Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

7/28/2010 at 4:08pm

With the SEC Media Days in the rearview mirror and while waiting on some midweek phone calls, we've been perusing the web. Interesting stuff on a Wednesday:

For your offseason daily national college basketball tittilation, you've got the Louisville, Ky., trial in which the government is trying to jail former Rick Pitino conquest Karen Sypher for extortion. We've been enjoying the coverage from Kentucky Sports Radio.

Can it get any more (embarrassing, disturbing, laughable -- you pick the word that fits) than this trial involving the Louisville basketball coach and his brief encounter with the woman now on trial who allegedly had an abortion, then later married one of Pitino's assistant coaches, then is alleged to have tried to extort money from Pitino? The midday soaps aren't this good. Everyone is coming off as clownish, including the always dapper Pitino.

The Louisville coach took the stand today before a reportedly standing-room-only crowd. Trial of the century stuff. That's what we've come to.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has dispatched news coverage of the trial in Louisville. Here's the P-D's latest.

MORE COMMITMENTS: Arkansas added its 13th player to its last of 2011 football signing commitments this week, though a close inspection of the list from Rivals.com indicates that all but one of the 13 are three stars or no rated.

Granted, this is merely late July. Players can be evaluated and re-evaluated and given more stars between now and the first Wednesday in February. Past history tells us that committing to Arkansas over anyone does not get a high school player any more attention or "stars" as it would, say, a player committing to Notre Dame, Southern Cal or Alabama or Florida State or the like. However, if and when Bobby Petrino wins big with all his three stars, watch that change with the national recruiting gurus.

If winning on the field were based all on stars, Charlie Weis would still be coaching at Notre Dame.

We'd still like to see more out-of-state recruits who have chosen the Hogs instead of Texas or Oklahoma (if they're from Texas or Oklahoma) or Alabama, LSU, Florida, Auburn or Georgia (if they're from the southeastern U.S.). Not all. Not even half. Just maybe a handful of recruits who've said "no" to Les Miles, Gene Chizik or Nick Saban and "yes" to Bobby Petrino and crew.

DESPERATION TIME IN OXFORD: Ole Miss last week reportedly wasn't interested in available quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, the talented senior who has no team after Oregon ran him off. This week, having seen heralded redshirt freshman Raymond Cotton depart Oxford, it appears Rebels coach Houston Nutt is fighting an internal battle with the powers that be at Ole Miss over enrolling Masoli, whose rap sheet at Oregon would get most players run from any program. Nutt, in fact, recently dropped talented young receiver Patrick Patterson from the Rebels roster for a "violation of team rules." But would he take aboard a quarterback whose indiscretions at Oregon far outweight "violation of team rules"? Apparently, some believe that answer is yes. Read Ben Dial's column/blog from the SportsJury.com.

(But can we now put a moratorium on all "Houston, You/We Have a Problem" headlines involving Nutt and some type of negative news on the former UA coach?)

The Ole Miss powers don't want the school's reputation to take a hit by enrolling a quarterback with character issues, especially after the Brent Schaeffer fiasco of a few seasons back (some of that blame might fall on the previous head coach, Ed Orgeron). Nutt wants a better chance to compete and win games, maybe at the expense of how it will all look of Ole Miss adds Masoli.

Ole Miss currently has two scholarship quarterbacks: Nathan Stanley, who saw a few unremarkable snaps in place of a hurt Jevan Snead in last year's Cotton Bowl win over Oklahoma State; and slight (5-9), junior college transfer Raymond Mackey, who led a Bastrop, La., powerhouse program a few seasons back that also featured LSU receiver Reuben Randle.

STRASBURG'S UNEXPECTED SCRATCH: We recently spent eight days of vacation in D.C., and on one night we luckily got to see rookie baseball pitching sensation Stephen Strasburg throw. When Strasburg is scheduled to pitch, the attendance at Washington Nationals games soars 15,000-20,000 over typical Nats home contests. So, Tuesday night, a sellout crowd was rolling into beautiful Nationals Park for the expected Strasburg outing (the Nationals announced it via the team e-mail several days back to drum up sales). Just before the start of the game, it was announced that Strasburg couldn't go. He could not loosen up his arm, for whatever reason; later it was reported he had an inflamed shoulder. Needless to say, a few thousand Nats fans who were disappointed they had chosen to skip a rerun of NCIS to hustle over to the ballpark showed their displeasure with loud booing.

What? Do you think Strasburg just didn't want to pitch? Understand that this is maybe the most precious commodity in all of DC. If he can't get loose, there is no reason to blow his season, or several seasons, running him out there to please a few thousand fans, even if they did pony up $50-$75 a ticket.

We've got to say, though, that Strasburg is probably being handled with kid gloves more so than any pitcher in baseball these days.

Strasburg only pitches six innings or so each start, usually being pulled before he goes over 100 pitches. The Nationals are keeping Strasburg to a 160-inning limit for the season (including his minor league work), so at 6 to 7 innings per start, that would give him 25 or so outings before they shut the 21-year-old down.

When he got through the sixth inning on the night we went, July 9, and the Nats already ahead of the Giants by five runs, fans began hustling out of the ballpark, many toward the great DC Metro that deposits you a short walk from the stadium and takes you back to all points around the district and the suburbs, fast and cheap. Great way to travel. We still remember, as a kid, the slow-moving traffic down Capitol Avenue back in the day for Senators game at RFK Stadium. Believe it or not, as poorly as those teams drew, it was still bumper to bumper. No wonder the Senators were supported so badly they bolted for Arlington, Texas, in 1971.

Nationals Park is a wonderful facility, built in the same open-concourse style found from smaller minor league parks (Dickey-Stephens here, for instance) to the fantastic PNC Park in Pittsburgh. A full bar sits on the open second level directly in centerfield, the action on the field in full view for everyone there, bartenders included. It may be the best situated bar anywhere.

While we were checking out the concourse after Strasburg's exit back on July 9, who passes by us with a couple of lackeys in tow but none other than James Carville, the political consultant who briefly (much of 1992) called downtown Little Rock his hangout.

Tagged: Ole Miss Rebels, Houston Nutt