Fred Huff on SIU Sports: Monday was just "one of those days"
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[There definitely are benefits in growing old, but not every day is "a great day" as a motivational speaker tried to instill in our mind while addressing Du Quoin Chamber of Commerce members and guests this week.
Some are simply better than others and now that the NCAA's "March Madness" is behind us, we've got to search a little harder for excitement.
That wasn't the case last Monday night, however.
The Duke-Butler championship basketball game was as exciting, as near-perfect, as well-played title game as we can remember in recent years.
Perhaps ever, although we'll remember the 1979 Michigan State-Indiana State, Magic Johnson-Larry Bird battle for a long time.
This year's championship game had everything, however, and was much tighter than the 75-64 classic in '79.
College basketball fans may be talking about this one for a long time.
At least until next season.
Although several of the sport's experts have already selected their pre-season "top 25" teams for the 2010-11 season, the hottest topic this week revolves around Butler's coach, Brad Stevens.
The majority of major coaching positions have been filled by now, but the best of the bunch, $$$-wise, is still out there. Oregon.
And, too, there's Wake Forest and Clemson still open as of Thursday.
You can count on Oregon's official representative, Pat Kilkenny, making his finest pitch to Stevens, however, The two have reportedly already met and it's one situation where "talk is NOT cheap".
It's been said that Stevens' base salary at Butler is $396,602 with his overall compensation package at $750,000.
Interesting figures for the 33-year-old coaching sensation.
SIU's former assistant and head coach Matt Painter, now at Purdue, recently was bumped up to $1.3 million base salary which was reported as being retroactive to last season and extended for years to come.
Oregon's offer will likely blow those figures out of the water and will probably be offered as part of an 8-10 year contract.
Stevens' reaction to such an offer will be interesting. From what millions of tv viewers saw of Stevens in the past seven days, most probably have the same thoughts we developed over the course of the two games.
The guy is incredibly cool on the sidelines.
He's totally under control. He obviously has the knack of instilling those characteristics into his players on the court.
They seldom changed expressions regardless of the happenings or calls by the officials.
They were there to win and when they fell short, they accepted it.
If anything, the Bulldogs may have learned to be a little more concerned when an opponent is in-bounding the ball under its own basket.
At the same time, the semifinal game between Duke and West Virginia provided viewers with one of the more dramatic moments we've ever seen on a basketball court . . . Bob Huggins attempting to console his injured star, Da'Sean Butler, after he had seriously injured his knee.
There wasn't any grandstanding in his concern. At least not in our mind and if so, he should head for Hollywood.
And then just this week we read where he visited families of West Virginia's coal mine tragedy. That's enough for us even though he doesn't show any respect for media members who are simply trying to do their job when interviewing him ever so briefly before a game.
So it's over, the 2010 college basketball season. One of the finest in many ways if not in Saluki land where rumors persist regarding player personnel. Rumors. Meaningless, we hope.
And next week it'll be time to talk baseball after seven more "great days".
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