SI looks at Findlay Prep
Two national championship basketball teams will be featured in this week's Sports Illustrated: North Carolina gets the cover, and Findlay Prep of Henderson will be featured inside.
The 33-0 Pilots are three days into their reign as National High School Invitational champions, and their program will be featured when the magazine hits newsstands today.
But the "teaser" news release provided by SI to the Las Vegas Review-Journal sounds as if the Findlay story is more investigation than celebration.
The article, written by senior staffer Phil Taylor, is called "March Madness comes to high school hoops: Is that a good thing?"
The story explains that "Findlay Prep is a team, but not a school, with its eight players taking classes at a nearby private school, Henderson International School.
"Senior center and UNLV recruit Carlos Lopez says: 'It can get confusing for people. I tell them Findlay Prep is a team, not a school. Then it's like, 'You don't go to school?' Yes, we go to school just like anybody else, but our team is not the same as our school. Like I said, confusing.' "
The article also says, "In addition, these kids live in a $425,000 five-bedroom house in Las Vegas with everything paid for, including lodging, transportation, food, laptops, Nike gear and full cable TV, among other things."
• PRESIDENT'S PICKS -- President Barack Obama correctly picked North Carolina to win the championship in his ESPN bracket, and that helped him finish among the top 20 percent of the 5 million who entered the ESPN.com pool.
Obama had fallen to the bottom half when three of his Final Four picks -- Louisville, Pittsburgh and Memphis -- lost.
• FORD FIELD JINX -- Michigan sports teams are finding Ford Field to be as hospitable as Ford's Theatre was to Abraham Lincoln.
The drubbing absorbed by Michigan State on Monday in the NCAA championship game is the latest chapter.
The home of the Detroit Lions -- that should say enough -- was the site of the 12th consecutive loss by a major Michigan team.
The Spartans, however, did show improvement in their 89-72 thumping by North Carolina in the massive stadium; the Tar Heels beat them there 96-61 in December's Big Ten-ACC Challenge. On the same night, Maryland whipped Michigan.
In the Dec. 26 Motor City Bowl, Florida Atlantic beat Central Michigan.
That was five days after the Lions lost to New Orleans to complete an 0-8 home-field run.
Who would guess the last Michigan team to win at Ford Field was the Lions, who went 2-0 in the 2008 preseason.
• CAPTIVE CROWD -- The NCAA marveled at record crowds in the Motor City for its hoops holiday.
Monday's crowd of 72,922 topped the record set during Saturday's semifinals doubleheader, and the combined total of nearly 150,000 is another record.
Attendance records were either because finalist Michigan State is about 90 miles from Detroit or the city's unemployment rate of 22 percent provided hundreds of thousands without jobs in Motown with something to do.
COMPILED BY JEFF WOLF LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
