Pittsburgh Coach Kevin Stallings got into a verbal tussle with a heckling Louisville fan Tuesday night near the Panthers' bench.
Stallings allegedly told a fan that at least his team didn't pay players $100,000, referencing a claim in an ongoing FBI investigation that Louisville orchestrated such a payment to five-star recruit Brian Bowen.
The investigation led to the dismissal of coach Rick Pitino and prompted the school to make Bowen ineligible.
In the postgame news conference, Stallings admitted to the confrontation with the fan but didn't reveal what he said.
"Somebody said something bad about my players," said Stallings, whose team suffered a 77-51 loss to the Cardinals. "So, I'm just going to stick up for my players. Probably said the wrong thing, but I'm not going to let people talk crap about my players."
Louisville Coach David Padgett said he wasn't aware of the incident until a question was asked in his news conference. He knows the team has been -- and most likely will be throughout the season -- heckled on the road. At Purdue, Boilermakers fans wore FBI shirts.
"We've just got to ignore that," Padgett said. "Our players at Purdue, they didn't let it bother them, so it's not anything we're going to talk about or pay attention to."
Coming up Roses
The Sentry Tournament of Champions in Kapalua, Hawaii, has the top five players in the world. It just doesn't have the hottest player in the world.
That would be Justin Rose, who ended 2017 with 10 consecutive top 10s since missing the cut at the PGA Championship. That includes three victories (HSBC Champions, Turkish Airlines Open and Indonesian Masters), along with a runner-up finish in the BMW Championship during the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Oddly enough, Rose wanted to be at Kapalua last year and made a reasonable argument that his victory in the Olympics should have qualified. He was eligible this year from his World Golf Championship title in Shanghai but chose to take an extended break before starting in Abu Dhabi.
Until his big run at the end, Rose had only one top 10 -- a tie for fourth in the Irish Open -- during a four-month stretch. Rose said that was due more to a few technical changes he was making in May and June than any hangover from his playoff loss to Sergio Garcia in the Masters.
"I try not to think about the Masters. I don't think about it that much," Rose said in the Bahamas. "Clearly, it's one of those moments in your career. Fortunately, it's not a defining moment for me.
"You've got to put yourself on the line. You can't be afraid of losing. You can't get through a career without some heartache. I'm all good with it."
Snow bowl
A blizzard caused a major crash Tuesday involving about 75 vehicles, shutting down a highway near Buffalo.
Wrote Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com: "Maybe someone shouldn't have said hell would freeze over before Bills made playoffs."
Sports on 01/04/2018