Certain Unpleasantness

A few items...

-- At some point late in the hockey game last night (about midway through the third, I think), the NBC broadcast cut to a shot of the white-gloved Stanley Cup keeper guy as he was removing the Cup from its carrying case. Keeper guy gently put the Cup onto a nearby table and began to wipe a smudge with a handkerchief.

It was right there, man. The Canes were so close. I'm pretty sure I'm losing my mind.

Prior to game five, I tried to reign in my excitement--tried to remind myself that the Hurricanes could in fact lose the game. When the White Sox were up 3-0 on Houston last October, the prospect of a championship made a realistic consideration of defeat impossible. The same proved true in the hours preceding game five. I'm paying for it now.

So thank goodness for The Onion: Stanley Cup Celebrations

1983: Avid fisherman Mike Bossy of the Islanders uses it as a lure, and successfully catches the biggest, most Candian fish in history

-- Sidney Lowe held a press conference today, and the News & Observer has plenty of quotes:

Without knowingly taking a shot at Sendek, or referring to him by name, Lowe made two statements that would indicate that his regime will be different than Herb’s Prince-State offense.

(Note: Lowe even showed how out-of-touch he is with the college game by referring to "Vegas" as in UNLV, which hasn’t been good in 15 years.)

"I like to get up and down the floor," Lowe said. "I like to have a little pace in the game. Not like Vegas, it’s not a run-and-gun but I like for the guys to get it down the floor and try to get quick hitters.

"That doesn’t mean 3-point shots. That means maybe the bigs run the floor and get it early enough where teams can’t double. We want to be able to also to pull it back and run sets."

UNLV played at an average pace in 05-06. Sid should know it's the system that is ultimately important to Wolfpack fans, not the pace. When he installs his more "traditional" scheme, no one's going to notice if we aren't playing at a fast tempo. It won't be Herb's three-heavy offense, and that'll be enough.

-- Cedric Simmons worked out for New Orleans on Thursday. The Hornets have the 12th and 15th selections in the first round.

"Our No. 1 objective right now is to get somebody that's something that we haven't had the last couple of years, and that's somebody that can flat out rebound and block shots," Hornets coach Byron Scott said. "If we can get that 6-11 or 7-foot type guy, it makes us a better rebounding team and it makes us a better defensive team and those are the two areas that we want to get better.

"And then we'll add offense, we know that."

Later in the article, Scott unintentionally offered a not-so-ringing endorsement of Larry Owens and Wake's Justin Gray:

"Both those guys will do pretty well," Scott said. "I think they'll be successful in the NBA or NBDL or overseas or something, but I think both of them will be all right."

You know, they'll be good somewhere. Overseas or at the YMCA or something.

-- Dan Werner won't be enrolling at NC State this fall. Werner was in Raleigh last weekend, and the fact that he didn't recommit to State was a good indication that he was heading elsewhere.

Seton Hall tampered with Larry Davis--successfully. I have a feeling that the finalists for Werner's services (Kentucky and Florida) tampered with Dan.

-- Schools ranked by number of appearances in the AP's college football poll. NC State checks in a #48.