Starting Five

1. Cinderella is hanging in the VIP lounge. Gonzaga, which this week attained its highest AP poll ranking ever (3), blasts Santa Clara, 85-42. The Zags doubled up on the Broncos in both points and rebounds (45-22) while not one starter scored more than 17 points. Santa Clara, which had not scored fewer than 60 points in any game this season, was held to 18 points less than its lowest total. The Road to the Final Four for Mark Few’s team looks like this: most likely a first weekend in San Jose, a second weekend at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and if they can emerge from that, a Final Four berth in Atlanta (we’ll reserve our ire about the last Final Four held west of Texas having taken place in 1990 for another post).

2. My two favorite coaches in women’s college basketball, Geno Auriemma and Kim Mulkey, and here’s why. And this is BEFORE Monday night’s game. Geno’s response to Kim, who is divorced, when she asks him to introduce her to some Italians: “The Italians I send to see you aren’t going to date you.”

Quickly, my Geno story: March of 2001 and I’ve been tailing the Huskies all season long for a book on the team. Eastern regionals, Pittsburgh. Geno is in the hotel bar with his wife, Cathy, at a booth. I find a waiter and send over a $75 bottle of wine (which is at least $35 more than I’ve ever spent on myself). I tell the waiter, “Give it to that man and his wife and say, ‘It’s from John. That’s for his being a pain in the ass all season.'”

The waiter returns 15 minutes later and presents me with a bill for a $400 bottle of champagne. The waiter says, “The gentleman says you’ve been a much bigger pain in the ass than that.”

3. Miami is dirty blah blah blah. The NCAA acted unethically blah blah blah. Don’t care. Call us when Mark Emmert resigns and Jay Bilas accepts the job.

4. LeBron James is the best player in the NBA. But James Harden may be more fun to watch. Last night The Beard scored a career-high 46 points and led the Rockets back from a 14-point fourth quarter deficit versus his former team, OKC, in a 122-119 victory. (I’m no John Hollinger, but I still cannot fathom why the Thunder would part ways with Harden). Jeremy Lin scored 29.

Meanwhile, in Tempe, Ariz., students at Arizona State University (Harden’s old school) decided to stage a James Harden Appreciation Night as the Sun Devils hosted Washington State. In honor of Harden, who was not invited and of course would not have been able to attend anyway, the Sun Devil student body decided to remain silent until their team scored its 13th point. The problem? To begin, ASU coach Herb Sendek was unaware of this plan (Sendek: “This is the quietest gym I’ve ever been in.”) Second, the Sun Devils trailed and still had not scored their 13th point nearly midway through the first half.

Adding to the bizarre nature of the night, it snowed in Phoenix yesterday. Seriously.

ASU eventually scored its 13th point and went on to a 69-57 win, its 20th (20-7) of the season.

5. The lead investigator in the Oscar Pistorius murder investigation, Hilton Botha, steps down after it is discovered that he himself is facing an attempted murder charge. Yes, the story is getting more O.J. by the day. This link has a good diagram of the scene of the tragic events.

Reserves

Now THIS is an oustanding and memorable SI cover. While we don’t need four writers’ names on the cover (it’s a cover, not a masthead), the gallery of iconic figures here is perfect. Kudos to whoever fostered this idea. Oh, and I think I see Jenny rushing across the reflecting pool yelling, “Forreessssst!”

If you stayed at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles recently and thought that the water tasted a little bit funny, here’s why. It turns out that the Cecil has quite the notorious history.

The cover of today’s New York Post goes to Rob Morrison, Handsome Anchor, who resigned yesterday from WCBS following his arrest Sunday night for allegedly strangling his wife, Ashley, a CBS Market Watch reporter. Morrrison was spotted at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Stamford, Conn., where he downed three light beers (during happy hour; pays to be frugal!) and spoke to Post reporter Laurel Babcock. Whether or not she identified herself as such is not known. The hed on my edition read “Drown & Out” though I prefer the one I saw elsewhere, “Pour Me.”

Oscars gift bags have an estimated value of $45,000. The rich are very different from you and me. Before you go on a bleeding heart rant (I won’t), remember, the people “donating” these items are doing so for promotional purposes. If you or I were more marketable, they’d be giving it to us. The solution: next time, find parents with better genes. Otherwise, zip it.

 

Jessica “Cheststain” and Bradley Cooper (“Silver Linings Cookbook”) go “Between Two Ferns.” “How’s bragging camp going?”

***
A modest proposal for college hoops and/or college football: Create a jackpot for the team that wins the national championship. For argument’s sake, here’s a rough outline of what I’d see. We can debate the particulars later:

1. The winning squad earns a prize of $1 million to split among every member of its roster (yes, I understand that there are far more players on a football team than a basketball team; perhaps we make it $5 million for the gridders).

2. The winning team votes on how to distribute shares amongst themselves with the one stipulation being that no player can be voted a share more than seven times greater than the smallest share.

3. The money for every player is placed into a trust until that player earns his undergraduate degree.

 

Your thoughts?