- It was unsettling kind of day, as two lawsuits involving high-major coaches were settled yesterday. Perhaps they saw Louisville coach Rick Pitino’s fifteen seconds of infamy and decided to hedge their bets, but former Seton Hall head coach Bobby Gonzalez and current Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy both settled their ongoing lawsuits yesterday. Gonzalez was embroiled in a wrongful termination suit with Seton Hall after getting the axe in March on the heels of a public blowup with the law school dean, claiming he was owed two more years of salary. Kennedy settled his defamation suit against a cab driver and valet over a dust-up in 2008 where the pair accused the coach of using racial slurs because the cabbie wouldn’t allow the five people in Kennedy’s group into his vehicle (the max is four). Details of both settlements were not released, which is just as well for everyone involved.
- While on the topic of lawsuits, the Pitino/Sypher saga won’t die in Louisville. Defense attorney James Earhart now claims that he has new information that specifically leads him to believe that some of the prosecution’s witnesses perjured themselves while under oath. He’s asking for a 45-day extension to further research these allegations and believes that it will ultimately lead to a mistrial on appeal. Maybe this is Earhart’s way of saying that it might have been a good idea to call some witnesses who could have impeached their testimony during the trial?
- The legacy of John Wooden will live on in the form of the contents of his den — all the hundreds of pieces of memorabilia that the Wizard held onto over the years — which will be moved en masse over to the UCLA campus for fans to enjoy as a virtual Wooden terrarium. We’ve already got plans to visit UCLA’s JD Morgan Center later this year to see this.
- We had the privilege of seeing all six of Butler’s NCAA Tournament games live last year, and in each game more than the last, we came away impressed with the poise and abilities of the Bulldogs’ Shelvin Mack. Luke Winn writes that Mack, more than any other player on the summer circuit of camps and USA Basketball, has elevated himself to the point where he’s getting rave reviews from veteran guards in the League. Case in point: Mack was chosen over quite a few big names for his spot on the USA Select team, players such as Scoop Jardine, Scotty Hopson, Jacob Pullen and Jimmer Fredette. Could Mack, Ronald Nored and Matt Howard propel Butler toward another Final Four next year? They may be closer than conventional wisdom says even after losing star forward Gordon Hayward.
- Fanhouse put together a cool idea — figuring out who should make up the College-Forever team. Using the general criteria of great collegiate players who barely earned a cup of coffee in the NBA (or none at all), who would populate your top three teams of the modern era (1985 to present)? We only saw one major omission, and that was Arkansas’ Scotty Thurman, who despite a brilliant college career never logged a single second in the NBA. Nevertheless, he was an absolute assassin for Nolan Richardson’s “40 Minutes of Hell” Razorbacks, winning multiple games with his smooth stroke in late-game situations, most notably from the wing over Duke in 1994. He should have been on the first-team over Ed Cota, and at worst second-team. Cool concept, though.