College Basketball

Et cetera CAA, NBC Sports agree to 5-year deals The Colonial Athletic Association has reached five-year agreements with NBC Sports Group that will provide the most extensive and comprehensive exposure of the conference in its history, with coverage on NBC Sports Network and across the group's regional sports networks. The deals, which begin with the 2012-13 season and run through 2016-17, will provide national television coverage of CAA men's basketball and football games on NBC Sports Network, regional television coverage of CAA men's and women's basketball and football through the Comcast SportsNet regional networks and coverage of a variety of other CAA sports through NBCSports.com.

Et cetera Digest: Navy men ranked No. 5 in Patriot lacrosse poll The Patriot League released its men's lacrosse preseason poll Wednesday, and Navy is No. 5, trailing (in order) defending champion Bucknell, Army, Colgate and Lehigh. It's the first time in league history that the Midshipmen have been ranked outside the top two in the preseason poll. The team's 4-9 overall record and 2-4 mark in the Patriot League last season influenced the placement; Navy won the regular season outright or shared the title between 2004 and 2008 and captured the tournament crown six consecutive years.

Former Maryland men's basketball coach Gary Williams has added more broadcasting duties to his post-retirement life. Williams, who works as an analyst for the Big Ten Network, will join ESPN 980 -- a Washington-based sports radio station -- as its College Hoops Insider. Williams will appear weekly on the Sports Fix with Kevin Sheehan and Thom Loverro, and on the Sports Reporters with Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban. The former Terps coach will appear on the station through April 3 -- the day after the NCAA men's basketball championship game.

Division II Bowie State enters the season ranked 8th in the Division II national preseason poll. The Bulldogs reached the second round of the NCAA Division II Tournament last season and won the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association North Division title with a 11-1 record. Bowie State has four returning seniors, including senior 7-foot center Travis Hyman, who led the league with 104 blocks. He also averaged 15.2 points, earning the CIAA Defensive Player of the Year.

16. Dylon Cormier, Loyola Jimmy Patsos was ecstatic to keep Cormier home for college. The Greyhounds coach was not only getting a first-team Baltimore Sun All-Metro player in Cormier, but also a player that would later prove to be his top local recruiter. After Cormier's pledge, Loyola landed commitments from St. Frances point guard R.J. Williams, Xavier transfer and City grad Jordan Latham , Milford Mill small forward Tevin Hanner and St. Frances center Josh Forney.

Lefty Driesell had already promised that Maryland would become the "UCLA of the East" when he was hired away from Davidson two years before. Now, with a talented team led by Tom McMillen and Len Elmore about to become eligible for varsity as sophomores, Driesell was looking for a way to pump up his players going into the 1971-72 college basketball season. "I said, 'Let's start practice before everyone else and we're going to be the last team to practice. We're going to play for the national championship," Driesell recalled in a telephone interview this week.

Walter E. Sibiski Jr., a retired printing salesman who was high scorer and captain of the 1943 City College basketball team, died of congestive heart failure March 28 at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 85 and lived in the Mays Chapel section of Timonium. Born in Baltimore and raised on Fait Avenue in Canton, he was the son of a longshoreman and maritime union president. Family members said that as a boy he often swam from the old cannery piers along Boston Street across the harbor to Fort McHenry.

Sun columnist Mike Preston weighed-in on the NFL lockout yesterday. He wrote about the skyrocketing costs of gasoline, the tsunami in Japan and the rising national debt. His point was simple: There are things in life more important that millionaire athletes bickering with billionaire owners. There are things in life more important than sports.  President Obama, it seems, has a different take. Instead of spending every waking hour concerning himself with America's stagnant economy or whether the U.S. should take action against Libya, Obama has been spending his time researching college basketball to make his March Madness picks  for a segment on ESPN.

Norris Cole had thrown for more than 300 yards and three touchdowns in a game when he was a high school quarterback in Dayton, Ohio. He had scored 38 points on the basketball court as a junior at Cleveland State. "But nothing like this," Cole said in a phone interview Monday, referring to his play in the Vikings' 86-76 victory Saturday over Youngstown State. Cole turned in the performance of his life and of the college basketball season with 41 points, 20 rebounds and nine assists.