…While thanking Scott Hoch for missing a 2-footer that would have sent a Senior PGA Tour event into a playoff, thus delaying NBC’s coverage of playoff hockey for at least another half-hour.

– My main impression from watching the Jordan Brand Classic last night is that Tyreke Evans is better than I thought he was. Sure, it’s an All-Star game, and neither team was exactly playing much D out there. But Evans is going to be absolutely lethal playing in John Calipari’s offense. The only thing I don’t like about his game is that he plays a little bit too upright, but he’s a very hard man to guard. He’s not Derrick Rose, but he doesn’t have to be because college defenders will have to respect Evans’ ability to shoot the ball, especially with that fadeaway he can go to. Rose didn’t get that respect, especially early in the season. That will help Evans’ ability to drive the ball against college defenders. Evans and Brandon Jennings (headed to Arizona) are definitely the two best players in this class.

– This stuff about Evans being a “ballhog” is a bunch of bunk. It’s funny to me that when people evaluated Eric Gordon last season, they talked about his “relentless will to score.” When they evaluate Evans, he’s a “ballhog.” Give me a break.

– One of the big offseason topics has been the Memphis point guard situation. Will it be Antonio Anderson, Willie Kemp or Tyreke Evans? How about Wesley Witherspoon? If he indeed commits to Memphis, Witherspoon is without question a viable option to play point guard for the Tigers. I had previously been told that by various people close to the program, but I wasn’t necessarily a believer until seeing him last night. He definitely has the ball skills, and he appears to be able to defend that position even at 6-7 or 6-8.

– So apparently Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl has been running around the state telling a variation this joke, transcribed from a recording on the Chattanooga Times Free Press Web site of his speech to the local Better Business Bureau: (According to a poster on MemphisTigers.org, he told the same joke yesterday in a different speech, modified because Chris Douglas-Roberts turned pro.)

“I don’t know if you have all seen it. did you see where Memphis’ kids are all going to come back and none of them are going to go hardship? I don’t know if you all saw that. Douglas-Roberts said he couldn’t take the pay cut if he came out, so he’s coming back next year. (Groans and laughter) I’ve got to do something to liven y’all up. I’m just kidding.”

– Amazing what people will say when they don’t know they’re being tape recorded, isn’t it? Pearl, of course, should know all about that (Wink, wink)

– Seriously, what a jokester Pearl is. It especially sounded funny coming from a guy who is about to sign Scotty Hopson. I’m just kidding, of course.

– Look, I know 95% of my media bretheren laps up Pearl’s clown act. I just can’t get with it. Making accusations thinly veiled as jokes isn’t funny, it’s asinine. Telling a public gathering that you’re going to “kick Memphis’ ass” isn’t refreshing, it’s undignified.

– But you know what? It works. Let’s just say one of John Calipari or Bill Self or even Mike Krzyzewski’s teams had risen to No. 1 on Feb. 25, then sputtered to the finish line and gotten drilled in a Sweet 16 game against a team that had been lower-ranked for basically the entire season. They’d have gotten roasted; I can tell you that much.

– I haven’t found one article criticizing Pearl for the way his team peaked in late February and never was quite the same. After beating Memphis, Tennessee basically abandoned every single principle it used to get the No. 1 ranking. Was that even a topic of conversation? Not to my knowledge, at least not in the national press and media outlets that cover UT — including the Tennessean, the Knoxville News-Sentinel and Chattanooga Times Free Press.

– I guess painting your chest buys you a lot of leeway. But if Pearl can’t get UT over that Sweet 16 hump in the next couple years, those jokes just might start to wear thin.