Crazy Weekend

There are only 3 certainties in life - death, taxes and my bracket getting busted after just a week of tournament play. The only difference this year is that most people's brackets are busted and I am not alone. It was an weekend of awesome games and amazing upsets in the NCAA tournament. The tourney has been up and down a little bit the last couple of years. But this first weekend this March has been great. The sweet 16 features a 9-Th seed that upset the big, bad Kansas. It also features a 10-Th, 11-Th and 12-Th seeds. The first round also featured a 13-Th and 14-Th seeded teams that upset Georgetown and Vanderbilt. The theory has always been that there is always a 12 over 5 upset in the first round and I called the Cornell over Temple game correctly. But I didn't think Cornell will also dump Wisconsin and go to the sweet 16. I also didn't know there would be a 13 over 4 and a 14 over 3. Amazing! The talk of the nation now is Northern Iowa, who beat Kansas and St. Mary's, who beat Villanova - 2 teams responsible for my brackets being in the state they are. But I can't complain. Don't we all love the underdogs!

It's not just about the upsets. The games have been awesome and a lot of close finishes as well. Both Northern Iowa and Michigan State have played 2 nail-baiters and now they have to play each other. Should be fun. Surprisingly, Cornell has had no problems with their comfortable upsets. Not since Penn made the Final Four in 1979 has an Ivy League team won two games in the NCAA tournament. Cornell has done it by averaging 82.5 points a game. They now have to play Kentucky, the clear favorites to win it all now that Kansas is back home. Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse and Ohio State are the big-names still left in the tournament and have looked decent. It should be fun watching them fight it out with the little guys next weekend. It's time now to follow the NBA for a couple of days before the gang reconvenes for the tournament on Thursday. NBA is heating up too with everybody on top of the conference standings winning and refusing to lose. The Phoenix Suns are playing great, but they cannot close the gap in the standings. Lets save that story for another day.

March Madness

March madness is here. Most people think NCAA tournament when you say March madness. But a lot of god games actually happen during the conference tournaments leading up to the big dance. I wish I had more times on my hands to watch some of these games. The conference tournaments usually feature teams that know each other very well and hate each other and are rivals. This brings an added juice to the contest and some of these games are real fun. Obviously there is not much at stake for the top teams in the tournaments for the big conferences, but a NCAA berth is usually at stake for all smaller conferences. The process has started already and this will keep us busy through the month. Fun times.

In the NBA, Kobe hit his 6-Th game winner of this season. This guy is becoming a legendary clutch player this season. He is the most popular player in the league and he is only getting bigger with these game winners. Kobe's shot today stopped a 3 game losing streak for the Lakers. They actually don't look as good as they used to in December but a lot of people think they will just turn it up in the playoffs. They still have the most talent in the league and they have the black mamba. The Cavs look great, but can they beat the Lakers? Thats the question to be answered this season. I think the much awaited Cavs-Lakers matchup will happen this year in the finals. Boston looks shot and the Magic this season don't look like a championship team. Cavs may still need Shaq to make sure they get past the Magic, but the Cavs look better than they did last year. The surprising team in the NBA are the Mavericks. They have won 12 straight and they are threatening the top teams in the league with their record.

Basketball is fun, but NFL is clearly the national sport. The daily coverage and attention the NFL is getting even during the off-season is amazing. And this is expanding every year. Seems like the people just can't get enough of the NFL and there's constant chatter on ESPN all day about the NFL though the first game is still almost 6 months away. The news today was how Derek Anderson crushed the Cleveland Browns fan on his way out. Looks like the dude was really hurt by them cherring his injury during a game. Fans are sometimes messed up, but I didn't expect so much emotion from him on the way out. The other news is TO being recruited by the Bengals. I can't imagine TO and Ocho on the same team. They both should drive Carson Palmer nuts.