I guess Allen Crabbe will not be getting the valuable international experience we were hoping he would. The reigning Pac-10/12 Freshman of the Year was injured during scrimmage at the U-19 USA Basketball tryouts in Colorado Springs, Co. on Saturday.

Crabbe posted on his Twitter feed that he was coming home. See his conversation with Cal teammate Justin Cobbs after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

There is a mini flame war going on between former Stanfurd basketball player Ryan Mendez and Cal's head of basketball ops John Montgomery, son of Mike Montgomery. Basically Mendez says Monty nixed a Nike deal while at Stanfurd which prevented the players from getting free gear and is now bellyaching. Plus some other junk.

Some nuggets from here:

DYK - Our coach at Stanford would not allow us to wear Jordan Brand sneakers despite Nike's offer. Coach said he didn't want to be indebted

I guess that didn't stop him from cashing Nike's paycheck. Now he's sponsored by Jordan Brand. #notcool @johnmontycal

@JohnMontyCal, i'm trying to say that your dad needs to reflect on the past and how he treated people.

@johnmontycal, Do you think people would like to know how he treated Coach Oliver? How many players did he help after graduation? #ZERO

@johnmontycal, crazy thing is, every former #Stanford player feels the same way about ur pops.

Interesting. Next move will be for Yuna Kim to drop herself and announce her retirement.

The Korea Times

Olympic figure skating gold medalist Kim Yu-na, 20, has parted ways with her coach Brian Orser, 49, the agency representing Orser announced Tuesday. 

In a press release, IMG said Kim's mother, Park Mee-hee, and Kim's South Korean agency AT Sports informed Orser on Aug. 2 that "he would no longer be retained to coach Kim."

"No reason was given for the sudden and unexpected decision," the statement read. 
“At the present time Kim continues to train at the Cricket Club in Toronto, Canada."

I was looking at the roster on the official Cal hoops site and came across a name I hadn't seen before: Jeff Powers. Is this where the last scholarship is going?

Looks like he played in high school with Brandon Smith at De La Salle and was a redshirt at Denver. (Sun Belt-errific!)  Yahoo Sports shows him on the roster but the school's official site does not. But the most interesting thing was his measurements: 6'9" and he's a guard. Holy Hell. But at 215 lbs, he has Zhang-like proportions.

Maybe I'm stupid and you all have heard of him already but there is no number listed beside his name, unlike transfer Robert Thurman (#32), so I'm assuming he's a newbie. The only question now is whether or not he's a recruited walk-on or the recipient of what I understand will be the last scholarship for the 2010 recruiting class.

Anyway, there doesn't seem to be much on the web about him, here's some photos from MaxPreps and a few mentions of him from high school games. I'm guessing recruited walk-on.

Scoop of the year! You heard it here first!

The toll from skating at the Winter Olympics days after her mother's death finally has worn down bronze medalist Joannie Rochette.

The Canadian champion withdrew Monday from next week's World Figure Skating Championships in Turin, Italy.

"With everything that has happened over the past few weeks, I have missed a significant amount of training time," Rochette said in a statement. "That means I'm not prepared either emotionally or physically to skate well at these championships and once again challenge for the podium.

-AP

LINK

via img1.sankakustatic.com

Apparently some Japanese bloggers have mocked up some images to parody the super popular video game Street Fighter II with our favorite figure skaters. Seems pretty fun, but I wish I could read Japanese.

via images.uncyc.org

Continue reading this post »