Our mother star crashes; six billion years of darkness to follow: Thanks to a season-high 44 points from Kevin Garnett, the Wolves vanquished the hot Suns 121-112. Phoenix is now 33-3 in its past 36 games, which is just ridiculous.

Mike Singletary to bore a hole through Jerry Jones with his intense eyes on Tuesday: Singletary, the former Bears great with the spooky eyes in his playing days, will interview for the Cowboys’ head coaching job tomorrow. Luckily for Jones, he has many thick, protective layers of skin on his face to prevent scarring.

The Gophers might want to work Iona into their schedule: The Iona men’s basketball team fell to 0-21, blowing a double-digit lead in falling to Canisius 71-61. The victors, by the way, have a nickname of the Golden Griffins, which is fantastic. Here is their logo. Much better than the swaggering little fella who represents the Iona College Gaels.

Top 10 nicknames/logos in college sports? Go!

We’re getting a late start. Again. Friday is like our Saturday, or some such excuse. So we’ll keep it short. We have a COW to get to, all locked and loaded. But first:

Pardon The Interruption to his writing career: Michael Wilbon has a new four-year deal with ESPN that will pay him nearly $8 million, which puts him just a few pennies over what RandBall makes. He offered to resign from his “other” job as a Washington Post sports columnist, but he decided to stay on in limited duty.

U women try to give Pam Borton a heart attack: When we first tuned in, the Gophers were defeating Iowa by 22 points in the second half. Somehow, it went to overtime. And somehow, Minnesota managed to hold on for an 80-78 victory. Play of the game: Emily Fox, who had a career-high 30 points, grabbing a defensive rebound amidst three Iowa players, forcing a held ball in overtime that gave possession to the Gophers. They scored, went up by four, and held on.

Agent Zero is thinking of a number between 84 and 85: Gil Arenas, cut by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski from the U.S. National Team last year, said he would to play against Duke and score “84 or 85″ points to teach the coach a lesson. God, how we love Gil Arenas.

Dwane Casey could have done that: KG misses a jumper as regulation ends, forcing overtime. The Wolves take a lead in OT, only to see the very mediocre Portland come back to win at the end. With the exception of early January, that sounds like the Casey script, acted out by new coach Randy Wittman.

Yeah, you can cook. But can you farm? Not sure why that Mitch Hedberg bit seems appropriate to describe the Cowboys coaching situation. It really might not, but we do like saying it. In any event, the Cowboys are set to hire Jason Garrett, not to be confused with Mrs. Garrett from “Facts of Life” (below, bottom right). The only question now: Will he be the offensive coordinator or the new head coach? Seems like kind of a strange dilemma. Like, “I’m going to buy this hamburger. But I don’t know if I’m going to eat it, or throw it at that clown.” Or something like that.

Um, Reggie, you can’t do that: According to a Yahoo Sports report, taped conversations could help prove Reggie Bush and his family received nearly $280,000 in cash, rent and gifts while he was playing football at USC.

They had a better kicker: The West took down the East 12-9 in last night’s NHL All-Star game. In a not at all related story, SI.com continues its descent into complete madness. Cheerleaders. Swimsuits. Jenn Sterger. It’s just getting worse and worse (and we really mean that). Perhaps those are just some of their “nuances.” 

Mrs. G: Taking the good, taking the bad.

A preface: If you haven’t seen I Heart Huckabees, shame on you. It’s one of the funniest, most original movies of the past five years.

Our undercover surveilance shows it’s been infrequent and short: Michael Vick is not going to be traded, despite his taste for strange water bottle incidents, hilarious aliases and throwing gorgeous, tight spirals seven yards short of intended receivers.

Don’t call it the ball thing. Call it pure being: The Suns won their 14th consecutive game, trouncing Agent Zero and his fellow Wiz 127-105.

You show us how to just sit here and that’s what we need: The NHL All-Star game is tonight. Yep, on a Wednesday.

The parking lot crusader of truth … who turned his back on his other like a cold-blooded gangsta: Kevin McHale fires Dwane Casey. Feel free to comment on the post below.

In the Federated Coalition of Roundball: Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson, two of the top three scorers in the FCR, combined for 51 points in their first game together, a victory over the Grizzlies. Anthony was back from a 15-game suspension, which he hopefully used to hone his poor boxing techniques. … Meanwhile, KG was back from a one-game suspension (The lesson there is it’s better to swing and miss while backpedaling than swing and connect, then backpedal, Carmelo), but the Wolves were still trampled by the Jazz. They’re now 20-20, which would be far better if we were talking about vision. The Wolves’ vision? Not so good.

We didn’t need him: Lane Kiffin, bypassed for the Gophers football job, will instead jump straight to the NFL as the new head coach of the Oakland Raiders. ESPN.com is quoting Kiffin from Chip Scoggins’ story in the Newspaper of the Twin Cities. Yes, we pay attention to those kinds of things.

Barbaro has his own message board, but he still couldn’t win Horse of the Year honors. We think that’s just wrong.