Every year, some player slips through the cracks and ends up making a team after going undrafted. Recent examples of this trend are Jeremy Lin, Alonzo Gee and Samardo Samuels, players who have carved out niches in the NBA. These are the ten best undrafted players from yesterday’s draft. Read More »

The 2012 NBA Draft has come and gone like Maybach Music Group’s Self Made 2 drop earlier this week. Billed as one of best drafts in recent memory, it didn’t provide the same kind of trade activity that all the pre-draft talk suggested. Nevertheless, the lack of major moves impacted the way the draft played out. Hell, David Stern, Adam Silver and the entire ESPN broadcast couldn’t even keep up with the rate Twitter was disseminating the picks at warp speed. Now GMs, teams, and players have no time before they’re notified of how great or how poor their evening went. We documented each selection as it unfolded; and here’s our list of the top ten winners and losers of the draft. Read More »

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’ve been to some good games at some great venues – Madison Square Garden for the NBA, CenturyLink Field in Seattle for the NFL, Busch Stadium in St. Louis for Major League Baseball – but I doubt there’s a better place to watch a big game than Assembly Hall at Indiana University.

The house that Bob Knight turned into NCAA hoops holy ground was the site of not only the best college basketball game of the season on Saturday, but maybe the best game of any sport in 2011. Sports Illustrated writer Seth Davis tweeted afterward that Indiana’s buzzer-beating upset of No. 1 Kentucky might have been the best regular-season game he’s ever seen. Read More »

OK, college football, you got this one.

Responding to a week of college basketball that started strong with ESPN’s 24-hour tip-off marathon, then got scandalous with news of a potential catastrophe at Syracuse, the gridiron guys regained the spotlight with some Top-5 upsets and plenty of down-to-the-wire thrillers.

But even though college hoops took a comfortable backseat to the BCS, NFL and NASCAR, that doesn’t mean it was uneventful. Here are the best and worst of the weekend: Read More »

Besides having an insanely fine wife, Steve Lavin is doing a phenomenal job at St. John’s. Coming into their matchup with Arizona last night, they were 3-0, full of life and full of potential. In a few of their wins so far, they’ve already stormed back from big deficits, letting their defense and athleticism do the talking, and with fifteen minutes left (down seven), it looked like it might happen again. They raced back, overwhelmed ‘Zona in pretty much every way possible and retook the lead. The ‘Cats didn’t have any standout performances, but they got solid games from a number of players, including Solomon Hill (15 points, six rebounds) and when they found their stroke at the end, they just had too much, winning 81-72. Read More »

With the college basketball season underway, the Championship Rounds of the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer begin on Nov. 17 at Madison Square Garden with Texas A&M meeting Mississippi State at 7 p.m. and Arizona facing St. John’s at 9 p.m. Why should you care? Let us tell you: Read More »

So no ultimatum? That’s what happened. The thing with this lockout is that it’s entirely too difficult to predict just what’s going to happen. Everyone’s throwing threats, ultimatums and “take it or leave it” offers when the truth is that both sides aren’t going to abide by this stuff. Yesterday, there was a 5 p.m. deadline… and the talks ended up going on long into the night. The lockout may not have ended, but significant progress was made. A 50/50 split appears to be the likely scenario, and now the two sides are working on system issues. The players have given up a lot and now they want to win this part. Read More »

If there were a general consensus among NBA scouts of having a “type,” those once-in-a-lifetime prospects that they’ve got to have, then the 6-10, 300-pound big man with a silky jumper and crafty footwork would be it.

You know, guys like the the Sacramento rookie DeMarcus Cousins, who can shoot from 20-feet out before overwhelming opponents in the paint, scoring with their feathery hook shots with ease. Those are the type that can win you a ring. Only if they came without the baggage. By my count, college basketball has two of those guys: Mississippi State’s Renardo Sidney and UCLA’s Joshua Smith. Read More »

With a New Year upon us, it’s always necessary to recount the past year and make – better yet keep – a few promises to ourselves. Likewise, college basketball surely could use a few resolutions for 2011. Here’s a shortlist of what I believe will be the burning questions of the 2011 NCAA hoops scene, all while recapping some of the big storylines from 2010. Read More »