Here’s a stat that shouldn’t surprise any fan of the University of Arizona men’s basketball team.
Former UA guard Ruben Douglas, in two Vegas Summer League games for the Phoenix Suns, took a team-high 31 shots in 50 minutes of play.
He made just 11 shots, 3 of 15 on 3-pointers.
Douglas left UA after the 1998-99 season, his only season with the Wildcats, for New Mexico because he wanted more playing time.
He was able to shoot – a lot – in the three years he played for the Lobos, averaging 28.0 points per game in his senior season of 2002-03 to lead the nation in scoring.
Douglas has played pro ball in Greece, Italy and Russia, but he has never played in the NBA and is, aptly, a long shot to get invited to the Suns’ fall camp.
Kenseth’s fender-bender not as costly as Sunday’s
INDIANAPOLIS – Matt Kenseth’s Monday didn’t begin any better than his Sunday ended.
On his way from the airport to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first of three days of NASCAR testing in preparation for the Aug. 6 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, Kenseth’s rental car was rear-ended by a student driver.
Unlike Sunday’s Nextel Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway, where a late hit from behind by Jeff Gordon sent leader Kenseth spinning and Gordon to victory lane, this time Kenseth just kept on going.
“I was at a stoplight and (Roush Racing teammate Greg) Biffle was following me and he always runs into me, so I thought it was him joking,” Kenseth said. “It wasn’t. It was a student driver and instructor who just pile-drove into the back of me. They wanted to stop and fix it, but I didn’t care if the bumper was laying on the ground. I would rather pay for it than mess with that.
“So, anyway, we got here and ran a couple laps and didn’t run too good. Then we took the second car out and I wrecked that right away. So it’s been an eventful 24 hours.”
Kenseth’s relative good humor Monday didn’t mean he was happy about what happened Sunday. He’s still hot at Gordon, who isn’t due at the track until today. Sleep didn’t change Kenseth’s mind that he was spun out intentionally.
“That was the cheap way and the easy way out to do it,” Kenseth said. “Jeff is very smart and very calculating and he knows what he’s doing. He knew right where he did it that it wasn’t really going to wreck me and he knew for sure it wasn’t going to wreck him and he was going to be the leader. So I think that probably about sums it up.”
- The Indianapolis Star
Oregon resident says he’s tired of looking like Mike
A man in Portland, Ore., recently filed an $832 million lawsuit against Michael Jordan and Nike founder Phil Knight, claiming that his life had been subjected to harassment, discomfort, unpleasant feelings and permanent injury because, according to Ray Heckard’s suit, he resembles the basketball icon.
This prompted a visit to Heckard’s neighborhood from John Canzano of The Oregonian, who asked a man seated on a porch across the street from Heckard’s home, “Does your neighbor really look like Michael Jordan?” Said the man, “Which neighbor?”
Wrote the baldheaded Canzano, after meeting the 6-foot Heckard, who is 6 inches shorter than Jordan: “In the right light, on the right day, under the right conditions, maybe you’d mistake (him) for Jordan. And I’m certain under the same conditions you’d mistake me for Jude Law.
“Good thing for him, I’m not the suing type.”
Baseball coach Murphy will stay at ASU for awhile
Notre Dame contacted Arizona State baseball coach Pat Murphy last week about returning to the Irish, where he coached from 1988-94. “I have many friends back there, but my allegiance is to ASU and ASU only,” Murphy said Sunday. “I’m the coach at ASU until I achieve the things I set out to achieve, until it’s the best program in the country.”
Murphy is expected to sign a new five-year contract with ASU once the Arizona Board of Regents publicly approves it Aug. 10. The regents discussed the contract, with a guaranteed annual salary of $272,000, in executive session at its June meeting.
Louisiana State hired Notre Dame’s Paul Mainieri late last month, starting the Irish search.
- The Arizona Republic