Pittsburgh Gets Thumped In An Upset; The Story Behind Karl Malone & His Psychic Powers

We’ve been waiting on an upset. Naturally this early in the season, you don’t expect it. Everyone is playing cupcakes, and conference schedules haven’t started yet. But where are the close games? Outside of a few, the majority so far have been snoozers. But last night, Pittsburgh got beat up from start to finish, in their own home… by freakin’ Long Beach State, 86-76. Miraculously, this was just the second time any non-Big East team had ever won in that building, and the 49ers didn’t just win. They dominated from the tip. Pitt was never closer than six throughout the whole second half despite some good games from Ashton Gibbs (20 points) and Nasir Robinson (19 points). Pitt did what they could to stay close, but check out the box score. Those Long Beach St. shooting percentages are video game-like. Casper Ware wasn’t a ghost either, dropping 28 on the No. 9-ranked Panthers. More than likely this is nothing more than a one-time thing for Pitt. They’ll get it together, probably have another great regular season run before getting upset in the NCAAs … The only other college games that actually mattered yesterday resulted in blowout wins for Wisconsin – by 27 over the powerhouse known as Colgate – and Florida State – a 13-point win over Stetson … Yesterday’s Smack was probably the first time since before Dwight Howard started planking and posting weird pictures on his Twitter that we didn’t really mention the lockout. That’s because we’re all in limbo right now. With the players filing antitrust suits in both Minnesota and California, no one is winning anytime soon. Between the players’ lawsuit – which Howard Beck reports has no hearing date set as the case is being reassigned from a magistrate judge to a district one at the request of the NBPA – and Cuttino Mobley‘s medical lawsuit aimed at the Knicks, we have enough legal fill to keep us content for a while. David Stern has set up a conference call for today to discuss with the owners what steps they should take next. But the owners are in no rush. Yahoo! Sports reports they thought Stern went too far with the last offer and were hoping the players rejected it so they could take an even harder stance … Not everyone on the players’ side is happy about this situation, especially the young guys. Samardo Samuels says he would’ve taken the deal, and that it’s easy for vets to say they wanna fight but what about the young guys who don’t have much? Terrence Williams recently tweeted, talking about decertification: Someone tell billy hunter we should of done this s— in July wtf. … On the next page: Baron Davis has a new movie and Karl Malone’s Psychic Powers

Check out this ESPN poll. It looks like the players are getting 35 percent of the blame… compared to only 17 percent for the owners. Who are these people and what information are they digesting? … When we do finally settle this lockout, Baron Davis might not even come back. Okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But Davis has spent much of his free time on a documentary called “American Schlub.” Not surprisingly, it’s about fashion and how “We used to be fashion forward. Now, we’re more of a sweats and Ugg boots type of society. We wanted to challenge men, from that perspective.” A little weird but sometimes weird is good, and at least Davis knows what he’s doing with this film stuff … If y’all missed out on our feature on Coach K from MSG yesterday, you should definitely read it … And you wonder why these owners are all screwed up. Check out this story about David Kahn and Karl Malone, back when Malone was in Utah and Kahn was a sportswriter covering the NBA for The Oregonian. Malone told him: “You guys might laugh and say I’m crazy, but I do believe I have psychic powers. I don’t have the power to just sit here and move stuff, but I do have the power to look into the future.” Kahn wrote that Malone inherited this psychic power from his mother, and was the only one of her nine children to inherit this special ability. Bruh… C’mon. And Kahn is now an owner … Great news from Mike Miller and his family recently. His daughter, who was born with multiple holes in her heart, and had Miller shuttling back and forth between work and family during last season’s playoffs and Finals, is doing much better. Here’s a great interview with Miller and his family, and they mention two of the holes have closed on their own so the doctors are hopeful the rest will do the same … We’ve seen some head-shaking stories over the course of this lockout from former players about the trouble they’re getting into now that they’re done with ball. But this one about Sean Banks – remember him? – tops them all. Banks was arrested in August after a high-speed car chase and it was deemed by authorities that it all was a part of the James Bond Gang – a famous, highly organized crew of professional burglars. You’d think a group of dudes like this would know better than to recruit someone 6-8 … Another lockout day, another charity game. That’s just the way it’s working right now. Of course, Kevin Durant is gonna be there. That’s a given, like asking if a Vince Vaughn movie will be funny. LaMarcus Aldridge, Josh Howard, John Wall, Jason Terry and Tracy McGrady will also be there. The game is taking place on Baylor’s campus on Dec. 1. Remember a few years ago when people would’ve responded to this by saying, “Baylor?! WTF?” … And if you are really thinking about tying the knot, you can read Kim K‘s tips for a healthy marriage since HumpDash was such an incredible success … We’re out like Sean Banks’ tryout for The Town.