The Universe Makes It Up to Rick Stansbury

Around this time last year, a young Kentuckian named Scott Hopson was wavering on a commitment he had made to fellow Kentuckian and Mississississippissppi State head coach to play the basketball down Starkville way. At the time, we had little sympathy for Stan'sberry because Hopson was rumored to be interested in Kentucky and we were all giddy at the prospect of adding a McDonald's All-American to last year's recruiting class. Fast forward a bit and we find the former University Heights star fully breaking off the MSU engagement and officially signing with a shirtless Bruce Pearl and his Volunteers. Stansbury is left to pick up the pieces to his broken heart and soldiers on triumphantly by riding Jarvis Varnado to an SEC Tournament title. But feel not bad for the Staters as the force in the universe known as "Carmen" (I think) has rewarded their collective patience by plucking a 6'9 mountain of a lad from the committed list of schizophrenic Tim Floyd and Southern California and placing him carefully and lovingly in the figurative lap of one Richard Stansbury (If it were the literal lap, it'd be kind of weird). The player in question, Renardo "Montalban" Sidney, is rated 7th overall in his class and, assuming Jarvis Varnado returns next year, provides Stansbury with an excellent frontcourt and a likely Top 25 team. It also provides the program's marketing department with a chance to build an entire campaign around the similar sounds of "Renardo" and "Varnado". So, there you have it boy and girls, the moral of our story is to emulate Rick Stansbury; Don't sit on your behind and whine about how one of your recruits was stolen from you (Bruce Weber) for the next five years, but go out and take someone else's committed recruit by using whatever trick you use to lure people to Stark-vegas (hypnosis is my guess). If we all obey this principle--bring people to Starkville--we will all live happily ever after. OK, so now what do I do, push the little button and it stops recording? OK, but make sure that our administrative assistant doesn't type this last bit of dictation--it's basically just me asking you how to turn off the recorder. Cool. I don't know, maybe McNuggets or something from Captain D's. Click. ESPN.com link