Randy Rosetta: Odds and ends during dog days

• Published: Jul 5, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:45 a.m.

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Filling some space and clearing my head before the first practice of the 2008 football season gets here…

• The LSU men’s basketball program may have dipped the last two seasons, but the Tigers and their memorable run to the 2006 Final Four are still prominent at the College Basketball Hall of Fame and College Basketball Experience in Kansas City, Mo.

Adjacent to the new 19,000-seat Sprint Center in downtown Kansas City , the hall of fame and CBE are must-sees for any college basketball fan, especially if they are partial to the Tigers.

Not long after you plunk down your well-worth-it $10, you ride an elevator upstairs and one of the first things you see is a massive mural with a picture of LSU and UCLA tipping off at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis in 2006.

Featured prominently in the photo are three Tigers with Baton Rouge ties — Tyrus Thomas, Glen Davis and Garrett Temple.

Another smaller mural nearby shows Davis, Darnell Lazare and Tasmin Mitchell — two more Baton Rouge-area players — battling for a rebound with the Bruins’ Luc Richard Mbah a Moute.

There are also several small enclosures called “Inside the huddle,” where a video screen gives fans the option of stepping into a coach’s shoes.

In one of the videos, the fateful final seconds of the LSU-Texas A&M game from the second round of the 2006 NCAA tournament is shown.

With narrator Dick Vitale posing the questions, the viewer is asked which player Tigers coach John Brady should get the ball to. Guard Darrel Mitchell is one of the options, and of course, was Brady’s choice.

 The video screen shows Mitchell pumping in the 23-foot 3-point dagger that lifted the Tigers past the Aggies 58-57 and into the Sweet 16.
Besides those nods to the Tigers, there are also the requisite references to LSU legends “Pistol” Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal, including an outline of Shaq’s size 23 shoe.

• Though I grew up less than 200 miles from Omaha, I had never been to the College World Series until last month. Now I definitely see what all the fuss is about.

Football national championship sites and basketball Final Four cities do a great job of rolling out the red carpet for the teams involved.

But Omaha is unique because the city puts on its Sunday best for an entire sport, regardless of who gets invited to the party.

Before LSU left, Paul Mainieri talked about how Omaha celebrates the goodness of the game and said the normal bitterness and vitriol between fans takes a backseat.

I blazed past that comment in my mind, figuring Maineiri was just being the nice guy he normally is.

Turns out he was right.