The Best Monday Ever.

Up until yesterday, I pretty much hated Mondays. I mean there really is very little to like about this day. That all changed with two different events-both very exciting in their own way.

For some unbelievable reason, I was the only person in my March Madness pool to pick North Carolina. I was down by 24 points heading into last night's game with the winner picking up 25 points. I obviously won. For the second time in four years, I am thankful to North Carolina for winning the national championship. I am also thankful because I ran this pool, and I am the worst at running things like this. I am horrible with money and the money I have already received from people was spent weeks ago. In my mind, I broke even last night. I think in the future, I may leave running these things to those more fiscally responsible than myself.

Good thing number two on Monday made my day even without the North Carolina victory. It was reported yesterday that Diane Palin, Sarah Palin's sister-in-law was arrested for breaking into homes. On top of the media tour that Levi Johnston is currently doing, this makes Sarah Palin look even worse, and I had no idea that was possible. Part of me almost feels sorry for her, but then I think back to all the stupid things she said last Fall and I can't help but smile.

I am already looking forward to next Monday!

The Upset Nobody Knows About

One of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history happened yesterday, and hardly anybody even knows about it. If you didn't fill out a women's bracket this year (don't lie-I know you didn't), than you weren't paying attention. Yesterday in a stunning upset, Ball State of the Mid-American Conference beat defending champion Tennessee in the first round 71-55.

If you aren't familiar with the format of the women's tournament, there are few upsets compared to the madness on the men's side. The committee sets the games up so that the higher-ranked teams play closer to home to draw more fans. On top of that, there is a great divide between the great teams in women's basketball and the good teams. The parity doesn't exist. (See: Connecticut's undefeated regular season rampage.) If you aren't familiar with Tennessee women's basketball, they don't lose in the first round. They never have. They have a coach in Pat Summitt (See: Legend) that just won her 800th game this season, and they also happen to be the two-time defending champions of this tournament. If you aren't familiar with Ball State women's basketball than join the club. I didn't have much of a chance to follow women's basketball in the MAC this winter, but I do know Ball State wasn't even favored to win their conference tournament this year. Their prize for winning their tournament was getting shipped to Kentucky to play Tennessee in the first round. This should have been a blow-out for Tennessee. It wasn't and that is what makes March Madness so great.

I am blogging about this today because of the timing of it all. Yesterday I had a conversation with a gentleman who didn't even know there was a women's tournament. I know most people don't follow women's sports like I do, but why not try it out this March? You may just catch some upsets or a history-making win like this one. Happy Women's History Month Ball State!

Everyone Has March Madness

Sure he could have been doing something more important for these five minutes, but this time of year, even President Obama has March Madness: Click this link to see Obama go through his whole bracket with ESPN's Andy Katz. Good Luck to everyone with their own March Madness this year!

Here is the link to the video if it doesn't work:
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=3992869

A Potpourri Of Clubbing Clothes, Peacepipes, Lunch Diets And Binge Drinking

I had so many things I wanted to write about today. Let me just touch upon a few of the highlights before I move on to the truly blog-worthy idea I found online.

First off, I had an interesting weekend working events for the women's basketball tournament. On Saturday, I found myself blocking the view of Geno Auriemma at the high school All-Star game as I was sitting in press row, and he of course was sitting wherever the hell he wanted to be sitting. I also scored tickets to the WNBA/WBCA after-party, but decided I may stick out too much to go. The person who gave me the tickets told me to try and blend in by wearing the clothes I would wear to go clubbing. I skipped that event. My clubbing clothes were at the cleaners.

Another blog idea was that I should mention I have started the Subway Challenge. Goodbye mayonnaise and cheese and hello honey mustard. I have decided to follow in Jared's footsteps and see if this six grams of fat marketing campaign actually works for lunch. That's right, I am only going to do it for lunch. It will take off the guilt from the wings and beer I will be consuming at dinner.

My original blog idea got bumped, so I thought I would just shorten it by giving a quick summary. Did anybody see that the Cleveland Indians played the St. Louis Cardinals in the Inaugural Civil Rights Game commemorating the civil rights movement in baseball? To stay true to the game, the Cleveland Indians removed Chief Wahoo off of their uniforms...for JUST this exhibition game. Doesn't it seem like more of a slap in the face to do that for just this game, and then put it back on for the regular season--ya know...the games that actually count. I think someone in marketing was smoking the peacepipe on this idea.

And finally the idea that trumps all others occurred just a little while ago as I was surfing the internet trying to find out the fat and calories in alcohol, to keep an accurate measurement of my Subway Challenge. I found someone else was doing a similar search, and had posted their questions for all the world to answer. I love this open letter almost as much as I want to find the person who wrote it so that I can hang out with them sometime. Enjoy...

"My favourite tipple is a double vodka with diet coke (the coke filled to the top) in a average glass served by pubs in the UK.
1. Can anyone tell me the average kcal calories content of a glass? 2. If I drank an average of 8-10 glasses of these on a weekend nightout, how many calories would I be consuming? 3. Would adding ice help reduce calorie content or increase sobriety? Or no different? 4. What is the lowest calories double spirits and mixer? (But withequal strength of alcohol)? 5. Does an increase in alcohol strength mean an increase in calories? 6. Is eating food (e.g. kebab, chips) after a drinking binge harmfulor not? e.g. helps reduce hangovers, or increases nausea in morningetc. What is recommended? Should I drink water before eating food, orafter eating food? Or both or does it make no different? Tips will be given for thorough answers."

I think I may have found my British counterpart!

Two Weeks Is Too Long

The past two weeks have flown by full of events and failed thoughts of blogging. To catch everyone up I got a new car, though it will never take the place of Ruby. I have to give a lot of thanks to my parents for their incredible bargaining ways as I am now driving a 2007 Hyundai Sonata. I also had to go to North Carolina for family business this past week. If only I had enough words and space to blog about the family events and craziness. Unfortunately you will have to wait to read Julie's book entitled: Does Crazy Sleep? which is sure to be made into a major motion picture or at least a Lifetime movie of the week sometime soon. I hear Meredith Baxter Birney is already auditioning for the part of crazy.

As for the next two weeks-I can't be more excited! This is my favorite time of year because of the NCAA basketball tournament (Selection Sunday is only two days away or 56 hours from now) and the Cleveland International Film Festival , which will also be going on over the next two weeks. This year I am actually lucky enough to have someone in my life to pull me away from basketball to see some movies and get me out of the house, or bar as the case may be. Do not fear, I have already taken March 15th and 16th off of work for the first two days of the tournament like I do every year. I am just glad those games don't fall on St. Patricks Day like they did the past two years. My boss always thought I was taking the days off to drink beer and go to the parade. When any normal person would know I was taking the days off to drink beer and watch basketball. I am obviously working with amateurs here.

No Seriously...So Now What

I started this blog the day after the Super Bowl with the scary realization I wouldn’t be excited about sports again until March. Now that One Shining Moment has played and all the prognosticators have submitted their early Top 25 rankings for the 2006 college basketball season, I am officially in a bigger transition period then I was in after the Super Bowl. At least after the football season ends, you have thoughts of March Madness. Now that March Madness is over, I am looking over my upcoming sports calendar and I am feeling a little disheartened.

For me nothing really compares to pro football or college basketball but there are a few things to help me get by until next September when football starts up again. I will now turn my interest to the NFL draft in April. I will spend the next couple weeks reading every Mel Kiper Jr. article to try and figure out how the Browns are going to better themselves next season. After the draft, the NBA playoffs will finally be getting underway and the season will start to get exciting. (I will also be spending my energy over the next couple weeks hoping the CAVS can hold on to a six seed in the Eastern Conference but this is starting to look bleak.) I really wish I liked baseball more, but it will be well into the summer by the time the NBA champ is crowned, and the NBA draft is held, so I will have no business sitting on the couch watching sports anyway. That is until August when my fantasy football draft season begins.

Don’t worry about me. I will be okay. I have a wonderful vacation and a large event this summer I am volunteering for over the next four months. The sports world is not the only thing that makes my life go--it just makes things a whole lot more interesting when it is going.

Win, Place or Show

After the best weekend of college basketball I have ever seen, I sit in the top three of all the tournament pools I have entered. My big three (Louisville, Illinois and North Carolina) barely escaped this past weekend but are going to St. Louis nonetheless. If I am able to win with one of these brackets, it will be the first time since I picked UConn, while everyone else took Duke in 1999, that I have won some money in this madness.

The Unwritten Rule

I called my brother yesterday before I decided to write this entry to get a clarification on something that I had no idea about. I asked him: "Is it an unwritten rule between men not to hit one another in the groin area?" He quickly replied: "Yes it is an unwritten rule!" With that in mind I decided to move on with this entry and to explain to men who don't already know, why men should not hit other men below the belt.

Two weeks ago Wake Forest, one of the top teams in the country, was playing North Carolina State, a team on the verge of not even making it into the NCAA tournament. Wake Forest is led by their All-American point guard, Chris Paul and NC State is led by the reigning conference player of the year, Julius Hodge. Midway through the first half of their last regular-season game against one another, Paul hit Hodge in the groin out of frustration. Hodge crumpled to the court in pain and began shouting obscenitites at Paul. This small event, led to other small events and showed us how very important karma can be.

After this game was over, Chris Paul was suspended for his first conference tournament game which happened to be against NC State. NC State won the tournament game in an upset as Hodge powered his team past a Wake Forest team missing their All-American point guard. Taking that upset into consideration, Wake Forest lost a chance at a number one seed heading into the NCAA tournament. On the other hand, NC State received an at-large bid to the tournament as a number ten seed. This in itself was huge. If Wake had won at least one game in the ACC tournament they could have been a number one seed and perhaps played their first games down the road at the Charlotte Coliseum. Instead Wake Forest was sent to tropical Cleveland Ohio for its first and second round games in the tournament. To make matters worse, Wake Forest was bounced in the second round of the tournament by West Virginia, a huge upset to many people fillling out brackets.

This was a team many picked to make it to the Final Four and they were sent packing before they even got a shot at the regional. On the other hand, NC State is fresh off two upsets in the tournament to make it into the Sweet 16. Julius Hodge and his teammates will be heading to Syracuse next week to play for a chance to advance to the Final Four. Chris Paul will be sitting at home watching Hodge play in those games next week. Funny how karma works, isn't it?

Top O' The Tournament To You

Whatever happens in Cleveland on the first day of March Madness which also falls on St. Patrick’s Day, stays in Cleveland. Yesterday was one of the best St. Patrick’s Days I have had in a long time, though there is nothing too crazy to entertain you with on this day after. Liz and I both had the day off, so we decided to walk from our place down to the parade. The parade turned out to look like every other parade I have ever seen in my life but with a lot more drunk and pushy people. (It was nice to be sober for that event and watch everyone else act like morons for once.) Afterwards we hung out downtown and took the RTA back to our neighborhood haunts. At each bar, we ended up running into a few unexpected guests, which is always such a pleasant surprise. We did end up at this gay bar last night which refused to turn off Will and Grace to put the tournament games on. How was I supposed to know anything else was on TV yesterday? Luckily, I had Mark calling me every 30 minutes to give me updates just like the ESPN ticker. Now that’s the true meaning of family.

My Final Four Picks

Here are my picks to get to St. Louis. I am throwing them out there for everyone to see and criticize. I figure it is my duty with this blog to actually give my own picks instead of just being critical of everyone else’s for once.

Illinois: Best Ball Rotation in College Basketball. The most athletic team in the tournament.
Louisville: An athletic and well-coached team in a weak bracket.
North Carolina: I will be surprised if Roy Williams can’t get this team to St. Louis
Syracuse: These players have been there. (Not to mention Duke has no depth)

I am sure next week at this time, I may be eating this entry after just the first round but I wanted to give it a shot.

Does Ohio Have a Chance in Hell?

I am thrilled to death that after a ten-year absence, my alma mater is going back to the NCAA tournament. However they didn’t catch a very good break with their seeding. Ohio will be taking on Florida, a team which has been on a tear the past eight days. The Gators beat Kentucky last week to end the regular season and then blew everyone out in the SEC tournament, including another win over Kentucky yesterday. Florida pounded Kentucky to win the SEC Tournament and in return wound up seeded fourth yesterday opposite the Bobcats who picked up a 13 seed.

Looking at the two teams I don’t have one of those positive feelings for Ohio in the pit of my stomach so I may have to do a little research. There isn’t a whole lot of cross-referencing with these two teams. Ohio lost to Florida International by one point, who lost to Miami (FL) who Florida later lost to as well. Easy enough: Ohio 71, Florida 63. Probably not a very valid point. What else? In three of the last five tournaments a 13 seed has upset a four seed, including a MAC team when Kent State defeated Indiana in 2001. Speaking of the MAC, it’s hard to bet against their teams in the first round. Over the past ten years, a MAC team has won it’s first-round game seven times since the 1995 NCAA tournament. Ohio is still a little different than those teams though.

Ohio wasn’t nearly as consistent as the 1999 Miami team, the 2002 Kent team or the 2003 Central Michigan team. The Bobcats never even saw the likes of the Top 25 all season and they won their conference tournament on a buzzer-beating tip-in--hardly a dominant performance. Yet they are in and they have a coach who has been there who can prepare them. Tim O’Shea was the Associate Head Coach at Boston College in 2001 when the Eagles were seeded number three in the tournament. His experience in the tournament will be the most helpful variable the Bobcats own if they will have a chance in hell of winning this game against Florida.

I Could Draw a Bracket Before I Could Tie My Shoes

Ahhh…the Monday after Selection Sunday. Last week I talked about how distracted I was at work--that doesn’t even hold a candle to my day today. You see yesterday I had my brackets drawn and numbered with three hours to spare before the seedings were announced. Today, I will stare at that bracket all day and spend an inordinate amount of time surfing web sites like http://main.uab.edu/ and http://unipanthers.collegesports.com/ to try and figure out the annual 6/11 upset.

Though I am sure it is no secret the person who usually wins the tournament poll I am in isn’t surfing the web right now. No it is the guy who gives his wife a bracket to fill out so that she can pick the teams based on their uniform colors or their mascot. There is no successful method to this March Madness. There isn’t one expert in America today agreeing with another one. It’s a crapshoot. And in the end, the person who wins my particular tournament will probably be the one who likes Carolina Blue or the same person last year who picked those adorable huskies (Washington or UConn) or even the person whose favorite color is orange who could foresee an Oklahoma State and Illinois match-up in the Chicago Regional. For all of you filling out a bracket this year, good luck and may the best basketball junkie or non-junkie win.

The Beginning

I can't believe I am doing this. I can't believe I actually have a blog or at least the beginnings of one. I guess I just think I spend a lot of this time of year reflecting and now these reflections have led to this brainchild. I read an article just a couple weeks ago that said January 24th is considered the saddest day of the year due to the winter and a lack of follow through with New Years Resolutions. This blog is inspired by what I usually consider to be my saddest day of the year: the day after the Super Bowl.

I guess they try to prepare you for it with the two week hiatus in between the conference championship game and the big game but that really doesn't help. Now I am stuck in between this time of the Super Bowl and the beginning of March Madness. If only I could get into Arena Football or regular-season college basketball games. I mean seriously...Arena Football...I wouldn't care if Jon Bon Jovi and Jon Elway actually played on the teams they owned, its just not the same. The regular season in college basketball is just like one long pre-season. Do these games really matter? If a team enters the tournament in March with two losses or seven losses, does it make them less of a team? (Unless of course your team is from the Mid-American Conference and you watch yet another team not get an at-large bid, but more on that when I write about the "mid-major" athletic program.)

So now I am stuck in this time period without a name. All the millions of crafty sports writers and I still haven't come across a name for this time of year. Hello Bill Simmons? Excuse me Don Banks? Hey Steve Rushin? Can anyone hear me? I suppose it is this lack of a label that has drawn me to creating this blog. I want this space to be fun. I will introduce you to myself and share the daily comings and goings of my life with you but I will always try to integrate some good tidbits on the sports world. I think it was what I was meant to do. I have a degree in journalism and a Master's degree in Athletic Administration, yet I don't currently work in either of those fields. Obviously I need some sort of an outlet or I may explode. Thank you for patronizing me and sharing this outlet with me