ESPN.com's Andy Katz has an interesting story about LeBron James and what he has meant to the University of Akron basketball program. One paragraph caught my attention and it had nothing to do with LeBron.

Dambrot is entering his fifth season as head coach after serving as an assistant for three seasons under Dan Hipsher. Scheduling became a bit easier within the past year, when the administration gave him $160,000 to buy three guaranteed games, something that a number of MAC teams can't afford. Teams at this level usually have to do only home-and-home series and can't afford to buy a team for a home game without a return.

That money could be a big benefit for UA.

The other interesting note is that Darius Miles is trying to come back from microfracture surgery. Should the Cavs be interested?

John Calipari's Memphis team fell apart at the end, by not making their free throws, and Kansas is the best team this season. I still like Calipari as a coach, but Bill Self won the battle last night.

I do have a problem with the end of basketball games. We generally watch 38 minutes of good college basketball and then we play a free-throw, 3-point shooting contest. Heck, we might as well stop the game and vote on a slam dunk contest. In the NBA, shot clock and inbounds rules change the way the game is played in the end.

Change the rule so that after 10 team fouls the team gets two free throws and the ball back.

Playing the regular game, Memphis won last night. But as soon as we stop playing basketball and play the foul (smelling) game, we got a different champion.

Folks want to know why TV ratings are down for NBA and college basketball; all I know is it is pretty unanimous that the end of games make for awful TV.

Here are some things that I find interesting:

– Why does Memphis coach John Calipari get no credit for being a good basketball coach? I know that he can recruit, that he took UMass to the Final Four and that his teams have never gone on probabtion. I know that he struggled in the NBA, but he knows what he is doing on the college level. He outcoached Ben Howland of UCLA, and I expect the same thing tonight against Bill Self and Kansas.

– We received our shipment of MLB media guides this morning, what team do you think produced the thickest book? Try the Tampa Bay Rays. 576 pages; it works out to nearly a page per all-time victories. Very strange.

– If the Cavs end up fifth and then lose in the first round of the playoffs to the Washington Wizards, we all know the calls will be loud for coach Mike Brown to be fired. My guess is that won't happen. I think it is more likely that GM Danny Ferry gets bounced, but even writing that, don't look for a cleaning out of the Cavs by Dan Gilbert.

– Browns GM Phil Savage says he isn't going to trade up in this year's draft. And that is the correct choice. First, I don't think he has anything to trade beside next year's No. 1 or Brady Quinn, and Quinn isn't going anywhere this year. Check back on that this time next season if Derek Anderson goes to the Pro Bowl again. Lastly, Savage has built this team to win now, so he should give it a shot and see what happens this season.

– The first week was choppy for the Tribe, but a heck of a lot better than the Detroit Tigers'. Talk about flaming out.

It just took one round of the NCAA Tournament for this march to madness to take the turn for the better for two teams.

UCLA and Kansas have the road set up to the Elite Eight. Neither team will face a team better than an eighth seed in the next two rounds.

Upset City: Tampa, Fla., had four upsets on Friday. Two 13 seeds and two 12s won. Talk about bracket busters.

ESPNews said this morning that they had more than 2 million entries on ESPN.com and already there are no perfect brackets.

Enjoy the hoops.

College basketball took the first step forward (or should I say backward) in moving the 3-point line Thursday.

Here is the AP story info: Two decades after adding the 3-point line, the NCAA men's basketball rules committee approved a measure Thursday that will move the line back one foot ` from 19 feet, 9 inches to 20 feet, 9 inches. If approved by the playing rules oversight committee on May 25, it would mark the first major change to 3-pointers since their adoption.¶ The change would not take place until November 2008.¶

I think it would be great to make the shot a little more difficult, and it might help us in international basketball, as well. Plus it might bring the mid-range jump shot back to the game.