1. Our pal Riles, alias Rick Reilly, arrives in South Bend for his mea culpa tour. Notre Dame WR John Goodman tweets “has Reilly left the Gug yet? I don’t want to run into him and act excited to see him.” Notre Dame’s Sports Info Dept could learn a lot from John Goodman.
2. Mike Krzyzewski has a bald spot. Duke beat Ohio State (we may have buried the lede). The Blue Devils (7-0) have already beaten No. 3 Kentucky, No. 2 Louisville and No. 4 Ohio State and it’s not even Advent yet. Mason Plumleehad 23 points, 17 rebounds, and one air-balled free throw at the end of the game that almost no one noticed.
Plumlee: All-American or adverb? Or both?
3. The Phoenix Suns, on the second night of a back-to-back through the Rust Belt, lose by 40 at Detroit, which opened the season 0-8. The Suns, once piloted by assist machine Steve Nash, had zero assists in the second quarter and went almost the entire third quarter before achieving one. Coach Alvin Gentry declares his team’s play below “NCAA quality.”
4. Winners of the $587 million Powerball lottery are in Arizona and Missouri. This may explain why my brother is not returning my phone calls this morning.
5. The Honey Badger, Tyrann Mathieu, has said he will make himself eligible for the 2013 NFL Draft. A Heisman Trophy finalist a year ago, Mathieu was booted from LSU’s team for substance abuse issues. Mathieu entertained the prospects of staying at LSU and returning to the team in 2013, or possibly playing at a lower level school. At 5’9″, 175 lbs, with a basket full of character issues, he’s probably a third or fourth round pick at best. Mathieu need only look as far as Vontaze Burfict or Leonard Johnson to see undrafted rookies who are having great first years in the NFL.
Reserves
Well, why not? A cat fight broke out a viewing for the deceased Hector “Macho” Camacho in Puerto Rico. Cynthia Castillo, Camacho’s alleged girlfriend got into a scratching fight with his longtime girlfriend and a couple of his sisters at Tuesday’s wake. Camacho had one of my biggest “No F’ing Way” moments in covering sports. Back in 1994 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for a weigh-in before his loss to Felix Trinidad, Camacho had been relatively subdued (for him), in front of a packed crowd in the MGM theatre. Comes time for him to step on the scale and in the blink of an eye, Camacho tossed aside his towel and jumped on the scale wearing only an ear to ear grin. He shook it a little at the gasping, howling crowd, shrugged his shoulders and yelled out his line, “I’m just a macho man!”
Gregg Popovich continues to flip it to NBA Commissioner David Stern. With the Spurs scheduled for TNT Thursday night in a marquee matchup in Miami, Popovich flew Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Jeff Green back home to San Antonio to rest. It might be fun to hear Mr. Barkley talk about this in pregame, but everyone will turn the channel click elsewhere after that.
Minnesota Wild backup goaltender Josh Harding announced that he has MS on Wednesday, but vowed that he’ll keep playing. “No you won’t,” said Donald Fehr.