Steve Merril’s Starting Five, a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of NBA and college basketball. Steve uncovers the juicy quotes that relate to the pointspread wars – who cares who wins the game? We only care about who covers!

1. Hibbert to be Square: Indiana fired head coach Jim O’Brien two weeks ago. Since then, the Pacers have gone 7-2 SU and 6-3 ATS under Frank Vogel. And when a coach gets fired, most players feed us the usual clichés rather than bad-mouthing their former coach, not Roy Hibbert. Indiana’s big man had this to say when asked when he thought the Pacers became a good team: ‘As soon as coach O'Brien departed. Since he's gone, I feel like I'm not stuck in a box anymore in terms of what I'm able to do on the court. I have more freedom. If I make a mistake, there's no more looking at the bench and wondering if I'm coming out. My confidence has gone through the roof. Everybody's confidence has gone through the roof.’ Low blow to Jimmy boy!

2. BFF’s: Southern Mississippi hosts UTEP tonight in a big CUSA game – is there even such a thing? Miners’ head coach Tim Floyd (excellent coach by the way; he rates very high on our list) and Golden Eagles’ head coach Larry ‘I like to get drunk and hit on college girls’ Eustachy are best friends. Floyd also grew up in Hattiesburg; his father coached at USM. ‘He's my best friend, basketball aside,’ Eustachy says of Floyd. ‘He's responsible for whatever success I've had. He got me the Iowa State job. He was one of the main reasons I got this job.’ We’re sure Floyd was so proud of Larry when pictures surfaced on the net of Eustachy decked out in his black turtleneck groping college girls at an Iowa St frat party!

3. Big Rick: Rick Majerus is a tremendous college basketball coach. He made his name at Utah, but he has done a tremendous job at St. Louis over the last few years. His Billikens’ teams have covered a lot of pointspreads for us, so we thank you for that, Rick! When asked about this year’s losing record (8-16) with St. Louis, Majerus simply answered this: ‘Look, I’ve won 400-and-some games. My legacy is my legacy.’ Great answer!

4. Nothing Yancy Here: Cincinnati welcomes Louisville to Fifth Third Arena tonight. Both teams are 19-6 overall so this game has tournament implications. Cardinals’ fans always travel well for this game; half the place so should be supporting Louisville. One player who will get little support is Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates after he sulked on the bench on Sunday after he only played one minute in the second half. Will Gates play more tonight? ‘We’ll see,’ head coach Mick Cronin said. ‘He is unhappy with his playing time. That’s part of life. He’s not going to be able to have that attitude and be part of our team. He’s been told that.’ You go Micky!

5. Hawks vs. Knicks Round 2: Atlanta and New York got into fisticuffs when they met two weeks ago. Marvin Williams (Hawks) and Shawne Williams (Knicks) scuffled in that game, but the trash talking leading up to tonight’s game has been between Al Horford (Hawks) and Amar’e Stoudemire. ‘It’s going to be a very, very intense game after what happened in Atlanta,’ Stoudemire said. ‘He (Horford) don’t want to see me. He needs to calm down. He’s not that type of player. He doesn’t want to see me on any night, so he’d better relax and calm down.’ Horford responded with this: ‘I don’t understand what he means by I don’t want to see him. Like we are supposed to be scared of him or something. Ain’t nobody scared of nobody. We are all grown men. It’s all good.’ Let’s get ready to ruuuuummmble!