Ole Miss stormed from 15 points back with 10 minutes left to claim a huge 75-71 win over South Carolina Saturday at Tad Smith Coliseum. Meanwhile, at the Manning Center, Ole Miss hosted its first junior day of the 2015 recruiting season. Oh yeah, the NFL played its Super Bowl game in New Jersey. So, you know, just another weekend. Here are my 10 thoughts from the weekend that was.
1. Ole Miss couldn't lose to South Carolina. It just couldn't. For 30 minutes Saturday, however, things looked bleak for Andy Kennedy and Co. The Rebels were just getting pounded in every facet of the game by South Carolina, and those bubbly NCAA tournament hopes were just about to pop.
Then the Rebels found new life. Jarvis Summers and Marshall Henderson took over. LaDarius White stepped up. Aaron Jones made a huge play. A 29-10 run gave Ole Miss a win and set up a huge week of opportunity.
The Rebels play at Kentucky Tuesday night and then play host to Missouri on Saturday afternoon. The game at Rupp is a free shot. The one against the Tigers isn't. Ole Miss has no bad losses. It now needs some impressive wins. A 1-1 mark this week would be strong. A 2-0 week would be the stuff of legends and would put the Rebels on a clear path to its second straight NCAA tournament. An 0-2 slate, however, would hurt. It's February. It's time to win significant games and impress the committee.
After Saturday, there is still plenty of reason to be hopeful and optimistic if you're an Ole Miss fan. For example, White continues to show a willingness to take big shots. He came off the bench to score 12 points Saturday.
"Snoop's a big X-factor," Kennedy said. "Y'all ask about him a lot. I ask about him a lot. I started Anthony (Perez) to try to flip Snoop's mojo a little bit, to maybe get his mind in a little different place. We need more. He can give us more and (Saturday) down the stretch, I thought he was huge."
Jones made a monster play in the final minute, gathering a loose ball near the basket, hitting a layup, drawing the foul and then coverting the free throw. Jones finished with 11 points, four rebounds and two blocked shots.
"I told him at the last timeout, 'Dude, stop looking around for Murphy (Holloway) and Reg (Buckner). They're gone. You're the guy. Go make a play. I need you to make a play. I need you to go get a ball. We can't ask (Sebastian Saiz) to do it or Coleby to do it. They've never been in this circumstance before. You've had limited experience. However, that's all we've got, bro, so you've got to go make a play,'" Kennedy said. "I was happy for him. He worked for us and he kept balls alive and for him to be able to make that play down the stretch was huge."
Marshall Henderson continues to make big shots when his team needs them most. Henderson was 7-for-11 from the floor and 2-of-9 from the 3-point line Saturday, but his hot start and strong finish were critical for a team that appeared to be grasping for energy at times.
"I know Marshall Henderson gets beat up a lot, but I'm telling you, he's one of my favorite players," South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. "His charisma, his enthusiasm, the way he elevates his team in difficult moments is special."
2. Still, Ole Miss' MVP this season is Summers. The junior point guard had 15 points and eight assists Saturday, playing 37 stressed minutes against South Carolina's physical defensive style.
"He's been playing like a first-team all-league player," Kennedy said. "He really has. I played him for 37 minutes (Saturday). I'm trying to get a lot out of him. I've got to manage him better, quite frankly, so that he has the energy that I need him to have down the stretch. He's a very good player who works extremely hard. He's been doing this for us from Game 1. He's been our most consistent guy. It couldn't happen to a better kid."
Summers' development and emergence as one of the SEC's best players is one of the best storylines of the season. The Jackson, Miss., product is playing with confidence. He's hitting perimeter shots and creating off the dribble. He has, as Kennedy said Saturday, emerged as an ideal college point guard.
"He's gotten stronger," Kennedy said. "He's really improved. He's an efficient guy. (Saturday) he goes 6-for-11, 1-for-2 (from the 3-point line). He missed some free throws, but he's really been efficient for us. He's not a glamorous guy. He's not going to jet by you. He's not going to go over the top. He's going to make the right play. We have to do a good job of putting him in a position where he can be successful and then let him do him."
From the opposing bench's perspective, Summers has matured.
"He's a year older," Martin said. "He plays for a hell of a coach. I coach my team and obviously, I follow my friends in the business. Last year was his first year as a fulltime point guard for them. It's what I just told my freshman point guard (Duane Notice). I said, 'You played your tail off for about 34 minutes and then you got passive. You can't do that.' Jarvis went through those moments last year. He's not like that anymore. He's a hard guard and he's playing with unbelievable confidence. That's a credit to that young man and those coaches."
3. National Signing Day is Wednesday. Effective Wednesday, I'll no longer have to hear about secret visitors, private commitments and all other forms of stealthy recruiting. Instead, we'll get to actually talk about what the Rebels did accomplish and where they might have come up short.
Ole Miss is going to finish with a top-20 (maybe top-15) class. It's not going to include the drama and media coverage of a year ago, but it's a solid class that meets needs and should serve as a building block for years to come. Ole Miss dominated the state of Mississippi, added key players at areas of great need and --- I know this sounds corny and cliche --- appear to have focused on landing high-character kids.
Markell Pack will help immediately at wide receiver. Sammie Epps should do the same at tight end. I was impressed from Day One by defensive lineman Breeland Speaks. Rod Taylor has a huge upside. C.J. Hampton should be a star. Fahn Cooper should step in and earn a starting spot on the offensive line.
Fans focused a lot on Bo Scarbrough and Malachi Dupre in the final weeks. That's understandable; they're both five-star prospects that have drawn lots of attention and accolades. However, classes are defined by their depth and by the needs filled and not filled.
My opinion with 72 hours until National Signing Day: Ole Miss probably would have liked to have landed an impact running back in this class (perhaps Akeem Judd will be that guy, but the Rebels covet/coveted Scarbrough) and it will probably be difficult for Hugh Freeze and Co. to look at Notre Dame's signing day list and see Nyles Morgan's name, knowing he was basically a Rebel for months before a family change of heart back in December.
The page has already turned to 2015. The calendar moves up every year, and the meat of the Rebels' 2015 class will be fleshed out over the next four months. There will always be late recruiting drama, but more and more, prospects are making their decisions earlier. That trend is only strengthening. That's why Saturday's junior day was important. Ole Miss is already off to a solid start in the race for the top prospects in Mississippi, and there's no doubt that Freeze and Co. will go big-game hunting once again. Fans have to understand; landing those prospects is difficult. Every major program puts its best foot forward. The prospect can only sign one NLI.
4. Speaking of late-cycle drama, I laughed at the story making the rounds late last week about LSU assistant Cam Cameron scheduling a flight to Los Angeles that just happened to coincide with the official visits of three south Louisiana prospects to UCLA.
Cameron flew to Los Angeles on the same flight Dupre, Kenny Young and Davon Godchaux took to begin their official visit to UCLA this past weekend. It was perfectly legal, as was the fact that Cameron took the same flight back to New Orleans from Los Angeles Sunday.
Cameron's actions aren't new. Former UCLA coach Bob Toledo, in a story in the Los Angeles Times, recalled a moment while leaving the House of Blues with recruits. He ran into then-USC assistant Ed Orgeron, who was escorting another batch of recruits into the restaurant.
"It was the damnedest thing I had ever seen," Toledo told The Times. "They start talking to our recruits in the parking lot and I was getting mad. We were talking to their recruits too. We ended up with Marcedes Lewis out of that group. They got Darnell Bing."
Bottom line: Recruiting is crazy.
5. I said all week the Super Bowl wouldn't define Peyton Manning's legacy, and I still don't think it should. Manning could walk away from the game following Sunday's loss to the Seattle Seahawks and he'd be considered one of the top five quarterbacks to ever take a snap in the NFL.
That said, I'm not sure I'll ever forget his ineptitude against the Seahawks. I always felt Manning took too much blame for the Colts' loss to the Saints in his last Super Bowl appearance (after all, Reggie Wayne cut his route short and Tracy Porter jumped the route perfectly), but boy oh boy, Sunday's performance in East Rutherford, N.J., will linger for a long time. Manning's consolation: He has five MVP awards and more than $217 million in on-field earnings. He'll be OK.
On the flip side, you know that cliche about defense winning championships? Yeah, well, Seattle agrees. The Seawhawks took away the Broncos' running game, harassed Manning from the edge and intimidated Denver's receivers in the secondary. It was total domination.
Quick question: Speaking of legacies, what does Sunday's Super Bowl championship do for Pete Carroll's? Carroll put this team together, rolled the dice on Russell Wilson at quarterback and did a superb job of navigating through a postseason that included wins over New Orleans, San Francisco and now Denver. Carroll won big at USC and now is a Super Bowl champion. That's rarified air, a group that only includes Carroll, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer.
6. The Super Bowl is so much more than football. With that in mind, here are all of the ads from the big game (http://screen.yahoo.com/big-game-ads/) and my thoughts on the rest of Super Sunday
A. Kudos to FOX. Having NFL players and coaches read the Declaration of Independence was a beautiful touch. I'm of the opinion every American should read it every year. The men who wrote it and signed it were courageous heroes.
B. I loved the Turbo Tax commercial. As a guy who never had a date to the prom, I was happy for the guy who got the big check. Screw you, Sean. Loser.
C. Good to see you, Jesse Pinkman. God knows you deserved that ride.
D. I've been thinking about getting some Beats headphones. But Ellen Degeneres? Really? Why? I think I'll wait.
E. Alf, Teen Wolf and Hulk Hogan all made appearances in the Radio Shack commercial. It's time for an all-new Radio Shack, sure, but I sort of liked the trip down Memory Lane.
F. Damn, Chevy made me cry at the end of the first quarter. Here's to everyone fighting cancer. I'm one of the lucky ones. My mom, Judy McCready, beat breast cancer and is with me today. Others aren't so lucky.
G. Tim Tebow's T-Mobile commercial was fantastic. "Nervous father is the Mike!" Excellent.
H. I loved Bruno Mars' performance. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were OK, but frankly, I would have liked more of the 5-foot-5 Hawaiian. You do wonder if Manning could hear "Give it away, give it away, give it away now," in the Broncos' locker room. If he could, he had to think it was just another cruel joke on what had to be one of the worst nights of his lie.
I. If you paid for a commercial in the second half Sunday, you likely didn't get your money's worth. I stopped paying attention. I couldn't have been alone.
J. Most of America got to know Russell Wilson on Sunday night. He's going to be around awhile, and apparently, he's every bit as good as advertised, both on and off the field. Here's a wonderful story from ESPN.com about Wilson's off-field activities in Seattle. http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/story?storyId=10371865&src=desktop&wjb
K. The backlash against Coca-Cola regarding its multi-lingual "America the Beautiful" commercial was sad to watch unfold. I thought it was a sweet advertisement and a generally forgettable spot. It certainly didn't deserve a vitriolic, profane response.
L. Welcome home, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Chuck Nadd. Every soldier deserves that homecoming. #Budweiser
7. Derek Fisher is hoping he's watching history repeat itself. The Oklahoma City Thunder's veteran guard won five NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers, including a 2001 title that came after Kobe Bryant missed the last 10 games of the regular season and watched while Shaquille O'Neal and the Lakers forged a winning identity without him.
Fisher has been playing a key role off the bench for the Thunder, which won 10 games in a row before Saturday night's loss at Washington. The Thunder enters Monday's game against Memphis with the league's second-best record, and it's done it with Russell Westbrook recovering from a knee surgery performed Dec. 26.
There's a post-All-Star break target date set for Westbrook, sources told Yahoo Sports ? as soon as Feb. 20, when the Thunder host the Miami Heat. Fisher believes Westbrook will return and play the role of Bryant while Kevin Durant plays the role O'Neal played 13 years ago.
Fisher told Yahoo.com he witnessed something of a Bryant epiphany prior to those playoffs, something that he's watched welling within Westbrook now.
"We finished the regular season on an eight-game winning streak, and that's when we rode through the postseason only losing that one time, just Game 1 of the Finals," Fisher told Yahoo Sports on Friday night. "I've seen this before: Star player misses a short period, sees something while they're out that completely changes the way that they see the game. And when they come back, it's easier for them ? and they make it easier for everyone else. I saw that with Russell.
Listen, Russell was chasing triple-doubles every night before he went out, that's what people forget. The way we're playing now, the way we're feeling, that was going on with Russell."
All around the Thunder franchise, per the Yahoo! story, there's a belief the best of Durant and Westbrook ? the best of these Thunder ? comes with the final weeks of the regular season and a playoff run into June. That knee is strong again, Westbrook's meniscus problems behind him, and it is merely precaution that's keeps him out until after the All-Star break this month, according to Yahoo!, citing sources.
"What's most intriguing about Russell's return is that even at the level we're playing at now, we'll be better," Fisher told Yahoo! "He's going to make us better."
Other thoughts from the week that was in the NBA:
A. When the Indiana Pacers signed Andrew Bynum late last week, it was another move made to prepare for the late-May series with the Miami Heat, one that will almost certainly send one team to the NBA Finals. Bynum had considered the Heat as well. He might end up playing no role in Indiana, but he could end up being the Pacers' answer to Greg Oden, the Heat's reserve center.
B. Memphis beat Milwaukee without point guard Mike Conley Saturday, but Conley's ankle injury has to worry the Grizzlies. Memphis enters Monday's game in Oklahoma City tied with Dallas for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference, just two games behind Golden State and 3 ½ games ahead of Denver and Minnesota. A really strong Western Conference team isn't making the playoffs, and injuries will likely determine that. Memphis needs to make sure it gets Conley back, but it needs to make sure it waits until he's not in danger of a more serious injury.
C. Speaking of Conley, he belonged on the NBA All-Star team. So did New Orleans' Anthony Davis and Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka. However, only 12 make it, and it's hard to argue any of the selected players in the West didn't deserve it. The talent level in the NBA is very high these days.
D. Slowly but surely, the Eastern Conference is shaping up. Atlanta is playing very well these days. So is Toronto. Washington whipped the Thunder Saturday behind strong efforts from John Wall and Nene Hilario. The Bulls have solidified without Luol Deng, and Brooklyn was playing very well before a blowout loss to Oklahoma City Friday night. It'll still be the Heat and Pacers at the end, but the Eastern Conference playoffs are going to be better than we once thought.
8. Major League Baseball approved a new padded cap that will protect the heads of pitchers line drives last week. The only problem is the players, even those who have been injured by line drives rocketing off bats in big league games, won't wear them.
ESPN.com's Jayson Stark spoke Tuesday with three pitchers whose skulls have been fractured by baseballs that collided with their heads at way too high a rate of speed ? Brandon McCarty McCarthy (now of the Diamondbacks), Chris Young of the Nationals and McCarthy's Arizona teammate, Brad Ziegler. They all said the same thing. The new hat is a cool idea, one that offers real protection. However, it's just not something that was designed in a way that pretty much any major leaguer would ever promote or wear it.
"That's what I told them," McCarthy told ESPN.com. "I said I simply don't think anybody is going to wear it.. I won't wear it in its current form. Look, if there's something out there that meets the safety standards and is not going to hinder performance, guys will wear it. Guys do care about safety now. Everyone is starting to understand the importance of brain injuries and head injuries. And nobody is more at risk than pitchers. But, I'm not overly optimistic."
The cap looks funny, pitchers told Stark. It feels funny, wiggles on their heads when they move and makes their heads sweat.
"Ultimately, it's about performance," Young told ESPN.com. "And to perform, you've got to feel good in your uniform. And if you're uncomfortable with what you're wearing out there, it's going to take away from your performance."
"I think it would take a long time to get used to," Ziegler said. "It's not real heavy, so it's not the weight. It's how much it sticks out around the side. So you see it out of the corner of your eye."
McCarthy spent the past eight months working with MLB and 4Licensing Corp., developers of this cap. So he's worn it more than anyone -- and had major issues with it when he tried throwing, running and wearing it while doing baseball activities.
"It's something where, if you just put it on your head, you don't feel that," McCarthy told Stark. "But if you're not sweating with it and moving with it on the field, you don't understand how awkward it feels. It looks kind of like a train conductor's hat, or, actually, like a newsboy hat. It bows up at the side. So you don't get that sense of it fitting you snugly. If your head moves a tick, your hat moves a tick. You feel it. You notice it."
Eventually, a cap will be developed that will protect players and they'll actually wear it. Until then, we all hold our breath, hoping against hope that the next time someone is hit like McCarthy, Young and Ziegler have been, the results won't be the worst-case scenario.
9. The Toronto Maple Leafs traded defenseman Mark Fraser to the Edmonton Oilers for forward Cameron Abney and the rights to restricted free agent Teemu Hartikainen on Friday.
Fraser appeared in 19 games for Toronto this season and hadn't dressed for the past 11. Fraser played in 45 games last season, with eight assists and 85 penalty minutes.
Here are my thoughts from the week that was in the NHL:
A. I'm kidding. I have no idea. I just wanted to get a rise out of some of the same people who throw a fit each week about me writing about the NBA.
9 (the real one). A potentially big story was born in Evanston, Ill., last week when it was reported that college athletes at Northwestern are seeking representation by a labor union.
The move by Northwestern football players to join the United Steelworkers union is unprecedented by college athletes, but old news among University of California system graduate student instructors, per the Los Angeles Times' Bill Plaschke.
"We've been there, done that, and it works," UC Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken told The Times.
According to Shaiken, the unionization of college football players can happen because, in a sense, it's already happened.
"What the Northwestern athletes are doing is an innovative, long-overdue move," Shaiken told The Times. "It's not only smart, but possible."
Labor experts say Tuesday's announcement is the first real step toward fairness. As Plaschke wrote Sunday, "the big-time college sports world veered onto this groundbreaking course when Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA linebacker and president of the National College Players Association, filed a petition on behalf of the Northwestern football players with the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board.
His group is supported by a United Steelworkers union, which was once the home of sports union pioneer Marvin Miller. The face of the movement is former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, who is being backed by at least 30 percent of Northwestern players.
This is not some wristband protest or rhetorical filibuster. This is real. And although labor experts warn that the universities and the NCAA could fight this movement all the way to federal court, the message and mandate are clear enough to hasten change."
Among the complaints listed by Huma was the allowing of removal of scholarships from injured players and The announcement was made at a Chicago news conference during which Huma attacked the NCAA for, among other things, allowing the removal of scholarships from injured players and the lacking of a legal obligation to properly protect them from concussions. Huma didn't specifically ask for salaries for student-athletes, but there's a sense that's coming.
"College athletes continue to be subject to unjust and unethical treatment in NCAA sports despite the extraordinary value they bring to their universities," Huma said at the news conference, adding, "The current model represents a dictatorship."
The NCAA, as you might expect, has disagreed.
"This union-backed attempt to turn student-athletes into employees undermines the purpose of college ? an education," Donald Remy, NCAA chief legal officer, said in a statement.
Paying student-athletes is problematic. Making them salaried employees has tax implications. How many players at Northwestern, for example, could afford to pay taxes on the value of their scholarships? There are Title IX issues, affordability issues. In short, the issue is a convoluted mess.
Just don't be surprised if what happened at Northwestern Tuesday begins to happen all over the country. Student-athletes want, at the very least, a seat at the proverbial table. The NCAA, it stands to reason, would be wise to make sure that accommodation, if nothing else, is granted.
10. Football season is over. Meaningful games won't be played again until Aug. 28. In many ways, it's a day of mourning. To show I care, I give you New York Jets center Nick Mangold, comedian Tracy Morgan and last but certainly not least, supermodel/aspiring quarterback Kate Upton. You're welcome.
Kate Upton plays football
