I got word late last night that Phil Anastasia was writing a piece for the package on the Spectrum closing about Christian Laettner's famous buzzer-beater against Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament.

So I started digging around to see if I could find a picture from the game in any of our archives. It took a while, but (thanks in no small part to the All-Star Game marathon) I was finally able to find one in color.

Take a look at this photo. It was taken by the Durham Herald-Sun's Chuck Liddy, but ended up in the Inquirer's archives somehow. I'm not complaining.

It's definitely of Laettner's shot - just look at the scoreboard.

You all tell me: was it the greatest shot in Spectrum history?

Sorry to bump down the Billy Packer post, but I just got the press release from St. Joe's about the Hawks' 2008-09 schedule and it includes some interesting games.

Of course, they're going to be playing all their games at the Palestra this season because of the Fieldhouse renovations. While specific dates and times weren't included in the email, we can still hope for some doubleheaders with Penn and St. Joe's.

And speaking of the Quakers, one of the Hawks' non-conference home games might draw some interest from folks in the neighborhood around 33rd Street.

The release is pretty short, so I'll just post it straight:

The Saint Joseph's men's basketball opponents have been announced for 2008-09, including the Atlantic 10 Conference slate in which the Hawks will play home and away games against local rival Temple, as well as Massachusetts and St. Bonaventure.

The Hawks will play home games only against A-10 opponents Charlotte, Duquesne, George Washington, Rhode Island and Xavier. Each of those games will be played at the historic Palestra, as SJU's Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse is undergoing construction the renovation and expansion project.

Saint Joseph's, which was the 2008 A-10 runner-up, will travel to Dayton, Fordham, Richmond and Saint Louis, while also visiting La Salle at the Palestra.

In non-conference action, SJU will host Creighton, Cornell, Drexel, Penn, Rider and Siena, and will visit Ball State, Holy Cross, Lehigh, Towson and Villanova.

Saint Joseph's will also participate in the 2008 EA Sports Maui Invitational, from November 24-26 at the Lahaina Civic Center. The tournament features a strong field in its 25th anniversary with SJU being joined by Alabama, Chaminade, Indiana, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Oregon and Texas.

We also now have the schedule information for La Salle, and the Explorers have dates listed for their non-conference games.

La Salle will start with three home games: an exhibition against Philadelphia University (Nov. 8), the season opener against Morgan State (Nov. 15) and a marquee matchup with Florida State (Nov. 18).

Then it's off to the Paradise Jam in St. Thomas to play Connecticut (Nov. 21) and two other games in a field that includes Miami and Wisconsin. That's going to be quite a week for the Explorers.

La Salle gets both non-conference Big 5 games at home: Villanova on Dec. 14 and Penn on Jan. 21. The other home non-conference games are Bucknell (Dec. 2), Rider (Dec. 17), Mount St. Mary's (Dec. 23), Manhattan (Dec. 31) and Howard (Jan. 3).

There are only two non-conference road games other than the Paradise Jam: at Hartford on Dec. 6 and at Cornell on Dec. 20.

The Explorers get Temple, George Washington, Massachusetts for their home-and-away games. They'll also host Dayton, Duquesne, Fordham, Richmond and St. Joe's, though as always they'll play the Hawks at the Palestra.

The other road games will be Charlotte, Rhode Island, St. Bonaventure, Saint Louis and Xavier.

You can read the rest of the A-10's home-and-away-game breakdown in PDF form here. And while we're at it, the Big East's conference game breakdown is here.

So what's the chance that Cornell wins the Big 5 and the Ivy League this season?

UPDATE 2: A new twist to the story that's big enough to go at the top of the post instead of the bottom. Apparently, this wasn't a spontaneous decision. Packer said this to the AP:

Well, that makes things a bit more interesting, doesn't it?

Now back to the original post...

---

I'm working on a feature post for either later this week or early next week, but we've got some big breaking news tonight:

The Miami Herald is reporting that Billy Packer is out at CBS.  

CBS has decided to replace Packer, 68, with studio analyst Clark Kellogg on its lead announcing team.

An announcement is expected Monday, but CBS representative Leslie Anne Wade confirmed the story Sunday night.

Discuss, please.

I remember talking about Packer with Mike Jensen at some point on the College HoopsCast though I forget which show. We generally agreed that Packer is a great analyst of what happens on the floor in the game, but his record in discussing things other than tactics is well-known.

A big part of that record is Packer's history with St. Joe's, and his putdowns of the Hawks during their unbeaten regular season in 2003-04. Though he may have softened his tone over the last year or so, there's no question he favored the BCS-conference teams over the mid-majors.

Having said that, I'm not willing to say the news of Packer's departure merits a big celebration - though Awful Announcing got the party horns out of the drawer pretty quickly.

I'd rather not say good riddance to a guy who has called more Final Fours than anyone else. Packer knows a heck of a lot about the game no matter what filters his knowledge has come through over the years.

So I hope you don't mind me leaning more towards the respectful side of things for now. There will be plenty of time later for me to tell you why I won't miss his rants about the state of the game.

(By the way, send a click to ACC Now after leaving your thoughts here, as that's where I found out about the story.)

UPDATE: It's official now; here's the AP story. Some quotes from the press release:

With his unquestioned popularity and performance over the years, Clark Kellogg earned all rights to this top spot,” said [CBS News and Sports President Sean] McManus. “Like Billy Packer, Al McGuire or any of the most highly regarded broadcasters, Clark is an original voice with his own style and perspective. We have been proud to have him lead our studio presence for many years and look forward to his fresh impact on CBS Sports’ coverage of college basketball for years to come.”

"Billy Packer has set the standard of excellence for over 30 years," added McManus. "I can’t express how important he has been, not only to CBS Sports and it’s coverage of college basketball, but also to the growth of this great sport. It is almost impossible to over-estimate his passion, knowledge and commitment to the game."

I'd been planning all along to attend the press conference this afternoon at which Temple introduced former Connecticut assistant Tonya Cardoza as its new head women's basketball coach.

I figured there would be a decent crowd from the media, given the lack of anything else going on in the city today, and that there would be the usual large assortment of Temple coaches and administrators.

But I did not expect at all to see Cardoza's old boss, Geno Auriemma, standing about three feet from the main door into the Fox Gittis Room at the Liacouras Center.

Yet there he was, back for a day in the region where he grew up and the city in which he won a national championship eight years ago.

It's a meausre of how far the Owls program rose under Dawn Staley that Temple could reach into the upper echelon of women's teams for its new coach. So is the fact that Cardoza is the first head coach in the history of the women's Big 5 with no personal roots in the Philadelphia area.

But Cardoza made it pretty clear that she knows what she's getting into here. In addition to Auriemma being from Norristown, Cardoza played at Virginia with Staley and was coached by another Philadelphia-area native, Debbie Ryan.

Mel Greenberg has more details of what Cardoza had to say over on his blog, Women's Hoops Guru.

I was there primarily to record the press conference and do a few interviews afterwards, and unfortunately the press conference audio didn't come through right. But I do have interviews with Cardoza, Auriemma and Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw that you can listen to.

One thing worth mentioning on here from Cardoza's remarks during the press conference is that she considers herself an offensive coach first, and described Staley as a defensive coach.

As part of that, Cardoza said she wants to run a motion offense and push the tempo more often. Given how much Staley talked to John Chaney, I wonder if Cardoza and Fran Dunphy will share tips about running plays.

[ Listen with own player ]

 

Temple AD Bill Bradshaw talks about Tonya Cardoza

 

Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma talks about Tonya Cardoza

(With apologies to Peter King...)

I will admit that I don't follow the NBA nearly as much as I do the college game. But between what I saw in this year's playoffs and what I saw and read while running the website during the draft last night, I'm reasonably convinced that Marreese Speights was a good pick for the 76ers.

Granted, I heard the same questions about Speights' work ethic and conditioning from friends last night as the Daily News' Phil Jasner did, and Jasner noted them in his story this morning.

But if the Sixers wanted a big man who could play an up-tempo game, when you look at the the players left on the board Speights is a much better choice than Roy Hibbert or Kosta Koufos.

Hibbert in particular is a player we've all seen a lot, and we all know that he's incredibly skilled and plenty capable of scoring inside. But he lacks that mean streak that you have to have to really force your way through the lane in the NBA, and I'm not sure he'll be a star as a pro.

Then again, if the Raptors are able to succeed with the style of game in which Hibbert functions best, it will mean very good things for the quality of basketball in the NBA.

(In other words, one of the reasons why I don't like the NBA as much as the college game is that so much of the pro style is based on driving to the basket for dunks. I'm much more a fan of the perimeter-basd game, where teams have to actually pass the ball and shoot it well.

Some of the NBA teams do it, Phoenix in particular as we all know. But many still don't, especially in the Eastern Conference.)

Elsewhere nationally, I wonder how many of you were surprised that Miami actually took Michael Beasley. There was so much talk about them not doing so that I really didn't expect it.

I think Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant are going to make a great tandem in Seattle, and I'd like to think D.J. Augustin will thrive in Charlotte. But the Bobcats have drafted a lot of great college players over the last few years and the team still isn't any good.

Also as regards Charlotte, did a team that already has Raymond Felton really need to draft Augustin and Kyle Weaver?

I'll be very interested to see if the Nets can get Chris Douglas-Roberts, Brook Lopez and Yi Jianlan on the floor at the same time. Those two plus Vince Carter and Devin Harris could make for a pretty good five.

And I bet Yi is going to get more attention in his first week in the New York area than he did all last season in Milwaukee. I went to the Nets' website this morning and they are already offering (in English and Chinese) a free Yi jersey to anyone who buys a season ticket.

I think Darrell Arthur is really going to like playing with Chris Paul, and I think Kevin Love is going to really like playing with Kyle Lowry and Mike Conley. But I'll be very interested to see who else plays with Love in Memphis' front court.

I think Jason Thompson and Sean Singletary are going to enjoy each other's company in Sacramento, but I'm not at all convinced the Kings are going to be any good any time soon.

I think D.J. White, who was a great post defender in college, is going to do very well playing on the same team as Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and Antonio McDyess.

I'm a little surprised that Joey Dorsey fell to the second round, but Portland's frontcourt just got even scarier: Dorsey, Greg Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge and Channing Frye.

And finally, a few word about the players not drafted. I bet Xavier's Josh Duncan finds a place to play, and Philadelphia would be a fine place by me -- even if it causes a traffic jam at small forward.

I hope Butler's Mike Green gets an NBA deal, and the same for Pat Calathes. But I think Green is much more likely to get his money from the NBA than Calathes because he's a point guard.

I think Calathes will make a lot of money in Europe, and there's nothing wrong with that -- not least because the the Euro is beating the stuffing out of the dollar right now. But small forwards are easier to find than point guards.

The other guy who I think might latch on somewhere in the NBA is Clemson's James Mays. He's built like a truck and proved last season that he could score against good ACC defenses.

I'm headed out of town for the weekend, so chew on all that and feel free to tell me why I'm wrong.

I guess when you're Robin Lopez and you've just been drafted by one of the NBA's best teams, it doesn't really matter how the cap sits on your head.

Still, that's pretty funny.

I'll post my thoughts on the 76ers' pick of Marreese Speights, as well as the fortunes of the local players in this year's draft, if I can actually get some spare time this weekend.

My early reactions are that Speights is a pretty good pick and that you have to be happy for Rider's Jason Thompson, the Lenape native who got picked 12th by Sacramento.

It shows just how good Thompson is that he wasn't among the big mid-major stars this past season - and didn't make the NCAA Tournament at all during his time at Rider - but is a lottery pick in the NBA.

And I think we might fairly say good riddance without having to sticking our necks out all that far.

As the Associated Press reports:

Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan will resign at the end of December amid new NCAA allegations that the school failed to monitor the men's basketball team. 

And here's a great quote from him:

"I am aware that I have become the focus of criticism, which will continue to distract Indiana University from its core educational mission," Greenspan said in a statement released by the school. "Consequently, I believe a new person will be in a stronger position to lead IU athletics moving forward and it is in IU's best interests for me to stand down."

Yes, that's quite possible. 

_{A Russian fan in a sea of Oranje at St. Jakob Park in Basel. (Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images)}

Let's play a little game. I have a hunch that there are quite a few people out there (yes, that assumes I have readers) who follow both soccer and college sports. So I'd like to try this comparison out on you.

I have been glued to my TV and computer (during work hours, which thankfully my boss doesn't mind) watching every game of Euro 2008, and like many soccer fans I've been enthralled by almost every minute of it.

Yet I can't help being a little bit dismayed with the teams who've made the semi-finals so far: Germany, Turkey, and Russia. We'll find out tomorrow whether Spain or Italy joins them to round out the final four.

When I watch college basketball, I like seeing mid-majors do well. I'm always thrilled by big upsets in the NCAA Tournament, even (okay, not quite always) when they blow my bracket to smithereens.

But when I watch international soccer, much like when I watch college football, I want to see the superpowers win.

In the case of college football, I think it's because I'm attracted to the big crowds and the traditions and the marching band and stuff like that. It's not something I've ever been able to feel a close connection to, which is part of the reason why I don't write about Penn State much on here.

In soccer, though, I don't know why I root for the big teams. Not least because often times -- including this year -- the supposedly 'lesser' nations play more skilful, creative soccer.

Russia has been a prime example of that of late, led by their slick attacking midfielder Andrei Arshavin (hat tip to Washington Post soccer guru Steven Goff for the video). Soccer America columnist Paul Gardner even argued this week that Russia's play has been more attractive than what was seen in the recent Brazil-Argentina game.

This year, the little guys have finally won. It's the soccer equivalent of George Mason's run to the 2006 Final Four -- but with two mid-majors still alive instead of one.

Turkey's comeback-and-penalty shootout win over Croatia yesterday and Russia's equally stunning victory against the Netherlands this afternoon sent two of the tournament's biggest names crashing out in completely unexpected fashion.

There's not much question that Russia outplayed the Dutch -- whose uniforms are among the coolest in sports -- today, and there's not much question that Turkey's series of comeback wins has made for a really thrilling storyline.

But I can't help thinking that Italy or Spain -- which thumped Russia, 4-1, in the group stage -- will have an easy time in the semis. The same goes for Germany, which will face a Turkey team minus a number of its stars who've been suspended for the game due to yellow card accumulation.

Remember how George Mason got blown out by Florida in Indianapolis? The disparity in talent isn't that big this time around, but it's not insignificant.

(For those of you who don't follow soccer, Russia is a superpower politically but not so much on the pitch. The last time they were any good, they were still the Soviet Union when they made the 1988 European Championship final -- and lost to the Netherlands on a goal by Marco Van Basten, who concluded his tenure as the Dutch coach today.)

So, you tell me: What kind of semifinal and championship clashes do you like?

Are you more attracted to George Mason or North Carolina playing in the Final Four? In the BCS, would you rather see Boise State or USC on the big stage? And in soccer, would you rather see Russia or the Netherlands playing for a spot in the final?

I was over by Franklin Field a few days ago running an errand, and as the temperatures kept rising football was the farthest thing from my mind.

But despite it being only the first week of June, Awful Announcing has given us reason to start talking about the upcoming college football season.

So forget about the fact that we'll be sweltering in 90-degree-plus heat next week, and check out these ACC and SEC matchups that will kick off the fall. There are quite a few blockbusters, and an early one that should have some local interest.

Thursday, August 28

8:00 p.m., ESPN: N.C. State at South Carolina

Saturday, August 30

3:30 p.m., ABC: USC at Virginia
3:45 p.m., ESPNU: - Delaware at Maryland (Any Blue Hens fans on here?)
5:00 p.m., ESPN: Appalachian State at LSU (Can they do it again? Maybe not in Baton Rouge...)
8:00 p.m., ABC: Alabama vs. Clemson in Atlanta

Sunday, August 31

3:30 p.m., ESPN: Kentucky at Louisville (A great rivalry and a very high-scoring game recently)

Monday, September 1

8:00 p.m., ESPN: Tennessee at UCLA (Rick Neuheisel's debut at the Rose Bowl)

Saturday, September 6

3:30 p.m., ABC: Mississippi at Wake Forest (Houston Nutt's first road test with Ole Miss)
3:45 p.m., ESPNU: Richmond at Virginia (The Spiders made the I-AA semis last season)
8 p.m., ESPN: Miami at Florida (A rivalry worthy of prime time in the Swamp)

Sat., Sept. 13

12:00 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2: California at Maryland (How will Cal be without new Eagle DeSean Jackson?)
3:30 p.m., ABC: Arkansas at Texas (Another rivalry game loaded with history and tradition)

Sat., Sept. 20

8:00 p.m., ABC: Georgia at Arizona State (The Bulldogs could well start the season ranked No. 1)

There's also Auburn at West Virginia on Thursday, Oct. 23 (7:30 p.m., ESPN), which is a bit of an odd time of year for an inter-sectional game if you aren't Notre Dame.

But still, what a test for the Mountaineers in Bill Stewart's first season at the helm. You have to wonder how many couches will be burned in Morgantown that night if West Virginia pulls off the upset.

What a haul of games this is. Hard to not get excite about it, even with an entire summer ahead.