One of the commentators on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” said it best earlier this week: Upsets are the life-blood of the NCAA Tournament. Even if it’s at the cost of a busted bracket, people want to see Cinderella stories and have lovable underdogs.

Case in point: When Michigan State benefited from a couple shaky referee calls to knock off 12-seed New Mexico State in this year’s tourney, the crowd was loudly booing as the upset bid fell short. Read More »

Michael Jordan really could have walked onto the Hall of Fame stage and only said “Thank you” before walking away, and he still would’ve garnered headline news. John Stockton‘s speech was memorable because he showed more sense of humor in those 15-20 minutes than he did in 15-20 years in the NBA. Jerry Sloan‘s speech was notable for its resemblance to the way his teams play ball: a rough grind that drags on forever. And then C. Vivian Stringer simply commanded the stage: entertaining, inspiring, thoughtful, gracious and heartfelt.

Then there was David Robinson. His H.O.F. speech didn’t stand out as much as the others because, well, we already knew what we’d get from The Admiral. Always a better citizen than a basketball player, always a man of God first and foremost, he was predictably thankful and humble, and of course he talked about his faith. Read More »

If media overhype isn’t your thing, or if you’re one of those people who was never a big Michael Jordan fan, you may want to stay in bed and keep away from the TV and Internet today. As you may have heard, MJ (and David Robinson, John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer) will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame today, so it’s gonna be all-Jordan/all-day on pretty much every sports outlet. Some of the Dime crew will be in Springfield, Mass., for the HOF festivities, where we’ll be providing live updates on Dime’s Twitter page. You should also check out @mitchell_ness on Twitter for updates from the VIP point of view, plus the latest on the hottest Jordan product ever released. They may be sold out already at the NBA Store, but we’ll let you know where you can get yours … Now about those “other” H.O.F. inductees: Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about them. Read More »

The Ricky Rubio song-and-dance has turned into the Michael Myers of the NBA offseason; it just won’t stay down. Last week, Rubio was reportedly going to sign a six-year contract with Regal FC Barcelona (Spain) — where he’d be teammates with J.C. Navarro, Terrence Morris, Fran Vasquez, and the immortal Boniface N’Dong — that had a reasonable buyout option in 2011. Bad news for the Wolves, right? Not so fast. The Barcelona deal isn’t official yet, and in the meantime, Minnesota GM David Kahn has flown to Spain AGAIN trying to work something out. At this point, Kahn might as well buy a condo out there and sublease it when he’s not busy trying to convince Rubio to come to America. Read More »

It was over 10 minutes after it started. Maybe earlier. North Carolina blasted Michigan State to win the national championship last night, claiming the trophy a lot of people carved “Tar Heels” on way back in June, when Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson and Danny Green decided to come back to school instead of jumping to the NBA … Clark Kellogg put it best right around the time UNC was beginninig to slather honey mustard on the 20-piece: Read More »

The 2009 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class is, in a word, loaded. Michael Jordan, John Stockton, David Robinson are the players who will be inducted into the Hall in September, and they’ll be joined by coaches Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer. Read More »