Subject: College Basketball

• Time for a Little House Cleaning

  March 27, 2007

• A View to the Rooms

  March 20, 2007

• It's Never Too Early

  March 15, 2007

• Not to Be Out-Douched by Todd Graham, Bobby Knight Pulls a Dick Cheney and Shoots at His Neighbors

  November 29, 2007

• John Royal’s Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007, Part One

  December 18, 2007

• John Royal’s Friends’ Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007, Part One

  December 20, 2007

• John Royal’s Friends’ Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007, Part Two

  December 21, 2007

• New Year's Resolutions

  January 2, 2008

• Super Bowl TV: What to Watch Before the Big Game

  February 1, 2008

• John Royal’s NCAA Picks

  March 17, 2008

• NCAA Tournament: Forget Mount St. Mary’s and Coppin State; Villanova and Kentucky Need to Slug It Out

  March 18, 2008

• John Royal’s NCAA Basketball Picks, Take Two

  March 27, 2008

• Dick Vitale, Adrian Dantley, Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing and Hakeen Olajuwon Make the Hall of Fame, But What About Guy V. Lewis?

  April 8, 2008

• The University of Houston Quiz, Continued...

  May 29, 2008

• Top Ten Astrodome Sports Moments

  September 23, 2008

• The Year of Living Anxiously

  Are We Having Fun Yet? Or is it just the jangly buzz of advanced urban stress syndrome?

  December 29, 1994

• Pete Newell, RIP

  Basketball fans ought to stop for a moment this weekend and mourn the loss of former San Diego Rockets General Manager (1968-1972) Pete Newell, who died on Tuesday at the age of 93. Long before UCLA made John Wooden a coaching legend, the blue and gold UC university system discovered another coaching diamond in the rough. After four middling seasons at Michigan State, Pete Newell was offered the head coaching job at the University of California at Berkeley. Newell coached the Golden Bears t

  November 21, 2008

• Top Ten Houston Sports Moments of 2008

  10. I never really followed the Houston Comets, who folded several weeks ago. By the time they came on the scene I was getting pretty sick of professional basketball. So I never became invested in the team, and I can't feel any real loss behind their demise. Still, unlike the Rockets and Astros and Texans, they did win a world championship within the past decade. 9. The Houston Astros were one of the worst teams in professional baseball for most of the first half of the season. But they

  December 20, 2008

• The Man Behind Mad Max

  May 12, 1994

• Playboy's Finalists for Sexiest Sportscaster: Erin Andrews, Bonnie Bernstein, Charissa Thompson, Lauren Shehadi and Molly Sullivan

  Playboy.com has named its five finalists for this year's Sexiest Sportscaster. And despite my best efforts, neither Carrie Milbank nor Suzy Kolber got the necessary number of write-in votes to qualify. The finalists are Erin Andrews, of course, Bonnie Bernstein, Charissa Thompson, Lauren Shehadi, and Molly Sullivan. Erin Andrews was last year's champ, and she's well known from various sidelines - and spelling bees - across the country. She's ESPN's main sideline reporter for college football

  January 28, 2009

• The Passionate Pilgrim

  June 6, 1996

• 25 Random March Madness Facts

  Photo by All your picture are belong to us It's once again time for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, or as most refer to it, March Madness. And instead of doing an analysis and picking the winner, like I do (badly) every year, I've decided to go another way. I'm sure you've all seen those Facebook 25 random facts lists. Well, here is my 25 Random Facts list about the tournament. 1. Every player is a scholar/athlete, even though on most teams the only scholar sits at the end of the benc

  March 18, 2009

• NCAA Finals: Technically, That Was a Basketball Game

  Photo by Beau B I've got a bit of a tradition. Every NCAA Men's Basketball title game, I get together with one of my best friends, Jodie. College basketball to her is like baseball is to me. So every year, more or less, since 1990, we've gotten together to watch basketball. Including last night. Though what we watched last night I don't think qualifies as basketball. I don't like Jim Nantz. I think he's a pompous, no-talent hack. But I've got to admit that I felt kind of sorry for him la

  April 7, 2009

• UT Actually Makes The Final Four For Once: In Chess, And In Brownsville

  While UT barely made it out of the first round in this year's college basketball tournament, a lesser known member of the state university system was playing in the Final Four ... of chess.UT Brownsville/Texas Southmost College wiped the geek right off the faces of the players from Stanford to claim third place on the final day of the tournament, finishing just one point behind perennial juggernauts UT Dallas and University of Maryland Baltimore County, who tied for first.For what seems like for

  April 7, 2009

• NCAA Finals: Technically, That Was a Basketball Game

  Photo by Beau B I've got a bit of a tradition. Every NCAA Men's Basketball title game, I get together with one of my best friends, Jodie. College basketball to her is like baseball is to me. So every year, more or less, since 1990, we've gotten together to watch basketball. Including last night. Though what we watched last night I don't think qualifies as basketball. I don't like Jim Nantz. I think he's a pompous, no-talent hack. But I've got to admit that I felt kind of sorry for him la

  April 7, 2009

• 25 Random March Madness Facts

  Photo by All your picture are belong to us It's once again time for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, or as most refer to it, March Madness. And instead of doing an analysis and picking the winner, like I do (badly) every year, I've decided to go another way. I'm sure you've all seen those Facebook 25 random facts lists. Well, here is my 25 Random Facts list about the tournament. 1. Every player is a scholar/athlete, even though on most teams the only scholar sits at the end of the benc

  March 18, 2009

• Playboy's Finalists for Sexiest Sportscaster: Erin Andrews, Bonnie Bernstein, Charissa Thompson, Lauren Shehadi and Molly Sullivan

  Playboy.com has named its five finalists for this year's Sexiest Sportscaster. And despite my best efforts, neither Carrie Milbank nor Suzy Kolber got the necessary number of write-in votes to qualify. The finalists are Erin Andrews, of course, Bonnie Bernstein, Charissa Thompson, Lauren Shehadi, and Molly Sullivan. Erin Andrews was last year's champ, and she's well known from various sidelines - and spelling bees - across the country. She's ESPN's main sideline reporter for college football

  January 28, 2009

• Top Ten Houston Sports Moments of 2008

  10. I never really followed the Houston Comets, who folded several weeks ago. By the time they came on the scene I was getting pretty sick of professional basketball. So I never became invested in the team, and I can't feel any real loss behind their demise. Still, unlike the Rockets and Astros and Texans, they did win a world championship within the past decade. 9. The Houston Astros were one of the worst teams in professional baseball for most of the first half of the season. But they

  December 20, 2008

• H-Town Holiday Shootout

  Put down your Rockets red for a while and enjoy some college b-ballers

  December 18, 2008

• Pro Athlete Musicians

  Athletes step off the field and into the studio

  November 29, 2007

• Shane Battier by the Numbers

  November 1, 2007

• A Chat With Hannah Storm Of ESPN (And Houston)

  Photo courtesy ESPNESPN has been charged for years with having an East Coast bias. ESPN's morning SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm somewhat agrees with that charge, though she says the charge doesn't apply to her show and says that to her, "it is a non-issue." And if she does have any bias, it's probably to the Houston Rockets."I love my Rockets," she told Hair Balls yesterday. "I'm totally cheering for the Rockets. The Lakers are tough, but I love what the Rockets are doing this season. I love

  April 16, 2009

• Letters, Week of November 8

  Down on the Matt, High-Water Woes, Reaching the Pentacle

  November 8, 2001

• Bet on Black

  Glory Road relives the season when college hoops smashed the color barrier

  January 12, 2006

• Full-Court Pressure

  College Hoops 2K6 will bring out your inner Bobby Knight

  January 5, 2006

• Against the Odds

  No betting shows on one sports-talk station

  September 1, 2005

• Fire in the Belly

  Rice's new basketball director reveals the secret of his fall from NBA stardom

  February 17, 2005

• Fight Club

  Houston badasses pummel each other

  March 20, 2003

• Year of the Yao Woo

  The crazy times in 2002 — Kmart raids, Olympian losses, stadium mania and more —- now make sense. Houston was just mining Ming.

  December 26, 2002

• Lay of the Land

  Houston headed toward hard times: sports flops, floods and transit duds. If only city fathers could find a proven leader, an energy executive with a KEN-do attitude.

  January 3, 2002

• History in the Unmaking

  Drexler's has finally outgrown its 50-year-old barbecue pit

  November 8, 2001

• Alison Cook looks back at 1996: Year of the Rat

  December 26, 1996

• UH's Choice For New Athletic Director: From USC Or Akron?

  The University of Houston has supposedly narrowed its search for an Athletic Director to replace Dave Maggard down to two choices. The first choice is Brandon Martin, a former college basketball player for USC who is currently the senior associate AD for the Trojans. The second choice is Mack Rhoades, the AD at Akron.Martin is seen as the hot candidate for the school because of his ties to USC, a school with a long history of winning athletic programs. It's also a school in a large metropolitan

  June 11, 2009

• Listen Up, People: The Top Ten Coaches In Houston History

  ​The Chron's Jerome Solomon has another of those endless lists we writers like to do, this one asking for input on the top 10 coaches in Houston college and pro sports history. And he helpfully provides us with some candidates for the list. So I thought I would help out and provide what I consider to be the definitive list of the Top 10 coaches in Houston college and pro sports history.  1. Guy V. Lewis: One of the most underrated, under appreciated coaches in history. It's a crime that t

  August 11, 2009

• The Best Sports Palaces In Houston History, Ranked For Her Pleasure

  Photo courtesy wikipedia​It's been a few years since Houston's most recent orgy of building new sports arenas for down-on-their-luck franchise owners. There's a new soccer stadium trying to get itself born, but other than that we probably won't be seeing any new facilities being built for a while.So it's as good a time as any to rank the arenas and stadiums that have housed Houston fans, for better or worse, in the modern era.These rankings result from highly scientific research, by the way, s

  August 12, 2009

• A Talk With UH's New Athletic Director: Facilities, Graduation Rates And Selling The Program

  Photo courtesy UH​Mack Rhoades has been on the job as the University of Houston athletic director for a little over five weeks. He's settling in. He's meeting his coaches and the support staff. He's meeting the players. He's touring the facilities.And he's been thinking and analyzing and trying to work up a plan that will take a sports program that has long been absent from the national stage and turn it, once again, into a national program. It's going to take a lot of work."We want to

  September 21, 2009

• UH Hoops Still Dreaming Of Making It Back To March Madness

  Photo courtesy UH​Guy V. Lewis last coached the University of Houston men's basketball team in 1986. His last great team lost in the 1984 NCAA title game to the Georgetown Hoyas. He left a legacy of 27 straight winning seasons. Fourteen seasons with 20-plus wins. Fourteen NCAA tournament appearances. Five Final Fours and two championship games.  That's a history that many college problems would die to have.  But since 1986, the Houston Cougars have been living off of that history. An

  October 30, 2009

• UH Hoops, Battling The Second-Rate Reputation Of Conference USA

  ​Tom Penders has been tasked with returning the Houston Cougar basketball program to relevance. And that's a task at which he feels he's been successful. But he's yet to succeed with the ultimate goal of basketball relevance, and that's getting into the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.Now, the Cougars have won basketball games in Penders' five seasons coaching the team. But they haven't won enough. And for the most part, they haven't won the right games because they've been defeating team

  November 6, 2009

• Game Time: The Cable Guy

  ​For most of his tenure in Oakland, Tom Cable has been your run-of-the-mill, overmatched, "dead man walking" NFL head coach. When he was hired last season in the wake of Lane Kiffin's firing, the things that jumped out at me about Cable were:-- His only head coaching experience consisted of four seasons at the University of Idaho where he compiled a sporty 11-35 record-- He was the first Idaho head coach in 22 years to be fired; his most recent predecessors had all been successful and moved o

  November 6, 2009

• Coog Hoops Has Leaders, Bulk And A Good Shot At March Madness

  Photo courtesy UH​The time has come. The time for Tom Penders and his Cougars basketball team to show their worth. The hopes are that this squad is one that will make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the early 1990s.There are a couple of things working in the team's favor. First and foremost being the return of guards Aubrey Coleman and Kelvin Lewis. Coleman, a 6'4" senior, was the C-USA Newcomer of the Year last season as well as first team All-Conference USA. He was one of t

  November 13, 2009