Sunday, March 30, 2008

Final 4 and opening day

The Final 4 lineup is set and what we have is 4 number one seeds. How often have you seen that? Like never! This makes the Final 4 really high-profile and very interesting. We all love the cinderella stories - the Davidsons and the George Masons of the World, but to have the best 4 teams in the nation in the Final 4 is unique and I truly believe that has happened this year. This year's tourney had it's share of upsets and cinderellas, but from day 1 it was clear there were some elite teams and then then there were others. The others were playing the usual tourney while the elite teams were really playing at HNL ('hole 'nother level). All the four top seeds were part of these elite list plus a few others like Texas. Unfortunately for Texas, they ran into an elite Memphis team today and were bounced easily. Derrick Rose of Memphis is a stud! He will look good in any NBA uniform.

These number 1's are better than what you see in the tournament usually. So while the 4-Th and 5-Th seeds were having trouble with 12's and 13's, these guys went straight to the top. This tournament's darling, Davidson almost beat Kansas, but Kansas prevailed. We will all miss Stepehn Curry in the Final 4. He is fun to watch. Instead, what you have are 4 elite teams and they'll fight it out. Memphis is on a roll. I wouldn't be surprised if they take care of UCLA. The NC-Kansas match-up should be a dandy. Thats a lot harder to call in my opinion. Who knows, may be this Final 4 ends up being Psycho-T's coronation. Can't wait for next weekend. Can you imagine how much fun it would be if these 4 teams played a round-robin tourney?

By the way what's happening to the Sporting calendar? We used to be done with the Final 4 when the baseball season started. Then we got to a point where the national championship game coincided with opening day for a few years. And this year the MLB season will almost be a week old by the time the Final 4 rolls around. Close to 2 weeks if you count the As-Sox games in Japan. Speaking of MLB, how ironic is it that the season started off with boos as W threw the first pitch in Washington. A fitting start to another steroid=scandal covered MLB season. Hopefully this will be the last one. Bush's only contribution to the country might have been his efforts in shining some light on the MLB steroid controversy. The highest office he should have gotten to should have been the commissioner of the MLB. Even thats acceptable only because Bud Selig is so bad that W would have been a better choice! Unfortunately we ended up with W running the whole country.

Enough of politics and steroids. Lets pick the MLB division winners. I think my DBacks stay on top and win the West. This year is Milwaukee's year. I like them to win NL central though it's going to be a tough race with the Cubs and the Cards. I pick the Mets to come out of the East. They better do something with all that money and talent. Phily and the Braves will give them a run. The Rockies take the Wild Card in the NL. As for the AL, I think Seattle takes the West. My favorite AL team, the A's are in deep re-building mode and will not even be in the picture this season. Expect to see some real ugly attendance numbers in Oakland. Detroit wins the Central. They look real good right now, though Cleveland might have the better rotation. Same old, same old in the East. Boston stays on top with the Yanks chasing them all season and ending up with the Wild Card. My dream of both these teams missing the playoffs is not going to happen this year, though Toronto is going to be good. Poor guys are stuck in the wrong division in a sport with an unfair economic system.

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