Louisville-Notre Dame matchup pits Delaware legends against each other

The mind tends to roam on these days when it seems winter may never end.

It lands on various sports-related flotsam and jetsam that can only be described as extremely random.

Since nobody can, fortunately, read my mind, here are some of those contemplations that others may also now peruse:

Good for Pegues

Everybody keeps talking and writing about who will be Louisville’s next basketball coach.

Around here, it’s fair to appreciate the guy who is Louisville’s basketball coach for the rest of this season.

Mike Pegues, who starred at Delaware from 1996-2000, is Louisville’s interim head coach. He was elevated from his assistant’s post for the first six games of the season when Chris Mack was suspended and now for the rest of the season after Mack’s Jan. 26 firing.

"The effort was there (today) -- at least in terms of competing and trying to win," said interim head coach Mike Pegues after Louisville's loss to Duke. "But the moral victory thing, I'm not doing that. That's not good enough. We got to win games. That's the standard." The Cards fell 74-65 to visiting Duke. January 29, 2022

It’s been no picnic. The Cardinals (11-12 overall, 5-8 ACC) have lost five straight and eight of nine, including close games to Duke and North Carolina before a blowout against Syracuse since Pegues took over.

“There will be no excuses,” Pegues has said.

This Wednesday night, Pegues will coach Louisville at Notre Dame against Mike Brey, who was his coach at Delaware before he left to lead the Irish the summer after Pegues’ final season.

Knowing the fondness these two have for each other, it’s going to be can’t-miss TV (ESPNU). A flock of former Blue Hens will certainly be glued to the game, and the reunion will certainly jar many memories.

On July 31, 1995, a couple months after he was hired as UD coach, I drove with Brey to High Point High in Calverton, Maryland, for a story I was writing on his early recruiting efforts.

Morgan Wootten, Brey’s fabled coach at DeMatha High, sat beside him that night in the bleachers. Pegues, entering his senior year at DeMatha, played in the game we watched in that sweltering gym, though Brey was not permitted to talk publicly about him to his media guest. Pegues would later accept Brey’s scholarship offer.

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Brey would later compare Pegues’ dexterity to those of a ballet dancer, his deft low-post skills making him Delaware’s all-time leading scorer while sparking the Blue Hens to 1998 and 1999 NCAA and 2000 NIT berths. Brey has long since referred to Pegues as the guy who got him the Notre Dame job in July of 2000.

Pegues played professionally, mostly overseas, before returning home to coach at the AAU and high school levels. He joined the VCU staff in 2009-10. He then worked at Delaware under Monte Ross for two seasons before being hired by Mack, then coach at Xavier. He later moved with him to Louisville.

When Delaware had a vacancy after Ross’ firing in 2016, Pegues interviewed. But he didn’t have as much experience as other candidates, such as eventual hire Martin Ingelsby.

Now he does. Pegues is reportedly not a candidate to become Louisville’s next head coach, but someone will be fortunate to land him.

Davis steps up for Hens

Sanford School graduate Jyare Davis has stepped in quite admirably for Delaware since Dylan Painter sprained his ankle at Towson Jan. 27.

“He’s just really starting to come into his own on the offensive end,” Ingelsby said of Davis. “ . . . Very, very excited about his future in our program.”

Davis, who missed his freshman year at Providence in 2020-21 with a concussion before transferring, had a career-high 22 points, seven rebounds and six assists in a win at James Madison Jan. 29. He then supplied 12 points and five rebounds in a 76-68 loss to Drexel last Thursday.

Ingelsby said Davis and the coaches had to “meet halfway” in terms of how to make best use of his skills and that led to “a better understanding” of how he could be effective.

“He wanted to spend time on the perimeter,” Ingelsby said, “and maybe have the ball in his hands and shoot a lot of jump shots. We thought he could be really effective around the basket with his size and athleticism, and he’s really, really unselfish.”

Has anyone else observed that Davis has exhibited some footwork that is rather, well, Pegues-like?

Painter will certainly give the Blue Hens a boost when he returns, maybe as soon as Thursday night against Northeastern, the first of three home games in five nights. But Davis’ contributions bode well for the Blue Hens now and in the future.

It’s a Pennsylvania thing

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh teams don’t meet enough, except in ice hockey.

The Eagles and Steelers normally only played every four years. But the NFL’s addition of a 17th game beginning last season has led to a Philly-Pittsburgh matchup in 2022, since each was a second-place divisional finisher and the schedule called for an NFC East-AFC North matchup there.

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The Phillies and Pirates were National League East Division rivals from 1969 through 1993 and met frequently.

But Major League Baseball switched to three divisions in each league in 1994, and the Pirates went to the NL Central. Now the two former rivals play just two series a year, one in Pittsburgh and one in Philadelphia, which isn’t enough.

For those of us who grew up in eastern Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania seemed like another state anyway. Might as well have been part of Ohio.

But the Philly-Pittsburgh rivalry is real. A Steelers-Eagles Super Bowl would be an all-timer, bringing together two of the NFL’s most rabid fan bases. Maybe they could play it at Penn State.

What to do about tanking?

The subject of how to prevent pro teams from tanking has recently become a hotter topic and I have the solution.

It has come up in the conversations between Major League Baseball owners and the MLB Players Association in their ongoing labor dispute. Fired Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores and former Browns coach Hue Jackson also recently said they were urged to lose NFL games.

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This is all, of course, in the pursuit of high draft picks and potential future success.

Baseball has discussed a draft lottery, similar to the NBA’s, at discouraging such practice. Of course, that didn’t prevent the Philadelphia 76ers from being the kings of NBA tankers while winning 19 games in 2013-14, 18 in 2014-15 and 10 in 2015-16.

Since they’re so bad at drafting players, the 76ers still haven’t even reached the Eastern Conference finals despite that approach.

There is another way to discourage losing on purpose that has proven to be effective overseas and should be employed here, but never will, especially because the NFL has no minor league.

Yes, relegation, the system used in most international soccer organizations in which bottom teams are demoted to a lower league and others promoted due to their success.

Sorry Baltimore Orioles and Arizona Diamondbacks, who each won 52 games last season. You’re in Triple-A this year, removed from the MLB spotlight and its financial rewards.

You’ve been replaced by last year’s biggest Triple-A winners, the Durham Bulls and Buffalo Bisons, who get to play against their big-league parent clubs Tampa Bay and Toronto.

Those 2013-16 76ers should have been booted to the NBA’s G League and supplanted by its champion.

The way U.S. pro leagues and teams are owned, operated and organized, this cannot happen.

But it should.

Have an idea for a compelling local sports story or is there an issue that needs public scrutiny? Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com.

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Louisville-Notre Dame matchup pits Delaware legends against each other

Good for Pegues

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Good for Pegues

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