Hooray For Links! February 21

I was never a big proponent of doing link dumps and the like on this site because, well, it didn't really make sense to me. Why would I simply reproduce things that are already out there? But as I did my own scouring of the Intertubes for college hoops content, I realized there was just too much quality (and, at times, utterly awful) stuff out there to simply leave untapped. So I give you Hooray For Links! which should appear at completely random intervals. Because without links, it's not really a blog, it's just a place to put thoughts I might not want to forget.

Them links be after the jump.
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- Before we get into anything of substance, great Louisville blog Card Chronicle shares this video of a rapping UL fan, makes world worse place. Reminds me of a young Ghostface. I really should've dedicated a single post to this.

- I really enjoyed Grant Wahl's article in Sports Illustrated a couple weeks ago on the Dribble-Drive Motion Offense that everyone seems so excited about. Now, if you aren't a hardcore basketball person, this whole piece is a waste of your time. It's an in-depth look at how the philosophy was originated, how it works, who is using it and what personnel suits it best. If you enjoy dunks, cheerleaders and screaming at the TV, you probably shouldn't read this. Anyway, the DDM offense has been made most popular by John Calipari and Memphis, which is odd because the Tigers don't really have the ideal players (i.e. jumpshooters) for the offense. But they do have Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts, who are both perfect for the penetration and kick offense. They also have Joey Dorsey, who is ideal for this offense because it requires no post scorer and puts a team's big man on the weak side of the ball for offensive rebounds and drive-and-dishes. Still, you wonder if the shooting will be Memphis' tragic flaw. The offense was created by Vance Walberg, who was a JuCo coach at the time, then got a job at Pepperdine and recently resigned/got fired (the one problem with the article is it makes little mention of Walberg's tenure and departure at Pepperdine). Over 300 teams across the country, at all levels of play, now use it and the article contains praise from Larry Brown and Bob Hurley. So if your retinas aren't singed from Bruce Pearl's suit (by the way, the Vols are perfect for DDM and they don't run it), look for that offense Saturday night.

- Kansas State Head Coach and Crazy Person, Frank Martin seems to be getting a lot of love for KSU's success this season and this feature by Chip Brown at the Dallas Morning News continues that trend. Martin, despite being a raging lunatic on the sidelines, actually does seem like he cares about his kids and knows the game. HOWEVA, he still has a very shady past and it seems like no one knows about it besides me and Robert Andrew Powell, the Miami New Times reporter who broke the 1998 story on Martin fabricating addresses for the state champion high school team he coached (which included Steve Blake and Udonis Haslem), an investigation that led to his resignation. Certainly people deserve second chances and performance speaks for itself, but read the 1998 story and then read Brown's feature and see if there aren't some serious contradictions in some of Martin's "do it the right way" quotes.

- I don't like pointing out when I'm right -- actually, who am I kidding, of course I do -- but back at the end of January I had post on the four teams I thought were capable of winning a championship. I picked Kansas, UNC, UCLA... and Louisville. The CHN message board destroyed me for this at the time and much time-wasting vitriol ensued. Well we all know what Louisville has done since and in a recent post at the fabulous Basketball Prospectus the fabulous Ken Pomeroy (I'm not gay) pegged the Cardinals as his "No. 6" team behind the obvious top five of Memphis, Duke, UNC, Kansas and UCLA (this was posted on Feb. 13, so I figure Tennessee is now in there, moving Louisville to No. 7... but I was still right! /stares into distance).

- I've been following the bizarre story of Tim Parmeter, Eastern Arizona JuCo coach who, as originally reported by Gary Parrish, was coaching through the murder-suicide of his ex-wife and child but was recently fired amid allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year old while he was married. I'm not going to elaborate any further on it, and I've gotten some comments here that were both interesting and abhorrent, but if you haven't seen this bizarre story, here is a good follow up from the Arizona Republic.

- I'm really sick of the Kelvin Sampson thing and, besides posting on The Big Lead's anonymous source that said he was going to be fired last Friday which obviously turned out to be wrong, I'm going to ignore it on here. But this piece from Andy Katz served as a great one-stop source for all the nonsense surround Sampson.

- Against all odds, ESPN.com's college basketball coverage has been outstanding lately. In the beginning of the year they just seemed to regurgitate the same played-out storylines but there have been a number of really good, deep pieces lately. I'd like to think a big part of that is the addition of Philly's own Dana O'Neill, former Philly Daily News writer, who turned in a GREAT feature on Alcorn State and the unglamorous life of basketball in the SWAC. It's long but a great read for those sick of the power conference slobbering.

- Keeping with the ESPN theme, Chris Low takes a good look at the long, hard journey of Tennessee-Martin's Lester Hudson, who is one of the most talented players in the country. Hudson has overcome a rough childhood and academic problems to make it to Division I, and he is probably is good enough to play in the major conferences.

- And one more to throw at you, Heather Dinich's feature on Towson junior Tony Durant, who just happens to be the older brother of Kevin Durant. It's a great look at the odd emotional predicament Kevin's success has caused for Tony, who I somehow didn't even know about until I read this piece.

- Two posts from fellow Ravenous Shark Fightin' Blue Hen Dan Steinberg at the outstanding DC Sports Bog. First a great reaction to the idiot court storming from Syracuse fans when the Orange beat Georgetown at home last week. Second, an ever greater post, a report from last night's Virginia Tech-Maryland game where Dorenzo Hudson puked on the floor. If you are a sick, twisted freak here is the video.

- This Deadspin post has all sorts of Bob Knight goodness. Apparently current Nets coach and former Indiana manager was a bit of a douche back in the day, and may have taped Bob Knight giving a terrifying, profanity-laced tirade at halftime of a game, which has made its way onto the Intertubes. Within the post is the story on Frank and audio of Knight's shitstorm. And here is Terry Hutchens original story on the tape.

- Awful Announcing notices something that I too have noticed recently. Brent Musberger (pictured above) is careening toward senility (during a college game he blurts out that the Wizards want to trade Caron Butler!). Between this, his insistence on calling every player only by his first name ("What a rebound by Jamarcus") and his bonechilling ogling of Erin Andrews (I know, pot/kettle/black), I am worried Brett might poop himself during a conference championships game this year. And if only for the comment section, here is Deadspin's approval rating on Musberger. (Yes, I've also found the Brent Musberger Drinking Game, here's to binge drinking Brent!).

- This story has been written about 12 million times but in case you just can't get enough Duke-hating, some fella at MSN tries his hand at explaining why nobody likes the Blue Devils.

- From Scott Van Pelt Style, apparently former Duke forward and obnoxious towel waver Reggie Love is a bodyguard for our next President Barack Obama.

- From the motherland CHN, a nice column on Gonzaga, specifically the dichotomy between Josh Heytvelt and Jeff Pendergraft. Kinda follows a previous sentiment I had on the Zags that with all these All-Americans they have lost the scrappiness and chemistry that made those old Gonzaga teams so great.