March 14 - "Lets Boogie!"

So the dust has settled from yesterday and what does the Sportsaholic make of it all? After much consideration, I give the Tourney selection committee a solid B. There are some weird seedings and I have some questions about the unevenness of the brackets, but there is nothing worth screaming about. In general, the selectors put the right teams in, kept the wrong teams out, and seeded teams close to where they belong. There is really a ton to cover, but I am going to leave some of it for tomorrow and Wednesday when I will offer up my official picks. Today I want to focus just on what the Selectors accomplished yesterday and how the tourney brackets are balanced.

Let us start with who got in and who got left out. On this front, I give the selection committee a B plus. It took a bit of testosterone to leave out Notre Dame, although the Irish did make things a bit easier by losing to Rutgers last Thursday. It is somewhat ironic that this morning we heard more complaints about Notre Dame's ommission from the national media than South Bend cheerleaders such as Digger and Mike Golic. Vitale and Jay Bilas can complain all they want that the best 35 teams didn’t get all the at-large bids, but the Irish just didn’t get it done. Lesson learned – you either make the weight or you don’t get on the mat. End of story. And the same goes for Maryland. Bilas is making a big deal of Maryland’s omission, but let us not forget the Terps had their chances. A win over either Virginia Tech or Clemson probably gets them in. Sorry Terps, you missed weight and have to sit out your first tourney since 1993.

Why should anyone not directly affiliated with these schools give a damn whether or not they got invited? It’s not as if either was going to be a serious championship contender. If you disagree, ask yourself whether any 10th or 11th seeded teams have ever won the whole shooting match. NC State was a six, Villanova was an eight and Kansas was a six. It seems teams seeded below eight very rarely make it to the Final Four let alone the Championship. In fact, aside from LSU in 1986, I cannot think of a single double digit seed in the past 25 years who made it to the last weekend. With that said, I don’t want to hear talk that Notre Dame’s omission compromises the integrity of the tourney. It really doesn’t matter who gets those last couple of bids and in this case, I am pleased the selectors gave Notre Dame’s invite to Northern Iowa. I would much rather see a team like Northern Iowa be rewarded for their year then watching Notre Dame get to cash in on their reputation and a single win over Boston College.

It seems that the last four teams in the tourney were Northern Iowa, UAB, UTEP and UCLA. I guess I may have been a bit too confident that my Bruins were safe last Friday even after getting waxed by Oregon State in the Pac-10 tourney. I suspect Northern Iowa got the final bid, but would they still be going if Memphis had a hit a couple more free throws on Saturday (story below) or Ohio State hadn’t declared itself ineligible due to institutional misconduct? The Ohio State issue is really odd since the Buckeyes earned a bid sans their self-imposed probation and that would mean that the very average Big-10 would have slid six teams into this tourney. That begs the question of what the Committee would have done with Iowa had Ohio State been eligible. Iowa got a ten seed so the committee obviously felt its resume was better then some at-large eleven seeds, but were they really going to load up the tourney with six teams form the Big-10? That is an interesting question. It is also clear this morning that UCLA’s win over Notre Dame a couple weeks back was an elimination game under any and all definitions. UCLA got in with that win and I suspect that loss did plenty to seal Notre Dame’s fate.

Let us move on the number one seeds. I may be the only one in the country who doesn’t have a problem with Washington getting a top spot. I thought Oklahoma State could have been the fourth number one, but it is a close call and it looks as if the Cowboys weren’t even in the running. Wake Forest is paired with Washington so it looks as like they were the fifth team in the minds of the tourney architects. I don't agree with this at all. My objections with Wake are much more qualitative than quantitative. They have a great resume on paper, but I watched the Deacons plenty this year and I wasn’t witnessing anything special. This is a team that refuses to play defense and they sure didn’t look any better down the stretch than they did in early January. Moreover, this is not exactly a program steeped in March success. In case you couldn't tell, I am a short seller of Skip and the Deacons.

With that said, I am fine with Washington getting a number one seed in the Albuquerque region. But this is where the problem begins. Washington got a small break by getting that seed, but they got a much bigger break when the tourney architects started rounding out the regions. In my estimation, the Syracuse region is the toughest, followed in order by the Austin Region, the Chicago Region and the Albuquerque region. Washington really caught a break staying out West with Wake while Oklahoma State got sent to Chicago.

The Syracuse region is a flat out gauntlet, especially if Kansas guard Keith Langford is able to play at full strength. You got Carolina, UCONN, Kansas, Florida and Nova all playing in that region. That is pretty sick and it got Kansas coach Bill Self to lament this morning that the region’s five seed had Kansas down by 32 earlier in the season before calling off the dogs. He is right – Nova is a real tough five seed and people shouldn’t take Florida lightly either. I know they have had a real spotty post-season record since going to the finals in 2000, but this team is on a roll with two recent wins over Kentucky. For the first time in a few years, it looks as if Billy Donovan's team still has its legs come March. And if you like irony, how about a possible matchup in Syracuse between North Carolina and Kansas? Will Roy Williams have to recuse himself for such a game?

I think it’s a pretty hard call to distinguish the merits of the Chicago and Austin Regions. Chicago is stacked at the top with Illinois, Oklahoma State and Arizona, but there isn’t much depth. Illinois should have no trouble dominating the top half of that bracket, but things will be interesting in the bottom half. I do like LSU as a sleeper in that region. They have almost 600 pounds of muscle inside and that will give Arizona fits. Channing Frye is going to have his hands full with Brandon Bass and Ivan Radenovic has almost no prayer of stopping Tiger Manchild Glen Davis. That is a game I am really looking forward to watching.

The strength of the Austin region lies in its depth. I think the region features the tourney’s top “three seed” in Oklahoma and Duke can never be counted out. An opening round game in this region that intrigues me is Vermont taking on Syracuse in Worcester. UVM got a bit screwed ending up with a 13th seed, but it gives Vermont’s Taylor Coppenrath a great opportunity to make a name for himslef against Syracuse’s overrated Hakim Warrick. Teh big question here is whether Coppenrath can operate against the Syracuse zone. I like the fact that Vermont will have some fans in Worcester so it won’t be as comfy and one-sided as Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim likes it. I know he’s playing close to home, but I don’t see Boeheim surviving the weekend and making it to Austin.

And finally, we move out to the Albuquerque region, which is the weakest of the four. The one thing that strikes me about this region is Louisville getting slid down to a four seed. I had them penciled in as a three and perhaps a two. A Louisville-Washington match-up in the regional semis would be a very exciting up-and-down game. But before Louisville gets there, they will have to take out an improving Georgia Tech team next weekend. I have given the Jackets a ton of grief this season, much of it well earned, but Paul Hewitt’s club is starting to play better of late. He has some guys who can guard on the perimeter and that could prove problematic for Rick Pitino’s three big sharpshooters. The other possible match-up that intrigues me is Wake playing West Virginia next weekend in Cleveland. West Virginia is coming off a solid effort in the Big East tourney and I think they are the kind of team that will give the defensively challenged Deacons fits. Wake has a checkered tourney history and this game will be in Cleveland, which is not that far a drive from Morgantown. Expect some Mounties to emerge from the mines and be in the crowd that day.

Well, that does it for today of the selection recap. There will be plenty more to discuss over the next few days, including more on possible match-ups down the road and my thoughts on who will advance to the Final Four. Also, I plan on a lengthy piece that will discuss the diabolical tourney architects and how they always design the brackets with certain match-ups in mind. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how Utah can once again find itself bracketed with Kentucky.

Was there an uglier game over the weekend then that mugging that took place in the Big-10 Conference final between Wisconsin and Illinois? That should have been rated NC-17 and if porn actress Dru Barrymore had been available to play off the bench, it probably gets stamped with an X. From hear on out, I think CBS should drop coverage of the Big-10 tourney and Cinemax should move in to show next year’s final late at night after the kids have gone to bed. The final score was 54-43, but those numbers do not properly capture the heinousness of the crime. Case in point - Illinois was only able to connect on 36 percent of its shots while the Badgers were barely able to make one in four. Dee Brown, one of the Illinois’s sharpshooters, was 0/8 while Wisconsin’s best player, Brad Wilkinson, was a relatively robust 1/7. The only chedderheads who put up worse shooting numbers than these are the hicks who play the rigged dime toss at the Wisconsin state fair. I have always thought it was hard to watch Wisconsin play football in the fall, but Barry Alvarez and his crew are downright scintillating when compared to Bo Ryan’s hoopsters. I’ll give Ryan some credit. He has a method and it tends to work. His guys play tough defense and tend to overachieve. But they also suck the air of the gym when playing offense and it is just no fun to watch. With that said, I think the Badgers always play without any room for error and that is why I think they may lose to a pretty good team from Northern Iowa. As for Illinois, they played well at times this weekend and they are now college basketball’s feel good team story after coach Bruce Webber’s mom died on Friday night. But they are not an overwhelming squad that conjures up images of legendary teams from the past. Gus Johnson of CBS observed this weekend that he thought the 1989 Illinois team which featured the likes of Kenny Battle, Nick Anderson, and Kendell Gill would beat this year’s Illini by 15 points. The number may not be 15 as Gus suggests, but I agree the national semi-finalists from 1989 were a better team. I say they take 13 of 20 off the 2005 squad.

Staying with Illinois, the Illini now have the possibility of playing their games at the following sites: Indianapolis, Chicago and St. Louis. All three sites are within driving distance of Champaigne and that begs this question: When is the last time a NCAA Champion has been crowned without having to board an airplane? Dick “The Godfather of Crap” Vitale crowed this morning that the answer was 1974 when the North Carolina State Wolfpack won the title by playing games in Raleigh and Greensboro. I beg to differ with the vacuous Vitale. My Answer would be 1978 when the Kentucky Wildcats got to play their games in Nashville, Dayton and St. Louis. Clearly the Cats drove to the first two locations but what about the third? I think it is possible they made the 320 mile drive to St. Louis that year, although that may not be a slam dunk. Nonetheless, their fans certainly had that option and therefore I am recognizing 1978 as the answer to the question.

Perhaps the most entertaining game over the weekend happened out in Los Angeles where the Washington Huskies and the Arizona Wildcats hooked up in a Fox Sports West Instant Classic Saturday night. I case you missed it, this game was a good old fashioned shootout that featured perhaps the country’s best player at this moment. I am talking about Arizona’s Salim Stoudamire and on Saturday night, he was burning the fleas off the Huskies with a magnifying glass. He finished 12/20 with seven three pointers and scored the final 17 points of the first half for Arizona. At times, you just knew anything he threw up at the basket was going to fall. Salim’s cousin Damon had 54 for the Blazers last month in a game against New Orleans, but you cannot tell me that Salim’s performance Saturday night was any less impressive, especially since he probably did it against a better defense. This game was going back and forth throughout the second half, but unfortunately for Arizona, Stoudamire got little help from his teammates and Washington was able to pull away down the stretch. Tre Simmons gave the Huskies his customary good game, but super-sub Jamal Williams was key as well. This Husky team is real deep and can run with anyone, as they have shown in two recent wins over Arizona. I think it would be real interesting to see these guys match-up with the up-tempo Louisville Cardinals in the Regional semis.

I hate to do this but I have to give Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski and his players some credit. They don’t have the most talent in the world but they just keep on winning. After losing Luol Deng and incoming frosh Shaun Livingston to the NBA, Duke was supposed to have a very ordinary team this year. But a funny thing happened along the road to mediocrity. Center Sheldon Williams found his manhood over this past summer and J.J. Reddick raised his game to a new level. This team, from a talent perspective, had no business winning the ACC tournament, but come Sunday afternoon, look who was holding up the hardware. Reddick, in particular, had some weekend. He had 35 against NC State on Saturday and followed that up with 26 in the tourney final against Georgia Tech. Like Stoudamire, J.J. had stretches this weekend where the scoreboard operator could ring ‘em up with his eyes closed. It got so ridiculous that at one point yesterday, I thought we were just about to hear ESPN’s Mike Patrick mention Reddick in the same sentence as Jerry West. I am glad he didn’t or I would have been a Circuit City late yesterday buying a new television to replace the Sharpe I threw against the wall. As for Duke’s chances going forward, I think they have a pretty favorable draw. As a result of this weekend, Duke got a number one seed and will get to now play before a home court crowd in Charlotte. I don’t see either Stanford or Mississippi State standing in their way. From there, it is on to Austin, where I think this underwhelming team stands a very good chance of playing in a regional final. That is where I suspect Duke’s season will end but after this past weekend, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Coach K win a trip to his 11th Final Four. That is 11 in the past 20 years for you guys playing along at home.

Speaking of Duke, the call of the weekend comes to us courtesy of former Blue Devil Mike Gminski, who was working the Conference USA tourney for CBS. The call in question came at the end of the conference final between Louisville and Memphis. In case you missed the game, Louisville led by two when a three point foul was called with no time remaining. Memphis freshman sensation Darius Washington then stepped to the line with no other players on the court and made the first free throw to cut Louisville’s lead to one. He needed one to earn a tie and two to secure an NCAA tourney bid for the Tigers. With two misses, Memphis would be left off the NCAA’s invite list. Talk about a pressure spot. Washington proceeded to clank both and then collapsed on the floor. While lying motionless at the line, Gminski pleaded: “Someone has to go out there and get that kid.” From the tone of his voice, I thought G-Man was going to throw off his headset and carry the comatose Washington off the court if necessary. It was a truly stunning finish but Gminski kept his head and made a very astute comment that captured the moment. Washington was simply overcome with guilt and Gminski was right to say that the guys on the Memphis bench couldn’t just leave him out there to rot in front of the whole country. You got to feel bad for this kid. He had a terrific game but he will always be remembered in Memphis lore as the kid whose choke prevented the Tigers from competing in the 2005 NCAA tourney.

The boys over at the House Government Reform Committee have taken a hit in the press this week over the issue of why they decided to hold a party and not invite the hottest and popular chick. Of course I am talking about Thursday’s hearing on Steroids and the committee’s decision to leave Barry Bonds off the invite list. While this is just speculation, I am not sure that the Committee had any choice in the matter. The San Francisco Slugger is a witness in a criminal investigation and his past and future testimony in that case could be damaged by his congressional testimony. More importantly, it is possible that Kevin Ryan, the US. Attorney for the Northern District of California thinks he may have something on Bonds and intends to prosecute him at a later stage for either perjury or violations of federal narcotics law. If this is the case, Ryan will certainly not want Bonds testifying in Washington and potentially influencing future jurors. This situation is fairly analogous to that of Oliver North who had his conviction overturned when an appeals court ruled that his congressional testimony in Iran-Contra caused him to face a prejudicial jury. As such, I think it is entirely possible that Ryan, in conjunction with Justice Department officials in Washington, simply declared that Bonds was off-limits. If this is the case, how come Jason Giambi is on the invite list? Well, it is entirely plausible that Ryan doesn’t think he has anything on Giambi while Bonds is in the crosshairs. This is not good news for Mr. Sunshine. He may think he has dodged a bullet by missing out on the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre, but his time could be coming. Wouldn’t that be something if Bonds misses out on Hank Arron’s all-time home run mark in 2006 because he is tied up at his own criminal trial or vacationing at a federal prison?

Staying with steroids for a minute or two – I am wondering where all this Venom towards Congress is coming from? To hear the nation’s sports columnists, talk show hosts and analysts tell it, Congressional oversight is a sham and these upcoming hearings are nothing more then an opportunity to “grand stand.” Of course it is but is that any different from what goes on up on Capital Hill every day Congress is in session? Some congressional hearings actually serve some purpose but a great many “investigatory” hearings are nothing more than opportunities for members to pontificate. It is nothing less then theatre. But you know what? Some out in the hinterlands dig such antics and that is why Brian Lamb founded CSPAN two decades ago. Lamb nailed that one and is now worth a half billion dollars. I worked on Capitol Hill and covered it as a journalist for five years. Believe me when I say I know what grandstanding is all about and I am confident we will see a heavy dose of it come Thursday. But is this so bad? Congressmen get elected to grandstand. It is what they do and if you doubt my claim, just tune into CSPAN for the “one minutes” that are offered every morning. With that said, I cannot believe what I have heard from the player’s apologists in the media over the past week. It has been nothing short of a broadside against Congressional history, authority and intent. Based on all the criticism I am hearing, I can only conclude that the majority of the nation’s sports media harbor a deep level of distrust and disrespect for the legislative branch. When did all these good government types get jobs at these media outlets?

And if that is not enough, thousands of column inches are being dedicated to the issue of why Congress decided to have this hearing so quickly. Why not have it now, I ask? So what if it comes during the midst of Spring Training? I don’t give a damn when it is held and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t mind if this were a field hearing held on the pitcher’s mound of Yankee Stadium. But that is not how many in the “club” see it. They see this as a rush to judgment based on the timely release of Jose Canseco’s book. So what if it is? As I have said, this hearing is not about fact gathering. Congressmen Davis and Waxman can claim that all they want, but this hearing is really about embarrassing a bunch of drug addicts. This hearing is about destroying some reputations that were unfairly earned. This hearing is about setting the record straight. At least that is what I think this hearing about and I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many in the sports publishing and broadcasting industries feel compelled to back the players on this issue.

You ain’t seen nothing if you thought the Notre Dame or Penn State football programs have experienced precipitous falls from grace. No, if you are looking for a true collapse in the world of sports, look no further then the Swiss Women’s Alpine Ski Team. The Swiss, along with the Austrians, were dominant ski powers in the 80s and 90s. The Austrians may have been a bit deeper, but the Swiss certainly didn’t lack for stars as women like Michela Figini, Maria Walliser and Vreni Schnieder all took home multiple World Cup Overall titles. Unfortunately for the Swiss, the talent pipeline has dried up in recent years and this season was an absolute debacle for the Swiss Women’s team. The Swiss women didn’t win a single world cup race this year and not a single female won a medal of any color at last month’s world championships. That hasn’t happened since 1966. That is so far back that is predates Robert Redford winning an Olympic gold as David Chappelett in Downhill Racer. The Swiss getting shut out over an entire season is tantamount to the Miami Hurricanes going 2-9 in football and getting blanked by Wake Forest or the Yankees winning only 69 games and losing the season series to the Devil Rays. It just doesn’t happen and as a result of this year’s dismal showing, the head coach of the Swiss program got the axe this weekend. And who is filling the vacuum created by the demise of the Swiss? Well, an argument can be made that the Americans have filled much of the void. The U.S. fielded perhaps its deepest team ever this year (at least since the early 80s) and it looks like four girls will finish in the top-17 of the World Cup standings. There is no Tamara McKinney leading this team, but Lindsey Kildow and Julia Mancuso both finished in the top-10 this year and will be threats at next year’s Olympics. The Swiss prospects are not as bright unless they pull a George Steinbrenner and sign some free agent skiers like 2005 World Cup Overall Champion Anja Paerson from Sweden.

It is a curious thing about the 1984 North Carolina basketball team. Some players like Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins went on to stellar NBA careers, while others like Kenny Smith and Brad Daughtery each parleyed short, but successful, NBA careers into nice broadcasting gigs. But the one profession where players from that team are failing is coaching and that may surprise some since the team was coached by none other then Dean Smith. The first alum to fail from that team was Matt Doherty who stumbled into the top spot at Carolina when Bill Guthridge left after the 2000 season. Doherty proceeded to have a good year but then he crashed the program into a telephone pole along I-40, resulting in his ouster at the end of the 2003 season. It’s now being reported a second alum from the 84 squad has bit the dust. Late yesterday, Tennessee decided to fire Buzz Peterson as its men’s basketball coach. The Vols were only 14-17 this year and I guess Peterson’s job has been on the rocks since his squad barely squeaked by the Lady Vols back at Midnight Madness. The firing of these coaches probably shouldn’t come as a surprise since these men played on one of the most over-coached teams in NCAA history. That 1984 Carolina team was stacked to the rafters. Carolina fans are still wondering how Dean Smith managed to take that team down to Atlanta and lose to an Indiana team that had a Freshman named Alford and very little else. It is one of the great mysteries in college basketball history. Since bad news comes in threes, Jeff Lebo, a 1989 graduate of UNC cannot be feeling too secure right now. He coaches the Auburn Tigers and they are coming off a season in which they lost three quarters of their games in conference. As far as Smith goes, these three blemishes don’t necessarily reflect poorly on his skills as a teacher. After all, he can count Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, and Roy Williams as disciples and that ain’t a bad trio. Smith could also take solace in the fact that Mike Krzyzewski and Bobby Knight are doing no better with protégés from that general period. The aforementioned Alford was is danger of being canned if his Iowa Hawkeyes didn’t beat Michigan State on Friday night and Dukies Quin Snyder and Tommy Amaker are hardly in safe spots at Missouri and Michigan respectively. It makes me wonder what is going to happen when Coach K leaves and 1986 Duke graduate Johnny Dawkins is handed the to key to Cameron.