Wednesday Notebook: Coaches vs. Catastrophe

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

You always know it's late in the college football season when you start to see ESPN's promos for the Coaches vs. Cancer tipoff classic.

The early season roundball event is a fund-raiser for the V Foundation that longtime analyst and close friend of the late Jim Valvano, Dick Vitale, has tirelessly promoted.

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But after last week's deadly earthquake in Haiti, Kentucky's John Calipari and Kansas' Bill Self were among NCAA coaches helping to raise money for a new cause: the devastation on the small Caribbean island.

Calipari arranged a "Hoops for Haiti" telethon on Sunday that brought in more than $500,000 in donations. He and other Lexington luminaries pledged to match that total dollar for dollar, so just from one day in Kentucky, more than $1 million was raised for Haiti victims.

And along with his wife, Self and his Bill Self Assists Foundation urged KU fans to make a donation at Allen Fieldhouse before the Jayhawks played Texas Tech on Saturday. The KU coach said he'll match a portion of that total by today.

LAST NIGHT:

Glad to see No. 15 Purdue get back on track with a key road win at Illinois. The Boilermakers started 14-0, then lost three straight, but they righted the ship last night thanks to second-half performances from a pair of unsuspecting players.

John Hart, used so seldom this season that a Purdue official even forgot to add his name to the scorebook, sparked a 15-4 run to open a high-scoring second half. After trailing, 32-28, at halftime, Purdue blew up for 56 points after the break to claim an 84-78 win.

With less than seven minutes left, Kelsey Barlow earned a pair of old-fashioned three-point plays on consecutive possessions to stretch Purdue's lead to eight, holding off an Illinois team that had won four of its first five Big Ten games this season.

No. 18 Georgia Tech definitely didn't play its best game of the season last night, but the Yellow Jackets played well enough to earn a 66-64 defeat of No. 16 Clemson. Each team had pulled off an upset of North Carolina in the last week, but it was Tech that continued the winning trend. The more I watch Paul Hewitt's group, the more I really like his personnel in Atlanta.

ON TV TONIGHT:

+ No. 12 Georgetown at No. 9 Pittsburgh (7 p.m., ESPN): I like Chris Wright, but other than him, the Hoyas just don't really do it for me this season. Still, tonight's game with surprising Pittsburgh will be a nice, physical, Big East battle that the surging Panthers should win. I'll buy in to Georgetown if it can turn the trick on the road.

+ No. 25 Baylor at No. 3 Kansas (9 p.m., ESPN2): You've been hibernating the last couple of winters if you didn't know the Bears are on the rise. And while Kansas is dominant at home, Baylor beat the Jayhawks the last time the teams met in the Big 12 tournament last year. The Bears are even better this year, and could threaten the KU's 52-game home winning streak tonight.

AROUND THE CORNER:

Whatever you need to do to make yourself available to watch Ohio State at West Virginia Saturday (2 p.m., CBS), just go ahead and do it. On a day when Texas visits Connecticut and Duke plays at Clemson, the best game Saturday will be in Morgantown.

I feel like Ohio State is on the verge of something pretty special now that Evan Turner is at least playing like he's 100 percent healthy. And WVU is among the top teams in the rugged Big East. It will be interesting to see if the Mountaineers' defense can slow Turner down. My guess is probably not entirely, but just enough to beat the Buckeyes.