It was the college coaching debut for FIU’s Isiah Thomas. From AP-
Isiah Thomas lost his coaching debut at Florida International on Wednesday night when Northwood, an NAIA school coached by Rollie Massimino, beat the Panthers 71-61 in an exhibition game.
Thomas, the Basketball Hall of Famer and most recently coach of the New York Knicks, faced Massimino, who coached Villanova to the 1985 NCAA title and is entering his fourth season at the West Palm Beach, Fla., school.
Lester Hunte scored 18 points for Northwood, while Patrick Horstmann had 13. Jay Duncan scored seven of his 10 points in the final minutes as Northwood pulled away.
Losing to a little known(I didn’t even know Northwood fielded a basketball team and the school is less than 15 minutes from my home) technical is not an auspicious start for FIU. The real season begins for the Panthers with a game against North Carolina on November 9th. Thomas will be lucky to lead FIU to 10 wins this year.
Very sad and slightly reminiscent of Maggie Dixon who coached Army and died at the same age. RIP.
Jackie Moore, a 28-year-old assistant women’s basketball coach at Eastern Illinois, has died.
The university says Moore died Wednesday night at a hospital after collapsing as she started a workout.
School spokesman Rich Moser says doctors said Moore’s heart “just stopped.” Moser says an autopsy is planned.
Moore was in her third season at the school. She graduated from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., in 2005 and was from Windsor, Ontario.
Alan Ogg, a 7-foot-2 shotblocker who played for UAB Blazers and spent parts of three seasons in the NBA, died Sunday from complications from a staph infection, a university spokesman said. He was 42.
UAB spokesman Norm Reilly said Ogg died at UAB Hospital.
Ogg played 80 NBA games over three seasons beginning in 1990 with the Miami Heat, who had a moment of silence Sunday night before playing Chicago. He also played for Milwaukee and Washington, and averaged 2.2 points and 1.7 rebounds during his career.
Ogg is UAB’s career leader with 266 blocked shots over four seasons, averaging more than two a game.
He was playing basketball in Portugal when he suddenly collapsed during a game. RIP.
Kevin Widemond, a 23-year-old American guard, died of a heart attack during a Portuguese basketball tournament.
The Portuguese basketball federation said Widemond collapsed in the locker room Sunday during halftime of a game between his team Ovarense and Academica in Leiria, in northern Portugal.
Widemond, a native of Newark, N.J., had played 10 minutes in the third-place playoff game of the cup competition, which was canceled following his death.
“He was sitting on a bench, listening with the others to what the coach was saying, when he just keeled over,” Ovarense sports director Jose Eduardo said.
A doctor immediately began trying to resuscitate Widemond and those efforts continued in an ambulance and then at the hospital, Eduardo told public broadcaster RTP.
Eduardo said Widemond underwent extensive medical tests when he joined Ovarense a month ago. An autopsy would be performed, he said.
(Athletic Director) Anderson confirmed that Spiker agreed to a six-year deal. The Academy will introduce its new hire at a news conference at 3 p.m. Tuesday at West Point.
Spiker, who was on campus for an interview this week, expected to leave Cornell on Saturday morning and arrive at his new home on the Hudson Saturday afternoon
Army hasn’t had a winning season in 25 years. In light of the recruiting restrictions placed on service academies, Spiker will have a hard time reversing that trend.
Why did Army fire Crews only days before his basketball team was to begin practicing for the 2009-10 season?
He replaces Jim Crews, who last month was fired after being accused of physically and verbally abusing players.
If Crews abused his players, his firing is justifiable. I think abuse of college athletes is more common than the few and far between reports of it that emerge sometimes.
Who in Columbia need concern themselves with athletes twittering too much when the University is selling its own secrets. From AP-
The University of Missouri athletics department is changing its procedures after selling a box of old cell phones that included old text messages and contact numbers.
Mike Bellman paid $190 for 25 phones. They included text messages to and from basketball coach Mike Anderson, football coach Gary Pinkel and Athletics Director Mike Alden. E-mails and contact numbers were also on the phones.
The university offered to buy them back, but Bellman said he hoped to sell them to a sports collector.
Are there some sports fanatics who would cough up money for these phones or is it wishful thinking? I guess some people’s junk is sports memorabilia to other people.
Rick Duckett had only been at the Louisiana University for a little over a year. From ESPN-
Grambling State men’s basketball coach Rick Duckett will resign, the school announced Friday, nearly a month after one of his players died following a supervised conditioning session.
Henry White, 21, became ill at a preseason session on Aug. 14 and died on Aug. 26 at a hospital in Shreveport, La. The university and an attorney for White’s family both say they are investigating, according to reports in the Monroe News Star and the Ruston Daily Leader.
White, a prep standout in Milwaukee, transferred to Grambling for the 2009-10 season from Hill Junior College in Texas.
Duckett has been placed on administrative leave through Oct. 31, when his employment officially ends, the university said, according to the reports.
Earlier this week, WISN-TV in Milwaukee, White’s hometown, reported White’s family claims the players were made to run in 104-degree heat without water.
This news article states Duckett wasn’t at the practice in question. If it is true players were made to work out in that temperature, the coaches responsible should be criminally prosecuted.
Update- Rick Duckett is now claiming to have been fired by Grambling.
He played college ball at Indiana for former Black Knights head coach Bobby Knight. From AP-
Army fired Jim Crews as men’s basketball coach after seven seasons with the academy.
“There was a series of events that led me down the path to determine that I needed to make a change in leadership of the men’s basketball program and terminate coach Crews’ contract,” athletic director Kevin Anderson said in a statement. “I am very disappointed with some things that have come to my attention in recent days and I have decided that it is in the best interests of the basketball program and the institution to terminate our relationship.”
The timing of Crews’ firing is odd considering teams were allowed to start team workouts for two hours a week beginning Sept. 15. Official team practice begins Oct. 16.
Army was 60-139 in seven seasons with Crews. Crews, who coached at Evansville and played for Bob Knight at Indiana on the undefeated 1976 team, recently came back from a goodwill mission to Iraq with other coaches and ESPN analysts Fran Fraschilla and Steve Lavin, coaching U.S. troops during a basketball tournament.
Based on his record, Crews firing is justifiable. In light of the military service required of cadets and how that affects recruiting, I just don’t think Crews replacement will be able to make Army competitive on a year to year basis.
He is believed to have an unknown heart condition. Until a year ago, I would have wondered how a person wouldn’t have warning signs of heart problems. That changed when I was hospitalized on July 30th. I had a bicuspid heart valve and an ascending aortic aneurysm and almost no symptoms from either condition. RIP Jim Griffin.
Griffin, 23, was found dead Tuesday morning in his residence hall, according to coach Jimmy Tillette. Tillette said the senior from Chicago apparently died from an undetectable heart condition.
“It’s a cruel twist of fate,” Tillette said, according to the Birmingham News. “Jim was a guy who was known for playing with his heart, and for him to possibly pass away from a heart malady is hard to take.”
The Jefferson County coroner’s office has not released a cause of death, but an autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday.
Samford spokesman Philip Poole said Griffin apparently died in his sleep. He had played in a pickup basketball game and lifted weights Monday night.
Tillette said Griffin had not had a previous medical condition.
“It’s devastating for our team right now,” Tillette said, according to the Birmingham News. “He was a sixth man, but he was everybody’s favorite guy. He was probably our least athletic guy but got the most out of it.”
For the second time in his career, John Calipari has taken a former lowly school to the Final Four by cheating and managed to leave it in the rubble while he went on to a bigger and better job.
The NCAA has forced Memphis to give up every victory in its 38-win season under coach John Calipari that ended in the national title game in 2007-08, saying the school used an ineligible player.
The announcement came Thursday, 16 months after the Tigers lost to Kansas in overtime in the championship game.
The NCAA also said the school must return the money it received from the NCAA tournament appearance that season. School officials were expected to discuss the report later Thursday during a conference call.
It is the second time both Memphis and Calipari have had to vacate Final Four seasons. The Tigers were stripped of their 1985 appearance, and Calipari’s Massachusetts team lost its 1996 berth.
Calipari is now the coach at Kentucky, where officials have voiced support for him despite the Memphis scandal.
I’m very seldom in agreement with Skip Bayless on much of anything. But he’s right here:
Punishing the current Memphis players and coaches for something they had no control over, while allowing John Calipari to go unpunished is an absolute travesty.
sss
