state Page 354 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Long Beach State 49ers
1. Nixon's The One. NCAA opponents would be wise not to overlook the 49ers in general and senior forward Aaron "Mr. Big Shot" Nixon in particular. After a 74-49 loss to Temple on December 2, Long Beach State has won 22 straight, winning the Big West championship, where Nixon was named Tournament MVP...

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...

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....

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...

Michigan State Spartans
1. Drew Me Baby One More Time. Use both hands, please If you can overlook the disturbing visual similarities between Drew Neitzel and Britney Spears (she just wanted to look like him). There's a lot to appreciate about the Spartans leader. When he was 12, Drew won the national 2-ball championshipm w...

You Have No Idea How Hard It Is Not To Make A "Pokey" Joke
This, friends, is Pokey Chatman, who, until about 16 hours ago, was one of the most successful young coaches in women's college basketball, leading her LSU Tigers into the NCAA tournament and earning the respect of her peers. Now, though, she's decidedly less than that: Now she's a disgraced former ...

A <em>Real</em> Team Would Play A Tripleheader
More proof that our man Ron Zook — ARE YOU INTENSE ENOUGH FOR ZOOK???!!! — is a genius and is a force with which to be reckoned: He's smart enough to schedule games against teams who already have games scheduled that day....

Don't Expect Your Rec League To Adopt These
These, friends, are the future of college basketball uniforms, and that future is: SPANDEX! OK, not quite Spandex, but there's certainly a skin-tight vibe going on for the four teams who will supposedly try out the new duds during their conference championships this week: Ohio State, Syracuse, Flori...

Idaho, Remaining On The Cutting Edge Of Video Game Technology
So this is enough to make one happy: The cover boy for the new EA Sports NCAA Football 2008 game is ... Boise State quarterback Jared Zabransky!...

Jerry Glanville Is Movin' On Up
So you know how Jerry Glanville is now the defensive coordinator at Hawaii? That's a job that has always made sense; if you've made your money in football, and still want to be a part of it but don't want to live the insane, 20-hour-day of the modern coach, kicking back and coaching defense in Hawai...

Ohio State Helps Billy Packer Celebrate His Birthday
The Buckeyes just downed the Badgers 49-48 after Ron Lewis rejected a last second 12-foot attempt by Wisconsin. This was immediately followed by the fans of the #1 team in the country rushing the court....

ESPN: We Pan The Crowd, You Decide
Look, according to union rules, technicians in the ESPN video truck get one 15-minute coffee break every two hours. So if you're the director, sometimes you need to delegate. "Go ahead and choose which section of the crowd to pan, Buzz. I'm finishing my danish." Or, you know, perhaps every fifth per...

We're So Sorry, Uncle Albert
Look, we're still a little unclear on why the University of Florida's mascot statue, Albert the Alligator, was placed on the Ohio State campus recently (some kind of a Nike promotion or something). All we know is that it took more than five hours for students there to destroy it, which is simply una...

Give 'Em Hell, Sun Devils!
If you've ever spent significant time watching Pacific-10 Conference basketball, you'd most likely be surprised that there has never been a team that has finished winless in that conference: Not even the Ben Lindsey-coached Arizona Wildcats of 1982-83, which went 4-24 overall (they won two conferenc...

Todd Bozeman Is Disappointed In Your Selection Of Deli Meat
We had to hold this story until the end of the day, because we can't stop laughing about it. Remember Todd Bozeman, the former California Golden Bears basketball coach who was fired and banned by the NCAA for eight years for paying a recruit's family $30,000. Well he's back coaching again, at Morgan...

If You See These People At Large, Turn Them In IMMEDIATELY
Sure, you might look at this picture and think you see the kindly, warm-hearted parishioners of The Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis. It might make you feel warm; it might make you long for home. You might see nice old ladies during an Hawaiian-themed event. You might see that....

College Hoops Compendium: UCLA Is Kinda Good
• (2) UCLA 73, (12) Arizona 69. UCLA's now lost three straight Pac-10 games for the first time since Lute Olson's hair was... actually, I think that guy was born with a full head of shiny silver hair. It may actually just be a chrome plate at this point. UCLA didn't even have Luc Richard Mbah a Mout...

Buckeyes Fans Sneak Into Game That's Probably Not Worth Sneaking Into
Our firm, Midwestern ethics have, to this point, disallowed us of the grand American tradition of sneaking into sporting events. The trick, we've heard, is to find a smoking section, and then slip in when the security guard isn't looking....

Life's Pretty Tough For Buckeyes Fans
Our friends at NBX Sports Blog have put together this compilation video of distressed Ohio State fans showing during the FOX broadcast of the Buckeyes' destruction at the hands of the Florida Gators on Monday. We've always wanted someone to make a fan montage like this; just a bunch of people puttin...

Harrick Always Could Recruit
We knew something like this would happen eventually. Jim Harrick, coach of the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA Development League, has a player who is making $2.06 million per season. Two mil, in the D League. Where the previous top salary was $24,000. Leave it to freakin' Harrick....