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 »

Five NCAA teams that got my attention this past weekend for various reasons:

1. Arizona (5-1) A national TV win over Kansas would have been a seminal moment for coach Sean Miller as he rebuilds the Arizona program. It didn’t happen Saturday night, but the Wildcats can take a lot away from a close loss against a Jayhawks squad that had been destroying their comp by 40 points per game. Derrick Williams, who put up 27 points and 8 boards against KU, is my early favorite for for Pac-10 Player of the Year. Read More »

While most of the summer has been focused on the NBA, college basketball will be starting up again in a few weeks. As a basketball team manager at Vanderbilt, the SEC is my specialty, and while Kentucky is loaded with All-American freshmen again, experience still counts in this league. Here are the returning players most important to their team’s success this season: Read More »

Interesting fact: Of the 28 players that made up this year’s NBA All-Star rosters, 16 of them (57%) were Top-5 Draft picks once upon a time.

That could mean nothing. Or it could mean that, while we all love the second-round underdogs and outside-the-Lottery gems, the more boring truth is that we typically know where our future superstars are coming from.

While it’s been fashionable over the last few years to bemoan the drop in talent on the college level, when you look across the ’09-10 NCAA landscape, you can still see more than a handful of future NBA All-Stars. Read More »