ALBANY - Blake Metcalf woke up, put on SportsCenter and saw a familiar face...his.

Last Friday, Metcalf flipped on his television and as SportsCenter went to a commercial, he saw himself in the game against Vermont, where he took a basketball to the...well you can watch the video (which is below) and see.

"It was funny," said UAlbany's senior captain, before practice on Monday.  

Metcalf wasn't laughing at the time he was hit by the pass, from Vermont's Brian Voelkel. But as it was shown on TV, in SportsCenter's Not Top 10 segment, his phone was ringing off the hook, with texts and tweets.

"Once it's started running, I got tweet after tweet and text after text," he said.

The phone actually froze twice and Metcalf had to restart it.

"I didn't even know I had this many friends who watched ESPN," he joked.

While the play wasn't a highlight dunk or a great play, Metcalf has certainly taken his new-found fame in stride.

"It's not like there is something I could have done about it," he said. "It's just something that happened. I got a good laugh about it. It's going to be a funny story to tell, later on down the road."

Metcalf took a lot of good-natured kidding from his teammates, some of whom didn't see the airing on ESPN, but freshman Peter Hooley posted a tweet with the video for all to see."  

"Pete Hooley made sure he filmed it to make sure everyone got to see it," Metcalf said. "It was all right."

He's also happy that it wasn't as bad as New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez's butt-fumble, which happened on the night of Thanksgiving, and is still SportsCenter's Not Top 10 No. 1.

"I'm glad it's not going to be re-shown again." Metcalf sald. "It wasn't worse than Sanchez's butt-fumble. No one will ever see it again."

Well, that's not exactly true, as below is the video that ran on SportsCenter (sorry Blake).  

On Monday, Stubby Clapp, the manager of the Tri-City ValleyCats wasn't particularly pleased with a call from one of the two umpires, during an afternoon game against the Auburn Doubledays.

He let the umpires know about it...for a few minutes.

The YouTube video already has more than 84,000 views, probably because it's been picked up by Deadspin and ESPN.com just tweeted about it.

I've dealt with Stubby a couple of times and he isn't really like this often. I think things may have just boiled over from the team not playing well/a hot day/a bad call.

You be the judge.

ESPN.com has a story from Dana O'Neil about the changing times for college basketball in the New York Metropolitan area.

Once Hofstra hires a replacement for Tim Welsh, who resigned Monday because of a DWI, the New York City area will have had 12 new coaches this offseason.

Here's a link to the story.

The story mentions both Manhatthan coach Barry Rohrssen and Saint Peter's coach John Dunne, a former Siena assistant.

Here's a quote from the story, referring to Siena.

"When you start claiming Cornell and Siena as your New York City teams, it's bad," said Dick "Hoops" Weiss, the longtime basketball writer for the New York Daily News. "For a while we even adopted Connecticut. I think people finally realized that fans aren't going to be satisfied with mediocrity. Whether it's 65 or 68 teams, it becomes a pass/fail deal. New York was failing."

Siena walk-on Just-in'Love Smith to be featured on ESPN's First Take

From Siena College....

LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. – Just-in’Love Smith, a senior walk-on for the Siena men’s basketball team who served a tour in Iraq while stationed in Alaska with the US Military from 2003-2007, will be featured on ESPN2’s First Take shortly after 11 a.m. on Thursday, November 5.

The 26-year old guard will tell his remarkable story in a four-minute interview. Smith, a Sacramento native, moved cross-country to live with his sister and brother-in-law following an eventful childhood. He graduated from Columbia High School, where he excelled in basketball and football, and later attended Hudson Valley Community College for a year where he was a member of their basketball team averaging nearly nine points during the 2002-03 season.

Smith aspires to be a state trooper and work for the military border patrol. He also is involved with the campus theater program and aspires to be a stand-up comedian.

First Take is hosted by former SportsCenter personality Dana Jacobson and Jay Crawford, both of whom came over from Cold Pizza. Skip Bayless and a rotating guest analyst are featured during the "1st and 10" segments with hosts Crawford and Jacobson.