Sioux City West High School graduate and Chicago Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich will answers your questions today at 11 a.m. in a live Q&A session.

Hinrich is in town for his charity golf tournament today. He will talk about the work he still does here in Sioux City, his playing days at West and Kansas and his future in the NBA.

Got a question for Kirk? Log on early and post your question. We’ll get to as many as possible before Hinrich tees off at the Sioux City Country Club.

Click play below to join the discussion.

Kobe Bryant and his L.A. Laker teammates wrapped up the NBA title last night, blowing through the Orlando Magic four games to one. The above picture ran this morning in The Journal and put me back in mind of some sports talk radio chatter of about a week ago.

While Kobe is perhaps the best player since Michael Jordan retired (LeBron James is in the conversation), Kobe has his detractors. You heard a bunch about how he’s tried being the good guy to drag his teammates to a title, but in 2009 chose to revert to the tough-guy image. Reams of (laughable) copy were devoted to his scowling, snarling demeanor, even in press conferences. Some armchair psychoanalysis was heard that Kobe is such a vacuum personalitywise that he tries on these guises as he moves through his NBA career — making him the polar opposite of the more likeable James.

The most bizarre of these Kobe’s pysche segments had him borrowing or stealing the schtick of another player (I’ve forgotten whom — Dwight Howard?), that of chewing his jersey on court. To some, he’s the emptiest of vessels, like some see Alex Rodriguez in baseball. Whether it’s an authentic action or not, useful in his game or not, Kobe has apparently chewed that No. 24  jersey all the way to his fourth championship as a Laker.

Maybe it just helped that Pao Gasol was much better than in the 2008 finals loss to the Cetlics.

I’ve been thinking a lot about former Iowa State basketball coach Tim Floyd the last couple days, and nearly wrote the bulk of this post a week ago. Now, I have to, after word last night that Floyd, who led the Cyclones to a period of NCAA tourney success for the few years he was there in the 1990s, has resigned as USC coach amid some serious allegations about the recruitment of O.J. Mayo (#32 above, with Floyd next to him). And roughly an hour before Floyd resigned, we had Jim Hallihan in the Journal office, the irony of all ironies.

Iowa Games official Hallihan was talking up the 2009 Games, and I was reminded that many people thought the ‘Clones should have picked long-time ISU assistant coach Hallihan to succeed legend Johnny Orr, not young gun Floyd. Floyd had a penchant for using community college guys who were questionable students, then he was off to the next coaching gig.

Anyway, the main nugget on Floyd came in the form of a packet of year-old New York Times sports features a friend recently sent, as I referenced in a post on the NBA finals a week ago. Thirteen months ago Harvey Araton wrote a superb piece laying out the muck that is college basketball recruiting. Here are the best parts:

“The prize recruit with the breathtaking hang time just happened to land in Tim Floyd’s lap. Remember the charming tale that Floyd told last year about the stranger who walked unannounced into his office at the University of Southern California and asked if he had ever heard of O.J. Mayo?

“Of course he had, Floyd told this mystery man, who proceeded to say Mayo, soon to be a West Virginia high school senior, one of college basketball’s most wanted, was very much interested in blessing his program. When Floyd asked for Mayo’s number, he was told: ‘O.J. doesn’t give out his cell. He’ll call you.’

When Mayo did, he asked Floyd how many more scholarships he had left, besides the one reserved for him. Floyd told him he had three. ‘Don’t worry about recruiting,’ Mayo said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

If only life were so charmed and there weren’t occasionally a steep price to pay for seeing it through ros$e-colored gla$$e$. Most eye-raising abut the story Floyd told, reported in the New York Times in March 2007, was that he apparently was not too embarassed to tell it, to open the window into the degenerative world of college basketball recruiting, and especially the part of it that related to that particular and pampered species known as the one-and-done player.”

The NBA finals with the L.A. Lakers and Orlando Magic are about to commence and I’m in mind of refereeing. Just got a bunch of reading material from a friend forwarding months of New York Times sports features and one, coincidentally enough, involved a piece about the June 2008 finals. The piece by William Rhoden began in noting that officiating was the topic of the finals.

Within, Rhoden hit on one of my favorite topics and the reason I gave up watching NBA games (with very rare trips back) about a decade ago.  Here’s Rhoden, setting up an interview with NBA director of officials Ronnie Nunn: “Nunn responded to my questions about the perception the NBA was scripted, with calls for stars, calls against scrubs, noncalls and makeup calls, calls that accommodate physical play,” etc.

Here’s Nunn: “There are so many myths out there that people buy into. You’ve got rookie calls, power-of-winning teams calls and then you have the special player and superstar myths. I don’t know how that began, but it’s just not true.”

I think it began after people sprouted eyes and brains. Put me into the clueless myth-buying camp; my impetus for giving up on the NBA was the treatment Michael Jordan got in the 1990s. As this 1998 Sports Illustrated article recounts,  the Utah Jazz in the finals that year gave voice to the notion that Jordan was protected by the referees, on both offense and defense. That’s what I saw back then, and recall chortling over the “best player ever” having stat lines like 8-22 from the field, but then padding his points average by getting 16 to 18 free throws per game.

My favorite was when Jordan (or some other superstar) would draw contact in shooting, the ball would arc to basket, fall off and not result in a basket, and then the whistle was blown. Nice. By which I mean appalling, to anyone who cares about fairness and equal chances to win in sports.

To bring this back to 2009, do you think Kobe Bryant of the Lakers gets referee protection, and how might that impact how the finals play out?

Maybe after all it’s not preordained that this will be the year LeBron James wins the MVP and a title to boot. The Cavs lost again tonight, as minutes ago the 116-114 home win went to the Orlando Magic. Now it’s 3-1 Magic, and not looking good for a finals berth for Cleveland.

Most imagined the finals matchup would be the Lakers and the Cavs, Kobe V. LeBron. Heck, the Lakers may not have the goods either, as they’re tied 2-2 with the quite impressive Denver Nuggets. The NBA brass undoubtedly are sweating that marquee matchup being on the bubble.

Who do you see getting to the finals and taking it all?

As all sports fans in the world know, tonight is the 2009 NCAA men’s basketball championship. Here in early April, March Madness ends with a North Carolina-Michigan State matchup. Who do you like to take the title?

I filled out a bracket this year, and had two of the Final Four teams correct, while picking Michigan State to win it all. So I’ll be rooting to get that selection right. When I chose Michigan State, it was simply for the fact that the final was in Detroit, so I figured a lot of Michigan fans packed into Ford Field would be able to push them over the top.

While I hadn’t thought of it at the time of picking the field, I also now like the symmetry of Michigan St. (31-6)winning the title exactly 30 years after Magic Johnson led the team to the 1979 title. That was the first NCAA national championship I ever watched.

Of course, North Carolina (33-4) is the favorite in Vegas odds. Some want the storyline of senior Tyler Hansbrough leading the way to a title after bypassing the NBA for another shot at a championship. If North Carolina wins, it will be a fifth championship for the Tar Heels; if Michigan State wins, a third title for the Spartans.

It ended prematurely in the eyes of Iowa State fans, but the women’s basketball team had a great year, by far the best of any tri-state team. South Dakota State of course surprised with a jump into national attention, but ISU made it all the way to the Elite Eight in the national tourney before falling last night to Stanford, 74-53. That makes two good trouncings this year by Stanford over the Cyclones, but they achieved many things, including a new high in wins (27-9) and making the Elite Eight for the second time in school history. A Final Four berth just wasn’t in the cards.

A key player was sophomore Kelsey Bolte, a 2007 graduate of Battle Creek-Ida Grove (pictured at left). I wrote a few weeks ago on the town pride of those following 6-1 guard Bolte (and Casey Harriman on the Creighton men’s team that moved two games into the 2009 NIT field). She’s a very accomplished player and next year as a junior will be someone the team builds around.

Bolte was held scoreless last night, taking only three shots from the field in 25 minutes, but she had three assists and zero turnovers. For the year, Bolte was third on the team in minutes, easing just past 1,000 with 1,002 minutes played, third in rebounds (4.6 per game), fourth in scoring (9.4), while shooting outstanding from the free throw line (87 percent) and 40.4 percent from the floor.

Of course, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver is proud of the team, citing their perseverance, talent and integrity. “Although their winning season came to an end tonight, they are true champions and great representatives of our state, and I congratulate them on an excellent season,” Culver said.

We know Brennan Cougill will be going off to Iowa City following his May Bishop Heelan graduation. Cougill, the all-time metro boys high school leading scorer, will play basketball for the Hawkeyes. Now, we’ve got word this morning from Barry Poe here at the paper that Cougill’s teammate on the 2009 3A champs, 6-7 junior Zach McCabe, is wanted by the Hawks as well.

McCabe got identified by mid-majors first, and has scholarship offers from two teams at opposite ends of the Missouri Valley Conference standings — Northern Iowa, fresh off a berth in the NCAA field, and Indiana State. He’s also got an option at Butler University.

But Iowa will certainly prove intriguing. Wouldn’t it be something to have two Heelan guys playing for the Hawkeyes at the same time? With his versatility on the court, McCabe would be a good small forward in Division I.

This comes as there is one less player for the Hawkeyes. The not-good news for the seeking-to-right-the-ship Hawks is that leading scorer Jake Kelly (11.6 ppg) is leaving the team to be closer to his family. Coincidentally, he may end up playing for Indiana State. Wouldn’t that be something if the outcome is that the Sycamores end up with both Kelly and McCabe? Not likely, I know.

If you’re a longstanding powerhouse men’s D-I basketball team who undoubtedly will receive a berth in the 2010 NCAA field, you could root to face Northern Iowa when the Selection Sunday brackets are announced. UNI has made the field four times between 2004 and 2009, and in all four instances a repeated outcome has resulted.

The team drawing UNI can count on two things: (1) a 5-point win and (2) a very close game that apparently preps the opponent for a run deep into the field. It’s not a case of narrowly beat UNI and then lose the next game, but advance more rounds, perhaps to the national championship. In one way, it’s sort of a backhanded compliment to UNI, although I image the Panthers would rather have wins instead of close defeats.

Here’s the history:

(1) In 2004, No. 14 seed UNI drops a game 65-60 to Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets would get four more wins, finally falling 82-73 in the national championship to UConn.

(2) In 2005,  in spite of Sioux Cityan Ben Jacobson scoring 20 points, No. 11 seed UNI loses 57-52 to No. 11 seed Wisconsin. The Badgets make it into the Elite Eight before losing to eventual champion North Carolina.

(3) Jacobson scores 14 points, but No. 10 seed UNI falls 54-49 to No. 7 seed Georgetown 54-49 in 2006 play at Dayton, Ohio. Georgetown won again to reach the Sweet 16.

(4) Here in 2009, No. 12 seed UNI loses 61-56 to No. 5 seed Purdue, who then won on Saturday over fourth-seeded Washington to move into the Sweet 16.