(AP photo)
Some daily randoms from an Easter Sunday at the Final Four:
To me, anyway, it’s not too hard to figure out what’s going on with Daniel Orton. He’s going into the draft. He may be dropping out of school, or finishing school in California — how exactly do you do that? — or training for the draft in California. He may love John Calipari, or hate John Calipari. None of that seems to matter. What matters is that Larry Orton said his son is testing the NBA draft waters, so Daniel will test the waters. But if you really are going to California to train, chances are you are doing more than testing. And in speaking with Calipari here in Indianapolis on Thursday, the guess here is that Cal’s guess is that Orton will not be a Wildcat next year.
If you’re a Kentucky fan, the only thing worse than watching you team make just four of 32 three-pointers against West Virginia in a regional final is to see Duke make 13 of 25 threes against West Virginia in the Final Four. Duke shot lights out, but then the Blue Devils own better shooters than did this year’s Kentucky. Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and even Nolan Smith can light it up, as they say. They lit up the ‘Neers.
Afterward, Bob Huggins lamented his switch to a 1-3-1 zone without using a dead ball situation first, but that didn’t make any real difference. Duke was on fire. West Virginia left its game up in Syracuse.
Speaking of West Virginia, got some flak for tweeting that Huggins’ emotional on-the-floor hug of De’Sean Bryant Butler after the Mountaineer tore up his knee was “weird.” Was accused of being a cynic, and mean, and sarcastic. I admit, poor choice of words, or word. Just not sure that I’d ever seen anything quite like that before. Not saying it was bad, or wrong. And from what I hear, on television it certainly looked powerful, what with the coach right up in Bryant’s face, trying to get him to calm down. But you have to admit, it was unusual.
Huggy-ologist Paul Daugherty writes about the Huggy/Bryant Butler moment here.
Continue reading ‘Daniel Orton, the Final Four and other random notes’
