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Robinson heading cross-country, not cross-town

Brown basketball coach -- oops, make that former Brown basketball coach -- Craig Robinson and I were sittinng in his office a couple of weeks ago talking about the just completed Brown season. He was relaxed, as he should have been after his team had won 19 games, a school record, and finished second in the Ivy League with an impressive 11-3 record. Better yet, his team had closed the regular season by winning 10 of its last 11 games and had two first-team All-Ivy players in Mark McAndrew of Barrington and Damon Huffman of Petoskey, Mich.

He told me how much he enjoyed coaching this team, how the players were smart and motivated, how they had bought into his system, played hard, and finally come to believe when they took the court that they could win. He mentioned how much he liked Brown and Providence and that if the university made some kind of commitment to him -- he was thinking of the cost of putting his son Avery and daughter Leslie through a college like Brown -- he could see himself coaching here for a while.

Life was good.

I asked if he would be interested in the Providence College job if Bob Driscoll, the athletics director, called. He said sure and went on about the allure of big-time basketball, playing in big arenas before big crowds, playing so many televised games, matching wits with Big East coaches. He also talked about recruiting kids for a program like PC's, one in which academics are important but the criteria are less stringent than the Ivy League's. He said he would relish the opportunity to sit in a living room and convince a young man and his parents that it's possible to come from a modest urban background and succeed in the world of sports and the world of business. He would savor the chance to teach young men how to become Craig Robinson, if they chose to listen and to work hard. He never had to do that at Brown, he said, because Brown kids are already motivated. They already know what they have to do to get a job in investment banking or get admitted to Harvard Law.

And PC would be attractive because he wouldn't have to move his family. He's just have to move his Xs and Os across town.

I thought of all this today, when I heard that he was heading to Corvallis to take the Oregon State job. I thought of his following his predecessor Glen Miller's footsteps to a better opportunity, footsteps that are taking Craig Robinson now not cross-town but cross-country.

Posted by Mike Szostak  at 10:01 PM to College Sports | Permalink | Comments 0

Robinson to Oregon State

Here's word from Oregon State's athletic web site.....
Corvallis – Oregon State University Director of Athletics Bob De Carolis is asking “Beaver Nation” to turn out for Monday’s welcoming press conference for the new men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University.
The formal introduction will take place at 4 p.m. in legendary Gill Coliseum.
Brown coach Craig Robinson is expected to be the coach introduced at OSU. He traveled to Oregon this morning but had yet to accept the job. Obviously a press conference will seal the deal.

KEVIN McNAMARA

Posted by Kevin  at 2:30 PM to College Sports | Permalink | Comments 0

Colon, bothered by "sore oblique muscle," will miss at least one start

BY JOE McDONALD
Journal Sports Writer

BOSTON -- Bartolo Colon will be placed on the seven-day minor-league disabled list because of soreness in his oblique muscle, and will miss at least one start -- his scheduled start Tuesday at McCoy Stadium against Lehigh Valley -- for the Pawtucket Red Sox.

"It's not an oblique strain, but he does have some soreness in his oblique," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona today. "The training staff felt it was best to stop it now, because these things can linger."

Colon will report to Fenway Park on Tuesday to be examined by the team's medical staff, and a treatment program will be developed.

Posted by Art Martone  at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Bruins' Bergeron cleared to play in playoffs

BOSTON (AP) - Boston Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron, who missed most of the season with a concussion, has been cleared to play in the playoffs.

Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli said Bergeron was cleared Monday after being examined by his doctors.

He later practiced with full contact. He had began to practice last month, but could only hit his teammates, not be hit.

Chiarelli says the team would see how Bergeron responds in practice before deciding whether he'll play in the first-round playoff series against Montreal, which begins Thursday.

Bergeron was knocked unconscious in his 10th game of the season in October when Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Randy Jones hit him from behind and smashed his face into the glass.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 12:58 PM to Bruins | Permalink | Comments 0

Projo SoxTalk with McAdam: Tired in Toronto

Click the play button below to hear Sean's comments, recorded this morning. He discusses the Red Sox' sorry showing in Toronto as well as the coming series with the 0-6 Detroit Tigers.

Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:

On the team's travel fatigue: "I think it was inevitable that it would catch up with them at some point. I think the combination of a pretty good team to beat, and maybe the Red Sox sort of collectively hitting the wall right before they got home, combined to result in those three losses."

On Josh Beckett "It's worth remembering that Beckett did not have a traditional spring training. He faced a college team in his first actual start down in Fort Myers at the end of February, and then when he took the mound the next time, that's when the back spasms happened, and he had to scratch himself from what would have been his first real Grapefruit League start. And then everything after that was either in a camp game, a simulated game, a minor-league game -- he never really faced major-league hitters. ... So they understood that he was not going to be at 100 percent [yesterday]. He hadn't maxed out on his arm strength or thrown as many pitches as he normally would have before facing major-league hitters in a regular-season game. So I think that's the explanation for tiring in the fifth inning and having some difficulty, and that resulted in leaving the bases loaded, and things unraveled after that."

On the bullpen: "One of the things I thought was interesting was that you have the fifth inning yesterday, which is hardly the time when you would ordinarily bring in one of your power setup guys that might otherwise be used in the seventh or eighth, and Terry Francona felt compelled to go to him in the fifth. To me that spoke to some issues about perhaps not having a lot of faith right now in the middle guys, and sort of having to use a guy like that far earlier in the game than you might otherwise do."

On the Tigers: "They're not 100-percent healthy ... they're without both Gary Sheffield and Curtis Granderson, so that affects that lineup that everyone knows is going to be pretty fearsome when it gets clicking. And it just seems like they came out of the gate and had everything bad happen to them at once. Bullpen blew a couple of games late ... really nothing has gone very well for them."

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 11:26 AM to Red Sox | Permalink | Comments 0

Download today's sports cover

On today's sports cover, Steve Krasner has the final word on the Red Sox' epic road trip, which ended with a third straight loss to Toronto. Kevin McNamara writes about why Craig Robinson might be on his way out of Providence, and Shalise Manza Young reviews the Patriots' offseason moves.

Click here to download the file in pdf format.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments 0