FanHouse EddieSutton

Don Haskins

"When they won the national championship against the University of Kentucky, that changed college basketball," Sutton said. "At that time, there weren't many teams in the South or Southwest that had African-Americans playing. There was a change in the recruiting of the black athlete. It really changed after that. They've had a great impact on the game."

A source told ESPN's Doug Gottlieb that Sean Sutton is out as the head coach of Oklahoma State.

Sutton was just in his 2nd year as the head coach. He took over in February of 2006 when the coach at the time ... his father Eddie Sutton ... took a leave of absence following an arrest for drunk driving. Eddie never coached at the school again and Sean took over permanently.

In his two full seasons, Sean Sutton was 39-29 with both campaigns ending in first round losses in the N.I.T.

Sean Sutton was groomed for the job by his dad, which makes this a very interesting case. With "succession plans" being the rage around sports nowadays (Pat Knight at Texas Tech; Mike Hopkins at Syracuse; Jim Mora for the Seahawks, etc.), the fact that Sean got just two years means those plans can be cancelled rather quickly. Many people feel that since these legendary coaches hand pick their successors, those newbies will be given some slack.

Apparently not.

North Carolina and Duke will battle for the ACC Championship on Saturday night. The last time the ACC regular season title came down to a final game between the two hopefuls was way back in 1991. Again, it was North Carolina and Duke.

Duke won the game and the conference that year. That was the ol' Laettner-Hurley-Hill Duke team beating the Fox-Rice-Chilcutt Tar Heels' squad.

A week later, North Carolina tore into the Blue Devils, 96-74, to win the ACC Tournament in Charlotte. That win gave the Tar Heels the top seed in the East Region ... which was played in East Rutherford. Dean Smith was joined by Jim Boeheim, Rollie Massimino, John Chaney, Eddie Sutton, Gene Keady, Pete Carril and ... gulp ... Dave Bliss.

Duke was the #2 in the Midwest Region (Pontiac, MI) that featured these coaches: Lou Carnesecca, Tom Penders, Dale Brown, Tom Davis, Bobby Cremins, Jim Calhoun and Pete Gillen.

Both teams would win their regions. UNC breezed through due to upsets elsewhere in the bracket (they faced a 16, 12, 10 and 9 seed on the way to the Final Four) while Duke crushed everyone in their path.

With the Academy Awards done and over, let's see what teams and stories in college basketball best matches with the films that were up for various awards. No, the stories don't always follow what the movie was actually about ... but it's just fun to play:

Atonement -- Indiana and Kelvin Sampson parted ways after it was revealed that the program had some major violations. It gave us a week filled with ick and goo and took away from the on-court action. Sampson will resurface somewhere again ... but he will have to do a lot of work to gain trust. The team, I think, can be a darkhorse for the Final Four but will constantly have this stigma following them. As for the school, Indiana must fess up to its poor judgement of bringing in the tainted coach and deal with the consequences.

Juno -- The fresh young hip movie broke through to a nomination ... just as college basketball has seen a great class of young hip freshman invading campuses. There is K-State's Michael Beasley in the hunt for the National Player of the Year. UCLA's Kevin Love, USC's O.J. Mayo and Indiana's Eric Gordon have been spectacular. And those are just the cream of the crop. Every conference has freshmen making a major impact.

Gone Baby Gone -- Alas, most of those guys won't be around to make a great sophomore class.

"Coach Jessie Evans has requested a leave of absence for the remainder of the basketball season," USF athletic director Debra Gore-Mann said in a statement. "I have approved his request. Eddie Sutton has agreed to serve as interim head coach, effective immediately and for the remainder of the 2007-08 season. I [or someone from the USF athletic administrative staff] will be traveling with the team as much as possible for the immediate future to lend my support to the student-athletes and to assist interim coach Sutton in any way I can."

"I'm physically in good health," Sutton said, adding that his drinking problem is a thing of the past. "I feel very strong."

"As a recovering alcoholic you have to work on that every day," he added. "I still attend meetings."