The NCAA Tournament field is set. The favorite is Kentucky. My best first-round game to watch is SMU-UCLA, Larry Brown’s present against Larry Brown’s past. My favorite player is D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State. My old team, the Manhattan Jaspers, have a chance to earn a head-on collision with John Calipari’s SuperTeam. The best point guard not named Emmanuel Mudiay is … I’ll get to that. I promise: It’s here in this column, which runs a little long. My apologies, but I’ve got a lot
I once heard the statement in coaching, “if you are a great coach but a weak recruiter, you will get fired. But if you are a great recruiter and even a fair coach, you will survive.” Obviously, the goal is to be both. But it does explain the importance in college basketball of getting the best players. Ever since I started coaching, I have always been compared to John Calipari more than any other coach. I guess it’s because I made
Typical for this time of year, an eight-game Sunday tips off at 1:00 EDT, when the national TV doubleheader features four terrific teams. Enter All-Day or Early-Only contests to use those players. [Read more…]
Rudy Gobert had a coming out party for the NBA during the BBVA Compass Rising Stars Challenge with 18 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks for the World Team. The Utah Jazz eventually traded Enes Kanter at the deadline, which promoted Gobert into a full-time starting role. Since then, Gobert has averaged 10.5 points, 14.1 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game while shooting 57 percent from the field. Another big man who’s played well lately has been New Orleans Pelicans star Anthony
It’s not the greatest Saturday night in NBA history. There are six games, involving many tired teams, with some coaches resting their stars for the upcoming playoff grind and others — their seasons effectively over — experimenting with lineup combinations and evaluating players for the future. [Read more…]
The 2014-15 NBA regular season continued on Friday, March 13 with a bang. The nine games played included some of the most incredible individual performances of the year and a number of results that were critical to the postseason picture, This is how it all transpired. [Read more…]
Following a recent game at Memphis, Los Angeles Lakers rookie guard Jordan Clarkson left quite an impression on Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph. Clarkson scored a season-high 25 points on 12-of-18 shooting and added six assists. He kept the Lakers in the game until the fourth quarter, when the Grizzlies put their defense and talent to work and pulled out a 97-90 win. Afterward, Randolph was blown away. “That young fellow, he’s going to be good,” he said. “I didn’t even know who
Here’s hoping that Friday the 13th is good luck at DraftKings. Nine NBA games begin at 7:00 EDT but there are Turbo contests (covering three games) at 8:00, Late events (also spanning three games) at 9:00 and even Later action on the final two at 10:00. That’s multiple opportunities to win. [Read more…]