ESPN is counting down the IBM Top 25 Greatest Players in College Basketball history, and to date they've named the following: (25) George Mikan of DePaul, (24) David Robinson of Navy, (23) Calvin Murphy of Niagara, (22) Austin Carr of Notre Dame, (21) Tim Duncan of Wake Forest, (20) Bob Kurland of Texas A&M, and (19) Elgin Baylor of Seattle. I consider myself a pretty big college basketball fan, so I'd like to take a shot at naming the remaining 18. Later, I'll take a shot at putting them in order.

The next 18 players I expect to be named among the greatest 25 in college basketball history:

* Lew Alcindor of UCLA
* Bill Walton of UCLA
* David Thompson of N.C. State
* Pat Ewing of Georgetown
* Magic Johnson of Michigan State
* Christian Laettner of Duke
* Oscar Robertson of Cincinnati
* Michael Jordan of North Carolina
* Pete Maravich of LSU
* Larry Bird of Indiana State
* Bobby Hurley of Duke
* Bill Russell of San Francisco
* Bill Bradley of Princeton
* Akeem Olajuwon of Houston
* Elvin Hayes of Houston
* Danny Manning of Kansas
* Ralph Sampson of UVA
* Wilt Chamberlain of Kansas

Other players I considered: Steve Alford of Indiana, Wayman Tisdale of Oklahoma, Isiah Thomas of Indiana, Darrell Griffith of Louisville, Bob Petit of LSU, Rick Barry of Miami, Grant Hill of Duke, Larry Johnson of UNLV, Phil Ford of UNC, Jerry West of West Virginia, Chris Mullen of St. Johns, Wilt Chamberlain of Kansas, John Wooden of Purdue.

 

 

NFL: If Jim Zorn can teach Jason Campbell to throw left-handed, then his hiring makes sense.

NHL: Sadly, if you ask me what's been going on in hockey lately, I'll say players are purse-snatching, Sidney Crosby's still injured and some guy almost got decapitated by another player's skate. That's about it.

NBA: Word is the Knicks are shopping Zach Randolph and Eddie Curry. They should send them to the Lakers for an autographed copy of "Fletch Lives," and send Gregg Popovich a wheel of Jarlsberg cheese, to enjoy with his whine.

NBA 2: Watched "Little Children" with Kate Winslet yesterday. Steve Nash should have won an Oscar for his role as the child molester.

Golf: "A tradition unlike any other...January commercials for April's Masters."

Books: Read my brief review of Deadspin editor Will Leitch's new book: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/spotlight.asp?z=y&cds2Pid=17617&linkid=1111344

Sportswriting: I think it's official: Bill Simmons has completely crossed over. When he first arrived at ESPN early this decade, he provided a unique perspective -- the fan's perspective. It was something of a public trust. We could relate to him (or, I could anyway) because he rooted for teams that sucked. Now his teams are all successful and (this is the capper) he actually planned to spend the Super Bowl after-party hanging out with Brady and Gisele, whom he knows through mutual friends. Um, what? Who can relate to this? Sorry, Bill, but you've lost the public trust. ESPN needs to start over here. They need to replace Simmons with a writer whose teams mostly suck and who'll never get invited to hang out with celebrities. In short, they need to replace him with me. And then, as soon as Vanderbilt wins a bowl game (which should happen in the next 10-25 years), they should replace me with someone else. Say, a sportswriter from Cleveland or Seattle?

NASCAR: This is only the 50th running of the Daytona 500? Perhaps by the 75th I'll understand the attraction.

MLB: My question is not for Roger Clemens or Brian McNamee, but for Clemens's wife, Debbie. If it's true that McNamee injected her with HGH, it stands to reason that she knows that McNamee injected her husband as well, and that her husband will be lying to Congress. If he does that, he might be facing jail time, which will not only ruin the family's reputation, but make holiday plans a bit dicey for the foreseeable future. Given that, I'd love to know," What advice, Debbie, do you have for your husband in advance of tomorrow's hearing?" Really, if she knows he's lying, and she knows the consequences, then what's that say about her?

Apropos of nothing (?): God makes 'em and he matches 'em.

College hoops: I wrote about this a few weeks ago in my blog, and zero commenters were good enough to leave their thoughts, but does anyone really expect Memphis, a team that shoots under 60 percent from the foul line collectively, to go undefeated this season? That's like expecting a football team to go undefeated when it can't make field goals from more than 45 yards. Eventually, your weaknesses are going to be exposed.

Thoughts while watching the Pro Bowl

* Lifehouse is playing the halftime show? I take it they weren't invited to perform at tonight's Grammy Awards.

* Vince Wolfork is rushing the quarterback with all the urgency of a pothead after five bong hits.

* If my wife loves me, she'll buy me something nice for Valentine's Day. Say, Monster Seats to a Red Sox/Yankees game this season?

* Jets fans are no doubt watching this game with interest, hoping as many players get hurt as possible.

* For all the hitting in this game, Pro Bowl jerseys should be light pink and dark pink.

* Fat men don't look presentable in many outfits, but Hawaiian shirts are probably the least presentable.

* We get Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in the Super Bowl and Kenny Albert and Moose Johnston in the Pro Bowl? Ought to be reversed. After all, Aikman had no Cowboys to drool over in the Super Bowl, but this would be heaven.

* The Raiders' lone rep is punter Shane Lechler, which makes sense.

* Packers' cornerback Al Harris gets a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the third quarter for playing press coverage. Apparently no one informed Al that he's supposed to play at half speed and pray he doesn't blow out a knee in this meaningless exhibition. This isn't football. In fact, I wonder if a bull was ritually castrated before the game.

* If you're going to lie and say you got a football scholarship to play in college, wouldn't you at least pick a school that's good? Cal? If I told my parents I'd gotten into an Ivy League school, I wouldn't be telling them Brown, ya know.

* The NFC now gets penalized for "illegally blitzing the quarterback," the ref says. OK, if you have to emasculate America's most popular sport, can you at least save us the indignity of explaining its wimpification? Just throw the flag and privately tell the offending player what he did wrong, because announcing it to the stadium is cringe-inducing.

* The NFC gets flagged because Al Harris attempted to make a tackle using both hands.

* No, not really.

* The most exciting play of the game so far? When Devin Hester lateraled a kickoff to the NFC's second-fastest runner...Cowboys' TE Jason Witten.

* How can the Vikings have 7 starters in the Pro Bowl and not make the playoffs? Oh, right, their QB is Tavares Jackson and their best wide receiver is Ahmad Rashad.

* Ya know when your division sucks? When Jeff Garcia is the only player to make the Pro Bowl from the NFC South, and he made it because Brett Favre decided to stay home and play touch football.

* I'd love to see the Nielsen ratings for this game in southeastern American cities. 

* Players on the winning side get $40,000, losers get $20,000. I hope the game ends in a tie.

* The Super Bowl-winning Giants have one player in this game, Osi Umenyiora. The Cowboys have every starter except Nate Newton, who was voted to start but decided to stay home and sell pot.

* Last time Alan Faneca will be wearing a Steelers helmet?

* If Marion Barber were coming at me in this game, I'd give him the olay.

* Hey, whaddya know, it's Jeremy Shockey, getting soused in the skybox again. At least he's consistent. He's always either talking or drinking. Or getting stupid-looking tattoos.

* I'm going to miss the Hollywood writers' strike, because it's been a built-in excuse to watch more sports.

* Nobody suffered a career-ending injury in this year's Pro Bowl, so it looks like we'll have endure this useless charade for at least one more year.

* If I were a Vikings fan, I'd have to be over the moon because Adrian Peterson, who missed time this year with a leg injury, earned the MVP award in a useless exhibition.

* Pitchers and catchers in four days...

 

According to testimony from embattled trainer Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens's dog, KK, was injected with HGH before several Christmas card shoots. These holiday cards ultimately featured KK, Roger Clemens, his wife, Debbie, and their four children, Koby, Kory, Kacy and Kody. 

This latest revelation comes on the heals of another bombshell: that McNamee injected Debbie with HGH before a Sports Illustrated photo shoot in 2003.

Clemens's lawyer, Rusty Hardin, scoffed at the latest accusation from McNamee, who also claims he injected Clemens with steroids and HGH on numerous occasions in the last decade.

"What's next, that he injected the four kids? Or the maid? How about the gold fish? This guy has no shame. If KK had taken HGH, wouldn't he have a fifth paw coming out of his forehead?"

The Curt Schilling situation -- a 41-year-old pitcher who spent 7 weeks on the disabled list last season -- is a prime example of why you don't give multi-year contracts to players over 40. The Sox might be able to siphon something out of 38Pitches later in the season, or perhaps they're simply going to eat $8 million. But no matter, his situation doesn't influence the Red Sox as much as many people seem to think. A rotation that went Josh Beckett, Dice-K, Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Jon Lester/Clay Buchholz, now goes Beckett, Dice-K, Wakefield, Lester, Buchholz. Considering they had no idea what to expect from Schilling anyway (and hence, the one-year deal) is this second rotation precipitously worse? If this were October, absolutely, because Schilling's post-season experience is irreplaceable. But a week before Valentine's Day? And nearly six months before the trading deadline? Yawn. Wake me up when the Yankees find a true #1 starter, much less an aging #3.

The revelation of his injury -- in particular, its timing -- has many Sox fans screaming about the loss of Johan Santana, who got traded to the Mets last week for a Pinto, a cheese wheel and a half pint of Old Grand Dad. But let's be clear: Curt Schilling's absence this season would not have brought Johan Santana to Boston. If ya believe the Red Sox were dissuaded from making the trade because of the presence of a 41-year-old #3 starter with lingering health issues, who'd already said he was retiring after this season, well, I probably can't convince you otherwise. If Schilling had retired at the end of last season, the Red Sox still wouldn't have sent a Jon Lester and/or Clay Buchholz package to the Twins.

The whole point in hanging on to your young players is to allow them to grow into their roles, which these Sox pitchers now will, albeit quicker than expected with Schilling out of commission.