FanHouse Daequan Cook

The Dayton Daily News reports that native Daequan Cook of the Heat has quietly reached out to a local family whose son died in a tragic hit-and-run accident over the weekend. The youngster, 12-year-old DaQuan Sales, was a huge fan of the reigning NBA three-point champ and planned to attend Cook's local basketball camp later this month.

Cook read about the story over the weekend, and privately contacted the family to volunteer to pay for funeral costs, the News reports. (He's also setting up a scholarship fund in DaQuan's name and invited any of his family members to come to the camp for free.) Cook won't talk to the media about it, wishing not to make a big fuss about his generosity. He deserves the positive attention, though.

PHOENIX -- The competition was there for Jason Kapono. Or maybe Rashard Lewis. Even veteran Mike Bibby might come out of the field the champion. The one thing that was certain was the second-year man from Miami wasn't taking this title, no way, no how.

All-Star weekend is less than two weeks away, so the press releases are coming fast and furious as to who's going to be participating in all of the events. We told you about H.O.R.S.E. on Tuesday, and today, we bring you the field for the 2009 Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout.

Jason Kapono will defend his title and attempt to win the event for the third straight year, and he'll be facing a group of players that collectively have a total of zero three (and counting) prior appearances in the competition.

As currently constructed, the Heat don't have a whole lot of room under the salary cap, but they may be able to fill a glaring need for outside shooting by inking James Jones, who hit 43.7% of his shots from long distance last year for the Trail Blazers. From Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

With the free-agent signing period to commence at midnight, a five-year offer has been extended to Jones, starting at $4 million for next season. The final three years of the contract would be conditional, to protect the Heat for the 2010 free-agency period.

Jones has yet to commit, but working in the team's favor is the fact that he'd be returning home -- he was born and raised in Miami and spent four years at the University of Miami before being drafted. Winderman doesn't offer up any other info about the last three conditional seasons, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict those will be team option years.

You'd think by now Pat Riley would be getting used to this losing business, right? And as team president, he might start to adopt a big picture view and appreciate the team's march toward Michael Beasley? Well, it hasn't happened yet. After getting smoked by the Raptors on Wednesday, Riley called out both his team and his coaching performance yet again, but this time Miami fans might want to actually listen. From the Sun-Sentinel:

"Just a lack of effort and a horrible attitude," Riley said after his team fell to 11-47. "The attitude they showed, I should write a check to each season-ticket holder.

"I should write the check and not even them, because I can't get them to play hard."

[...] By now it is clear that the offseason overhaul will be extensive.

"There'll be a day of reckoning," Riley said. "They'll be somewhere else.

"I've got to ferret out the guys who really don't care."

He's obviously not serious, but if Riles were to put his money where his mouth is, what would a refund cost him? The Sun-Sentinel reports the team's single-game gate is about $1 million. With that kind of jack, don't you think Riley might be able to do a little better job? At the very least he'd get creative.

While his "day of reckoning" talk sounds tough, it's possible an "end is near" attitude is exactly what's infecting this team: they're burnt out playing for a dictator coach on a team that obviously has nothing to look forward to but the future. And seriously, of the players healthy and able, only Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion are worth building around. Former first-round picks Dorell Wright (who just went down with a season-ending knee injury) and Daequan Cook are as big of a question mark as they were before the season started, so there's really no telling what this roster looks like in five months.

After winning their second straight Big Ten title, and making it to the title game against Florida last season, I don't think many people expect the Ohio State Buckeyes to win their third straight conference title this season. When you lose players like Greg Oden, Mike Conley, and Daequan Cook to the NBA, there's going to be a drop off.

Fortunately for the Buckeyes, Thad Matta is one of the best recruiters in the country, and this year's freshman class is looking very promising so far.

I had read a little bit about Kosta Koufos before the season started, but last night was the first time I had a chance to actually see him play. Replacing Greg Oden may not turn out to be so tough after all, as I was very impressed by what I saw from the freshman.

Granted, the Buckeyes were playing Columbia last night, but I was very impressed with Koufos' game. He's not the defensive stalwart that Oden was, but his offensive game is far more polished. The seven-footer led the Buckeyes with 19 points on Tuesday night to follow up his 18 point performance the night before.

Koufos displayed a touch down low on the blocks that's far beyond his 18 years, making eight of his twelve shots, and grabbing seven rebounds as well.

I don't know if Koufos will ever be able to develop into the defensive presence that Oden was, but his offense should more than help make up for the scoring the Buckeyes lost from last season. The question is, will Koufos still be able to play like this going up against D.J. White or the Spartans?

If he can, that third straight Big Ten title might not be so far out of reach after all.

The final score might have had the Buckeyes winning by 19, but this one was quite a bit closer than that. Iowa State came to play against the Buckeyes, and Ohio State came out extremely flat. They pretty much had to out talent the Cyclones down the stretch, because they weren't playing at the top of their game at all.

I think we can forgive the Buckeyes for looking ahead to Florida on Saturday. That's pretty understandable.

Greg Oden played a whopping 35 minutes in this one, scoring 18 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. He was only 8-15 from the floor though, which for him is a certified off night. Maybe he's mortal after all.

Daequan Cook was the star though, scoring 21 points off the bench. He was 8-12 from the floor, and hit a few threes.

It's worth noting that Matt Terwilliger only played three minutes, after only playing for 10 against Cincinnati. Prior to the last two games he'd been playing in the 18-20 minute range, so it seems like he's getting phased out with Greg Oden's arrival.

From all the post game reaction you'd have a tough time telling that the Buckeyes lost this game against North Carolina. I've read gushing columns, blog posts that declared the only difference between North Carolina and Ohio State to be a lack of turnovers on the Tar Heels part, and I've also received a ton of emails from people saying Ohio State looks like a Final Four team, even without Oden. That's a lot of praise.

And I understand why the reaction has been this way. It's a lot to ask of a young team to go into North Carolina and come away with a win this early in the year, but the Buckeyes came close. They looked downright spectacular in the first half, and their main weakness seemed to be a lack of post presence. When your main weakness is about to be addressed by Greg Oden it's understandable that people will be forgiving of a loss like the one Ohio State suffered against North Carolina.

This was the first Ohio State game I've seriously watched this year, only seeing chunks of the first six wins, and I came away incredibly impressed. It's hard to believe that Greg Oden can make a bigger impact than a guy like Mike Conley Jr., and I'm just now seeing how ridiculous their high school team must have been. But it doesn't stop with Conley. Daequan Cook is a monster off the bench. David Lighty is fun to watch. Older players like Ron Lewis and Jamar Butler keep it all together.

It's still early, but it's already clear that this is one hell of a team. It's really hard to see them having trouble with most of the teams on their schedule, especially when they get Greg Oden back. And for those of you who watched the game Wednesday night, my apologies for mentioning Greg Oden so much. I know you heard the name enough from Dick Vitale, who mentioned him about four times a possession. Greg Oden.

Sorry. Oden.