trips right?

Blogger Ed Cone suggested I break up my morning posts to enable topic-specific commentary and promote cross-linking from other blogs. Ed's an old pro with tremendous blogosphere cred and experience...Here goes nothing. A max of four to five thoughts per post.

-- Yesterday's open thread produced 53 comments (!) and counting. I'm speechless. But very glad folks are finding this blog a site for intelligent and passionate conversation about college basketball.

-- More important than Salim Stoudamire's game winning three-pointer against UCLA was the sharp-shooting guard's attitude. After nearly falling into one of his famous funks, Stoudamire dug himself out of a mental hole during the halftime break, re-emerging to go 9-of-11 from the field in the second half and scoring 24 of the Wildcats' final 29 points.

-- Oregon State coach Jay John left yesterday's game against Washington in an ambulance and was hospitalized overnight Saturday after complaining about chest pains. No word this morning on how the 46-year-old coach is recovering.

-- Owing to the Fighting Illini's own strengths rather than Northwestern's weaknesses, Illinois is 18-0 and off to the school's best start in history. The AP story on the subject was picked up by nearly every paper in America. I picked it up from the Chicago Tribune.

-- Villanova can't buy a break. First, forward Curtis Sumpter, the 'Cats leading scorer and rebounder, goes down with a knee injury that will keep him out three to six weeks. Second, center Jason Fraser breaks his hand and will need four to six to weeks to recover. Third, the team's charter flight home from Providence experiences an instrument problem and has to make an emergency landing. Is it any wonder that Nova's bad luck has become some sort of meme, picked up by papers throughout New England? Gavin Keefe adds that Villanova players have had eight surgical procedures in the last 22 months. Ouch.