Pat Riley hopes Heat coaching obligations won’t distract his NCAA scouting efforts
It was a pleasant surprise seeing Pat Riley in the stands of the Indiana-Penn State game in Happy Valley earlier this month. I’m sure he no doubt found Eric Gordon to be a poor man’s version of Dwyane Wade, with the missed shots, turnovers and general lack of control. (Although, they both get fouled a lot.) We all know Riley has forgone some of his coaching duties to scout a few college games, including the first games of the tournament this past weekend. Warranted, I guess. The future is now.
But at this point, it’s sort of comical how little he cares about coaching the team.
“The games are getting bigger,” he said. “The ones that I like are starting to play against each other, which is good. If that happens, then that’s the matchup you want to see.”
That could mean more lost time on the bench for Riley, who holds the dual role of team president. He already has missed three games while scouting, including two over the weekend, and could miss Thursday’s game at Detroit and Sunday’s game at Boston that are scheduled head-to-head against the tournament.
“If I have to miss ‘em, I’ll miss ‘em,” he said. “I don’t want to. I will try to get back. I will try to squeeze everything in Friday and Saturday if I can.”
This was exactly the attitude I had with every class last year in college. I tried to be there, but sometimes my sleeping/drinking/general malaise towards sitting in a lecture hall sometimes made me miss ‘em. Pat, trust me, this is a good philosophy. I graduated with a GPA somewhere between Joel Anothy’s rebounds and points per game.
{HT: Sports Frog.}
D. Wade’s Groupies
It’s been awhile since we’ve dipped into athlete’s web sites, but the time has come yet again. Today, we present to you some of the comments fans have recently left for Dwyane Wade on his official site. (We’ve dropped names and contact info to protect the innocent.)
D Wade is so sexy:
hey…D.WADE….just wanted to say congradulations…i knew that you guys would do it….i never lost hope….i am 37ys old and i think you are very good looking….my husband is jealous….and your wife is very lucky…wow….that game on last night was awsome….i was sceaming all over the place…you and shaq was awsome….N/E/WAYS…dang…..u look good…i can only dream…..wish i could meet you one day…i am you #1 fan….e-mail me if any way possible…….hope to hear from you one day…it willlll make my day/(LIFE)….
We can’t quite decipher this next one. It’s in some sort of ‘slang code.’
MESSAGE 2 ALL DA WADE FANS…GET ON YA JOB IF YA WASNT REPPIN HIM….DONT GET 2 CLOSE….HES MINE N SIOVAGHN..N ZIARE…LOL….BUT SERIOUSLY DONT GET 2 CLOSE….IF U WANT DERE 4RM DA BEGINNING DONT GET 2 CLOSE…..CASUE HES MINE…BUT IM HAPPI DAT YA;’LL REALIZE HE WAS DA BEST AFTA ALL DAT CRITISM….DEY CANT EVEN COMPARE HIM 2 ANY PLAYER NOW…HES DA BEST…..LOVE YA WADE…I’;; MEET U 1 DAY…DAZ MA GOAL
And lastly, an excited foreigner:
Hello Dwyane ! I like basketball very much! I like your team and your game ! But in my city( I live in Kharkiv, Ukraine) I can’t see your games. For me it’s very bad. I hope that everything is OK in your team. I want to see you in final ! Please, answer to me.
It’s good to be Mr. Wade right now.
And I’m back…

So, I’m pretty sure none of you were actually watching that Tunisia-Saudi Arabia match-up, but it was a pretty sweet game, even though it ended in a 2-2 tie. You can check out my live blog of it here.
Anywho, there’s not a whole heck of a lot going on today. So I’ll direct you to some good reads around the interwebby.
Mr. Irrelevant has an insightful post about Michael Wilbon’s love for D. Wade and how the NBA Finals is star-studded despite some big names that were dropped in the playoffs.
The Realests have an exclusive report about the latest details of Duke’s endorsement deal with Polo. (This is hilarious, but also entirely untrue.)
And if you’re really bored, you can also swing over to Youtube and watch all the videos the World Cup Blog have posted on there.
Here’s one of our favorites.
