Unless you are accustomed to betting on collegiate basketball, you might not be familiar with the Cincinnati Bearcats from the University of Cincinnati, which now play in the Big East Conference since they moved from the Conference USA in 2005.
Betting the Bearcats: They have been overvalued
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Paul is Clippers’ MVP, Wade says
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Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers showed his dominance across the duration of the NBA’s 62nd All-Star game from the very beginning.
Nets’ MarShon Brooks targeting Sixth Man Award
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If MarShon Brooks scores 34 points in an NBA Summer League game, does he make a sound? 
That depends on who’s listening.
The casual basketball fan would say no, it’s freaking Summer League.
But coaches, GMs and observant fans understand that Brooks, like a teenager who ran out of ProActiv, is on the verge of a breakout.
The 6-5 guard has been a gifted scorer his entire life. He once put up 57 points in a 16-and-under AAU game and stunned the college basketball world by hanging a ridiculous 52 points on Notre Dame and 43 on Georgetown in 2011.
Brooks finished second in the nation in scoring that season, behind some guy named Jimmer Fredette.
But Brooks has remained under the radar, mostly because he’s played for teams that have been generally irrelevant – Providence College and the New Jersey Nets.
Now, as the Nets prepare to begin their run in Brooklyn, Brooks’ play may become impossible to ignore.
Brooks had a solid rookie season, finishing third in scoring among first-year players at 12.6 points per game and being named to the All-Rookie Second Team. He struggled to stay on the court at times, mostly because coach Avery Johnson was less than impressed with his defense.
But when he finally put it all together, Brooks was a revelation, playing well enough to be mentioned alongside Brook Lopez as one of Orlando’s must-have return pieces if a potential Dwight Howard trade.
With Howard now in Los Angeles, the Nets envision a future with Brooks filling it up alongside star guards Joe Johnson and Deron Williams.
Brooks will almost definitely come off the bench for Brooklyn this season. He has already stated that his goal is to win the Sixth Man Award.
“I think I can be a sparkplug for this team,” he said.
Despite the fact that he and Johnson possess admittedly similar skills on offense, Brooks believes he will be in position to knock down a few more spot-up jumpers and create when necessary.
This summer, Brooks followed his record-tying explosion by scoring 91 points in two games at the Dru Joyce summer league in Cleveland. Granted, it is easier to look like an All-Star in August than it is in February, but Brooks’ summer scoring binge has Nets fans thinking big.
He has been compared to scorers around the league, but the most appropriate may be Kobe Bryant (OK, Kobe Lite), simply because his moves perfectly mimic the man he grew up idolizing.
Watch Brooks go to work and you won’t have any trouble understanding the comparison. Every head fake, fadeaway jumper and jab-step drive to the hole seems Bryant-like.
Still, Brooks doesn’t put much stock in such comparisons.
“I don’t like to compare myself to Kobe, with all he’s done. I’m not nearly established enough in the game,” he said.
So why do others make that evaluation? “I don’t know,” Brooks said. “Maybe it’s the afro.”
If he has to be compared to someone, the 6-5 Brooks likes Jamal Crawford, a former Sixth Man Award winner.
Aside from lighting everyone up, Brooks spent his summer getting stronger – adding seven pounds of muscle to his slender 195-pound frame – and working on his defense. Agent Seth Cohen said his client is scheduled to tour Russia in September as part of the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program.
“People around the NBA know his reputation as a great guy,” said Cohen, who runs Original Creative Representation. “That’s why they wanted him for this opportunity.”
It seems opportunities will be coming fast and furious for Brooks, who just might help transform Brooklyn into one of the league’s most exciting teams to watch.
“It’s going to be crazy. I’m very excited, I think the city is very excited as well,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of buzz in that arena, and I think we’re all looking forward to it.”
Kels Dayton is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Slam Magazine. You can read more of his writing at roundballdaily.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
D’Angelo: You thought LeBron was done? Think again
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BOSTON _ Heat forward Shane Battier marvels at the daily scrutiny his teammate LeBron James endures in his everyday life.
James can’t make a move on or off the court that is not broken down, streamed and beamed all over the world. Battier often points out that James “is human,” and humans can only take so much.
But Battier will have a hard convincing any members of the Boston Celtics that the three-time MVP is anything but superhuman after he scored 45 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in Miami’s 98-79 victory before a stunned crowd at TD Garden Thursday.
James is solely responsible for stretching the Eastern Conference finals to a seventh game, which will be played in Miami on Saturday.
The highest praise came from the opposition, specifically Celtics coach Doc Rivers.
“I hope now you guys will stop talking about LeBron and that he doesn’t play in big games,” Rivers said. “He was pretty good tonight. Now that’s (put) to bed.”
How dominant was James?
He had one more field goal (19) then the rest of his Heat teammates while taking about half as many shots. He was 19-of-26 while his mates were 18-of-50.
“He played amazing,” said his sidekick, Dwyane Wade, who did not, by the way, play anything close to amazing with 17 points on 6-of-17 shooting. “He was locked in from the beginning of the game like I’ve never seen him before. The shots he was making was unbelievable.”
I’ve never been one who believed James “chokes” in big moments.
For every subpar playoff series he’s had (Dallas in the 2011 Finals or Boston in the 2010 second round), there are several where he has been unstoppable.
Critics who point to last season’s Finals when James had an eight point game and did not exceed 24 points in the six-game loss to Dallas, forget he carried the Heat to the Finals with a solid series against the Bulls in the conference finals.
Then there were the 2009 playoffs in which James had four 40-plus point games, including his playoff career high of 49, and never scored fewer than 25 points in 14 playoff games, and 2007 when he scored 25 in a row in Game 5 against Detroit, singlehandedly leading his team to the Finals against San Antonio.
Has James had his failures in the clutch?
Certainly.
But so too has every other superstar to ever play on the biggest stage. It’s just that, like Battier said, everything James does is not just put under a microscope, but under a telescope as big as the Hubble.
All of which means James still is not out of the woods, not even after his brilliance on Thursday. If the Heat does not win Saturday, on their home court, against a team labeled too old and too injured to have made it even this far, this season will be deemed a failure, and it should be.
But if it is, it will be unfair to put the blame solely on James.
James was asked Thursday if the relentless criticism and hate ever gets to him.
“I don’t hear it until I get around you guys, because I don’t really get involved,” he said.
But what about his friends, do they ever keep him in loop.
“My friends?” James asked. “You know how long me and my friends have been hearing things about me? We don’t let it bother us at this point. We’ve heard way too much over the years. So it’s nothing for us.”
But back to Thursday’s game, one in which James deserves nothing but praise.
James was unstoppable. After missing his first shot, James converted 12 in a row on all kinds of shots, from jumpers to floaters, from drives to a monster putback dunk off a Chris Bosh miss.
James was asked if he thought this was his greatest playoff performance. He has memorable nights of 49, 48, 47 and 45 points.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just tried to make plays for our team throughout the whole game, as long as I was on the court I wanted to make plays, both offensively and defensively, to give ourselves a chance to win. I think I did that tonight.”
You think?
Let’s listen to some of the praise others gave when asked about James’ Game 6 gem.
“He was absolutely fearless tonight,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
“It was pretty amazing,” Battier said.
“That’s the best I’ve seen, one of the best this league has ever seen,” Bosh said.
“He was unbelievable, he was carrying us offensively,” Udonis Haslem said.
The Celtics were complimentary but not in awe like James’ teammates seemed. The talk was more about what they did not do rather than what James accomplished and how they allowed James to get into a comfort zone he never left.
“I don’t think we played him with a lot of force,” coach Doc Rivers said. “He made great shots but we can play better defense.”
James is averaging 34 points and 10.8 rebounds in the series. He is shooting 54.2 percent. But it may not be enough, not when one of the postgame questions to James was if he can do this again in Game 7.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I take every game as its own. I will continue to be aggressive. I will try to continue to play at a high level like I’ve done the whole postseason.
“I’m going to go out there and play my game and play as hard as I can. I don’t really care what the stats say. I won’t regret Game 7. Win, lose or draw, I’m going to go in with the mindset like I’ve had this whole season. And we’ll see what happens.”
We’ll see … if LeBron James carries his team to the Finals where he has another chance to shut up his detractors once and for all, or if the noise reaches another level and the haters have another field day.
Tom D’Angelo has been a sportswriter for the Palm Beach Post since 1981. He graduated from Northeastern University in Boston with a degree in journalism. In 2009 he was inducted into the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame.
D’Angelo: Heat’s stars fail in the end as Celtics even series 2-2
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BOSTON — When LeBron James and Chris Bosh decided to join Dwyane Wade two years ago, the thought was the South Beach Trio one day would snatch the torch from the original Big Three of the modern era, Boston’s Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
And on Sunday night, James and Wade each had an opportunity to start the final countdown to a new championship era, and each fell short, breathing life into a team that was counted out just one week ago.
James and Wade both failed to deliver in the clutch _ James in regulation and Wade in overtime _ giving the suddenly energized Celtics hope that there just might be one more storybook ending for this geriatric group.
How big was Boston’s 93-91 overtime thriller that evened the Eastern Conference finals at two games apiece?
If James was more forceful on the final play of regulation, or if Wade had made an open three at the buzzer in overtime, the Celtics would have been down 3-1 and the next two days would have been spent working on their obituary.
Now, the Celtics are rejuvenated, thanks to the failures of two of the three players they inspired to join forces.
“No one said this was going to be easy,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Not for the Heat. Not for James. Not for Wade.
The Heat squandered a golden opportunity to virtually assure themselves of a return trip to the Finals, and now find themselves two games from another endless summer of scrutiny and second-guessing. And if you thought last summer was difficult for Miami after the Heat was dumped in six games by the Mavericks in the Finals, wait to you see what happens if the Heat blows this series after leading 2-0.
James might be looking to take his talents to South America to get as far away from Miami as possible.
And this one is on the two superstars. Neither James nor Wade could make one more play to salvage the split here, which would almost certainly have guaranteed the passing of the torch Tuesday in Miami.
Instead, James lived up to the perception that he wilts in the season’s biggest moments, and Wade continued his perplexing inconsistent play in these playoffs.
First, James.
James has taken on an incredible burden since coming to Miami, and despite his much deserved third MVP this season, he will only be accepted the way Wade has been by winning a title. But Sunday was not one of his more shining moments.
James had a chance to end Game 4 in regulation when the ball was in hands in the final seconds of a tie game. But instead of creating space, instead of taking the ball to the basket, James hesitated, dribbled into a double team and then had no choice but to do just want Boston wanted, get rid of the ball. He saw Udonis Haslem, who corralled the shaky pass and threw up an awkward shot that had no chance.
If the Celtics had drawn up that play, they would have had Haslem taking that shot.
“I had one-on-one until KG came and doubled the ball,” said James, who also missed a 3 and a free throw in the final minutes. “I dribbled the ball middle and saw UD circling underneath. KG got a hand on my wrist when I tried to make a pass to UD and we didn’t get off a good look.”
Three minutes into overtime, with the Celtics ahead by one, James backed over Mickael Pietrus for his sixth personal foul and seventh turnover. It was the first time James fouled out since joining the Heat, and the first time he ever fouled out of a playoff game.
“I don’t think I fouled him,” James said.
On to Wade.
With his wingman on the bench, Wade was flying solo the final two minutes of overtime (remember, Chris Bosh, the third wheel in this Big Three has not played since straining his abdomen in the first game of the Pacers series). And for a player who built a reputation on taking and making big shots, the 2012 playoffs have not been his finest moment.
Wade has been an enigma during the ECF, starting slow in all four games before turning it on late. Sunday followed a similar pattern, and there he was with the ball in his hands ready to quiet the deafening TD Garden crowd.
When Miami took the ball out of bounds with 14 seconds remaining, everyone on both teams, everyone in the building and everyone able to stay awake through the entire telecast knew nobody but Wade would take that shot.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers instructed Marquis Daniels to watch for the pump fake. Daniels did, jumping out of the way when Wade faked, giving Wade an open look at a potential game-winning three. Wade rose, kicked out his right leg and released.
“I thought it looked good when it left his hands,” Rivers said.
“It was on line,” Wade said. “It was all you can ask for. It just decided it didn’t want to go in.”
Or maybe it just decided this just is not the time to bury Boston’s Big Three.
“We have a chance of winning this series,” Pierce said. “It’s not going to be easy. Ya know, a good old classic bar fight coming down to the wire, both teams trying to find an edge.”
Tom D’Angelo has been a sportswriter for the Palm Beach Post since 1981. He graduated from Northeastern University in Boston with a degree in journalism. In 2009 he was inducted into the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame.
