Morning Briefing: Mitchell Robinson needs some NBA history lessons

Mitchell Robinson may play basketball decently, but he needs to brush up on his NBA history.

Robinson is a rookie center for the New York Knicks. They took on the Houston Rockets on Friday, and Rockets legend Hakeem Olajuwon sat courtside to watch the game. He came away impressed by Robinson, who had 12 points and nine rebounds.

Olajuwon told the New York Post that “I love his game. He has a presence in the middle. He can close down the middle with his energy, skill level, how he moves. Not too many players have that impact as a shotblocker. On the court you know he is there. Fantastic player.”

Post reporter Marc Berman later relayed the praise to Robinson, who had to be flattered that an all-time great praised him, right?

Wrong. Robinson had never heard of Olajuwon.

Let’s not play two

People have been complaining for years about the length of Major League Baseball games. Now even college games are getting into the act.

Penn and Dartmouth played a 21-inning game on Saturday that lasted 6 hours, 22 minutes. Penn won when it scored eight runs in the top of the 21st and held on for a 21-15 victory. You know, a traditional baseball score.

Craig Larsen became the first Penn player to hit for the cycle in 19 years and Penn catcher Matt O’Neill played all 21 innings and caught 358 pitches.

According to the Associated Press, the game included several NCAA records:

—The teams combined for 208 plate appearances, with Dartmouth taking 105.

—Penn had 92 at-bats, and the sides combined for 176.

—Larsen and teammate Peter Matt each had 12 at-bats.

Dartmouth also tied a Division I mark with 27 runners left on base.

The game was supposed to be part of a doubleheader, but wiser heads prevailed and the second game was rescheduled to Sunday.

Hey, don’t slow down

Another bizarre baseball injury took place last week. Arizona catcher Alex Avila hit a home run Friday in the Diamondbacks’ 15-8 win over Boston. It was questionable as to whether the ball would leave the park, so Avila ran hard out of the box.

When the ball cleared the fence, he slowed down and suddenly grabbed his leg.

“He was gearing up to get to second base, and when he saw it went over the fence he kind of geared down and felt it grab,” manager Torey Lovullo said.

“We don’t think it is going to be anything that is too lengthy.”

The Diamondbacks put Avila on the 10-day injured list Sunday.

Storage war

We all had a chance to buy some of Terrell Owens’ football memorabilia cheap and missed out.

TMZ Sports reports that Owens owned a storage unit in Atlanta that he must have forgotten about, because he didn’t keep up payments on it and the company that runs the facility auctioned off the contents of the unit, which contained items such as playbooks, autographed helmets and footballs, a statue of Owens and much more.

James Rice of Griffin, Ga., bought everything for an undisclosed amount. Owens said he had no idea his stuff was going to be auctioned and plans to contact the buyer to get it all back.

Rice said he’s more than willing to give Owens back his stuff. Let’s hope by “give” he means “sell” it back to Owens for a nice profit.