I can understand
Coach Larry Brown indicated he thought Emmanuel Mudiay made a bad choice choosing a pro career over SMU. A number of folks might believe Brown is concerned more about the loss to his team than the young man, you can forget that. Brown going back to his days at UCLA and Kansas has always had the best interest of his players. Brown suffered the wrath of the NCAA for his actions which caused a penalty for Kansas. The coach paid airfare for a player who lacked the funds to return home for a family illness. The Larry Brown I‘m familiar with is a Hall of Fame coach but he also is a caring individual Allen Iverson and Brown butted heads on more than one occasion with Brown. I witnessed a recent interview with Iverson and he spoke in glowing terms of Lawrence Harvey "Larry" Brown.

Bits n Pieces
Reports have circulated for years collegiate coaches hate AAU basketball, despite this view none have ever gone on record as to why. Have you noticed there never seems to be a shortage of collegiate coaches in attendance at tournaments?

This is a follow-up to an earlier story on the planned San Francisco arena. The original planned location fell into disfavor with environmentalist groups. A portion of ground in the Mission Bay area has been purchased and the project appears a go. The loser in this story is Oakland which hoped to keep the Warriors on their side of the bay.

A “made for television” event, 19 collegiate games will kick off the 2014-15 season. The basketball marathon is scheduled for November 17 and 18. The games will start every two hours for 24 consecutive hours on ESPN’s network of channels. A few of the schools include Florida, SMU, Gonzaga and San Diego State.

The Gordon Gekko character in the movie Wall Street is based on a real person. The star of the movie Michael Douglas claims he modeled the character after Pat Riley. At that time Riley was roaming the sidelines as coach of the Lakers in 1987 when the move was released.

Pacer fans and Mark Cuban will be unhappy with make take, a crowd of folks have reported on the injury to the Pacers Paul George. Consider this fact; NBA athletes first began representing Team USA in 1992. In the 22-year history of practice and competition the George injury is the first instance of an NBA player suffering a serious injury. 

“What do I do? “
The question was asked by many basketball players facing retirement. Most if not all have been cheered since they were in elementary school. That’s quite an adjustment from fans singing your praises to retirement and “what do I do know? “We’ve read a number of stories former athletes facing financial shortcomings, at the same time many have endure substance abuse issues. There are feel good stories after retirement. Magic Johnson’s business success off the basketball court has been well documented but he’s not the only former player. Few of you might be familiar with Junior Bridgeman; he was drafted by the Lakers but never played for them. He was the 8th pick in 1975 but was traded for a player who might be more familiar to you.

Bridgeman along with several other players was traded to the Bucks for Kareem Abdul Jabbar; Bridgeman had a modest 10-year career. This 6-5 shooting guard managed to score 13.6 ppg and finished scoring 11,517 points. Bridgeman began planning ahead for that day he would retire, his focus would be I need to earn enough money to last me the rest of my life. He purchased a Wendy‘s Restaurant on his retirement. Not satisfied with just collecting a check he worked behind the counter learning all the nuances of the restaurant business. One restaurant became two and the balance of the story is history. Today Bridgeman owns over 160 Wendy’s and 100 Chili‘s Restaurants, his net worth is $400 millions dollars. Back in the day the most Bridgeman earn in one season was $350,000.

This isn’t the first time
Rob Fultord Huntington Prep (WV) coach was hired over the summer as a Mizzou assistant coach. In early August Montague “Teki” Gill-Caesar a 6-6 forward committed to Mizzou receiving the final 2014 scholarship. More recently 6-10 220 pound power forward Thomas Bryant added Mizzou to the list of schools he intends to visit. Bryant is listed by Rivals as the number 34 prospect in the Class of 2015; he’s not committed however I can hear the howls if he decides to chose Mizzou.

I’ve heard the whispers already Mizzou is utilizing its connections to Huntington to aid recruiting. No requirement for me to toss rocks at other programs however I don‘t think Mizzou is the first school to have a possible advantage in recruiting? Kentucky, Duke, Kansas and other schools might not have hired an assistant coach recently but can you say with conviction it’s not occurred in the past? As for other news forward Torren Jones was dismissed from the squad no additional details were offered.