Sorry this took a while, but the servers here have been acting screwy all day.
What do you know, an actual rivalry in Rivalry Week. I loved the opening segments last night where ESPN had friends/relations/spouses on opposite sides talking trash at each other. I can only wonder what tonight's segment will be like (and what it would be like for Penn-Princeton).
In the Daily News, Dana Pennett O'Neil speaks the truth about the Civil War that is local hoops these days: St. Joe's and 'Nova have been kicking everyone else's butt in the City Series. In the Inquirer, Shannon Ryan wonders whether we'll be watching a Vegas show, Snoop Dog or a basketball game tonight. In the Delco Times, Jay Wright makes no assumptions about tonight, thus adhering to the first rule of Big 5 games. And in the Penn student paper, a writer cracks open the history books lest her fellow students find better things to do in the library.
The Temple student paper chats with John Chaney's top assistant, Dan Leibovitz, who's now the "basketball coach-slash-pizza delivery guy" at Hartford.
Tomorrow is national signing day for college football, and the Inquirer has two good stories. First, the tale of P.J. Shirdan. The Monsignor Bonner player didn't play at all his senior year because of injury, but is going to West Virginia because the Mountaineers coaches were impressed by a DVD of his games from years past.
Second, Ray Parrillo reports on how Rutgers' success last season has translated into a bumper crop of recruits from South Jersey.
And on the women's and political sides of things, Penn State women's hoops coach Rene Portland has settled a lawsuit brought against her by a former player who accused Portland of booting her off the team because Portland thought she was a lesbian.
Connecticut beat Syracuse (on ESPN, natch) in a game that was blissfully devoid of any meaning whatsoever as it related to the NCAA Tournament. For now. Jim Boeheim didn't have much to say about it, but UConn's Jeff Adrien did.
Here's an actual rivalry, at least in football: A&M beat Texas in hoops last night. Everyone wanted to see Kevin Durant, of course, and he scored 28 points -- on 9-for-23 shooting. But the better team, A&M, won the game. Shocking, isn't it?
Over the Mason-Dixon Line, streaky Maryland hosts Penn Charter grad Sean Singletary's Virginia tonight. The Cavs are in first place in the ACC, while Maryland still has no idea how to win a few games in a row. They might try the front court this time.
Elsewhere in the ACC, zDuke and Carolina play twice this week: the men on Wednesday and the women on Thursday. The men's game will pit former Episcopal High teammates Wayne Ellington and Gerald Henderson for the first time. The women's game, though, is by far the bigger game even to those who don't normally follow the women's side of things. It's also a showdown between the Nos. 1and 2 teams in the country.
