From glowing city skylines to gravel country roads, basketball is rich with can’t-miss prospects who somehow, some way, missed.

There was L.A.’s Kenny Brunner, swept away in the darker undercurrents of NCAA athletics.

Louisiana’s Randy Livingston, derailed by one knee injury after another.

Chicago’s Benji Wilson, felled by an assassin’s bullet. Read More »

“I’m peaking … It’s my time now. It’s our time. … We’re coming out! Guns blazing!” – Al Pacino, Devil’s Advocate

Lucifer’s soliloquy doubles as the mantra for the avid sports hater during championship competition.

Anybody with an acquired distaste for a particular athlete, team, coach, owner, media member, fan base, school or city – even an entire sport itself – should be hitting their peak form when a title is on the line and the rest of the world is watching.

You want to deliver boxing’s eulogy? You don’t do it during ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights.” You save it for a Mayweather or Pacquiao pay-per-view. You want to shred to pieces the idea that Eli is better than Peyton? Do it during Super Bowl Week, not preseason or the Pro Bowl. Read More »

Fourth quarter. Ninth inning. Overtime. The 11th and 12th rounds. Green-white-checkered. And down the stretch they come. The fifth set. The final lap.

Somewhere between the Romans of the 1st century and the Celtics of the 21st, we fused the definitions of crunch time and clutch inextricably with those climatic end-stages of our athletic competitions. As a result, too many of us have adopted the idea that the only time that is crunch time is the “five, four, three, two, one” we counted down on our elementary school playgrounds.

Too many of us forget that the critical juncture of a contest can also take place in the early to middle stages. Ask Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Miguel Cotto and see if they don’t agree. Talk to Nick Saban and Les Miles and get their opinion. Read More »

Although Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler stole the headlines, my favorite move of the 2011 NBA offseason was the Indiana Pacers signing free agent David West.

It wasn’t because the Pacers are my favorite team – honestly, since it’s no longer my job to watch the NBA every night, I’ve gone back to the neutrality that comes with waiting for the Sonics to return to Seattle – but because West-to-Indy made so much sense on so many levels: Read More »

As soon as U.S. legislators get around to declaring the first Thursday and Friday of March Madness federal holidays, I have two more suggestions for basketball’s national calendar: Let’s move Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to April 11 and April 29.

Split them up however you want. The point is that these two dates – National Signing Day for high school hoopsters headed to college (April 11), and the early-entry deadline for college underclassmen considering the NBA Draft (April 29) – bring out the parental instincts in even the childless among basketball fans and media. Read More »

*This is the third edition in a four-part series this week where we will have four writers arguing the national championship credentials for the only NCAA teams left in March Madness: Ohio State, Kansas, Kentucky and Louisville. First, it was Ohio State. Yesterday, we brought you Kansas. Today, it’s Louisville.* Read More »

Chamberlain was 37 years old when he did it. Kareem was 38 his first time, did it again at 43, then did it better than perhaps any athlete in history when he was 63. Russell didn’t do it until he was 57, but has done it twice more since. Shaq did it twice to bookend his career – first at 22, again at 39 – and did it another time at the height of his powers, when he was 29 and on top of the world.

And now it’s time for Dwight Howard, 26 years old, to join the club. It’s time for Dwight to write his autobiography. Read More »

*Spencer Haywood is a revolutionary for social change, a forefather of the sports entertainment business, and during his 13-year career in the NBA and ABA, was arguably the most talented basketball player of all time. Don’t believe it? Go straight to the source and ask.

We did, and this story can be found in the newest issue of Dime, Dime #68, on newsstands now…* Read More »

Every year March Madness provides shining moments and special stories that, while unique in the details, essentially mirror each other from one Dance to the next. With an eye on finding this year’s breakout stars and big-name letdowns, here are the 2012 NCAA Tournament stories that will remind you a lot of last year:

Before proceeding, you should probably check out Tuesday’s Part 1 entry: Part 1, featuring Ohio State, Kansas, Austin Rivers, and the next Kemba Walker. Read More »

It makes sense, given its roots in the ivory towers of higher education, but no sport attracts volunteer experts quite like college basketball. Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NFL may have embraced new math, but college hoops has its own science: That thing we call Bracketology.

And in almost every interview I’ve heard and column I’ve read from these experts this season, one question has been consistently asked and answered: “Who is the next VCU?” Read More »