Kentucky hoops recruit Marcus Lee, who is also a volleyball superstar — Rivals.com

If you haven’t heard of Marcus Lee yet, don’t worry, you will.

Lee is a dominant and versatile post player who hails from California, where he has spent his high school career starring for Antioch (Calif.) Deer Valley High. At 6-foot-10, Lee has the size and athleticism to be a legitimate NBA prospect within a year or two if he lives up to the expectations that come along with picking a John Calipari program.

Yet Lee isn’t focusing on basketball at the moment. That’s because he’s just as committed to his second sport: volleyball.

As noted by MaxPreps, Lee isn’t just one of the best basketball players in the country, he’s also one of the best volleyball players. He was forced to miss the first third of the volleyball season due to his involvement in national basketball all-star games (he played in both the McDonald’s All-American Game and Jordan Brand Classic), but Lee has still emerged as one half of a twin-towers wrecking crew for Deer Valley. Lee has racked up 154 kills across a shortened season, averaging 3.8 kills per game, with Deer Valley racking up a 40-1 record.

Lee’s partner up front, 6-foot-4 Jordan Ewert, has averaged 4.7 kills per game for the Wolverines.

As the season rolls along, Lee keeps improving on the volleyball court as well. In the California Interscholastic Federation North Coast Section Championship, Lee racked up 15 kills to lead Deer Valley to a 25-15, 24-26, 25-16, 25-15 victory against Amador Valley (Calif.) High, earning the first sectional boys volleyball title in school history. You can see Lee in action against Amador Valley earlier this season in the video directly above.

Andrew and Aaron Harrison (Getty Images)

The release of USA Basketball's training camp roster Wednesday afternoon for the U-19 world championships inspired one obvious question: Why weren't any Kentucky players participating?

It's not that USA Basketball wasn't interested or that John Calipari advised against it. Forward Julius Randle, guards Andrew and Aaron Harrison and the rest of the members of Kentucky's top-ranked recruiting class simply preferred to spend the summer getting acclimated to college life and preparing for a run at the national title.

"Most of it is, they didn’t want to play. I’m not forcing kids to do anything," Calipari told Sporting News. "I think the reason they all turned it down is, they want to get started."

"I’m happy they’re thinking in those terms. They know the spotlight’s on them."

The knee-jerk reaction here is to criticize players for turning down a potentially once-in-a-lifetime chance to represent their country, but in this case that doesn't seem fair.

First of all, the Kentucky incoming freshmen were far from alone in their decision. Arizona-bound Aaron Gordon was the lone top 20 Class of 2013 recruit who chose to try out for the U-19 team and the only other incoming freshmen on the roster are Arizona's Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Washington's Nigel Williams-Goss and UCLA's Bryce Alford.

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When history looks back on the Reid Ryan era as president of the Houston Astros, no doubt it will fondly recall the first public action Nolan Ryan's son took as head honcho:

Ryan had a snow cone vendor fired — he was an employee of Aramark — for bringing the product into a toilet stall at Minute Maid Park during an Astros game earlier this week.

The vendor was caught with his pants down around his ankles — literally — by a good Samaritan who also happened to be using the bathroom at the time. The whistleblower switched on his cell phone to record the shocking moment, and alerted another ballpark employee (who was walking into the men's room) to the vendor's behavior. The fan also demanded to see a supervisor, adding, in an unintentionally hilarious moment:

"That's realtalk."

The amateur investigative reporter — clearly the star of the 59 second clip, even though we only hear his voice — shared the video with NBC Channel 2 in Houston, who released it to the public and investigated further. In the clip, the door on the stall is closed, but looking under you clearly can see a person sitting on the toilet with a tray of snow cones (perhaps three of them had been unsold) on the ground next to him.

It might have been better to return the cones to the pantry first, or even throw them away, if the urge was so urgent. Place them on a sink? The baby changing table? Just not on the ground. But hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

And Ryan agreed, so he relieved the person of his snow cones forever:

The ending of Game 1 probably left quite a number of Indiana Pacers fans feeling like they'd been on the business end of a low blow. Well, at least they had a couple of frontcourt stars to share the pain — namely, center Roy Hibbert (thanks to Miami Heat forward Shane Battier):

... and power forward David West (thanks to Heat guard Norris Cole):

Credit Heat coach Erik Spoelstra for recognizing a play that worked early in the game, then circling back to it later. That's some smart coaching, sports fans.

Now, for the moment of truth. Which "midsection" shot was worse — Battier's Tiger Knee on Hibbert or Cole's "Nature Boy" homage on West? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and please avoid giving out any shots to the midsection on your way there. Thanks in advance.

Videos via sky2847 and OUOutreach.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Pacers' Roy Hibbert vows to never sit silently on the bench again
• Heat still have not peaked in the playoffs
• LeBron James seals thrilling

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Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators has, for the most part, achieved Beloved Player status in the National Hockey League: a veteran whose work ethic, results and dedication to the only franchise he’s played for makes him exempt from most criticism.

So imagine, if you will, if Alex Ovechkin or Joe Thornton or Henrik Sedin or another captain who carries less respect than Alfredsson uttered the following when asked if it was feasible his team could win three in a row against the Pittsburgh Penguins after Wednesday's 7-3 Game 4 thumping:

"Probably not.”

Oh captain.

My, captain.

When interviewing UFC president Dana White after fights, media usually want to know about title fight opportunities, implications of wins or losses, and where the UFC is headed next. Press conferences rarely present opportunities to get White to talk about who would win in a fight between him and UFC chairman Lorenzo Fertitta or White's music preferences. On "UFC Tonight," Kenny Florian and Chael Sonnen asked White those very questions. They even got him to sing on what White called "the most embarrassing interview ever."

J.J. Arrington (Getty Images)

Since 2003, running back J.J. Arrington had a full football career.

He had a 2,000-yard season for Cal, was drafted in the second round by the Arizona Cardinals, played four seasons with them and had two catches in a Super Bowl, was with Denver and Philadelphia after that but didn't play due to knee issues, and was signed and released by the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL in the span of a few months in 2011.

A decade ago, Arrington was known for an incident in which he forged his father's name and falsified the time on his letter of intent to beat the deadline under an Oregon coach's watch according to the LA Times. Even though that was so long ago and Arrington went to Cal anyway, it still looms over the Ducks' program.

The Register-Guard obtained a copy of the NCAA's notice of allegations it sent Oregon in early December, regarding Oregon's recruiting practices and its relationship with Willie Lyles. The notice of allegations confirmed that because of the long-ago Arrington ordeal, which resulted in a two-year probation handed down in 2004, the Ducks are subject penalties under the NCAA's repeat violator rules.

These incidents never seem totally in a school's past, do they?

The Register-Guard said the notice of allegations is almost identical to the summary disposition proposal sent to the NCAA last year, so there wasn't a lot of new ground covered in the latest document. The Ducks met with the NCAA's committee on infractions last month.

Given that, according to the Register-Guard, the notice of allegations points out that "all of the alleged violations ... are considered to be potential major violations of NCAA legislation," this is a nervous time for Oregon. The repeat offender classification won't make the Ducks sleep easier, either.

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You can understand the logic behind Frank Vogel subbing Roy Hibbert out twice in the final 11 seconds of Game 1. He wanted a faster, nimbler group of Indiana Pacers to be able to switch the multiple screens that could (and did) come on late Miami Heat possessions and for his team to be able to "force a challenged jump shot." He knew Heat coach Erik Spoelstra would run actions designed to make the plodding 7-foot-2 Hibbert move, chase a smaller and quicker Heat player around, and increase the likelihood of a coverage breakdown creating open look for a good shooter somewhere.

If Paul George again makes a pivotal misstep and overplays LeBron James off the inbounds pass, the MVP probably gets to the rim anyway. If Hibbert's drawn away by Chris Bosh, he might not be close enough to contest James' go-ahead or game-winning drives anyway. Even if he was, James might still have drawn the foul or finished anyway. There are arguments to be made; you can understand the logic.

And then someone — in this case, Stephen J. Nesbitt of the Indianapolis Star — puts together a side-by-side like this, and all logic goes out the window:

One of these things is not like the other. (Images via the Indianapolis Star)