LamarCheeks

Not sure I buy the whole Izzo thing -- I've never even heard that. Why would he want to come down from MSU? He was beating us and out-recruiting us already anyway ... As far as the others: Alford has proven to be no better than Crean, and I want no part of Calipari or Pitino, and I'm guessing after the Sampson debacle, the administration didn't, either. Stevens? By the time he became a proven commodity, we already were entrenched in the Crean years, and his buyout was massive. Plus, IMO, the timing was never right to make a move on Crean. The two years after we crapped our pants against Syracuse weren't good, but in the second year, we made the NCAAs and the year after that we won the B1G and reached the Sweet 16. Yes, things were trending downward with recruiting in the state, but he had the buyout and at least on the surface, seemed to be doing just enough to keep his head above water.

Play hard. Get the ball inside. That was the recipe for success tonight. Why did it take that long to figure it out.

No, and to me, that's odd ... I thought when we did play well in the first half, we had De'Ron and Juwan in at the same time.

I have the stats going in another window, and they update about 3-4 seconds before what I'm seeing on TV.

Dakich said he played for him at Bowling Green.

Justin just has way too much going on in his shot. He needs to quiet it down a bit. Or limit the movement. Or something. But what he's doing isn't working.

Devonte plays hard, but his decision-making is just deplorable.

Nice, uh, pass, McBob.

With the complete lack of effort in the last 10 minutes of the first half and the sloppiness throughout, if we were playing a B1G team, we'd be down by 25 points now.

With Smith, I'd settle for 15 out of 20!

Dakich just said he's shaving his head after the season. I wanna see that ...

3-9 so far. That's inexcusable.

We are so much bigger ... Why not put De'Ron and JuMo in at the same time and just pound it inside, pound it inside, pound it inside.

F Gordon's freshman season only went off the rails because of the Sampson debacle. ... Until then, it was a pretty good season.

I actually don't think Rob got fouled ... He just didn't make a smart play. ... One on three -- he's got to pull that back and wait for help.

Race is sick tonight. ... Wouldn't play regardless.

Last night, I just happened to see the 30 for 30 "Survive and Advance" about N.C. State's 1983 NCAA title. At one point in the season, Derek Whittenberg threw Valvano and the coaches out of the locker room, got in everybody's grille and told them if they didn't start playing harder, they'd have to fight him. ... Too bad we don't have anybody on our team like that.

I've actually got no issues so far with Dakich tonight. He's hammering us -- and we deserve it.

Juwan is playing like a guy who wants his season to be over. ... That offensive foul was about as stupid a play has he's made in four years. He just knocked the kid out of the way and went to the hoop.

This game is like so many others: We're on the verge of going up by 15-20 and we let 'em right back in.

Damezi almost shoots a set shot.

Al goes coast to coast!

Green starting in Romeo's place.

How is it that this thread is six pages long and has more than 100 entries when tipoff is still a half-hour away!!!

I think what usually happens is that if a school doesn't want to play in the NIT, it will put that info out there before the invites are issued. Last season, for instance, Georgia fired Mark Fox on the Saturday before selection Sunday and the players then voted not to go to the NIT if invited. So it wasn't granted a bid. LSU did the same thing 2-3 years ago. Of course, Georgia then hired our good friend Tom Crean.