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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Saturday / December 21.
  • Angel Nunez hasn’t played a minute of AAU ball all summer, yet he still picked up a scholarship offer from UConn head coach Jim Calhoun on Wednesday.

    “Calhoun said he’d seen me play twice and both times he had that same feeling he had when he saw Ray Allen and Rip [Hamilton] and them, like ‘This guy has a chance to do something good,'” Nunez, a Harlem native, said by phone.

    A source close to the UConn program confirmed that Calhoun called Nunez earlier Wednesday and made the offer.

    “They know enough about him,” said Eric Martinez, Nunez’s mentor. “They know so much about him.”

    The 6-foot-8, 184-pound Nunez is a rising junior wing at the Winchendon (Mass.) School who recently transferred from Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx.

    The Dallas Mavericks traded for Tim Thomas on Tuesday but you have to wonder if the Paterson, N.J. native will stay there for long.

    The 6-foot-10, 250-pound Thomas, 32, signed a one-year deal for $1.3 million with the Mavs, his fourth team since last November.

    The deal is low-risk for Dallas, which didn’t use any of its midlevel exception or bi-annual exception to land Thomas.

    “Number one, the organization is chasing what I’m chasing, a ring,” Thomas told Keith Idec of The Bergen Record. “And it was important for me to go somewhere that I’m wanted, somewhere that I feel, overall, is just a great fit for me because I can help them in so many different ways. Once my agent told me Dallas was available and how interested they were, it was a no-brainer.”

    This interview with Arizona Coach Sean Miller at the Reebok All-American Camp is the second in a series of interviews with Division 1 head coaches conducted at camps this summer.

    PHILLY —Just a couple of months ago, Sean Miller was the head coach of a Xavier team that had become a perennial NCAA Tournament fixture.

    But in April, Miller shifted addresses, moving from Cincinnati to Arizona, where he became the heir to a program Lute Olson built into a perennial national powerhouse.

    Arizona won the 1997 NCAA championship under Olson and has appeared in three other Final Fours.

    “I’m fortunate,” Miller said at the recent Reebok All-American Camp. “One thing about college basketball, it changes so dramatically with winning and success. And our success at Xavier and so many of the players that did it, they’re the people that really helped me and our staff get the opportunity at Arizona.”

    A day after the now infamous Rubin-Gate press conference at Citi Field, Mets COO Jeff Wilpon has come out publicly to apologize and say that Mets GM Omar Minaya made a “very large mistake” in questioning Adam Rubin’s motives in writing the Tony Bernazard stories.

    You can say that again.

    “I think he really understands he made a very large mistake here. He apologized to ownership, he apologized to the staff,” Wilpon said. “Omar has told me he’s remorseful about what he said.

    “I can only apologize from the organization’s standpoint. Omar made a mistake and he admitted to me he made a mistake and he’s apologetic for his mistake.”

    Wilpon gave Minaya a vote of confidence as the team’s GM despite its struggles on the field and enough off-the-field distractions to fill a circus tent.

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