Devendorf will be back in orange
Each Friday I'll give my thoughts on the game I love, college basketball.
•Good news for Jim Boeheim and the Syracuse Orange. Guard Eric Devendorf has been given an additional year of eligibility. He has been granted a hardship waiver by the Big East Conference after he missed 25 of the team's 35 games last season with a knee injury. The school applied on Devendorf's behalf after he suffered a torn ACL in a game last December against East Tennessee State. Devendorf, who started the first 10 games of 2007-08 and averaged 17 points a game, did not play again after suffering the injury.
•Congratulations are also in order for former Kansas Jayhawk star Kirk Hinrich. His #10 jersey will soon hang in the rafters at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence. The date of the ceremony is still to be announced, but the two-time first-team All-Big 12 selection is worthy of such a great honor. I was fortunate enough to call many of his games while he was a Jayhawk, and Hinrich was a class act and a PTP'er.
•It was great to see Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, Gary Williams of Maryland, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, Fran Dunphy of Temple and Mark Gottfried of Alabama on hand in Washington, D.C. earlier this week. The college basketball coaches, along with more than 200 American Cancer Society volunteers, met with elected officials to push their cause in the fight against Cancer. We have got to beat this dreaded disease, one that takes the lives of so many people on a daily basis. If you want to help battle cancer, please call 1-800-4-JIMMY V.
•I was so sad when I heard the tragedy that Minnesota coach Tubby Smith suffered. His 19-year old nephew, William L. Smith, a student at Becker College, was stabbed to death during a fight after a party. My sympathy goes out to the entire Smith family.
•Davidson coach Bob McKillop is not afraid to play a tough schedule. Last year, his squad faced Duke, North Carolina and UCLA in non-conference play. This season, the Wildcats face West Virginia in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden; now the school has added a showdown against Purdue in the Wooden Tradition event in Indianapolis on December 20th. Also on the schedule is a potential second-round showdown against Oklahoma in the NIT preseason tip-off, a meeting vs. N.C. State in Charlotte, plus a game at Duke. Stephen Curry will certain face his share of challenges this season.
•On the NBA front, the Atlanta Hawks made a great move in hiring former Georgia Tech and NBA star Mark Price as a shooting consultant. I watched so many games where Price would hit the long-range jumper for the Yellow Jackets. My friends, he could flat-out shoot the rock!
•Some other good news to report. Former UNLV player Glen Gondrezick recently had a successful heart transplant. Gondrezick has congenital heart disease, and waited for almost six months before a donor was found. I wish him well in his recovery.
