Soft Pretzel Logic

Greetings from the press room of the Wachovia Center, where I'll be doing some video features from tonight's NBA Draft festivities later tonight. Until then, Marc Narducci of the Inquirer and Bob Cooney of the Daily News are live-blogging things. Philly.com also has all the big stories from this morning's papers, including columns from Stephen A. Smith and John Smallwood.

I'll be back later with my thoughts on who the Sixers picked and whatever surprises come along through the night.

I'll come back Thursday night to write something about the NBA Draft. There's going to be a ton of coverage across both papers and on Philly.com, so why not throw my own hat into the ring. In the meantime, here's a taste of what I watch when it's not college basketball season, courtesy of former UCLA midfielder Benny Feilhaber...

Do me a favor.

If you don't read anything else in the Inquirer today, please, please read Phil Sheridan's column in today's Inquirer.

Then go to your father, as I did this morning, or call him -- this isn't really a thing to do by e-mail -- and wish him a happy Father's Day.

I'll be back in a few weeks, hopefully for the USA Basketball Pan Am Games trials at Haverford next month.

While the Eagles take the headlines at minicamp and the Phillies take the headlines for ... uh ... well, I've probably jinxed them already, I'm off to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

One of the inductees this year is a guy whose work you've surely read a lot if you're a Big 5 fan: Inquirer staff writer Mel Greenberg.

I'll be reporting throughout the weekend on the new version of Mel's blog, Women's Hoops Guru. There will be photos, video, and some really interesting stories to tell.

So head on over that way with me, and when you get there, leave a comment and say hello.

Or your TiVOs, or whatever. Anything that can record Comcast SportsNet.

The Daily News reports today that CSN will re-broadcast the famous 1969 Villanova-La Salle game, in which Howard Porter dueled against Kenny Durrett, tonight at 8 p.m. Dei Lynam hosts, with Al Meltzer, Fran Dunphy and Fran O'Hanlon also in the studio. Meltzer called the game, and Dunphy and O'Hanlon played in it.

CSN deserves a ton of praise for putting this together.

Elsewhere on page 96 of today's Daily News, Dana Pennett O'Neil talks to Kyle Lowry and reports that Florida has not sought to talk to Jay Wright. Then again, it might not matter anyway.

I'm not fond of anonymous commenters, but I got one that probably deserves a reply:

Jay Wright to Florida???

No. For the same reasons as Kentucky. He was a blown knee away from a Final Four, and maybe even a national championship. Seriously. Put a healthy Curtis Sumpter on the floor, and that 2006 team would have been more than legit enough to win it all, given how wide open things were that year.

If he can get the guys he gets -- and coach the U.S. Pan Am Games team to boot -- while on the Main Line, playing a few times a year at the Wachovia Center and being front and center in the Big East, why leave?

And in particular, why leave for a football school whose now-former basketball coach was reported to have been occasionally dissatisfied with that school's attitude towards his sport?

Oh, and furthermore: Virginia Commonwealth's Anthony Grant is clearly the Gators' top choice, which has been reported by a bunch of people on ESPN.com. The latest news comes from Mark Schlabach, who writes here that Florida AD Jeremy Foley has already sought and received permission to talk to Grant.