By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
November 21, 2005
NEW YORK – With the lights of Broadway filtering up through the window of our hotel room and the first major preseason tournament in the books (Florida is the somewhat surprising winner of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic here), the Road to College Hoops Trippin' Tour must end. And the good stuff of the regular season must crank up.
The 2005 trip extended from auto factories to farmland to Southern accents, from T.O. talk to New England chill and eventually to the Big Apple. In all, there were over 1,800 miles put on the rented SUV and countless cups of truck stop coffee consumed.
We got to talk to some of the top coaches and players, and heard some of the best stories of the upcoming season.
Best of all, a whole bunch of you read along each day and once again seemed to enjoy what we believe is a truly unique, original and slightly ridiculous experiment in sports journalism, one that has somehow succeeded fox six years running.
Here's the Cliffs Notes version of The Best of the Road to College Hoops, because from what we've seen, this should be another great year.
Best Restaurant: This is the most coveted award we hand out each year. The winner: Katz's Delicatessen, Manhattan.
The Lower East Side deli opened in 1888, and we can't imagine it has lost much through the years. It is everything you could ever want out of a New York Deli – it's loud, crowded, has wise-ass waiters, to-die-for, hand-carved corned beef and salami and a photo wall of fame that runs the gamut form Bill Clinton to Goldberg. Exceptional.
Past winners of the award are:
2004: Little Richard's Lexington BBQ in Winston-Salem, N.C.
2003: Merick Inn, Lexington, Ky.
2002: Texas de Brazil, Memphis, Tenn.
2001: Dudley's, Lexington, Ky.
2000: Montgomery Inn, Cincinnati
Best Diner: Herle's Cafe, Orleans, Ind. Originally opened in 1915. You couldn't invent a rural, downhome spot any better than this.
Best Bar: McCarthy's, Lexington, Ky. Without our evil wheelman, alcohol consumption was down, but not eliminated. McCarthy's wins the duel of Irish bars with Jameson's in New York if only because Jameson's had no Black 47 in the jukebox. But the bartender was from Ireland and may have had a college football gambling problem. So that was good.
Favorite Assistant Coach: Bryan Goodman, Bucknell. It's not even close. Goodman's wife, Amy, is expecting quadruplets this winter (dubbed "The Final Four") and he still has a look of semi-confidence on his face. If he can manage to assemble four cribs while helping Bucknell back to the NCAA tournament, someone should get him a head job.
Best Coffee: Dunkin' Donuts, Manchester, Conn. It was as close as we could get to D&D's homeland of Massachusetts and we have never understood why their coffee is proportionally better closer to world headquarters.
Best Book: Runnin' Reb . . . ah, well spare you.
Best Fan: The drunk guy at Madison Square Garden, who stopped us and told us to "keep an eye on Tulane" this year. "They are going to surprise. You know this, right?" he said.
Best Drive: Indiana State Road 37, just south of Bloomington. Always spectacular as the dawn breaks on a fall morning – and it needed to be to edge out anywhere in West Virginia and Amish Country in Pennsylvania.
Best Skyline: New York. What, you thought Fairmont, West Virginia was going to win?
Best Facilities: Michigan State's Berkowitz Basketball Complex is a repeat winner here – modern, spacious and classy. But we have a feeling that what Kentucky is building as an addition to history-rich Memorial Coliseum could trump it.
Best Statue: The John Wooden wax statue at his hometown high school in Martinsville, Ind. – at least before they dropped it. The statue was decapitated in the fall and its head was replaced with that of some guy who looks nothing like The Wizard.
Best Interview: Bob Knight, Texas Tech. The man says more in a minute than 10 coaches can in a half hour each. If you pay attention, you tend to learn something.
Best Birthday Party: Pete Thamel. By default. Although, if your wife is at home and you're going to a party in New York City, it does help when you can (honestly) point out that there were about the same number of women present as in the algebra class at my all-male high school.
Best Player (I Personally Saw): Rudy Gay, F, Connecticut. Incredibly talented, if he plays with any sense of urgency and fire, it is difficult to imagine anyone better.
Best Team (I Personally Saw): Connecticut. Michigan State was close, but the Huskies have an embarrassment of riches. In fact, there is so much talent that really good players such as Ed Nelson will probably see only spot duty. And this is before their starting point guard returns from suspension.Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Click here to follow him on Twitter. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast. Updated on Monday, Nov 21, 2005 4:11 pm, EST Email to a Friend | View Popular
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