A couple of coaches went a similar cinematic route last weekend after seeing their teams beaten in games featuring spectacular performances by opposing players.
Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin had career-highs of 40 points and 23 rebounds in the second-ranked Sooners’ 95-74 victory over Texas Tech.
Red Raiders coach Pat Knight reached for a great movie villain to praise Griffin.
“Have you guys ever seen the movie, ‘The Terminator?’ That’s what that kid is like,” Knight said. “That kid has no facial expressions. He just plays and it’s like every kid out there on him is like Sarah Connor, and he’s just going to take his time and kill him.
“That kid is good.”
On the East Coast the same day, Seton Hall Bobby Gonzalez talked about Connecticut’s Hasheem Thabeet after he had career-highs of 25 points and 20 rebounds along with nine blocks in the top-ranked Huskies’ 62-54 win over the Pirates.
quid man from ‘The Terminator,”’ Gonzalez said, referring to the bad guy in the sequel to the original film. “I mean I have never seen anyone like him. He is unbelievable. He changes the game. He dominates the game. He alters the game. They threw seven or eight alley-oops and he dunked without even jumping.”
The governor of California must be proud.
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CLEARING CALL: Southern California coach Tim Floyd was ejected from the Trojans’ 65-53 loss to Arizona State on Sunday when he received two technical fouls for arguing a call with less than a minute remaining.
Southern Cal point guard Daniel Hackett drove to the basket and the baseline official signaled a charge but Floyd argued that another official was going to make a block call.
The Pac-10 backed officials David Hall, Randy McCall and Dick Cartmell on Thursday, saying several media outlets were incorrect in how they reported on officiating mechanics during the play.
The conference’s statement said Hall and McCall simultaneously whistled a foul with 47.9 seconds remaining. Hall called a charge on Hackett while McCall did not signal a block call nor did he indicate a basket had been made as has been erroneously reported.
ng his right arm to indicate he had seen a foul. He then checked with Mr. Hall, and upon seeing he had called a charging foul, pointed at Hall to confirm he agreed with the call.
“It is puzzling how anyone who observed the play could have imagined that Mr. McCall signaled any specific type of foul. He definitely did not.”
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GONZAGA STREAK: Gonzaga clinched its ninth straight West Coast Conference title and moved into some impressive company.
The Bulldogs tied Kentucky for fourth place on the all-time list for consecutive conference regular-season championships as the Wildcats won the Southeastern Conference title from 1944-52.
The only streaks longer than those are: UCLA’s 13 straight Pac-10 titles from 1967-79 (the first 12 were in the Pac-8, the last when the conference expanded); Connecticut’s 10 straight in the Yankee Conference from 1951-60 and UNLV’s 10 straight in the Big West from 1983-92.
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OLD WARRIOR: Jerel McNeal became Marquette’s all-time leading scorer last week, passing a mark set 40 years ago.
The senior guard had 23 points in a loss at Villanova, but among those points was the one that gave him 1,774, one more than George Thompson, who played for the then-Warriors from 1966-69.
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only one of those that was a win was Arizona State’s 49-38 victory over Oregon State.
Only twice did a ranked team fail to break 40, the Illini’s loss to Penn State and their 59-36 loss to Minnesota.
Illinois wasn’t the only ranked team to make the under-50 list more than once as Arizona State lost 61-49 to Southern California.
The 71 combined points in Penn State’s win over Illinois were the lowest in a Division I game since Monmouth beat Princeton 41-21 in 2005.
Just to put the Penn State-Illinois game in statistical spotlight it deserves: the Nittany Lions shot 28 percent (13-of-46), just worse than Illinois’ 30 percent (15-for-50). It’s pretty rare that shooting percentages for both teams added together doesn’t break 60. Penn State’s Talor Battle had 11 points, the only player on either team to break double figures.
“I think we thought we’d get it going and it never got going,” Illinois guard Trent Meacham said. “We couldn’t finish anything. It was just a long night, from beginning to end.”
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COURT CASE: There will be another argument to use in the never-ending discussion of which is the best arena in college basketball.
Play.”
The 15 finalists were: UCLA, Syracuse, Duke, Arkansas, Clemson, North Carolina, Kansas, Florida, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Louisville, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas and Xavier.
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BIG HONOR: Temple’s Dionte Christmas will become the first player in school history to be honored with a bobblehead doll this weekend.
On Sunday, the first 3,000 fans into the Liacouras Center for the game with St. Bonaventure will receive a Dionte Christmas bobblehead.
“This is truly an honor when you think of all of the great players to play before me,” said Christmas, who leads the Atlantic 10 in scoring with a 19.3 average and is on pace to become the fourth Owl to reach 2,000 points, joining Mark Macon, Lynn Greer and David Hawkins.
This is the latest move by the school in its season-long All-America campaign for the 6-foot-5 guard entitled “Five Months of Christmas.”
And in what may be a bigger deal to some fans, Temple will also celebrate that day Hooter the Owl’s birthday with several other local area mascots on hand to partake.
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