basketball Page 550 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Villanova Wildcats
1. Kelvin Sampson for Mayor. Members of 'Nova Nation' will line up to shake the hand of Kelvin "Urban Meyer's just swimming in my texting wake" Sampson, former coach of Oklahoma, for jumping ship to Indiana. Seems that Scottie Reynolds, who played his high school ball in Herndon, Virg., had spurned ...
New Mexico State Aggies
1. Their Coach Is Not In A Wheelchair. After years of coaching at Illinois, coach Lou Henson retired after the 1995-96 season, to much fanfare. (He even shook hands with Bobby Knight, the big bully.) But he ended up taking only one year off before returning to New Mexico State, where he had taken th...
Wisconsin Badgers
1. Old School Quickies. Bucky Badger's full name is Buckingham U. Badger. Is Minnesota's Golden Gopher that sophisticated? I doubt it. The Badger mascot actually stems from when the territory was dubbed "The Badger State," not because of animals in the region, but rather an association with miners i...
Louisville Cardinals
1. Time to make the donuts. The Cardinals' late-season turnaround is due in large part to the emergence of Louisville's talented freshman class, including center Derrick Caracter. DC, who has footwork that Greg Oden would kill for, has gotten his act together after serving a pair of suspensions this...
Butler Bulldogs
1. A.J. Graves lays more pipe than you do. Butler's 6-1, 155 lb. Emo-bang wearing A.J. Graves lays pipe all summer long at his family's plumbing business in Switz City, Indiana. A.J. was all-state at White River Valley H.S. in 2004 and finished two votes behind North Central's A.J. Ratliff in voting...
Oral Roberts Golden Eagles
1. So, Then, Why The Hell Are You At Oral Roberts? The Golden Eagles, in the tournament for the second year in a row, are defined by their star player, Caleb Green. He's a 6-8 forward who has won the Mid-Continent player of the year award three years in a row, which I guarantee will never happen aga...
Maryland Terrapins
1.We Burn Couches Better Than You. We Burn Couches....YES we do! Maryland has a history of causing town riots up and down Route 1 in College Park after meaningful victories (and losses). The most famous was in 2002, with 18 arrests, $10,000 worth of damage and eight trips to the hospital after the N...
Memphis Tigers
Memo to all television announcers and sportswriters: Now that we're back around to tourney time, and the Memphis Tigers are a good bet for a high seed, it's highly likely at some point over the next month that you'll find yourself writing or talking about Memphis. You will be tempted to make all kin...
Jackson State Tigers
1. Sweetness. Jackson's State's most famous graduate is, of course, the great Walter Payton. It is a little known fact that his brother, Eddie Payton, is the head golf coach of the Tigers and has built them into a powerhouse in the golf crazy SWAC....
Texas Longhorns
1. Kevin Durant. The lanky six-foot-nine freshman phenom is averaging 25 points and 11 rebounds a game and has led this team of toddlers— the No. 15 Longhorns started the season with four fish and a sophomore— to its eighth consecutive 20-win season. In their Feb. 28 double-overtime victory over the...
Washington State Cougars
1. Worst to, well, second. Without question, Washington State was the single most surprising team in a BCS conference this year. Coming off a last-place finish last season, and with Tony Bennett taking over as a first-time head coach from his father, Dick Bennett, the media picked Washington State a...
Gonzaga Bulldogs
1. Almost Howland. Twenty five years before his actions forced the residents of Spokane to explain why open sobbing by the leading scorer in college basketball is a perfectly normal reaction to a semi-realistic opportunity to win a NCAA tournament game, UCLA coach Ben Howland actually received his f...
Winthrop Eagles
1. Some Winthrop Firsts. 1886: Winthrop first opens its doors. 1972: Winthrop goes co-ed and allows its first males to enroll. August 20, 1977, 10:00 am: Freshman, and future actress Andie MacDowell first steps foot on campus. August 20, 1977, 10:01 am: The few pioneering men who broke the gender ba...
Stanford Cardinal
1. Dynamic Duo. In everyday life, seven-foot Stanford twins Brook and Robin Lopez are mild-mannered freshmen on the Cardinal's basketball team (some say a bit too mild mannered). But while not hiding behind their secret identities, they enjoy writing and drawing homemade comic books. "They draw thei...
Eastern Kentucky Colonels
1. Robert E. Lee's spirit is on their side. Eastern Kentucky University is located in Richmond, Kentucky, site of the Civil War Battle of Richmond. The Battle of Richmond holds the distinction of being the most decisive victory of the war by the Confederate Army over the Union's forces, with the Uni...
Florida Gators
1. Joakim Noah has a MILF. To oversimplify, there are three types of hot college sports groupie. There are The TV Fame-Whores (ex. J. Sterger). There are The Celebrities. (ex. A. Judd) And then there is that rarest (and loveliest) of sightings: The MILF. Last March, Joakim Noah's mom, Cecilia Rodhe,...
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
1. The benefits of weed. When the Irish's starting point guard Kyle McAlarney was indefinitely suspended for having pot in the front seat of his car in late December, freshman guard Tory Jackson was immediately thrust into the starting spot. Although he still lacks K-Mac's consistency from behind bo...
UCLA Bruins
1. White guys from Orange County, brah! A lot of people make a big deal out of the fact that UCLA has 2 Cameroonians, a Canadian and a Serbian pimp (Facebook pictures don't lie) on the roster. That's just fine and dandy, but in all seriousness, what college team doesn't have a full UN committee on t...
Boston College Eagles
1. Our coach scared "the crap" out of Pitino. Forget the sophomoric jabs against coach Al Skinner. Sure Skinner and 1987 Kentucky Derby winner Alysheba have never been seen in the same place at the same time, and, all right, Skinner has an inexplicable mock turtleneck fetish, but so what? Skinner's ...
Texas Tech Red Raiders
1. Nic Cage Likes Them Out of the East. The "Masked Rider" mascot of Texas Tech began unofficially in 1936 as "The Ghost Rider," as unknown groups of students would circle the field on horses at home football games, then depart the stadium. At the 1954 Gator Bowl, The Masked Rider became the officia...