WITH THE FINAL FOUR finished for another year, here are a few leftover tidbits from the record book to amaze and impress your friends with:
- Who totaled the most points by a losing team in NCAA Tournament history? The University of Utah, of course, which rang up 120 in its 1961 Final Four loss to St. Joseph's (127-120) in four overtimes. The second-most points by a losing team was recorded by Utah's WAC cohort, Wyoming, in a 119-115 loss to Loyola Marymount in 1988.- The second-best 3-point percentage for an NCAA Tournament goes to former Jazz guard John Crotty, who made 8 of 10 treys in a 4-game span in 1989 while playing for Virginia.
- Most free throws made in an NCAA Tournament game? Utah nailed 41 against Santa Clara in the third round of the West Regional in 1960.
- Louisiana State's Shaquille O'Neal holds the record for most blocked shots in a tournament game with 11. His opponent? BYU in the first round of the 1992 NCAA West Regional. The second-most blocks ever registered in tournament competition were recorded by BYU's Shawn Bradley in 1991, when he swatted 10 against Virginia.
- And lastly, suppose BYU had gained an NCAA bid and been seeded No. 16 in its region. What would the odds have been on the Cougars winning the NCAA title? Zippo. In fact, no No. 16 seed has even advanced past the first round. No. 16 seeds are 0-48 in NCAA play, while No. 1 seeds are 48-0 in the first round.
BOOKWORM: You knew it was only a matter of time. Coming soon to a bookstore near you: "Bad as I Wanna Be" by noted author and body piercing expert Dennis "The Worm" Rodman. The cover features Rodman on a motorcycle, naked, of course.
According to Rodman, the book will be (surprise!) controversial. "I think it's gonna explain everything I think about the NBA," Rodman was quoted saying last week. "(Commissioner) David Stern and everybody will get (upset)."
MODEL CITIZEN: Apparently not everyone thinks Rodman is trouble. Lonn Reisman, the current basketball coach and A.D. at Tarleton State in Texas says as an assistant coach at Southeastern Oklohoma State, he recruited Rodman and, well, he isn't a bad guy.
Or at least wasn't.
"Dennis was a very respectful young man," Reisman recently said in the Los Angeles Times. "I don't ever remember him getting a technical foul in three years that he played for me."
Is he talking about the same guy who just head butted an NBA ref?
WEIGHING IN: Then there's this observation from Charles Barkley, responding to Rodman's complaint that Barkley "gets away with everything:"
"I'm leading the league in technicals, how can I be getting away with anything? It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
SCOUTING BREAKDOWN: And you thought the scouting system in pro football was flawless. Apparently not so in the Canadian Football League.
In the April 1995 dispersal draft of Las Vegas Posse players, the Ottawa Rough Riders selected defensive end Derrell Robertson. The problem was, he was dead when they drafted him, having died in a car crash the previous December. Now comes news that the Montreal Alouettes picked Northern Illinois defensive end James Eggink in the fifth round of last week's college draft. Eggink died of cancer last December.
Who's doing the research up there? "I would think the first qualification they might want to come up with," CFL chairman John Tory told reporters, "is that the person's alive."
QUOTEFILE: David Letterman on spring training: "At a New York Yankees' game earlier today, the umpire had to go out to the mound to break up an AA meeting."