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Give an eagle-eyed reader all the credit for asking us why Renardo Sidney’s name was listed in the Mississippi State basketball box score in Sunday’s Journal.
It was an interesting little mystery for a few minutes.
Sidney, a highly touted freshman, has yet to be cleared to play by the NCAA and didn’t make the trip to Saturday’s game at Florida.
But there he was, getting credit for a steal – in zero minutes played – in the box score distributed by The Associated Press, provided to them by their numbers-crunching vendor, Stats LLC.
Turns out, the steal belongs to Florida’s Kenny Boynton. He wears No. 1 for the Gators and Sidney, if he’s ever ruled eligible, would wear No. 1 for the Bulldogs.
The steal was incorrectly credited to MSU’s No. 1 instead of Florida’s No. 1 by the Gainesville stats crew.
Gregg Ellis, the basketball SID for the Bulldogs, caught the mistake after the game and it was corrected on the official box score – but that correction was never sent to the AP.
Here’s the corrected box score.
The Memphis Grizzlies went on a great tear in January, winning 10 of 13 before hitting a speed bump at the end of the month. Now, they have lost 5 of 6.
What’s wrong? The Commercial Appeal digs out of the snow long enough to provide their perspective.
Still, the Grizz are 26-24 at this point in the season after being 14-36 at this point last season. In the Eastern Conference – where the Grizzlies belong, lets face it – 26 wins would have them in sixth place and looking pretty good for a playoff spot. In the Western, though, it’s only good for 11th place … with a tough-looking slog to get into the playoffs.
Monday was a difficult day for the Daily Journal sports department and the entire Journal family.
Brad Locke, our reporter assigned to the coverage of Mississippi State athletics, was injured in an auto accident on his way to Starkville in the afternoon. Brad will be on the disabled list for a little while, but he’s in good spirits and wants his many readers to know he’ll be back soon and that he’s in good hands.
A little later in the day, we learned of the untimely death of Greg McIlvain, a sports desk editor who joined our staff in 2006. He was 49.
The newspaper in Valdosta, Ga., where Greg once worked, published this appreciation.
Arrangements for funeral services are pending at Memphis Memorial Park.
We appreciate your patience, understanding and support in this difficult time.
John L. Pitts
Desmond Jennings, the former baseball-football standout at ICC, is the No. 6 prospect in baseball according to a new ranking by ESPN’s Keith Law, available to Insider subscribers.
Jennings, who was No. 25 on Law’s list in early 2009, reached Triple-A at the end of last season and is likely to get a shot in the Tampa Bay outfield at some point in 2010. With his speed and batting eye, he’s touted as a future leadoff hitter.
The top prospect on the list is Braves’ outfielder Jason Heyward, who impressed during his time at Double-A Mississippi. No. 2 is pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who pitched in the Arizona Fall League and could be the Washington Nationals’ opening-day starter.
MLB.com rolled out a similar list this week, with links to some video from MLB Network and analysis. Jennings is No. 6 on that list.
I am, though, so let me take a moment here.
I have one reporter laid up in the hospital, just out of intensive care and I have another staff member in the morgue. And I have you, with your 20-20 hindsight and truckload of snark.
And it's not even a contest.
I'd love to see how long you'd last down here trying to make 1,000 decisions a night and when you get 999 of them right, somebody wanted to chew yer butt over the 1,000th.
The 0-for-4 thing was ... wait for it ... a mistake. My mistake, at the end of a long day. And we corrected it the next day.
And I would love to have seen the reaction if Monday's headlines had said "Bulldogs back into SEC West lead as Rebels lose."
We appreciate your interest and passion. Honestly, we depend on that. But please try to bring at least a smidgen of something positive to the party and it will be more fun for all of us.
John L. Pitts, sports editor
The new TV deal sure does give us a lot of SEC men’s basketball. Saturday persists as the day when everybody seems to play, with just a couple Sunday exceptions. But the new deal has jumbled the midweek schedule.
These Thursday night games that start at 8 p.m. CST … who really thinks that’s a good idea? They get over after 10, which seems like to me would make it a pain for parents to bring kids to the game on a school night or maybe even to stay up and watch on TV.
MSU’s Rick Stansbury makes a good point that if you play a Thursday game, you have only about 36 hours bounceback time before a Saturday afternoon game.
Most troublesome, they interfere with a pretty good night for SEC women’s hoops. Schools should not have competing men’s/women’s games going on the Thursday night schedule.
In the case of the MSU women’s game against Georgia, what could have been the biggest basketball sory of the night hereabouts is pushed to No.3 behind the Ole Miss men and MSU men’s games. That’s unfortunate.
All of this needs to be given some thought before the 2010-11 schedule is set up.
Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated contends this is a very bad recruiting class for quarterbacks … which isn’t good news for a Mississippoi State team that would like to add another recruit at that spot.
This NFL Fanhouse column talks with Joe Horn, the ICC product who was a star with the Saints until his acrimonous departure after the 2006 season. In the interview, he suggests that he had a small but powerful role in the Saints’ return to New Orleans after Katrina.
Your favorite Southeastern Conference sports blogs at NEMS360.com have two new reasons to visit.
Along with the updated inside information you’ve come to expect from Ole Miss Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal beat writer Parrish Alford and Mississippi State Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal beat writer Brad Locke those blogs now include video from the SEC Digital Network and a football recruiting tracker from Scout.com.
The SEC Digital Network section provides highlights from Bulldog and Rebel games along with features like the SEC Today that looks at what is happening around the conference.
If you are trying to keep updated on recruiting information on MSU or Ole Miss the blogs now include information from Scout.com. Check out where each team’s recruiting class ranks in the country and the SEC. Also see the schools commitments, prospects and latest news at the Scout.com Football Recruiting Tracker as the countdown to signing day continues.
Fans can talk with each other about the latest breaking news and games along with Daily Journal writers at the blogs that are seen by around 65,000 viewers a day.
To visit Parrish Alford’s blog Inside Ole Miss Sports go to http://nems360.com/pages/insideolemisssports or Brad Locke’s blog Inside Mississippi State Sports at http://nems360.com/pages/insidemississippistatesports.
In its evident quest for a coach with a famous last name, Tennessee will hire Derek Dooley as its next head coach, according to multiple media reports.
He’s the son of Georgia legend Vince Dooley and is 17-20 at Louisiana Tech. Of course, departed Vols coach Lane Kiffin had a losing record in his previous job, and look how well that turned out.
Hmmm.
Shockingly, the Vols apparently passed over Utah coach Kyle Whittingham – who’s done a fine job of keeping the Utes rolling along since Urban Meyer left for Florida.
Since Tennessee AD has made such a hash of the effort to replace Kiffin – rejected in public by Texas assistant Will Muschamp, the coach at Air Force (!) and even David Cutcliffe (!!) – perhaps the elder Dooley would like that job.
John L. Pitts, sports editor
