- Evidently former Texas star Jordan Hamilton feels he should have gone higher than 26th in Thursday’s NBA Draft, and he thinks his former coach may have had something to do with that. After the draft, a writer asked Hamilton how he felt about going lower than he’d been projected. Hamilton tweeted the writer back, saying that “(Coach Rick Barnes) called some teams and said that I probably wasn’t coachable and things like that.” Whether it’s true or not, it’s likely not the first time that such critiques have reached Hamilton’s ears; that opinion was put forth often enough last season by journalists, bloggers, and certainly UT fans. What’s important now is that Hamilton take advantage of this new beginning and make it so nobody can grade him in that fashion ever again.
- Hamilton’s complaint will fall on deaf ears, if those ears belong to former Notre Dame star Ben Hansbrough. The reigning Big East Player of the Year went undrafted on Thursday and has signed to play professionally in Germany for a year. Interesting move, and quite shrewd. You’d think an undrafted player who still harbored realistic NBA dreams would want to stay as near to the league as possible, and would hang around the D-league or at least play summer ball here. With an NBA lockout looming and the summer league cancelled, a quick jaunt to Europe for a year to get paid while keeping the skills sharp — and hey, we hear the beer’s good — seems a smart play.
- First it was the Celtics and Lakers, and maybe more recently…the Timberwolves? It looks like the Minnesota franchise may — or may not — have contacted Mike Krzyzewski about filling their recently-vacated head coaching spot. He’s not going. You know you’re a legend when people report that it’s possible someone contacted you about another job and you’re not taking it and nothing’s changing. Watch this space, because a little later we’ll have an update on the condition of former Spanish dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
- Meteorologically speaking, it was a strange spring in the midwest; there was an extended winter followed by a much bigger-than-usual onslaught of tornadoes followed by a heat wave followed by more unrelenting rain. Gene Keady Court inside Purdue’s Mackey Arena has felt the effects, and in fact has been rendered unfit for use. All is not lost, however, as MSNBC’s Mike Miller points out.
- Yesterday would have been the 10th birthday of Emma Key, the daughter of Houston Baptist assistant coach Steven Key. Today is the birthday of Steven’s wife/Emma’s mom, Sherry. A couple of months ago, SI.com’s Andy Glockner wrote a story about Emma’s death and the effect — God, what an insufficient word — it had on not just the Key family but the HBU program, as well. We saw the author’s tweet from Sunday about Emma’s birthday, and that he included the link to Coach Key’s Twitter account, so we hope it’s OK that we choose to re-link Mr. Glockner’s story here today. If you didn’t read it back in May, please do so, right now.