State had a bit of
a tussle with Global Sports, but won 74-66. And while Herb Sendek said
there was lots of good news in his team's victory, the more entertaining quote
came from Julius Hodge, who lit into Carolina a bit and followed Gary Williams'
lead in picking on new UNC coach Ol' Roy Williams. Says Julius: "Who
has Carolina got new coming into their team? Basically, we've both got the same
teams. And they're ranked in the top ten? And what are we, 24?... That's
interesting." When reminded that Ol' Roy was now coaching, Hodge
retorred, "can he play?"
Well no, not now, not ever. But he's a good coach,
and it's probably better not to irritate him too much. If this were Dean Smith,
we'd tell you just go ahead and mark down two losses to UNC, because Smith kept
a checklist of smacktalkers and reveled in paybacks. We're not sure Ol'
Roy is quite as committed to payback as Dean was, but we'll all learn soon
enough. He probably didn't fall too far from the tree.