With the unexpected rise of the Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles in this year’s NCAA Tournament, it wasn’t much of a surprise that bigger schools with more prominent men’s basketball programs would come sniffing around coach Andy Enfield. After all, that’s the nature of the sports beast. If you’re a little dog like FGCU, no measure of momentary success and national prominence is going to keep you in the conversation when a much bigger, wealthier dog like the University of Southern California comes calling, with its gorgeous campus and national spotlight. Oh yeah, and its giant bags of money.

“USC is one of the best basketball jobs in the country,” Enfield said. “I’ve been familiar with USC for many years. I’ve been doing this a long time. When I met (USC athletic director) Pat Haden, his vision was the same as mine.

“USC was where I wanted to be.” (Via the L.A. Daily News)

Yeah, I’m sure that stings a little, and some people feel bad for FGCU. To them I say, “Don’t.” This is sports, sports are a business and business is business. After guys like Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens, Enfield was going to be a pretty sexy name to bigger programs looking to turn things around. So don’t be upset with Enfield for being a traitor or something over-the-top like that. Wish him well and hope that a new guy comes in and continues what he started this year.

What FGCU fans can be upset about, and the subject of this week’s BEEF THURSDAYS installment, is that USC straight up tried to steal the Eagles’ Dunk City moniker. As you can see above, USC helped itself to Dunk City as recently as yesterday. Fortunately, the Trojans since doubled back and removed it. But still, that’s not cool, Trojans. Not cool at all.

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“I’m tired of doing all this stuff for free. And this is where you make your money, the NCAA tournament.”

Those were the words that Ole Miss star guard Marshall Henderson uttered early on in the 2012-23 NCAA Tournament, leading many to believe that the brash, showboating junior SG from Hurst, Texas was calling his college career quits after this year and declaring himself eligible for the NBA Draft. Well, apparently that wasn’t true, and it just further proved that Henderson is full of words. Granted, he’s also full of talent, but NBA-ready talent? That’s up for debate.

Not up for debate is the fact that Henderson is widely loathed by pretty much every fan that doesn’t wear Ole Miss gear, and if he is indeed returning to the SEC Champion Rebels for his senior season, then he’s going to have a colossal bull’s eye on his back. You know, more colossal than the one he knows he already has.

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While last week’s Beef Thursdays column featured actual beef, in the sense that athletes were trying to rip each other’s heads off en route to a horrific international incident that could have only been prevented by the United Nations or James Bond, this week’s edition is more of an imposed sense of rivalry. Namely, we thought that Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan became the clear frontrunner for Dunk of the Year last week, but then LeBron James popped up this week and said, “Hold on just one second.”

Funny how I’ve always thought we’d never be able to settle a Jordan-James debate.

Jordan and the Clippers raised the bar for humiliating opponents last week, when the 6’11” dunk machine threw down over an incredibly mismatched Brandon Knight. The result was two point for Jordan and a meeting with the floor for Knight.

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The 2013 Major League Baseball season hasn’t even started yet, but it has its work cut out for it, thanks to the World Baseball Classic. Last Saturday, Canada and Mexico faced off in a first round game of the D pool at Chase Field in Phoenix, and Canada’s merry band of hosers walked away with a 10-3 victory. No big deal, right? Wrong.

In the 9th inning of the game, with Canada up 9-3, Mexico’s pitcher Arnold Leon didn’t quite care that his allies to the north were paying attention to the WBC rules and trying to put up as many runs as possible. Instead, Leon pitched inside on Rene Tosoni, which drew a warning from the umpire, and Leon followed that up by drilling Tosoni in the middle of his back. What resulted was a bench-clearing brawl that would have made the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox blush.

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"My new seats are over there."

Sure, Lil’ Wayne is one of the most prolific rappers of all time, but his days off almost exclusively involve the following:

1. Go to an NBA game, try to sit in the front row whether he has a ticket or not
2. Wear something unusual with way too many diamonds on it, because YOLO or whatever
3. Change team allegiances on the fly based on whoever’s popular or winning
4. Do something stupid to draw negative attention to himself
5. Get asked to move/leave/be quiet
6. Go home and complain about it on Twitter
7. Have enough of his 10 million Twitter followers favorite or retweet the complaint that it becomes national news, and people have to start apologizing.

In the spirit of Wayne’s most recent day off:

You’ve got to love that over 6,000 people’s favorite tweet is the one where Lil’ Wayne left a basketball game in a huff and censored the F-word with wacky symbols.

Wayne’s Tweet didn’t include the full story, which … uh, also comes to us via Twitter:

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Rapper 50 Cent has long been the hard-working businessman, whether potentially illegally shilling penny stocks on Twitter to make him millions or standing around gyms and sneakily giving Joan Rivers energy shots, and every once in a while he even manages to, you know, rap. Apparently he also wanted to add boxing manager to his portfolio, as Fight Hype has reported that Mr. Cent and a man known as Tommy Smalls used a partnership formed in July and the Floyd Mayweather prison experience as the foundation for a coup to pry Mayweather from his friend and advisor, Al Haymon.

Initially, 50 Cent created The Money Team promotions several months ago and began signing boxers, and it culminated in a Twitter fight with Oscar de la Hoya over the future of Mayweather’s business and financial allegiance. Ultimately, 50 Cent said that he would pry Mayweather away and, according to Fight Hype, his plan was to lure Mayweather with promises of $1 billion in earnings by the time he retires.

And then a funny thing happened – 50 Cent formed a partnership with Manny Pacquiao. Awkward!

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