Nick Colletta soars to catch an alley-oop pass (via the Colletta family)

Having determined his team's most glaring weakness next season was likely to be outside shooting, newly hired Marist coach Jeff Bower began asking around last month to see if any of his friends knew of a perimeter marksman still on the market.

One name he got in response left him especially intrigued.

A prep school coach told Bower about a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Southern California once viewed as a high-major prospect before a back injury sidelined him for most of his junior and senior seasons. Bower watched film of Nick Colletta from his sophomore year at Glendora High School and scouted him in person at a Las Vegas AAU tournament a couple weeks ago, both of which left him surprised no other Division I schools were showing any interest.

"You never get overzealous too quickly and you're always trying to be as reserved as you can, but Nick really did fit every criteria I laid out as far as if I wanted to use a scholarship this spring," Bower said. "Obviously this time of year, you understand the challenges of finding someone in the mold of what you're looking for. With Nick, we really liked how he shot the ball, how he played the game, his competitive instinct and his ability to make plays."

A little-known Metro Atlantic Conference program on the other side of the country once may not have interested Colletta, but his outlook had changed dramatically over the previous two years.

Phone calls and letters from Division I coaches gradually became less and less frequent during his injury-plagued junior season until by the start of his senior year no schools were recruiting him at all. Before Bower and his staff began showing interest in late April, Colletta's plan for this spring was to showcase himself on the AAU circuit to prep schools and enroll at whichever one offered the best platform to drum up interest from college coaches the following year.

Criticize Chris Bosh's pregame warmup if you will, but he did hit five of his first six shots, score 10 points, block two shots and snag a steal in the first quarter of the Miami Heat's visit to United Center for Game 4 against the Chicago Bulls on Monday. So maybe you're the weirdo.

Vine via the Heat. Hat-tip to Next Impulse Sports.

(Getty)

With two matches left to play, Manchester City have officially sacked manager Roberto Mancini one year to the day after he led them to the Premier League title. Days of speculation and rumor made it seem like an inevitabality, but Man City announced the decision with a statement on their official website Monday night, the crux of which is the following paragraph:

Despite everyone’s best efforts, the Club has failed to achieve any of its stated targets this year, with the exception of qualification for next season’s UEFA Champions League. This, combined with an identified need to develop a holistic approach to all aspects of football at the Club, has meant that the decision has been taken to find a new manager for the 2013/14 season and beyond.

If Mancini did achieve the goal of Champions League qualification, then he didn't exactly fail to achieve any of the club's stated targets this year. Also, use of the phrase "holistic approach" is already being widely mocked for being nonsensical. Clearly this statement could have been written much better both in explaining why Mancini was sacked and avoiding backlash from the public and press.

The following is the statement Man City should have made...

Andre Drummond shows off "monstrous dunk," currently his best scoring move (Allen Einsten/ Getty).

Detroit Pistons big man Andre Drummond was one of the most impressive rookies in the NBA this season, a dynamic force who managed many impressive stat lines despite playing only 20.7 minutes per game. His per-36-minute averages of 13.8 ppg, 13.2 rpg, and 2.8 bpg suggest a player who could eventually turn into one of the most impactful interior players in the league. There are good reasons to be bullish about his future.

On the other hand, Drummond can look exceedingly raw, like a player who gets by on his athleticism and intuition rather than his refined sense of the game. Drummond must recognize this issue, because he has hired a pretty famous coach to instruct him on the finer points of his position. From Perry A. Farrell for the Detroit Free Press:

Colin Kaepernick and Chris Ault in 2010. (USAT Sports Images)

The Pistol formation -- that backfield concept which has the quarterback lined up about four yards behind center and the halfback another three yards behind him -- took the NFL by storm in 2012. Between Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson, and Colin Kaepernick, more quarterbacks were running Pistol more effectively than ever before. That formation was invented by former Nevada head coach Chris Ault in 2005, and forwarded by Ault with Kaepernick as his quarterback from 2007 through 2010. In the NFL, we first saw the Pistol in 2008, when Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Chan Gailey reacted to the loss of his starting and backup quarterbacks (Damon Huard and Brodie Croyle, respectively) by inserting third-stringer Tyler Thigpen in the lineup and running Pistol to a high degree of effectiveness for a few weeks.

It took the rest of the league a while to catch up, but a handful of teams finally did. And now, the man responsible for that concept is also in the NFL. Ault, who retired from his position at Nevada in December of last year, has agreed to become an offensive consultant with the Kansas City Chiefs. Bob LaMonte, Ault's agent, confirmed the news to Dan Hinxman of RGJ.com.

“I’m excited to have an opportunity like this,” the 66-year-old Ault said on Monday. "It’s an opportunity to get a feel for the NFL. [Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has] hired an experienced staff. The timing is exciting. I’m going to learn an awful lot about the NFL.”

When asked whether he would be making more than the estimated $500,000 per season he was making at Nevada after 28 years there, Ault laughed and said that it wasn't about the money.

“I told Coach Reid, ‘Whatever I can do to help you win a Super Bowl, I’ll do it.’”

The Ault hire is interesting on a number of levels.

(lobshots.com)

This offseason we will count down various topics from Monday through Friday, bringing you the top five of the important and definitely some not so important issues in college football. It's the Doc Five, every week until we will thankfully have actual games to discuss.

BEFORE THEY WERE FAMOUS: ACTORS WHO PLAYED COLLEGE FOOTBALL

NO. 5 – CARL WEATHERS

Apollo Creed, ya’ll.

But before Weathers took on Rocky in 1976, he had a decent college football career that started at Long Beach City College and ended with two letters at San Diego State.

Weathers was a freshman at Long Beach City College in 1966 before suffering a season-ending ankle injury by tripping over the curb that surrounds the track where he was warming up. He transferred to San Diego State and lettered as a linebacker in 1968 and 1969. His play was good enough to land him on the Oakland Raiders as a free agent. He played seven games. And he played in the CFL with the BC Lions.

But his true calling was definitely acting.

PNC Park in Pittsburgh (Getty Images)

Have a baseball road trip coming up? Well, in a bid to help you with your upcoming journeys, Big League Stew has solicited the help of the locals. Over the next month or so, we'll be hitting up our usual guest blogger crew to feature 10 tips for enjoying each of the 30 ballparks like the locals do. Have a suggestion in addition to the ones listed here? Make sure to list it in the comments below.

Up next is our good friend Drew Brown of RumBunter. He's blessed with the opportunity to visit one of baseball's best parks 81 dates a year and is ready to pass on the secrets of PNC Park to you ...

When people discuss the best ballparks in America, PNC Park is almost always part of the conversation. The pride of Pittsburgh opened in 2001 and was a major upgrade from Three Rivers Stadium. Located on the shore of the Allegheny River, the stadium is right up there with AT&T Park for having the best view in baseball.

There’s a reason fans continue to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play. Fans have been through the thick and thin, such as watching Homer Bailey no-hit the Pirates at PNC Park to give them loss number 81 last season and watching Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder crush pitch after pitch as the Milwaukee Brewers pounded the Bucs 20-0 at PNC.

For a team that’s consecutive losing season streak is older than Bryce Harper, the Pirates still draw decent crowds to support a team who has suffered two straight late season collapses. That's because PNC Park is a great place to watch a baseball game, and with my leadership, your time at PNC will be that much better. Here are 10 tips on how to get the best experience out of a road trip at PNC Park.

1. Don’t overpay for premium tickets: There isn’t a bad seat in PNC Park. You can sit all the way up in Peanut Heaven and still enjoy the game. Ticket pricing, compared to other ballparks, is pretty darned inexpensive. You can get into left field bleacher reserved seats for a little more than $20. As is the case with other parks, it's easy to score even better seats if you can wait a few days prior and purchase through StubHub.

It's Game 7 madness!

The Toronto Maple Leafs visit the Boston Bruins in the final game of this Kessel-powered, Seguin-less series. Then the New York Rangers visit the Washington Capitals for what might be yet another Caps' Game 7 heartbreak on home ice ... or the start of something special for Alex Ovechkin and the boys.

Please join your friends at Puck Daddy for our Game 7's chat beginning at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. You bring the funny; we bring the abrupt changes in tone and Hamburger Women. That's how it works.