Praising Ron Hunter, Stella Sampras and Hopkins lax

IUPUI coach Ron Hunter is going above and beyond the call of duty to find shoes for children in Nigeria. AP

By Jacob E. Osterhout

Welcome to this week's installment of the Dean's List. It just wouldn't be Memorial Day in America without Slick Rick receiving a pardon from the governor of New York and a Knievel jumping 24 delivery trucks on a motorcycle.

HONOR ROLL

• Anybody who covers college basketball in the midwest knows IUPUI coach Ron Hunter is the coolest cat south of Milwaukee. (Why Milwaukee? Because it's the Barcelona of Wisconsin.) Pacing the sidelines, there's no coach in America that's more animated, but Hunter's greatest trait is that he cares. And it's not a Kelvin Sampson act. Last season, I saw the Jaguars play on senior night and Coach Hunter ran onto the court and bear hugged his sweaty players after the game. He also cried. Hunter first gained national attention back in January when he coached a game barefoot to collect shoes for African children living in poverty. Now he 's back in the news after announcing that he'll take his team to Nigeria in July to deliver some of the 200,000 pairs of shoes that were donated as a result of his campaign. I love this guy.

• UCLA doesn't need another championship, but the Bruins will take one, especially when it's a title they've never won before. UCLA's women's tennis team beat arch-rival California 4-0 last week to win the school's 102nd championship, but the first women's tennis title. Of course, it helps when the team's coached by the older sister of the best tennis player ever. Stella Sampras, sibling of Pete Sampras, led the Bruins to second place finishes in 2004 and 2007 before finally breaking through in 2008. That's big. So big, even Pete, a Stanford grad, sent his sister a congratulatory text message.

• Any hoops player that withdraws his name from the NBA Draft to return to college automatically makes the honor roll. Accordingly, Memphis' Antonio Anderson, Alabama's Alonzo Gee, and Marquette's Jerel McNeal are winners this week after deciding to go back to school. That's good decision making right there. 8.6, 14.5 and 14.9 ppg in college hoops probably isn't going to cut it in the pros. Maybe somebody should relay the message to NC State's J.J. Hickson, who averaged 14.8 ppg in his one season in Raleigh and doesn't seem to want to withdraw his name for the upcoming NBA Draft.

• It was a weekend of continued dominance in college lacrosse. Johns Hopkins reaffirmed its ownership of Duke, knocking the Blue Devils out of the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four years. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, they couldn't beat nemesis Syracuse in the title game, as the Orange won their tenth national championship. D-III powerhouse Salisbury capped off their undefeated season with a 19-13 victory over SUNY Cortland. It was the Sea Gulls eighth national championship and their 45th consecutive victory. And the Northwestern women's lacrosse team beat Penn, 10-6, to claim their fourth consecutive NCAA championship. So much for parity.