Bill Walton

Good morning -- Greg Oden -- No pressure - you just need to be another Bill Walton.

Rolling out yet another set of sports media notes while denying that the items are being mandated by the league office, no matter what Tim Donaghy says: After the latest round of bombshells by disgraced NBA referee Donaghy, included the allegation that the league told officials to call fouls on a particular player after an owner complained, Jeff Van Gundy had a chance to shout out a big "I told you so." Though Donaghy didn't specify, he clearly was referencing the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

MUSINGS, thoughts, observations and reasons for high dudgeon: Here's something for those of you addicted to lawyer jokes. Who has established a summer internship program that gives summer jobs to 42 Baltimore school students from 11 public senior high schools?Lawyers, that's who. Specifically, the Maryland State Bar Association, through Law Links, a program it developed in 1994. Fifty-two law firms or "law-related agencies" will hire the 42 students and 10 from Howard County to work for eight weeks.

Good morning -- Greg Oden -- No pressure - you just need to be another Bill Walton.

Tourney MVPs 1939: None selected 1940: Marvin Huffman, Indiana 1941: John Kotz, Wisconsin 1942: Howie Dallmar, Stanford 1943: Ken Sailors, Wyoming 1944: Arnold Ferrin, Utah 1945: Bob Kurland, Oklahoma A&M 1946: Bob Kurland, Oklahoma A&M 1947: George Kaftan, Holy Cross 1948: Alex Groza, Kentucky 1949: Alex Groza, Kentucky 1950: Irwin Dambrot, CCNY 1951: None selected 1952: Clyde Lovellette, Kansas 1953: B.H. Born, Kansas 1954: Tom Gola,...

The NCAA Final Four All-Tournament teams (the first player listed each year was the Final Four most outstanding player; x-player records vacated by action of NCAA subsequent to thetournament):1990Anderson Hunt, UNLV; Phil Henderson, Duke; Dennis Scott, Georgia Tech; Stacey Augmon, UNLV; Larry Johnson, UNLV.Glen Rice, Michigan; Rumeal Robinson, Michigan; Gerald Greene, Seton Hall; John Morton, Seton Hall; Danny Ferry, Duke.1988Danny Manning, Kansas; Milt Newton, Kansas; Stacey King, Oklahoma; Dave Sieger, Oklahoma; Sean Elliott, Arizona.

Rolling out yet another set of sports media notes while denying that the items are being mandated by the league office, no matter what Tim Donaghy says: After the latest round of bombshells by disgraced NBA referee Donaghy, included the allegation that the league told officials to call fouls on a particular player after an owner complained, Jeff Van Gundy had a chance to shout out a big "I told you so." Though Donaghy didn't specify, he clearly was referencing the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

CLEVELAND - Bill Walton recalled a high school game he played in more than 30 years ago in San Diego. It received lots of hype and was televised locally. After all, Walton was considered the best high school basketball player in the country. "But it wasn't anything like this," Walton said, shaking his head and looking around the Cleveland Convocation Center. Then again, as good as Walton was back then, he wasn't LeBron James. James, the 17-year-old phenom from nearby Akron, was the reason Walton asked to work for ESPN2 during last night's nationally televised game between St. Vincent-St.

PHILADELPHIA -- Inevitably, someone will want to analyze the game and the moment and tell how it happened and why it happened.This once, it's enough that it did happen.It's enough that a game that took us to whatever exists beyond heart-stopping ends with a play and a player to die for.It was a play that couldn't happen -- but did. That's the magic, isn't it? That's what keeps us coming. There are 2.1 seconds left in overtime and Duke, the defending national champion, is down a point to a renascent Kentucky team, and it's all over.

Their surprising early-season play understandably has heightened interest in the Maryland football team, to the point where people are starting to wonder when the Terps will be on television.And the simple answer, apart from tomorrow night's Georgia Tech game on ESPN, is: Nobody knows.Though the 1984 Supreme Court ruling that effectively gave schools the right to make their own television deals theoretically made it easier to get on more college games, it also made it more difficult for schools like Maryland that make periodic visits to the upper echelon of the game to get their games televised.

WHEN I WAS growing up in Southern California, I hated John Wooden - the legendary UCLA basketball coach who won 10 national championships during the 1960s and '70s. I was a rabid USC fan, so it was required. The same goes for the equally legendary Boston Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach, who presided over the greatest dynasty in NBA history at about the same time. I was also a Los Angeles Lakers fan, so it also was required. Now, I would have been content to forget the basketball frustration of my youth and keep those hoop nightmares buried somewhere deep in my sports subconscious, but a couple of sportswriter acquaintances of mine have decided to make me re-live the whole discouraging era during this otherwise happy holiday season.

For a group of 100 middle schoolers, the biggest shock in basketball last summer wasn't the way the Detroit Pistons handled the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA title; nor was it the U.S. men's failure to win Olympic gold in Athens. The surprise came at the New York Knicks' practice facility in Westchester, N.Y., where the youths were attending a camp organized by USA Basketball and where they didn't touch a ball for the first three hours. Instead, they were drilled in footwork, including pivoting - a skill often neglected in the schooling of young players.

CLEVELAND - Bill Walton recalled a high school game he played in more than 30 years ago in San Diego. It received lots of hype and was televised locally. After all, Walton was considered the best high school basketball player in the country. "But it wasn't anything like this," Walton said, shaking his head and looking around the Cleveland Convocation Center. Then again, as good as Walton was back then, he wasn't LeBron James. James, the 17-year-old phenom from nearby Akron, was the reason Walton asked to work for ESPN2 during last night's nationally televised game between St. Vincent-St.

Tourney MVPs 1939: None selected 1940: Marvin Huffman, Indiana 1941: John Kotz, Wisconsin 1942: Howie Dallmar, Stanford 1943: Ken Sailors, Wyoming 1944: Arnold Ferrin, Utah 1945: Bob Kurland, Oklahoma A&M 1946: Bob Kurland, Oklahoma A&M 1947: George Kaftan, Holy Cross 1948: Alex Groza, Kentucky 1949: Alex Groza, Kentucky 1950: Irwin Dambrot, CCNY 1951: None selected 1952: Clyde Lovellette, Kansas 1953: B.H. Born, Kansas 1954: Tom Gola,...

With the end of the NBA season will come the close of Bob Costas' pro basketball broadcasting career, or at least this chapter of it, and viewers will be the poorer for it. Costas, who is calling the Lakers-Pacers championship series with Doug Collins for NBC, is known foremost for his work on baseball. But one of Costas' first big breaks in sports announcing, not long after he graduated from Syracuse in the 1970s, was doing games for the Spirits of St. Louis. The colorful American Basketball Association (ABA)

MUSINGS, thoughts, observations and reasons for high dudgeon: Here's something for those of you addicted to lawyer jokes. Who has established a summer internship program that gives summer jobs to 42 Baltimore school students from 11 public senior high schools?Lawyers, that's who. Specifically, the Maryland State Bar Association, through Law Links, a program it developed in 1994. Fifty-two law firms or "law-related agencies" will hire the 42 students and 10 from Howard County to work for eight weeks.

The TV Repairman's uncle, Captain Video, checks out the NCAA tournament:What is it with CBS these days, bypassing its favored crowd shots after baskets with quick peeks at what the subs are doing on the benches? The scrubinis are aware of what's going on and they're working up routines worthy of the stupid pet tricks on the David Letterman show.Overall, though, the network has been doing a fine job, mainly because it has transported viewers from arena to arena without the usual lengthy and vacant studio gabfests.

WHEN I WAS growing up in Southern California, I hated John Wooden - the legendary UCLA basketball coach who won 10 national championships during the 1960s and '70s. I was a rabid USC fan, so it was required. The same goes for the equally legendary Boston Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach, who presided over the greatest dynasty in NBA history at about the same time. I was also a Los Angeles Lakers fan, so it also was required. Now, I would have been content to forget the basketball frustration of my youth and keep those hoop nightmares buried somewhere deep in my sports subconscious, but a couple of sportswriter acquaintances of mine have decided to make me re-live the whole discouraging era during this otherwise happy holiday season.

When Maryland and North Carolina State walked on the Greensboro Coliseum floor the night of March 9, 1974, to play for the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship, no one realized it would turn out to be a classic game that would dramatically change the face of college basketball and leave a lasting impact on the careers of 10 future NBA draft picks and one coach, Lefty Driesell.N.C. State outran Maryland, 103-100, in overtime that night and went on to win the national championship, ending UCLA's spectacular seven-year run. The Wolfpack's David Thompson, Tom Burleson, Monte Towe and Phil Spence were all drafted by the NBA and are still basking in the spotlight of that celebrated victory.

Their surprising early-season play understandably has heightened interest in the Maryland football team, to the point where people are starting to wonder when the Terps will be on television.And the simple answer, apart from tomorrow night's Georgia Tech game on ESPN, is: Nobody knows.Though the 1984 Supreme Court ruling that effectively gave schools the right to make their own television deals theoretically made it easier to get on more college games, it also made it more difficult for schools like Maryland that make periodic visits to the upper echelon of the game to get their games televised.