Monday Items

-- Per this report, NC State plans to hire Kellie Harper as its new women's basketball coach.

BasketballScoop has learned that NC State plans to hire Kellie Harper as their new head coach. We expect an announcement early this week. Harper has been the head coach at Western Carolina for the past 5 seasons, accumulating a 97-65 record over that time.

The Hartford Courant's John Altavilla also suggested yesterday that Harper is the leading candidate.

-- Caught this while I was scanning through the news:

Coach Charita Stubbs refused to comment following the tournament.

"As long as I'm at N.C. State, you guys are never talking to me again," Stubbs said.

Stubbs has not spoken to Technician since mid-October due to an editorial cartoon about the volleyball team which ran Oct. 14.

I hope she eventually changes her mind about that since the Technician is pretty much the only local media outlet willing to give her team some ink. See the cartoon in question right here.

-- The baseball team desperately needed to take two-of-three from Boston College and Duke these past two weekends, and they put themselves in position to do just that but blew the Sunday rubber match in both cases. BC rallied from a 10-2 deficit to take game three and the series last Sunday; yesterday, Duke scored three in the bottom of the 10th inning to win 8-7 and take the series. State now sits in 10th place in the ACC, a full two games behind 8th-place Duke, which, obviously, holds the tie-breaker. They have to claw back into that #8 spot just to make the ACC tournament, and they'll have to do it by going through Florida State, UNC, Virginia, and Clemson--four of the seven teams with winning records in conference play.

-- If you missed it, check out the highlights from the NCAA hockey championship game.