daunting odds may have gotten to Tunisia's coach (the bald man at the center of the video above), as he unleashed a vicious slap into t...

Frank Martin Is A Big Fan Of Pitbull And That Is Weird
South Carolina men's basketball coach Frank Martin is some kind of walking contradiction. On the one hand, he's got a haircut befitting a goon in the inevitable Dick Tracy reboot, and when he screams at his players he looks exactly like kind of guy who relished voting for Nixon....

Team USA Is A 54-Point Favorite Against Tunisia Tonight
Hot off the presses, from online sportsbook Bovada (formerly Bodog): the men's basketball team is favored by a whopping 54 points tonight. Poor Tunisia....

Australia Forced Overtime Against France With A 55-Foot Buzzer-Beater
Australia's Belinda Snell hit a buzzer-beater from beyond half court to force overtime today against France in early-round women's basketball action. The contested shot kept the Australians alive against world-beaters France, which defeated Brazil over the weekend....

U.S. Men's Basketball Players Get Hugs From Michelle Obama Despite Not Beating France By 75
Of course, much of this is self-inflicted with all the Dream Team comparisons but it is silly nonetheless. At no point during this "game" against France did anyone with a skull full of working parts think the outcome was in jeopardy. But if the U.S. doesn't look flawless while its opponent simulta...

Oh Look, Another Awesome Summer League Dunk
This one's from the South Carolina Pro-Am League, where last night UNC-Wilmington product Dominique Lacy just straight pushed some guy's shit in. Lacy last played with the unfortunately named Luxembourgian team BC Mess, so someone please give him a job in America. Is Slamball still around? [Slam]...

Neil Reed, Former Indiana Basketball Player Once Choked By Bob Knight, Has Died
That's according to the Santa Maria (Calif.) Times, which cited faculty members at Pioneer Valley High School, where Reed coached basketball and golf:...

Science! Says The 2008 Squad Was Actually The Best Olympic Basketball Team Of All Time
Paul Bessire, creator of the Predictalator, ran every men's hoops team from 1992 through 2012 through his machine, simulating each roster playing 50,000 games against every other edition. And to everyone's surprise, neither the '92 Dream Team nor the current squad in London came out on top. Winning ...

Why Would An Olympic Basketball Player Not Want To Lead His Team In Scoring? To Avoid Drug Testing.
Thanks to Grant Hill, another interesting piece of Olympic basketball lore has risen to the surface. Yesterday, Hill went on the Dan Patrick Show, and talked about how nobody on the 1996 Olympic basketball team wanted to be the team's leading scorer, because that person would automatically have to ...

This Photo Of Team USA Sleeping On An Airplane Is The Best Thing Today
Kevin Love surreptitiously snapped this and posted it to Instagram, as Team USA flew from Barcelona to London last night. From right to left, front to back, that's LeBron James, Chris Paul, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Deron Williams, Anthony Davis, and even Mike Kryzyzewski, back in business cl...
