Ohio State hired Xavier coach Thad Matta as their new basketball coach. Just a week ago, Matta said he wasn’t a candidate and stressed how happy he was at Xavier. Whoops. This is a great article on the B-movie-like car chase as Matta drove to his interviews at OSU and reporters trailed the cars.

Evidently Mark Chmura is in talks to get his own radio show. No word on whether it will include dating advice. Evidently, his regular guests will include R Kelly and Marcus Vick. (thanks SportsFrog!)

Marvin “Skeeter” Francis, one of the men behind the phenominal success of the ACC, passed away yesterday. Francis is credited with getting ACC basketball on TV at a time when live sports were extremely rare. That television exposure is one of the main reasons that ACC basketball flourished.

Josh Powell is playing with the Miami Heat Summer League team. This is his second go-round at sticking with the League. He still sounds a bit testy about his decision. The interesting thing about this interview is that it’s the first time that he hinted at unhappiness in Raleigh. He implies that State coddled and…

Catching up with Ademola Okulaja.

I forgot to mention this in my article about Mike Krzyzewski deciding to stay at Duke. Evidently, Mitch Kupchak called Roy Williams of UNC even before Coach K. Ol’ Roy said no right off the bat, in part because he had just arrived at UNC a year earlier. Pretty interesting. I don’t think that Roy…

Skip Prosser wants to get to the Final Four and win a national title for Wake Forest. Well, the team he’ll have next season is as good a bet as any other team in the country. They return everyone, including Vytas Danelius, who didn’t contribute much last year after being named preseason All-ACC. Wake will…

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week after joining the conference, both Virginia Tech and Miami’s football teams have had players make news in the courthouse. Last night, Tech QB Marcus Vick was busted for pot possession and reckless driving. I thought people drove better when they were stoned? In May, Vick was…

Man, now this is a great read. Mark Cuban posted a long article on his blog about the negotiations that ended with Steve Nash signing with Phoenix. It’s a really interesting and rare look into contract negotiations in the NBA.

This is a great article on what has happened to Arthur Agee and William Gates since the release of “Hoop Dreams” ten years ago. They seem to still be living out the life patterns you saw in them as high school kids. BTW, if you haven’t seen this movie, you need to. It’s a fascinating,…