Larry Brown Sports

Memphis basketball coach Josh Pastner committed a puzzling secondary recruiting violation via the team’s Twitter account Tuesday night when he tweeted the following: “Tony Parker.” Parker is a big man from Georgia and one of the top recruits in the class of 2012, and the Tigers and many other teams would love to have him. Since the tweet qualified as publicly discussing an unsigned recruit, Pastner had committed a violation despite the fact that he deleted it minutes later.

So how did this happen? That’s the entertaining part of the story. According to Pastner, the tweet would have never been sent if not for his wife flustering him.

“My wife was yelling at me because I was on the phone too loud,” he said according to the Commercial Appeal. “I was waking (the couple’s infant daughter) up and waking my wife up because I had the TV on. She was complaining that I not only woke my daughter up, but I also woke the baby inside her up because she’s pregnant.

“So I was waking everybody up, I was getting yelled at and on top of that I was thinking, ‘What’s going on with recruiting?’ and ‘Who am I going to hire?’ and I made a mistake.”

Pastner says he meant to type “Tony Parker” into his search engine but accidentally tweeted it. I’m inclined to believe him, since there’s no reason to think any coach in their right mind would just type a recruit’s name (and only their name) onto the team’s Twitter account. Then again, maybe he’s one of those dudes who’s big into subliminal messaging and feels like the two minutes the tweet was live may have given Memphis an edge. No word yet on how his wife feels about taking the fall. Guess Twitter recruiting violations run in the Pastner family.

H/T The Dagger
Photo credit: Spruce Derden-US PRESSWIRE

Larry Brown wants back into coaching and is willing to go back to college to stay in the game. Reports over the past week stated Brown was interested in the vacancy at SMU, and he confirmed that was the case while appearing on NBA TV Saturday.

“I’d like to coach or be involved in basketball in some capacity,” said on NBA TV. “I would certainly be interested in SMU, but for the time being, I have bigger fish to fry.”

Several reports stated Brown was scheduled to arrive in Dallas on Sunday to interview for the SMU job. There hasn’t been any confirmation that he in fact interviewed for the job or speculation where he ranks on the list of candidates. But we do know the 71-year-old wants a chance to lead the Mustangs back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1993.

“I love the preparation, I love being around the coaches, being around the players, and what I’ve found, pro or college, guys want to get better. They want a coach that’s going to challenge them, try to teach them, and that’s something that I really like,” Brown said on NBA TV.

SMU fired Matt Doherty last month and is looking for a replacement. We’re still waiting for Brown to get on with his retirement to end the ambiguity between this site and the coach, which are completely unrelated.

UPDATE: The Dallas Morning News considers Brown the favorite for the job.

Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-US PRESSWIRE

Kentucky’s basketball team has gone on a tour throughout the state to celebrate the national championship they won last week. At their stop in Pikeville, coach John Calipari was awarded a key to the city. The only problem is the plaque commemorating the honor was filled with mistakes.

In the second line, there is an “e” missing from “the,” and in the last line, there is an apostrophe in “it’s” where one doesn’t belong.

Who can really blame the folks from Pikeville? They were probably too busy celebrating the championship to have time to proofread a silly plaque anyhow.

H/T Deadspin

When Unversity of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman took her position in 2002, one of her first actions was to remove the banners commemorating the Fab Five basketball team’s successes. The Fab Five — comprised of Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson — was the name for Michigan’s famed 1991 recruiting class. The group led the Wolverines to back-to-back championship games, but they had most of their wins and accomplishments vacated by a scandal. Asked by students Tuesday if the banners might come back up, Coleman said not under her watch. That prompted an angry response from Jalen Rose, who tweeted the following messages on Thursday:

Read The Rest of the Story…

One barbershop had a scoop on Nerlens Noel’s college decision before nearly everyone else. The prized recruit got the UK logo shaved into his hair to announce his decision to attend Kentucky on Wednesday.

Noel is ranked as one of the top recruits in the country and he picked Kentucky over Syracuse and Georgetown. The 6’10″ center from Massachusetts is said to have shot blocking talents similar to Anthony Davis, though I can’t imagine any college freshman being better than him.

With Noel, Kentucky has reloaded and should be a Final Four contender once again. I guess offering your wife to recruits really does work.

Photo via Dave Telep

Kentucky coach John Calipari finally won a national championship this past season using mostly one-and-done guys — something many coaches avoid because it makes continuity difficult for programs. That is among the many reasons he is disliked (having Final Four appearances vacated at UMass and Memphis is another). There are some people like Bob Knight who despise the one-and-done system because it ruins the integrity of collegiate athletics. Others dislike it for similar reasons.

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo believes race is a factor in the disdain for one-and-done athletes like the ones Kentucky has. Asked if he thought a highly talented, highly athletic team of white players would be viewed differently, Izzo said yes to William C. Rhoden of the New York Times.

Read The Rest of the Story…

If you still don’t think Kentucky fans are crazy, there’s something wrong with you. We already knew that was the case prior to this season, but their championship run over the past month or so has completely sealed the deal. Between the insane rioting in the streets and the dude who offered his wife in exchange for Final Four tickets, we saw some truly disturbing displays of Wildcat pride throughout this year’s tournament. That passion apparently trickles over onto the recruiting trail, as well. I guess it makes sense since Kentucky’s entire starting five is probably going to declare for the NBA draft.

In his ESPN blog which highlights his path to picking a school, No. 1-ranked high school recruit Nerlens Noel told an interesting story about a Kentucky fan who did his best to convince Noel that joining the Wildcats next season is the right move. This after his return trip from New Orleans, where the All-American Championships overlapped with the Final Four:

I literally got stopped hundreds of times and took dozens and dozens of pictures. The fans were showing me so much love out there, and I definitely have to say that most of the fans were from Kentucky.

Now, of course that had a lot to do with the fact that they were playing there, but I’m always just shocked at how dedicated Kentucky fans are. One man asked me if I wanted to take his wife home with me, ha ha. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, “Nah, I’m good,” but that’s just how insane the fans were down there. Great atmosphere.

Noel is reportedly considering Syracuse and Georgetown along with Kentucky. If interacting with fans like the one he described above is his thing, Kentucky is the right choice. You won’t find people like this dude many other places across the country.

Photo credit: Mark L. Baer-US PRESSWIRE

Brittney Griner had 26 points, 13 rebounds, and five blocks in Baylor’s national championship win over Notre Dame Tuesday in Denver. Griner helped lead Baylor to a 40-0 season and was so dominant that Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw said Griner is “like a guy playing with women.”

Here’s how the exchange went in the postgame press conference:

Q: Muffet, have you ever seen anyone who has ever been able to impact the game at least down low as Brittney did and obviously as she did tonight?

COACH McGRAW: No. I think she’s one of a kind. I think she’s like a guy playing with women. It’s just there’s so many things that she can do that I’ve not seen a lot of women‑‑ well, really, you know, there’s been some guards that had some skill like that. But as a post player she’s the best I’ve ever seen.

It’s Always Sunny in Detroit provides us with video of McGraw’s quote:

Read The Rest of the Story…

With the amazing amount of talent Kentucky has in its starting five, talk of them beating NBA teams has spiraled out of control over the past few weeks. The Wildcats aren’t the first dominant college team that is loaded with NBA talent and they won’t be the last. NBA teams are made up of the best players from the NCAA, but for some reason that hasn’t quite registered with some people. It has with Kevin Love, who says there is no way Kentucky could ever beat even a terrible NBA team.

“It would never happen,” Love told the Dan Patrick Show according to Sports Radio Interviews. “They would get blown out by both teams, Bobcats or Wizards. They do have a great team, they haven’t won the National Championship yet, they’re well coached by (John) Calipari and have a lot of great one-and-dones, but that’s just something that would never happen.”

In one corner, you have guys like Charles Barkley and former Maryland coach Gary Williams who disagree with Love. You even have people like legendary NBA coach Larry Brown who has taken it a step further, saying Kentucky could beat half the teams in the NBA. Still, the oddsmakers say it would be an insane longshot and Calipari himself does not believe it could happen — although that could be modesty talking.

For all we know, all of Kentucky’s starters could go on to be NBA busts. It’s unlikely, but it has happened to some of the most dominant players in college basketball history. You can’t say a college team could beat an NBA team based on their performance against other college teams. The game doesn’t translate like that, and it’s surprising that guys like Barkley (actually, no it’s not) and Brown would think otherwise.

Photo credit: Mark Zerof-US PRESSWIRE

Bob Knight is 71 years old. By most people’s definition, that is old. And we all know old people also need their sleep. So, by this conjecture, Bob Knight needs to sleep. But was he catching up on some Z’s when John Anderson and Len Elmore kicked it to Knight and the rest of the College GameDay guys during ESPN’s coverage of the Final Four on Saturday? It’s hard to tell. (Although, this wouldn’t have been the first time Knight was purportedly caught sleeping on camera.)

There’s also the possibility Knight had one too many Hurricanes from Pat O’Brien’s the night before and had an insufferable hangover. Or perhaps he was just praying “that team from the SEC” wouldn’t win.

Whatever the case, Digger Phelps was there to jab Knight with his highlighter to remind him the camera was rolling. I always knew that highlighter would serve a purpose one day.

H/T R.L. Bynum via Awful Announcing