For all the talk about instituting a Rooney Rule in collegiate athletics to open the college football head coaching door to minority candidates, there sure isn’t much second thought given to the plight of the Asian-American college basketball player or coach. I would like Sir Charles and Dr. Richard Lapchick to chew on this for a second:

Of 4,814 Division I men’s basketball players in 2006-07, there were 19 Asian Americans (including Pacific Islanders and ethnically mixed), according to the most recent NCAA Student-Athlete Race and Ethnicity Report. That’s 0.4 percent.
…
“I understand assistant coaches you have to recruit - most (players) are Caucasian - so they ask, ‘What can you help us do? Recruit Asians?’ ”

[Seattle Pacific's basketball coach Jeff] Hironaka continued: “You don’t want to call it discrimination, but it’s a discrimination kind of scenario. Sometimes you have to accept the reality of it. It’s a tough barrier to crack.”

I’m not sure which is harder these days, to be an Asian-American baller, or an Asian-American coach. Where’s the outcry and demand for programs to start opening their basketball doors to Asians? Have Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian not proven that Asians can shake the stereotype and actually become successful basketball players? Why shouldn’t more Asians be represented on the court or behind the bench?

(Thanks to LBS contributor Andy for the story; former UCLA guard and current UCSD point guard Kelvin Kim is pictured)

The finish to the Cleveland St./Syracuse game on Monday night really was tremendous in case you missed it. Down 69-64 with 27 seconds left, Syracuse drained a three pointer to pull within two. A Cleveland St. inbounds pass went out of bounds giving the ball to the Cuse, and Arinze Onuaku had a putback to tie the game at 69 with three seconds left. Syracuse at this point is thinking overtime for sure. Until …

Unfortunately there wasn’t a cleaner version of the shot available on YouTube, but you get the point. A full-court buzzer beater handed Syracuse their first loss of the year. It’s too bad for the Cuse that their 30-second comeback wound up irrelevant, but it was nice for Cleveland St. to have redemption for blowing the lead. That’s your one-in-a-million shot right there.

Almost as inherently as I’m drawn to the points category in a basketball boxscore, I’m interested in the field goals made and the field goals attempted by a player. For instance, 30 points is great and all, but how spectacular is it if you had to bomb up 24 shots to get that mark? Or last week for example, everybody was going gaga for Stephen Curry after he scored 44 points in a showdown with Oklahoma. Only problem is he did so shooting 41% from the field in a loss. That was the bottom line to me — not the 44 points — but the loss. Was it worth it? Well, we kind of had our test case in the matter as Loyola of Maryland decided they would make a conscious effort to shutdown Curry.

From the moment the ball was tossed up to start Tuesday night’s game against Loyola (Md.), Davidson’s star guard was hounded by two defenders.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop told FOXSports.com shortly after the victory. “From the time the ball entered the court, there were two guys on him and they didn’t leave him the entire game.”

So Curry decided that he would hang out by the sidelines to make it a 4 on 3 game for his team — a clear advantage. Curry’s personal stats took it in the shorts as he went 0-3 with zero points for the game, but his team won easily, 78-48. I’m guessing they wouldn’t have won by as large of a margin had Loyola (Md) played a standard defense and not allowed the open man each time. Curry took it well and decided to put the team first, something I really respect. And I think this further cements my point: it’s not about how much the top scorer gets, it’s about how much he helped his team while scoring the points.

This was easily one of the best highlights of the day in Maui. Texas and Notre Dame squared off in an excellent battle between two highly-ranked teams. Notre Dame won a nail-biter, with Luke Harangody going 29 and 13 as usual. Despite his strong performance, he did have one embarrassing moment — Justin Mason of Texas absolutely posterized him with a fierce dunk. Check it:

This video also shows a good message — basketball and sports aren’t about the highlights, but the outcome. Mason may get on the reels for that dunk, but Notre Dame got the W and that’s most important. Let’s not forget that. (Still, it was an awesome jam!)

The O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off tournament is in effect for the second year in a row, giving us college hoops fans something to watch during the daytime. They have some strong teams participating in the tournament, including Memphis, Xavier, USC, and Virginia Tech. Really, as far as non-conference tourneys go, they have an impressive stable of teams. One problem though: the games are played in Puerto Rico! As you’ll notice, there was one common theme with the four games played in the first day of the tournament — no fans showed up. Just check out the crowd shot pictured above from the Seton Hall/USC game and the other pictures below from every other game. The crowd for each game is the same, listed at 3,217. I guess about 3,200 came dressed as blue chairs. They better figure out some way to get fans down there otherwise it hardly seems like putting on an event where you’re shipping eight teams out of the country, not to mention all the TV crews. And you can’t blame ticket prices either; all day sessions start at $10 and a pass for the entire tournament goes for $99 — not a bad deal at all. I bet those players had better crowds in middle school.

You always hear about the dirty play that goes on at the bottom of the piles — biting, scratching, clawing, hair pulling — seems like everything is fair game. I’ve even been told that the best place to hear grown men scream is in one of said piles. That’s why it was no surprise to read Pacman Jones‘ comments following the game against the Browns on Sunday. From The Dallas Morning News Cowboys Blog via MDS at PFT:

Adam “Pacman” Jones said the Browns did a lot of cheap stuff in Sunday’s game. DB Nick Sorenson grabbing and squeezing Pacman’s groin region topped the list.

Pacman said that act occurred in the pileup after he muffed a punt.

“I told that dude, ‘Man, you’re lucky I’m trying to do better, because I would have got 15 yards for kicking your [rear],’” Pacman said.

PFT now says that it wasn’t Nick Sorenson who was squeezing the juice, but does it really matter? Obviously someone was trying to cause a fumble in there. And seriously, it must be nut-shot week at LBS; between Pacman’s junk and UTEP’s long snapper, we’ve certainly filled our quota for the week.