Brent Grimes, left, and Freddie Martino fight for a pass Saturday. (Photo courtesy of Buccaneers.com.)

Just some scatter shooting from Bucs practice Saturday morning for your early Sunday/late Saturday reading pleasure.

Hoops Dreams

When the Bucs try to relax at One Buc Palace, a popular way to blow off steam is to play hoops. Per winning coach Dirk Koetter’s instructions, the Bucs have a basketball hoop. In the locker room, several players have basketball backgrounds but three stand out.

Mike Evans was a high school star hoops player in Galveston. Brent Grimes is so good at basketball that he toyed with the idea of retiring from the NFL and playing in the NBA developmental league.

But neither have the basketball resume of Demar Dotson. The right tackle for the Bucs was a two-time all-state basketball player in Louisiana and later played in 53 games for Southern Miss his junior and senior seasons. His role was an inside enforcer. And Dotson is not shy whatsoever in admitting that of all the players in the Bucs locker room, Dotson is the king of hoops.

Years ago, Dotson scoffed at Donald Penn’s perception he was a baller on the court. Now Dotson has competition for hoops skills,but still believes he rules the roost at One Buc Palace.

“Evans thinks he can beat me, period,” Dotson said. “I don’t know if he had a concussion or something to make him think that. But that is the mindset he has. He thinks he can beat anybody. He can’t beat me. He don’t want no part of this.”

Evans begrudgingly gave Dotson his due. He broke out laughing when Joe told him Dotson’s concussion line.

“He could probably knock me out,” Evans said. “But if he doesn’t foul me, I’m putting it in the rim.”

Dotson said flat out Grimes is too smart to try to challenge him.

“Brent knows better than to even come close to driving on me,” Doston said.

Frankly, Dotson said, he would rather not play Evans or Grimes in a game of hoops in the locker room until after the season.

“I don’t want to hurt them. We need those guys.”

Tired of underwear football.

Saturday was yet another day of underwear football. Per NFL rules, the first two practices of training camp must be underwear football. The third day can be “shells,” where teams wear shoulder pads and helmets only. The fourth practice? Pads!

As far as Lavonte David is concerned, let the hitting begin. Since OTAs started this spring, all the Bucs have done is practice underwear football. David has had his fill.

Underwear football is “very hard,” David said of trying to play defense without pads. “When you are out there on defense, you are just trying to impose your will. We go out there and try to play physical and, like I said, try to impose your will the very first play because that’s what we do. It’s hard right now, the way the league is being run right now, but we’ve got smart guys who go out there and play the same the right way and do it the way we want to do it.”

Quick learner.

Safety Justin Evans missed a good chuck of underwear football season this spring with an injury. In other words, he was on floppy hat patrol. So given he has been full-go for training camp, one could reason Evans is playing a lot of catch-up due to missed practices.

Evans doesn’t see it that way. He believes he has studied Mike Smith’s defense enough that he is about where he should be as a rookie finishing his second training camp practice.

Part of that is because he says he paid rapt attention while watching on the sidelines this spring.

“There really was no catching up because I was here,” Evans said. “I just wasn’t out participating. It was all mental, though. I was learning just like I was practicing. So there really is no catching up. It was just learning it in general. Just mental.”