Kobe Bryant's suspension, Dirk Nowitzki's NBA All-Star snub and Kansas' 27-0 run head our latest NBA and NCCA basketball news and notes.
Kobe Bryant's Suspension
Someone explain how Kobe Bryant, one of the NBA's true superstars can accidentally elbow a player and be suspended for a game. This makes no sense.
Kevin Garnett threw a punch and got one game. How can an inadvertent elbow and a pre-meditated punch be treated the same? NBA Commissioner David Stern needs to figure some things out pretty quick, before he loses control of his league.
Accidents receive warnings, David. Intentional acts get suspensions. It's basic elementary school discipline.
Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Others Snubbed by NBA All-Star Voters
Dirk Nowitzki is having an MVP-type season. His Mavericks has more wins than any other NBA team, yet he was not voted to start in the NBA All-Star game.
Steve Nash is the two-time defending NBA MVP and is a serious threat to win it for a third straight season. He, too, was not voted into the All-Star game.
Also snubbed by idiot NBA fans nationwide were Allen Iverson and Carlos Boozer, both having tremendous seasons.
Each of these snubbed NBA stars will likely be added to the reserve squads, but this consolation doesn't excuse the monumental lunacy displayed by fans, who voted in injured Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady , injured Yao Ming and Chris Bosh ahead of these other noteworthy players.
Enough is enough already. The fan voting simply has to go away.
Kansas outscores Nebraska 27-0 on Big Monday
The Nebraska Cornhuskers hadn't played on Big Monday's national TV for a very long time, so they planned a gala event in Lincoln on January 29.
Fans throughout the packed arena wore red -- supposedly to intimidate invading, sixth-ranked Kansas.
In what seemed like a blink of an eye, the Jayhawks were on top of Nebraska 39-6, after a stunning 27-0 run.
Nebraska trailed by 35 at one time, before losing by a much more respectable 20.
Either the Huskers are not very good, or Kansas is scary. We think it's the latter.
Pittsburgh overrated
We are perplexed by the pollsters love affair with seventh-ranked Pittsburgh.
The Panthers are 19-3 but have yet to defeat a top 20 team. Perhaps AP and ESPN voters are enamored of Pittsburgh's 8-1 mark in the equally-overrated Big East Conference.
We're not buying. The Big East's best team is 15th-ranked Marquette, which beat Pittsburgh.
The Panthers also were hammered by number 2 Wisconsin, proving only that Pittsburgh can't beat good teams. Other blemishes on the Panthers' resume are a ho-hum 3-point win over 9-11 Buffalo and home win over depleted Duquesne, in which Pittsburgh outscored the Dukes by just three points in the second half.
Without center Aaron Gray, Pittsburgh looks like nothing more than a lower-seed's upset game come March Madness.
With Gray, they'll make it to the second round before exiting.
