Video: Watch Brian Scalabrine doin? work in Italy

Few American basketball players get mocked more than Brian Scalabrine: He stays at the end of the bench, is only sort of in shape in a league full of athletic specimens, and has red hair. When you think about it, he never had a chance.

This season, however, Scal is plying his trade in Italy with Benetton Treviso, one of the most successful clubs in Serie A history. Unlike in America, he's not warming the bench. In fact, it looks like he's starring.

This highlight video, taken from a recent game against Avellino, shows Scalabrine at his best. He hits open shots from the perimeter, drives by defenders, and even plays some impressive defense. He looks like an all-around (if unathletic) talent on the order of Larry Bird, and I don't entirely mean that as a joke. The European style suits him well, and their announcers pronounce his name with considerable flair.

It's enough to make you wonder if he'll even bother coming back to the NBA when the lockout ends. A fat paycheck is nice, but people also like to be appreciated for things other than their skin tone and general goofiness. Follow your dreams, Scal. There's more to life than high-fiving Derrick Rose after a dunk.

(Via PBT)

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Video: Fight night for Ducks, Blue Jackets; Brookbank, Dorsett twice

With the fate of their coach and general manager potentially hanging in the balance, the Columbus Blue Jackets were fighting with their backs against the wall on Sunday night against the Anaheim Ducks.

So after Bobby Ryan answered Rick Nash's goal to tie the game in the first period, feisty Derek Dorsett got his team and the crowd going with this spirited bout against Sheldon Brookbank.

Solid scrap between two players that had exchanged headlocks in a game last season; but they weren't done. Neither were their teammates.

At 17:01 of the first period, Andrew Cogliano and Kris Russell met in a visor-vs.-visor fight ? the third career scrap for Cogliano and the fifth for Russell, in case you couldn't tell.

"For a couple of guys who don't fight very often, they did a pretty good job of tying each other up for a while." This is not what you want to hear after a hockey fight. But hey, 'round of applause for the effort, and for showing Mike Milbury that mandatory visors won't actually end hockey fights.

Forty-four seconds later, Ryan Getzlaf decided he had enough of the Blue Jackets' aggressive play and yapping, taking his frustrations out on Cody Bass:

Things calmed down for most of the second period until the 18:17 mark, when Dorsett took a run at Brookbank, and the second scrap of the game between the two was sparked:

Although they left the ice, they didn't receive misconduct penalties.

About time the Jackets showed a little fight, huh? Columbus won the game, 3-1; did that just save Scott Arniel's job?

Thanks as always to HockeyFights.com for their service to our bloodlust.

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?Da Football Life? focuses in on Mike Ditka

So dere was a pretty good show on da TV lasssst night about Coach Ditka, on dat dere NFL Network. It was a real nice look at da Coach and how he's da best ever, and it was much better den watchin' da Cardsss come back against da Rangerssss. DITKA!!!

Don't worry. I won't do this entire review in Superfans-speak because Ditka's fan base is just as multifaceted and complex as the man himself. Just as his fans are more than these guys, Ditka is more than "Da Coach." The NFL Network's latest installment of "A Football Life" covers all of the facets of the man.

It starts with plenty of footage from Ditka's playing days, which is welcome to the large contingent of fans who only knew Ditka as a coach. Seeing how he revolutionized the tight end position�shed light on why he was the first�at that position enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The show took an honest look at why he left Chicago, his struggles in Philadelphia, and how Tom Landry resurrected his career in Dallas.

It was Landry who brought Ditka into the coaching ranks, but the only�team he wanted to coach was the Bears. "It was the only job that ever meant anything to me," Ditka said. The NFL Network looks at his tenure in Chicago as a whole. His tumultuous relationships with quarterbacks, his lack of love for Chicago media, and the overwhelming nature of the Bears are all discussed. The Super Bowl win is spotlighted, but his overgrown celebrity and health problems are also mentioned.

In fact, winning the Super Bowl is given as much time as losing his connection with his players through his actions during the 1987 NFL players' strike and letting his celebrity grow out of control. It was particularly jarring to watch the late Dave Duerson speak about Ditka taking an endorsement from Bears offensive linemen. Ricky Williams�spoke about Ditka's gamble on him during his tenure with the Saints, and how Ditka taught him about toughness at a young age.

In the years since his�departure from the Bears (and short visit to New Orleans), Ditka's star has grown in Chicago. He is on ESPN, has his own restaurant, wine, barbecue sauce and�tabasco sauce, and frequently makes appearances on radio shows, at golf outings and even in a few movies. The NFL Network checks in on the many, many brands of Ditka, but does not shortchange the time he spends now lobbying for NFL alumni who have fallen on hard times.

His outspokenness on behalf of retired players like the late John Mackey and Ickey Woods doesn't always win Ditka fans, but those players�cannot be ignored with Ditka on their side. He uses his Hall of Fame star power not just to sell wine and excellent steaks, but to fight for others. While he lives in luxury, he works for the men who played next to him and can't afford their rent.

That complexity is what makes Ditka more than "Da Coach," and what makes him such an interesting subject. Kudos to the NFL Network for not sugarcoating the man who never learned the meaning of that particular�word.

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Louisville blocks Mountaineers? exit with its own claim on the last ticket out of the Big East

I said it on Tuesday, and it's worth repeating: The first rule in conference realignment is, Nothing is a done deal until it's a done deal. I should have stopped there.

Because while everyone from the New York Times to the West Virginia dailies in West Virginia was literally proclaiming the Mountaineers' pending defection from the Big East to the Big 12 "a done deal" ?�local outlets even went ahead with the obligatory "Meet the new rivals" stories ?�the actual deal was about run into a big, L-shaped wall:

After being informed by Big 12 officials that it would be admitted to the conference, West Virginia now finds itself in a holding pattern.

A Big 12 conference call Tuesday night was expected to be a formality on West Virginia's road to admittance. Instead, objections were raised.

A late push by Louisville has put political pressure on the Big 12 and opened the possibility of Louisville's being the university that is admitted instead of West Virginia. Two people with direct knowledge of the situation said that lobbying by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, including to David Boren, the president of the University of Oklahoma and a former senator, helped slow West Virginia's admittance to the Big 12.

Again, the locals confirmed the eleventh-hour backtracking. A source "with direct knowledge" of the negotiations told the New York Times "it's 50-50 right now between West Virginia and Louisville" to replace (presumably) SEC-bound Missouri as the tenth team at the Big 12 table, and the issue may not be settled until the next Big 12 board meeting on Monday night. If the Mountaineers remain a tentative favorite, obviously the question is a long way from being settled.

It's not one either side is likely to concede, either. If the reports of West Virginia's exit were greatly exaggerated, the reports of the Big East's impending demise as a major football conference were not: Losing Louisville would leave the league in the same position, standing by with five remaining members ?�Cincinnati, Connecticut, Rutgers, South Florida and West Virginia ?�and a continental expansion plan ?�Air Force, Boise State, Houston, Navy and SMU ? that doesn't go far enough to take its automatic bid to a BCS bowl game off the bubble, risking its demotion to the ranks of the Have-Not leagues.

In fact, if Boise and Co. aren't convinced that the new alignment secures the bid past 2013, they may decide to take their chances in the pending Mountain West/Conference USA merger, and the Big East will be forced to join or die. The lone invitation to the Big 12, with its rock-solid BCS bid, is like the letter of transit in Casablanca.

If high-ranking senators are directly involved in the lobbying process, the dollar signs in someone's office are already blinking with a vengeance. And as Rich Rodriguez ? or anyone who's read about his exit from Morgantown in the new book "Three and Out" ?�can tell you, the combination of politics and football in West Virginia is not for the feint or trusting of heart. That goes double where there's big money involved. It goes triple where they feel like they've been betrayed. I hope McConnell and the Cardinals came to play hardball, because the fight for the last ticket out of the desert is about to get ugly.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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West Virginia is taking the Big East to divorce court

New research suggests divorces may be less hostile than they used to be, which may be the case among married couples. But it certainly is not in conference realignment. When Texas A&M informed the Big 12 in September that it planned to move in with the SEC, the rest of the conference threatened lawsuits, narrowly avoided self-destruction and fired its commissioner.

And now that West Virginia is set on leaving the Big East for the Big 12, it's about to get really ugly:

West Virginia isn't waiting around to leave the Big East. Three days after announcing plans to join the Big 12, the school has filed a lawsuit seeking the ability to play in its new league in 2012.

According to CBSSports.com, Big East commissioner John Marinatto wrote to league presidents in an email that "we have been advised by West Virginia league council that the University is filing suit against the Big East Conference today (Monday) ? presumably to get relief from the withdrawal provision contained in our bylaws."

In its lawsuit, West Virginia cited the loss of Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the ACC and TCU to the Big 12 along with dissatisfaction with Marinatto as reasons for leaving.

You can read the entire lawsuit here, and it doesn't pull any punches: West Virginia outright accused Marinatto of mismanagement that has "resulted in the Big East football conference no longer being a viable and competitive football conference," thanks to his "lack of leadership [and] breach of fiduciary duties." It also complains about a "voting disparity between football and non-football schools."

All of which, according to the suit, is justification for a court to strike down a mandatory 27-month notification period that could keep the Mountaineers in the Big East until 2014 . In effect, they're arguing that failing to guarantee the conference's automatic bid to a BCS bowl (and the fat payday that comes with it) amounts to a breach of contract. TCU didn't violate that contract when it defected to the Big 12 earlier this month, because it had never formally joined the Big East. But Marinatto has said he plans to hold ACC-bound Pittsburgh and Syracuse for the full 27 months, and sounded determined last Friday to hold West Virginia to the same timeline. If it can't, the scramble to fill the new vacancy ? or vacancies ? in time to stage a 2012 football season will be on with just five members remaining in the fold and most of them hoping to abandon ship, too.

For its part, West Virginia sounded just as determined that it's going to be a full-fledged member of the Big 12 by next summer, at whatever the cost. (So far, the cost is $2.5 million, which WVU has already paid to cover the first half half of the $5 million exit fee.) Pitt and Syracuse will be watching, with one eye already on the ACC. Boise State and other expansion targets will be watching to gauge just what kind of league they're going to be getting themselves into ? or whether they want to get into at all if the precious BCS status appears to be at risk. If the Big East can't legally hold its members in place with millions of dollars at stake in their departures and no one yet signed on to fill the gaps,

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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J.R. Smith has a personal luggage room, hates Chinese internet policy

When free agent J.R. Smith signed with Zhejiang of the China Basketball Association last month, I lamented his departure from the NBA landscape. Few players fascinate like Smith -- he frustrates fans like no other, but he's also a threat to drop seven 3-pointers in any game he plays. The upside of his move, of course, was that we'd get to read lots of interesting stories about J.R.'s successes, trials, and tribulations in a country absolutely crazy about basketball.

The first one does not disappointment. At Sheridan Hoops, columnist Guan Weijia explains what Smith has been up to in China. It is very much worth reading the whole thing, but here's a sample:

Smith's initial experience in China was not that good. The first problem was the time difference. On his first day in China, Smith woke up at 2 a.m. and found himself in such a strange environment, he didn't know what to do.

He wanted to send a Twitter update, but encountered problems because Twitter is blocked in China. At last, he found a way to tweet through his Blackberry: "Dear China, the fact that u won't let me work my Skype on my desktop or twitter is really pissing me off." Then�another one: "Not even YouTube wow this is ass!"

As the biggest name in team history, Smith also gets the best treatment. The team has hired a cook and two translators especially for him. For his relocation, Smith brought about 20 pieces of luggage, and the club arranged a room especially for those bags.

There's much more in the piece, including Smith's attempts to get his teammates involved in the offense and what he hopes to accomplish over the full season. Again, it's worth your time to read the whole thing.

The top stories, though, are in the pull-quote. I don't know how much luggage someone would need to necessitate an entire room, but presumably the total is more than a dozen bags. Which makes me wonder if Smith knows that laundry exists in China. Hopefully his two translators can help him out there.

Unfortunately, it looks as if more stories like this one will need to come from reporters and not Smith himself. It's a loss for all of us that he can't use Twitter with ease. I was really looking forward to his thoughts on the Chinese version of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

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Philly media to Flyers: Why you heff to muzzle Ilya Bryzgalov?

Philadelphia Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov is the Tom Hanks of NHL locker room interviews.

He can do comedy ("Why you heff to be mad? It's just hockey.") as brilliantly as he can do drama ("I'm lost in the woods right now.") Also, he sounds like Tom Hanks in "The Terminal." Assuming you saw "The Terminal." Which you probably didn't.

As reporters say, Bryzgalov is interview gold. But since he's not exactly off to the best start in Year 1 of his 9-year deal, the goalie and Flyers decided it would be best if the media wasn't allowed inside the gold mine so frequently.

On Monday morning, Sam Carchidi of Broad Street Bull reported on a new media policy for the Bryz:

Through the team's public-relations department, Bryzgalov requested that he no longer talk to the media (and, in effect, the fans) except after games in which he plays.

The coaching staff and management supported the decision, the Flyers said. (The feeling here is they may have suggested it.)

That policy lasted a few hours until the Flyers revised it, according to Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly:

On Friday, goalie coach Jeff Reese met with the media and talked about Bryzgalov's recent play and why things had gone south on him.� Reese said more than once that he felt Bryzgalov was "distracted" by� number of things, among them, his daily interactions with the media.

Hours after the policy was stated, the Flyers revised it. Now, the team says, Bryzgalov will not talk during the day of a game or the day before a game.

So, in theory: Over the next week, the first time Bryzgalov would be available in a non-postgame situation would be Sunday, Nov. 6.

This is, frankly, a serious matter for the writers tasked with covering this hockey team. Bryzgalov is, arguably, the team's biggest newsmaker and most important player right now. So Carchidi has filed a complaint with the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

"Do the math," said PHWA Executive V.P. Mark Spector, who writes for Sportsnet. He said there's a chance that a writer who doesn't travel with the team would have access to Bryzgalov for less than 30 games a season.

"You have to make him available to the press," said Spector, who said the PHWA is looking into the matter.

This is probably a case of Flyers' brass micro-managing their investment, believing that a barrage of daily questions pointed at a sensitive soul with an .880 save percentage doesn't do a goalie good.

One assumes it'll end when (and if) Bryzgalov's struggles end, but it's still a frustrating precedent, no matter how aggressive the Philly media can get (ask Mike Richards ? he'll talk to you now).

More here from Broad Street Hockey.

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