Drive and Dish Tidbits

By Trashtalk Superstar

It's mid February, it's 10 degrees in Chicago, the second half of the NBA season has officially begun, college basketball's regular season is heading into its stretch run, and Drive and Dish presents another installation of the ever popular Drive and Dish Tidbits:

1.) North Carolina coach Roy Williams has taken umbrage with remarks made by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, with regard to "certain" college basketball teams' reporting of injuries.

Much has been made by the media -- both local (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) and national -- of the injuries that have plagued several members of the North Carolina basketball team this season. On Sunday, Krzyzewski stated that Duke doesn't discuss injuries, "unlike other schools."

Williams interpreted Krzyzewski's statement to be a backhanded jab at him and at his North Carolina program.

On his Monday radio show, Williams opined that an unnamed coach should "coach (his) own damn team, I'll coach my team."

And in a Tuesday news conference, Williams revisited the topic: "It's not like I'm getting a dadgum plane and flying it around to say, 'Roy fell against a wall and banged his nose' or anything." Williams continued, "We have to do those things (talk about injuries) and everybody's hurt. But there's different stages of being hurt."

"If you're hurt and missing games, that's not exactly like having a hangnail. And so we do have some people that are getting hurt and missing games. I don't think that somebody should say we're putting it in front of the public."

Apparently, Coach K's comments really got under Roy Williams' skin. According to the linked article:

When a reporter attempted to ask a follow-up question, Williams said he didn't want to discuss the comments further and have "battles through the media." But when the news conference ended, Williams came back to the topic once more.

"I said before we played Duke it's impossible to have any more respect than I do for Mike," Williams said, "but I felt like that comment was aimed towards us."


After thoroughly researching the subject matter, and following hours of intense deliberation, the Drive and Dish editorial staff has arrived at the following revelation: Coach K and Roy must really not like each other as much as they say they do.


2.) ESPN's Pat Forde says that a "source close to the unsettled coaching situation at Indiana University" has told him it's likely that Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson will be suspended "for the purpose of future termination."

Drive and Dish has heard this before. Our official position is: we'll believe it when we see it.


3.) Speaking of the Indiana/Sampson scandal, Toki Wartooth at Paint the Town Orange reminds readers that Indiana knew exactly what they were getting when the hired Sampson in 2006.

IU was well aware that Sampson had a history of violating NCAA bylaws at Oklahoma. They simply didn't care.

Last Thursday, Drive and Dish discussed Sampson's history, his hiring at Indiana, and his shady behavior since arriving in Bloomington.

Indiana used to be one of the cleanest programs in major college basketball.

But integrity has been in short supply in the IU Athletic Department as of late.

Hopefully, Indiana will have to pay a price for their indifference toward the following of NCAA bylaws (just to be clear: Drive and Dish likes Indiana University and IU basketball [and we've got several friends and associates who are IU alumni] ... we just don't like Kelvin Sampson, or what Indiana basketball has become under his stewardship).


4. ) Also at Paint the Town Orange: despite being a few days old, Mr./Ms. Wartooth's post game account of the Penn State / Illinois game provides a great synopsis of Illinois' 2007/08 season.


5.) Tuesday's upset victory over #16 Drake marked Bradley's sixth game of the season against the four Division I basketball programs from the state of Iowa. Bradley has now defeated all four of Iowa's Division I teams.

Bradley beat Iowa State (65-56) Nov. 14 at Carver Arena in Peoria, beat Iowa (67-56) Nov. 23 at the South Padre Island Thanksgiving Tournament and beat Northern Iowa (75-73) Jan. 12 in Cedar Falls, IA.

According to the official website of the Bradley Athletic Department:

"Of the states that boast multiple NCAA Division I institutions, Bradley has not swept every Division I team a state has to offer since beating both Arizona (67-59) and Arizona State (92-85) during the 1963-64 season (Northern Arizona was not yet playing Division I men’s basketball at the time)."


6.) Drive and Dish doesn't like to discuss recruiting, but since we've been so Duke/North Carolina-centric lately (and since hardcore Duke fans account for a significant portion of the Drive and Dish community), we'll pass along the following recruiting buzz: Duke appears to be the likely destination for 6'11" power forward Mason Plumlee, of the Christ School in Arden, NC.


7.) More Duke stuff: DeMarcus Nelson takes viewers on a tour of Duke's practice facilities at Dukeblueplanet.com.


8.) As the NBA trade deadline approaches, two league sources have indicated that Denver is in "full pursuit" of troubled Sacramento forward Ron Artest.