The off-season sometimes provides you with slim pickins - and when that happens, ain’t nothing you can do by ride that bomb all the way to the ground. Plus, real life has made strong demands on us today, so a-blogrollin’ we will go.

Today’s theme music - the exact opposite of how we feel these days as nuptials draw near:

Jarrett Carter may be our new favorite blogger, with two worthy posts at two worthy blogs - first, five reasons to keep the best D1 HBCU conference tournament in the Cackolack. We agree with him on all points, though we are saddened that the ACC Tournament won’t be in Greensboro, its rightful location. Atlanta is for bad traffic, gun crime, Tech fans, and SEC affairs - the ACC has no business dragging itself to such depths.

In worthy post #2, Carter asks if Gary Williams wants out of Maryland. Based on the offseason he’s had, as thoughtfully collected by the boys at DBR, who could blame him for wanting to get out with his reputation intact?

This is a bit old, but so is recruiting obsession - Mike DeCourcy breaks down the five spring signings that actually matter over at the SN. That one of said five impact players signed with Fresno Freakin’ State says all that is necessary about the current importance of the spring signing period.

In further evidence that as statistics increase, the result equals one, Yet Another Basketball Blog attempts to quantify coaching success based on recruiting and tournament play. Coach K underperforms! Tom Izzo does better than expected! Northwestern sucks! Oliver Purnell can’t beat competition with five breathing players! Surprises all around! (We kid. It’s a good piece that gives evidence to the conventional wisdom. But don’t expect a revelation.) (HT: RTC.)

Finally, while totally unrelated to college basketball, we love when two worlds collide - Above the Law, the preeminent blog in legal snark, links to Clay Travis, he of the CBS Spin on Sports column, as he gives law school selection advice. We link to this without comment, other than to say that given that Messr. Travis has abandoned the law to become a full-time sports writer, UVA Law should retroactively grant him admission.

Re-defining “big” in Durham.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Hey, Wojo? Maybe You Should Sit This One Out.

Coach K’s recent recruiting failures with big men - see Patrick Patterson and Greg Monroe - have sparked a chicken-and-egg argument. Are the trees not interested because no Duke big man has succeeded at the next level, from Jay Bilas to Christian Laettner to Sheldon Williams with every Cherokee Parks in between? Or is it because the coaching triumvirate of Dawkins, Collins and Wojociechowski (most recently in charge of post players) had no idea how to coach bigs?

Consider the egg scrambled - in the wake of Dawkins’ departure for Palo Alto, Coach K hired former Blue Devil forward Nate James to fill his spot on the bench. What remains to be seen is if this will have any discernible impact, as James comes in with no coaching experience. In fact, this resume looked better suited for reality television:

After graduating from Duke and playing in the Carolinas Basketball League, James spent parts of five seasons playing in Bosnia, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Poland and Russia.

While some might consider the career a world history tour, James didn’t exactly praise the vagabond experience. Instead, he talked about eating nothing but rice and noodles — with chopsticks only — in Japan for several months; playing in a freezing gym in Bosnia; and having to eat cow tongue in Russia.

So, future Blue Devil recruits, know what Duke can now offer. Even if your playing experience can’t get you in the NBA and your Duke degree can’t get you a job, Coach James can help you parlay your experiences in Durham into a spot on The Amazing Race.

TWO STORIES THAT INTERESTED US FOR NO GOOD REASON
Something is Afoot in the District

Player movements galore in our nation’s capital yesterday, as Karl Hobbs kicked two players off GW’s team. Role players, true, but two players nonetheless from a team that only managed nine wins last season. Which makes one wonder what “certain expectations” they failed to meet to warrant dismissal, since one could argue that Hobbs and all of his charges failed to meet the basic “certain expectation” of finishing higher than next-to-last in the A-10.

Meanwhile, further into the snooty part of the Northwest Quadrant, a second potential starter transfers away from the Hoyas. With the announced transfer of Doc Rivers’ kid, Georgetown will be down to four returning players with any significant playing time. Greg Monroe better be really, really good, or JTIII will need to bust out celebrity dance moves again.

Reeeeeemix!

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Second Verse, Same as the First

Honestly, we could cut and paste everything we wrote yesterday about Providence hiring Keno Davis, replacing “Providence” with “Oklahoma State”, “Keno Davis” with “Travis Ford”, “Big East” with “Big XII”, and … OK, that’s just a lot of replacements, so we’ll write something new.

Obviously, T. Boone Pickens (who should really go by T-Bone) wanted to land a name, and a name he landed, with the added bonus that Ford turned down two big conference jobs in the past few weeks before accepting this one. T-Bone likes it when you make his dick … erm, his alma mater … look bigger than it actually is. We find ourselves wondering, though - why didn’t the Cowboys go after Davis? Had Ford not already turned down the Providence job, we would suggest that Ford and Davis swap new jobs to stay within their recruiting territories. In fact, we’ll suggest that anyway.

No doubt that UMass to Okie State is a step up, but Ford will need to win and win fast. Pickens barely let Sean Sutton last two years, and Sutton had the advantages of a) being an alum and b) being the son of a school legend. Past service as Rick Pitino’s bucket boy won’t help Ford here.

NEXT YEAR’S ONE YEAR WONDERS

Who said anything about academics?

Just as another freshman announces his intent to head to the pros after one year in college, news came out of Philadelphia yesterday that Tyreke Evans, one of the top recruits available this year (#6 Rivals, #4 Scouts), would sign with Memphis. Except he didn’t. Evans announced his decision to “attend” Memphis, but put off signing a LOI for a little while - presumably to ensure that John Calipari doesn’t bolt for the NBA.

Over at The Dagger, MJD ponders why Evans chose Memphis over hometown Villanova, showing that Evans was interested in getting out of Chester after witnessing a gang-related murder. On the list of good non-academic/athletic reasons to attend one school over another, “not wanting to get shot” ranks high. Good luck to Evans with the Tigers.

And Because I Know You Are Wondering, Too …

While we are admittedly afraid to dip our toe into the murky water that is recruiting, we always say “in for a penny, in for a pound”. With that - Scouts’ and Rivals’ Top Classes of 2008 as of the end of the early signing period back in November. Both sites say that the rankings wouldn’t shift much in the spring due to so many top players signing early, so these are good to go for now.

We give these rankings with no commentary or insight at this time. Well, except for … Florida State? Really? And we thought the Harvard kerfluffle was just Brian Cook making shit up. Scouts actually ranked them #25? What’s next, Duke signing a big man? (We kid, we kid - that will never happen.)

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Having been all business and no play up to this point, we feel an obligation to bring you awkward Japanese reality show dancing. That’s just how we do.

The theme song for today’s coaching moves - only the finest slice of awful ’70s rock, reintroduced to us through the beauty that is Rock Band.

The big coaching story, of course, is where there was no change at all: Bill Self rebuffed his alma mater to stay at Kansas. We stated our policy on this earlier this week, so we say to Self that he had no wrong choices, and that if his heart told him to stay in Lawrence … well, then he must know something about Lawrence that we don’t. But, you know, championships are the best love like hunger is the best sauce. Rating: Chalky.

The biggest change, however, saw Trent Johnson leave a pretty damn good gig at Stanford to take over at LSU. We assume that Trent saw the Lopez twins head for the NBA, remembered he was at a school famous for its chemists and not its ballers, and took the all-expense paid trip to “Recruit Whomever the Hell You Want”-town. (We also don’t know what this says about the relative strengths of the conferences involved - is he leaving the ultra-competitive Pac-10 for calmer hoops waters, or does he view the SEC as a greater challenge?) Regardless of the reasoning, a strong move by an LSU program that has looked rudderless since making the Final Four in 2006 - kind of like it did for the fifteen years before that, too. Rating: ESS-EEE-SEE! ESS-EEE-SEE! WOOOOO BAYOU BENGALS WOOOOOO!

Because nothing says “opportunity” like “dump your new girlfriend for your ex-wife”, Mike Montgomery denied any interest in the new Stanford opening. Probably not a tough decision, given that Cal had literally just backed the Brinks truck up to his doorstep to sign him as the new coach of the Bears. While we understand angst over Cal’s decision to fire longtime coach Ben Braun, we can’t say we disagree with it. Home of hippies that it may be, Berkeley is the state flagship, and hates to lose ground to its little brother in Los Angeles in any category. You want to win big time ball? You hire big time coach. And Ben Braun seems like a nice guy, but not a big time coach. Rating: Golden.

Apparently learning a lesson from his own playing career, UMass coach Travis Ford turned down the opportunity to become a small fish in the Big East Pond at Providence to stay in Amherst. We know that the Friars were a founding member of the Big East, but the times seem to have passed them by, and we can’t help thinking time has come for relegation. That said … it was a Big East coaching opportunity. Ford reportedly passed up an interview with LSU as well, for a team that made the NIT finals. We’re going to work on the assumption that he knows something that we do not - either that his job is oddly secure at UMass, or he has a better grasp on his own Peter Principle than anyone we’ve studied. Rating: Feisty like an undersized point guard.

Recognizing that our Hoyas are the exception that proves the rule, it is never a good thing when you are having to poach from the Ivy League for your new head coach. It is worse when you are hiring an Ivy League assistant. But when you are the New Jersey Institute of Technology, oh ye of your 0-29 record - well, you take what you can get, even if that means hiring an assistant from Columbia as your new coach. So welcome, John Engles! And, for once we mean this with no risk of jinx - you can’t POSSIBLY have a worse year than the last guy. Rating: There can be only one - and the Highlanders would take even that.

0-29 is the new pink.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - In response to demands from coaches and fans of college basketball, as well as rising rancor from media coverage of the sport, the NCAA promised that it would make changes to the way in which college basketball chooses its national champion starting in 2009.

“We didn’t want to throw away seventy years of tradition on a whim, but tension against the tournament-style format has been building for years,” said NCAA President Myles Brand on Monday morning after a three-hour meeting with university presidents. “Ultimately, we think that it is time that college basketball came into agreement with our other major revenue sport so that the fans can finally be satisfied with end-of-season matchups that are both satisfying and will conclusively determine the best team in the sport.”

The new Poll of Objective and Observable Percentages (POOP) system*, designed by ACC Commissioner and BCS President John Swofford and a team of trained monkeys, is based on the successful Bowl Championship Series used in Division I-A football. Teams will be rated on a weekly basis, starting Jan. 1 of each year / season. The rankings will take into account three factors: the team’s rank in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), the team’s rank in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, and the team’s average rating across eight computer-based ranking systems. Each of these three sources will be treated equally, and the average of the three values will constitute the team’s straight POOP score.

“Our hope is that by using POOP to determine who plays for the national championship, rather than the current haphazard system of the NCAA tournament, we’ll be able to restore some normalcy to the proceedings,” said Swofford. “I mean, the whole March Madness name is a double-edged sword, ya know?”
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Now with more Buckeye flavor!

THE GAME EVERYONE SOMEONE? IS TALKING ABOUT

So Much for the Repeat
Ohio State 81, Ole Miss 69
UMass 78, Florida 66

We can’t even pretend to be excited about the NIT. Such excitement, however, is what we are paid to do (and by “paid”, we mean “spared from Orson’s mighty whip”), so some quick takeaway thoughts from the games:

1) No rematch between OSU and Florida - which as we covered last week, would have mattered just as much as Roy Williams playing Kansas again, since approximately the same number of players were around for each of the previous rounds of those battles.

2) We really respect the fans that turn out of the NIT games, making the trip to MSG for the finals. While we were at Georgetown, the Hoyas were stuck in NIT purgatory for a few years - and we’ll be damned if we didn’t tune those teams out as soon as Selection Sunday came and passed. We’re impressed by the fans whose loyalty extends beyond disappointment and follows their team straight into the mouth of oblivion.

3) Hahahahaha - SEC iz Da suckz!! (Really? No. But it’s fun to say, no?)

4) For reasons we cannot begin to explain, we think UMass will beat tOSU tomorrow night.

AND NOW, ONTO MORE FUN TOPICS

Not So Much with the Pillaging, Fellas …

What happens in Mexico apparently must stay in Mexico, until diplomats intervene or charges are cleared. Two Portland State players were hauled into a Mexican jail after one beat the snot out of a fellow American tourist while the other fled the scene. We enjoy this - two American college students are involved in battery against a fellow American college student, but because they do it at a Mexican resort, they will get to be a punchline for years months some indeterminate time.

Just to confirm, young high school recruits when you sign on to play with a team, do not attempt to emulate their mascot. Fellow PSU players now stand on notice that raping and pillaging are strongly discouraged. Centenary players … well, same rule, but don’t feel like you have to tuck the shirts in.

Hardy har har, funny men
The boys at PTI decided to open yesterday’s show with a patently obvious April Fool’s prank. The joke wasn’t terribly funny - sure, tug at our heartstrings - but we appreciated the effort all the same for the unintentional comedy. (Don’t sue, Simmons!)

Further, it confirmed out belief that you could come up with a topic off the top of your head, hand it to Tony and Mike, and the exact same debate would occur regardless: Factual description, Wilbon defends “his boys”, Tony sounds old, Wilbon makes half-informed point that sounds fully-informed because he’s Mike Wilbon, Tony makes crass remark and/or does penguin dance. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, we aren’t sure why we watch this everyday still either!

We’re not quite ready to talk about the chalk-tastic weekend just yet. We need something to cleanse our palate with something far more soothing - something from a more simple time, a more hopeful time - something from, say, late Friday night:

Memories of Cinderella and jokes of forcible rear entry soothe the pain of chalk. (HT: Kleph.)

That’s more like it.

As you all know, Davidson missed their chance for the game-winning, lead-story-writing, script-already-in-development shot that would have led every tournament broadcast for the next twenty years because Stephan Curry couldn’t get an open look. Some people are crediting Kansas’ defense on the play - and there can be no doubt that in those last sixteen seconds, the Jayhawks clamped down impressively. Though we do not come to kick those that are down, we disagree.The scripted play (with Curry asked to bring the ball up and find his own shot) was macho but immature in design. Curry has thrived when working with teammates on ball screens and motion plays; on the most important play of the season, sending him up the court to go mano-a-cinque-mano with the Jayhawks was insane.

Though we of course mourn the loss of our last upstart in the tournament, we have a tough time feeling too terrible for Davidson. They had a great season by any standard, a phenomenal season by SoCon standards, and [insert clichéd dig at pampered lifestyle of students at a school where they do your laundry for you here].

However, anyone who has ever played on an underdog team that made it farther than it should have - and back when we could be confused with an athlete, we were on such a team - knows that when you do lose, the hurt is much deeper than it would have been earlier. Davidson’s loss mattered more yesterday because, unlike in any of the previous rounds, they actually had something to lose. While the loss eats at them today, the mere fact that a small liberal arts school from the SoCon made it to that level should be lauded and remembered for years to come.

As for the other three games? UCLA, suddenly awakened from its slumber through the first three rounds (and, really, the last three months), remembered that it had the defenders to shut down Xavier’s perimeter game and a big man who could bully them down low. Memphis, playing with a chip on their shoulder the size of … well, Texas … , shut down D.J. Augustin and forced the Longhorns to (unsuccessfully) rely on other scorers. And UNC continued to play the best ball of the tournament, taking the lead over Louisville five minutes into the game then holding it with a vise grip.

And thus, we are “treated” to the first Final Four with all four #1 seeds. We’ll have more thoughts on this later this afternoon.

THE GAME EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Atlantic 10 Claims Victory; Usage of Name “Big East”
Xavier 79, West Virginia 75 (OT)

This was the game of the night, but it wasn’t terribly fun to watch. Each team spent one half on fire at both ends of the court, and each team spent one half flailing about like a two-year-old in the ball room at Chuck E. Cheese. (We like this concept - five enormous gentleman crammed into a clown car-esque space, throwing balls wildly at one another while clumsily shuffling around and giggling in delirium.)

We talked about this more in our liveblog last night, but Xavier was able to win down the stretch entirely thanks to their long-range shooting abilities (11 of 19 overall, 3 of 3 in OT) and in spite of their free throw shooting abilities (12 of 21 overall, 2 of 6 in OT). This isn’t a good recipe for Saturday, when UCLA and their “we’re the best team when we feel like it” squad come to town.

TWO OTHER STORYLINES, JUST FOR KICKS

Even Better Than Free Laundry

So, the administration of Davidson picked up the tab for any student who wanted to travel to Detroit for their game against Wisconsin tonight. And, while we rarely recommend going to Detwaah for any reason, we have spent many nights in Davidson, N.C. Wildcat faithful, we hope all of your asses are on these buses just for the excitement of a venue change. (Seriously, guys, don’t worry - we promise that if you leave a note to UPS on your whiteboard, they’ll leave your latest J.Crew shipment at your door and you can rock your new chinos on Monday.)

Basketball: Now With Risk of Crippling Injury!

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Sure, it’s not quite the same as the first weekend. But the 2nd weekend of the tournament is where even more drama happens, in many respects - can Davidson actually pull a Mason? Which #1 seed will bite the dust in a most unsavory fashion? And when will it get warm enough for girls to wear skirts and flipflops? (Not that we’re watching, honey.) For these reasons and more, we humbly log in to our MMOD account and bring you our live thoughts as the games progress.

7:10: Let’s get this started. The first pair of games: (7) West Virginia vs. (3) Xavier in the West, and (1) UNC vs. (4) Washington St. in the East. The West game tips off now, with the East game starting in about 20 minutes.

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So, we get back in the saddle for real tonight by doing what we wanted to do all last weekend - liveblogging the games. We’ll be posing all night, and hope you’ll join us. In the meantime, we’re enjoying Bobby Knight’s Pepto-tastic v-neck on, of all things, Baseball Tonight. Dear tWWL: corporate synergy is annoying, but nonsensical corporate synergy is amusing. Keep it coming.

Anyway - for your amusement, belittlement, scorn, and gambling, we present our just-as-informed-as-yours-but-we’ll-call-them-expert-because-we’re-writing-this-damn-post predictions for tonight’s games:

It’s just a little hobby, we’ve only dabbled … but Aunt Lou says hello.

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Hooray mediocre post-season play!

THE GAME EVERYONE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Same Bad Time, Same Bad Channel
Ohio State 74, Dayton 63 (West)

We have to admit - Ohio basketball fans, we’re impressed. According to reports, Value City Arena in Columbus (and, really, is there any better city to host Value City Arena than Columbus?) was filled to capacity last night. Pretty damn good for a surprisingly good NIT Quarterfinal matchup between two schools from Central Ohio.

But that last sentence holds the key to the NIT - we’re pretty sure that we’re the only person we know who watched a nanosecond of this game. (And, in the interest of full disclosure, we have family in Central Ohio.) In the interest of saving on team travel costs and generating ticket interest, the lower tier post-season tournaments have no choice but to encourage regional matchups (though this one, of course, wasn’t planned.) But regional matchups have regional appeal, and regional appeal means no big advertising dollars, so it should surprise no one that the NIT had to be taken over by the NCAA to remain financially stable.

Meanwhile, a fun storyline that has been picked up already - with tOSU and Florida on opposite sides of the NIT Final Four (with tOSU playing Ole Miss - thanks for beating VPI, Rebs - and UF playing UMass), we could be treated to a rematch of last year’s championship game. I’ll be just like last year! Noah! Oden! Horford! Conley! Brewer! It’s the NCAA championship game on CBS The Deuce!

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To help us prepare for the upcoming tournament weekend, we’re borrowing a tradition from the mothership. Here are our buys and sells for each of the regions for this weekend’s games.

EAST REGION

Buys

Butler - We were at work on Sunday night, so when we let out a Sheila Broflovski-esque “What what what???” when we saw the Bulldogs as a #7 seed, it scared a good number of people. Then we reviewed their schedule, and we understood why - their most impressive non-conference road win is a tossup between Virginia Tech and Southern Illinois. Toss that in with the fact that they are playing another talent mid-major (South Alabama) in essentially a road game (Birmingham), and this should be a loser. But the Bulldogs have one thing that you can’t buy in the tournament, and that’s defense. They held opponents under 60 points in more than half their games this year, and nine times under 50 points. Also, their three losses are by a total of twelve points. The old adage in betting is “don’t fall for the low hanging fruit”, and I think that taking South Alabama (or, for that matter, the unfortunately-placed #2 seed Tennessee) is a little too good to be true; RPI and schedule be damned, Butler isn’t a #7 seed. Bulldogs in my Sweet 16.

Sells

Wazzu - We aren’t in the business of muckraking around here … oh, wait, that’s EXACTLY what we’re in the business of. (Sorry.) Tony Bennett is either the next coming of John Wooden, or he found a killer outline for “Beating NCAA Recruiting Rules 101″, because we have no explanation for how he’s winning in Pullman. Regardless, his team seemed to lose steam as the year went on. Yes, all of their losses were in the Pac-10 - and yes, early in the year, they beat a couple of tournament teams soundly. But we’ve watched these guys, and they seem to be held together with duct tape and shoe polish. Enter Winthrop, a regular tournament participant with a win last year under their belts. We smell an upset.

SOUTH REGION

Buys

Pittsburgh - We’re already on the record as fearing Pitt, but let’s run through the numbers - undefeated until Christmas, including a win over Duke at MSG (known in Devil circles as “Cameron North”). Ravaged by injuries, they finished the regular season 11-9 with both tough losses (by 18 at Marquette) and plucky wins (by 9 over Georgetown). For the most part, they are healthy and playing together again … and showed off by winning the Big East. All this plus a favorable bracket has us thinking they will face Memphis next week. We can’t tell, however, whether we should be nervous or worried that we agree with Bob Knight about Pitt.

Sells

Miami (FL) - ACC bias w000000t! Um … yeah, about that … Miami, we’d like to congratulate you on your invitation to the tournament. Would you have made it, with the exact same squad, if you were in Conference USA instead of the ACC? Not a chance in the world. So enjoy the spotlight and the check, and kindly let St. Mary’s face off against Texas.

MIDWEST REGION

Buys

Clemson - OK, so maybe there is some ACC bias going on here. But as we wrote yesterday, Clemson has a quality squad that has both won and lost very close and tough games against superior competition this year, and has generally owned lesser competition minus a few hiccups. The first round shouldn’t pose much problem for them, but we also think they match up well against Vandy in the second round. As we’ve said before - someone must stop the monster that is Shan Foster, and if it’s not Clemson, don’t think for a second that it will be Kansas.

Sells

USC - We want to believe in Tim Floyd’s squad. (We’re really not sure why - in football season, we hate the sons of Troy with a white-hot heat and wish plagues upon Los Angeles and all of Pete Carroll’s beautiful angels.) We do. We’ve come around on O.J. Mayo and think he might actually be aight. But this team is streaky like taco night boxers, and they are playing against the best player in the country. Even with K-State’s pupu platter on the floor beside Beasley, we like the Wildcats.

WEST REGION

Buys

Duke - You know why? Because we said so. Risky bet? More than you might think - especially if West Virginia, another lanky, defense-oriented, long-shooting team gets to face them on Saturday. But dammit, we’re fans, and we’re gonna pimp our team this weekend because, barring UCLA getting lost on their way to the team buses, we’re pretty sure we won’t be able to do it next weekend.

Sells

Purdue - This was a tough pick for us, because we pretty much see chalk in this region. But of all the “high” seeds, Purdue looks to us to be the most vulnerable. No consistent scoring option, no impressive true road wins out of the Big Ten, and their opponent is an emotionally charged Baylor team. Sure, Baylor has a “just happy to be here” feel to them. But we’re on record as thinking that both of these conferences stink, so we’re going to hope that karma sides with the Bears.

THE GAME EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT (SORT OF)

Enjoy the Enjoyment!
Villanova 82, Syracuse 63

[dusts off Hoyas hat from senior year]

YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!! What you got, Boeheim? Huh? You got nothing. Two straight years, you little mediawhore, you’re on the outside looking in. How’s the losing feel, Mr. Carmelo’s-Coattails? Does it feel bad? Does it hurt? Good. Get the hell out of here, and take your fruity little team with you.

[takes off homer hat]

Seriously though, Jim Boeheim is a prick and a half. (We’re counting Coaches vs. Cancer when we say that - he was a full-on triple prick before that.) People forget this because he laughs and smiles with the PTI guys, but before Carmelo Anthony, he was famous for throwing his players under the bus and choking in big games. Oh, and NCAA violations. We see no reason why a down-year, mercenary-led championship should change this assessment of Boeheim, especially given his moronic advocacy for an expanded NCAA tournament to accommodate his mediocre teams. Every time his team under-performs, we smile, and imagine him kicking a puppy. (Homer hate still clearly on.)

So … um, yeah, nice win Villanova. But don’t be too good, ya here?

THE GAMES YOU SHOULD HAVE WATCHED INSTEAD

We Can’t Count, but We Can Ball
The Entire Atlantic 10 14 Opening Round

There was absolutely nothing you could refuse to love about this day of games. First of all, they are playing the tournament in Atlantic City, which is like the Pac-10 deciding to host its conference championship game (if they were eligible to have one) in Las Vegas. We hope these players are sending thank you notes to Eliot Spitzer, whose own hooker-fueled mess is likely keeping them out of the Tri-State headlines.

Just like Client-9.

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Mouthguard AND brand placement?

Well done, sir.

THE GAME EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT (SORT OF)

Timber …
#3 UCLA 77, #7 Stanford 67 (OT)

The bigger they are, the harder they … something something. This kind of loss should take the wind out of the sails of those damn treehuggers sleepin’ in that redwood. [listens to whispers backstage] Wait, that’s at Berkeley? Eh, one of them hippie schools in the Bay Area; pretty much the same place, aren’t they?

Utter collapse by the Cardinal, which will never cease being a really lame mascot. Double digit lead with five minutes to go? Meaningless - when the Bruins decide to switch it on, it’s ballgame. But it should scare the shit out of Ukkluh fans that it took 35 minutes for such a switch to occur. This is unquestionably the most talented team in the country, and we still think they are losing before the Final Four. Also, the golden ‘C’ on the jersey is remarkably stupid. Unless it’s to commemorate something historic. In which case it’s only whisper-behind-its-back stupid.

THE GAME YOU SHOULD HAVE WATCHED INSTEAD

There wasn’t one. UCLA-Stanford was the best game of the night on paper and on hardwood. Of course, there are some people whose cable/internet went out for twelve hours, so just for all of us you …. (not that we’re bitter):

Arena Finally Lives Up to Name; Immediately Closed
St. Joseph’s 71, #8 Xavier 68

Last night was the last home game in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse for the Hawks (they’ll play in the Palestra next season while AMF gets renovated), and they scored a huge win over Xavier to set up a “loser gets the NIT, winner gets heartburn” matchup against Dayton on Saturday.

St. Joe’s won the game with teamwork (five players in double digits) and strong defense down the stretch - but not if you read the lead for the AP wire story afterwards. Noooo …. you know who won this game for the Hawks? Jameer Nelson - just by showing up. Has nothing to do with the fact that he’s the only person from St. Joe’s most sportswriters can name (save Dr. Jack, natch.)

FOUR TOURNAMENTS WORTH ONE LINE APIECE

Atlantic Sun - Mustache-tastic Lipscomb shaved by MTSU.

Northeast - Hehehe … Mount St. Mary’s … hahahahah … [wipes tears] … but seriously folks, we’re going to hell.

Missouri Valley - Thousands of teenage boys accept what we have long known: Shockers are surprisingly ineffective.

Big South - Top-seeded UNC-Asheville rolls to finals, but must face three time defending champs Winthrop. Don’t ever fuck with Winthrop.

Looking good, Billy Ray! Feeling good, Louis!

Is a delicate ballet.

The Game Everyone is Talking About (sort of)

Kings If Just For A Day
#13 Louisville 90, #17 Notre Dame 85

Allegiance and Haterade - they are fickle powers to be sure. Louisivlle football wins, crickets. Louisville basketball wins, I’m cringing in preparation for the next time I have to see Rick Pitino’s preening face on PTI. Yes, Rick, we know you believe in your team. No, Rick, we don’t want to hear you talk abo … NO, RICK, PUT DOWN THE WHITE SUIT. PUT IT DOWN.

Apparently, Slick Rick wasn’t kidding when he said his entire team would improve when David Padgett was back to 100%. Padgett’s 26 points led the Cardinals, who shot 53% from the floor and never trailed in this game thanks to a complete shutdown of Irish sharpshooter Kyle McAlarney. The Irish are still on pace to get a first round bye in the Big East Tournament - a complicated, multiround tournament that relies on icebreaker name games, teen angst, and Madison Square Garden to catch attention.

The Game You Should Have Watched

In Soviet Slovakia, Three Shoot You!
#14 Butler 66, Wright State 61

Julian Betko, a senior from Slovakia, buried five three-pointers in the first half to lead Butler in a bounce-back win after getting depantsed by Drake over the weekend. Betko spend the second half scanning the crowd for spies and assassins while his teammates finished the win. Because spies don’t sleep. They wait.

With an RPI stuck in the 70s thanks to a steady diet of Christmas cookies out of conference, Wright State needed to sweep the Bulldogs to have a case for an at-large - now, it’s league tournament or bust. Which is fitting - because, mid-major with two legitimate good teams or not, I can’t get passed the fact that the league is called Horizon. Lame.

Also - when two good mid-majors play the game of the night, does Kyle Whelliston walk around the house with his dick hanging out? Does the cat look at him funny? These are the questions that keep us up at night.

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