The Big East announced on Monday that Jerome Dyson was named Men’s Rookie of the Week and that Charde Houston was Women’s Player of the Week.

Dyson averaged 24.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and hit 10-of-21 3-point attempts in a 1-1 week for the Huskies. In a 67-55 win over Seton Hall, Dyson had 22 points and seven rebounds. On Sunday, he had 27 points, including six 3-pointers, in a 73-63 loss at Syracuse.

Houston averaged team-highs in points (21.0) and rebounds (10.0) over Connecticut’s 2-0 week that included wins against Louisville and Pittsburgh. Houston shot 56.7 percent from the field and averaged 5.5 steals, 3.5 assists and 2.5 blocks over the two games.

In other UCONN news, check out this article on Caron Butler from the New York Times. It details his rising from being a juvenile delinquent to a NBA All-Star.

Technorati: UCONN Huskies

UCONN Police announced a third arrest in the investigation of the hit-and-run death of Carlee Wines. Kara Satalin,18, was arrested on the charges of purchasing alcohol for a minor, conspiracy to procure liquor for a minor, misrepresentation of age to procure liquor, third-degree identity theft and conspiracy to commit third-degree identity theft. That basically says to me she was the one who provided the alcohol for Anthony Alvino, the driver of the car, and Michelle Hall, one of the passengers. Of course that is pure speculation on my part.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this to be the third arrest. I am still surprised that the mother of Alvino has not been arrested seeing that she would do anything to help protect her son. With all the CSI’s I watch, I would think that would be conspiracy to tamper with evidence and obstruction of justice.

Update: Satalin is/was also a student at UCONN. She had gotten the fake ID from Hall. She purchased 3 to 4 bottles of vodka for Alvino, Hall and friends.

Technorati: Carlee Wines, University of Connecticut

Here is some Boston Red Sox news out of spring training from Sunday.

In a television interview with Dan Roche of WBZ-TV, Julian Tavarez stated that Manny Ramirez will not be reporting to camp until March 1st so that he can be with his ailing mother. A couple of days ago, Manny’s agent had said that his client had planned to report to camp on time with the position players on the 21st.

A bunch of the Red Sox pitchers threw in the bullpen on Sunday and the popping noise that was heard was Daisuke Matsuzaka popping the glove of Jason Varitek. Manager Terry Francona told pitching coach John Farrell to have the guys not throw as hard because he was afraid they were ahead of where they should be. When asked about his velocity, Matsuzaka said he was only throwing 60-70% of what he normally would. I have been around baseball for a long time, and when someone is popping the glove, they are throwing cheddar. So if he is saying that he was only throwing 60-70%, does that mean his fastball is over 100 mph. I’d have to think he was throwing in the high 80’s to get the glove to pop. Either that or Varitek had something in his glove to make the sound. If I were a betting man, I’d go with he was throwing in the high 80’s.

Varitek met with the media on Sunday. He spoke with Matsuzaka about anything he would need from Varitek. Things like having the glove out at a certain time, getting lower, moving off the plate. Basically what he emphasised with Matsuzaka is that communication is the key even if they had to use the interpreter for now. He was asked about the differences between catching Nomo and Matsuzaka. Basically what he said was that the two had different pitching styles. He said he only caught Dice-K’s fastball. To listen to the interview, press play below.

[coolplayer width=”200″ height=”50″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″ charset=”GBK” download=”1″ mediatype=””]
Varitek Interview
[/coolplayer]

Speaking of Matsuzaka, pitching coach John Farrell stated that Dice-K will make his spring debut in the annual exhibition game versus the Boston College Eagles on March 2. His next spring training start would come on March 6th against the Florida Marlins. Barring any injuries to Matsuzaka and how the rotation pans out, Matsuzaka will be on a schedule to start the third game of the season against the Kansas City Royals on April 5th. His first Fenway start would be April 11th against the Seattle Mariners and fellow countryman, Ichiro. First off, I find it really strange for him to be pitching 4 days apart so I’d have to think what was said about going against the Marlins was a mistake. But who knows. Because they are only throwing a limited number of pitches, it could make sense. Who knows? As long as he stays healthy, who cares when he throws. What sucks to me is that I will be attending opening day at Fenway on April 10th and will have missed him by one day. According to how the rotation is going to go, I will probably get to see Josh Beckett pitch. Much better then the years past when I have gone to Sox games as the last 4 starters I saw were John Burkett, Tim Wakefield, Bronson Arroyo, and David Wells. Yes I know thats a big span of years but with my back being bad the last 2 and half years, I haven’t been able to attend many games.

Continue reading after the jump. Continue reading →

First the “gyroball.” Now a knuckleball for Daisuke Matsuzaka. He had stated during his press conference that he was had fooled around with the knuckleball but had very little success with it.

If I can keep my form and throw a knuckleball – it would be great. I tried it in L.A., but it didn’t work.

Well it seems that he may have found a teacher. Tim Wakefield said on Saturday that he would be willing to teach Matsuzaka the knuckleball.

”Somebody told me he wants to learn how to throw a knuckleball, so I’ll be glad to teach him,” Wakefield said Saturday. ”I worked with some of the young kids in our organization and elsewhere (and) I can teach him how I hold it and how to throw it, but it’s up to the individual to kind of have the feel to take the spin off the ball.”

Matsuzaka already has 6 pitches not including the gyroball (fastball, changeup, curveball, slider, cutter, and a splitter). Adding another would only make him more dangerous.

Being a student of the game, I can see Matsuzaka taking time to learn the pitch. I think the hardest part of Wakefield teaching him is going to be the communication between the two. Although a lot of will be visual teaching, he would still have to tell him what to do. It will be very interesting to see how this unfolds over the course of spring training and the regular season.

Technorati: Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield, gyroball, knuckleball

Demetris Nichols, 20 points, led 4 Syracuse players in double figures as they defeated the UCONN Huskies 73-63 on Saturday at the Carrier Dome. The win avenges a 7 point loss to UCONN 12 days ago. Paul Harris had 16 points, Eric Devendorf 15 points and Andy Routins had 13 points to round out the Orangemen in double figures. UCONN was led by Jerome Dyson, who scored a career high 27 points. Hasheem Thabeet added 11 points for the Huskies.

The first half was not very pretty as both teams had trouble scoring. Dyson got hot early for the Huskies with a couple of 3 point baskets before a Devendorf jumper tied the game at 18 with 8 minutes to go in the half. The game stayed close thru the rest of the half with Syracuse pulling out to a 6 point lead before a Stanley Robinson 3 pointer at the buzzer got UCONN within 3 points, 35-32, going into the locker room at the half.

Starting out the 2nd half, a Nichols jumper and a dunk to go along with 3 missed shots by UCONN, led Coach Jim Calhoun to call a timeout. UCONN responded with a jump shot by Craig Austrie but was then held scoreless for the next two minutes. During that same time, Syracuse was also held scoreless. Back to back 3’s by Rautins got the ‘Cuse lead up to 9 and they never looked back from there on their way to the 10 point victory.

Notes and Observations:

• The starters were Austrie, Dyson, Robinson, Thabeet, and Adrien.
• Dyson had a career high 6 three point shots made. He was really the only scoring threat UCONN had in the game.
• Robinson was the only other player on UCONN to make a 3 pointer.
• Adrien struggled with from the floor, going 3 of 8 for 6 points. He was also 0 for 4 from the charity stripe. He did pull down 10 rebounds.
• A.J. Price’s struggles continued. You could see him visibly upset about his play. His time away from the game is really taking it’s toll on him.
• Thabeet also pulled down 8 rebounds and blocked 4 shots
• UCONN was out-rebounded 55-45.
• Both teams were awful from the floor. They were both 21 of 65 (32%) from the floor.
• The difference was from the foul line. UCONN was 14 of 28 (50%) and Syracuse was 26 of 31 (84%). As I have said all season, you can’t expect to win games in the Big East when you shoot 50% from the foul line.

As I said last game, UCONN really needs someone to step up. Dyson has now done this two games in a row. With Adrien kinda disappearing from the offense during this game, UCONN has no one else. This does not bode well as they try to win games down the stretch to get into the Big East tournament.

With the loss, UCONN falls to 16-10 (5-7 in the Big East). Next up for the Huskies is a road date on Wednesday against Rutgers. Game time is 7:30 PM and the game is being televised locally on CW20.