The Morning Dish – Saturday, June 7th:
New Top Titan: Cal-State Fullerton yesterday named their new head coach. The winner of the Titan lottery is former JuCo coach Bob Burton, who was an assistant for Ray Lopes last season at Fresno State. Burton, who had a 507-167 record over 21 seasons at West Valley Community College (Saratoga, California). Lopes was a player and assistant for Burton at West Valley. Burton was also an assistant at Utah in 1986-87.
The American Way: The Big East Five – otherwise known as Pitt, UConn, Rutgers, West Virginia and Virginia Tech – the five football-playing Big East teams definitely staying in the conference – are suing two of the other three schools scheming to bolt to the ACC. The lawsuit contends that the Big East Five spent lots of cash (including UConn starting a football program) to keep up with BC and Miami in football on the promise that they would stay in the conference. Syracuse is not named as a defendant, as apparently there were no promises made by the Orangemen to stay in the Big East. And, it was rumored that Miami would be making a decision within the next week. As always, stay tuned.
Speaking of Miami: The Hurricanes have inked a home-and-home arrangement with Florida International for the upcoming hoops season and for 2004-05. FIU, whose campus is a mere ten miles from Miami’s, haven’t played since 2001. Meeting eight times, the ‘Canes have won 7 of those games, with FIU getting in the “W” column in 1992. The next installment is slated for Saturday, December 6th.
Flowers Bloom in Tennessee: University of Cincinnati junior center Rod Flowers has announced that he will transfer to Tennessee State, but the good news is that he’s doing it for academic reasons. Flowers, who will be completing his bachelor’s degree at UC this summer, plans on getting his master’s at TSU, and thus the transfer. Flowers, a 6-8 forward/center, averaged 3 points and 2.5 boards per contest this season off the bench. He will be eligible for the 2004-05 season.
