The New Jersey Nets continue to make a push for Stromile Swift, and have apparently offered center Jason Collins this time. It is not known if this is a straight-up proposal. But it could be (unlike the one Memphis turned down earlier this season involving Jamaal Magloire and other players) because Collins and Swift’s salaries essentially are equal this season and next.

As of this morning, however, the Grizzlies balked at acquiring Collins. The Griz coaching staff is said to be less enamored with Collins, who is not even as athletic as Darko Milicic.

Swift, meanwhile, returned to practice Thursday ready to put his one-game suspension behind him. The 6-9 forward/center did say, however, that it’s time to move on if the Grizzlies don’t intend to play him.

Stay tuned.

I found some interesting bits of news from around the country while surfing the outdoors Net this morning:

Here’s a sampling:

In Maryland, an angler has landed an 11.18-pound largemouth bass that will rank as the new state record for tidal water bass.

In Alabama, a grand jury is set to investigate last year’s Monster Pig fiasco. You remember that one, don’t you? That was the incident when the 11-year-old kid killed a 1,000-pound wild hog that turned out had been someone’s pet. This is a very interesting story that sheds a lot of light on just how dirty that operation really was.

In Massachusetts, A 27-year-old man fell through the ice while walking home in the dark and survived only because his neighbor executed a rescue mission in a canoe. Everyone should have a friend like that.

In Mississippi, a visiting out-of-state hunter killed a banded pintail duck. Conservation officials who examined the duck say it was actually banded and released in Japan. That’s unbelievable.

Upset in the making? It wouldn’t shock me. Houston just needs this one bad enough; it’s basically an NCAA Tournament game for the Cougars. If Memphis has just a slight lapse in concentration or effort tonight, the Tigers could suffere their first loss of the season. We’ll see how they get up for this game. I predict the Tigers will be down at halftime.

I’m sitting even closer to the bench here than I do at home games, so I’ll be able to get all the little ins and outs during the game. I might even be able to sneak into the huddle. A player to watch for Houston tonight is Dion Dowell. He choked big-time agianst the Tigers last year, but he’s been a key 3-point shooter this season. H’e’s a tough cover for a guy like Robert Dozier, who isn’t used to playing his man out on the perimeter. Doneal Mack played well in this building last season and made a couple big 3-pointers in the first half that helped eht Tigers grab control of the game. He could be big again.

This place is starting to fill up. The line to let students in was crazy when I pulled up. Also, props to Houston SID staff for getting wireless Internet this season. Big, big plus. In a place like Hofheinz Pavilion, which doesn’t look like it’s been touched since about 1975, that’s a big amenity. I only recognize two of the officials: Duke Edsell and David Hall. Hall is a notorious homer, and he loves to be The Show when he refs. We’ll see how that plays out tonight.

Then I see where some stupid students have put their guest tickets up for sale on EBay. This is an atrocity.

The guest tickets are sold so you can take your friends to games. They are for you to take family members to games. The student has to have some dignity about them to do just that. That section isn’t for scalpers. It should be filled with Tigers. And there were students who didn’t get to buy guest tickets because slimeballs like that used the privilege to scalp them.
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While many Mid-Southerners were enjoying the final few minutes of hunting season last weekend, Marion, Ark., resident Mark Rose was notching another top-five finish on the pro-fishing circuit - his fourth in 11 months.

Rose caught a four-day total of 20 bass that weighed 61 pounds, 8 ounces and placed fifth in the FLW Series Eastern Division event on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. J.T. Kenny of Port Charlotte, Fla., won the tournament with 68-13.

Rose earned $20,000 for the performance, bringing his career earnings on the FLW Outdoors circuit to a whopping $633,637. FLW Outdoors hosts several tours, including the FLW Series, FLW Tour, Stren Series and Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League (BFL).

Since March 2007, Rose managed the following top-10 finishes:

Second place at the Stren Series Central Division on Bull Shoals Lake ($13,301).

Fourth place at the Stren Series Central Division on the Columbus Pool ($5,970)

First place at the FLW Series Eastern Division on Pickwick Lake ($125,000)

Fifth place at the FLW Series Eastern Division on Lake Okeechobee ($20,000).

Rose now has 14 career top-10 finishes with FLW Outdoors.

He’s scheduled to take part in the FLW Series East/West Fish-Off next week in Del Rio, Texas.

The Grizzlies have suspended Stromile Swift for one game for conduct detrimental to the team. Swift and head coach Marc Iavaroni exchanged words on the bench during the Grizzlies’ loss Monday to the Dallas Mavericks.

Swift stood, leaning over Iavaroni, apparently trying to make his point during the disagreement. Assistant coach Johnny Davis eventually intervened before Swift strolled to the end of the bench. Swift will miss the Grizzlies’ game Wednesday against the Denver Nuggets.

Albeit a player who never fully reached his potential, Swift has never been a knucklehead. So this is clearly a surprise turn of events in what has been a disappointing season for the Griz.

ROSTER MOVE: The Grizzlies will allow Bobby Jones’ second 10-day contract to expire today. He will not be signed for the rest of this season. Jones appeared in nine games for the Griz. He averaged 4.4 points on 39-percent shooting. If the Griz sign another player soon, he likely will be a point guard given Mike Conley’s injury and Damon Stoudamire’s departure via a buyout.

As John Calipari talked to the team after practice Monday, he hit on a point I noticed watching the Gonzaga game. I’ve never seen the Tigers run as fast as they did Saturday. They made Gonzaga look slow, and Gonzaga isn’t slow. But you can point to at least 10 or 12 plays in that game where the Tigers’ speed was simply overwhelming, where they got buckets simply because they sprinted down the court and beat the defense. That’s the advantage Memphis has over most teams, and I’m not sure any team in the country can run with them when they operate at that speed.

There was an Internet rumor that 2009 recruit Lance Stephenson — a big-time player out of New York — was at FedExForum for the game. Not true. The only big-time guy coming in from out of town is Tyreke Evans for the Tennessee game.

After the game, Calipari mentioned that he’s working with Kansas and Arkansas for possible games at neutral sites. The Arkansas thing may surprise some of you, especially in light of comments a couple weeks ago about not wanting to play SEC teams unless they publicly supported Memphis being invited into the SEC (and Cal’s comments years ago about not wanting to play the regional teams like Arkansas). It’s a nuanced position, and I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. Calipari wants to play the “national” teams (Arizona, Ohio State, Gonzaga, Syracuse, West Virginia, etc.) as home-and-home games. He wants to play the regional teams, but only on neutral/NCAA Tournament sites, where they aren’t given a platform to recruit in Memphis (like playing Arkansas in North Little Rock or Tennessee in Nashville). Apparently, Arkansas has expressed a willingness to play Memphis at Alltel Arena in Little Rock with the tickets split in half. While the crowd would lean more Arkansas, I’m sure, it would be an interesting experiment to see how many people Memphis would bring down there to play the Hogs.

Meanwhile, I loved what Calipari did in the Gonzaga game with Doneal Mack, whose playing time had been down a good bit. The reality is, if the Tigers had a player like Lee Humphrey — just an absolute cold-blooded 3-point shooter — I don’t think they’d ever lose. Now, those kind of guys aren’t easy to find, but Mack can be a reasonable facsimilie. I’ve seen him in practice enough to know how good he can be; in fact, there are days when the second team beats the first team simply because Mack goes crazy making shots. Mack went 2-for-8 from 3…If the Tigers can get 3-for-8 from Mack in some of these games, they’d take it and run with it.

Also, I talked to Tom Penders tonight about his Houston team. One interesting thing about their 85-71 loss to Arizona is that Jerryd Bayless wasn’t supposed to play in that game, but he did play, and Arizona came out with entirely new offensive sets. In other words, Houston prepared for something and got something else, which is one reason why they weren’t able to guard Arizona. Penders thinks his team is still in the NCAA Tournament race, even if it doesn’t beat Memphis, which I don’t necessarily agree with. On the other hand, I took a quick look at filling out a bracket yesterday and I came up two teams short, so it’s not like the at-large pool is overflowing this year.

Also, a quick FYI. My regular time slot on AM 560 has been moved to Tuesday for this week, due to the Super Bowl so I’ll be in studio at 11:20 a.m. tomorrow to talk Tigers.

Click below for my AP top 25 ballot:
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