bierce

Yeah, that is a shame.

Rooting for Calipari and Arky makes me ill. It's against Self and Kansas, so I'm willingly sticking fingers down my throat.

Odom to UVa before or after midnight? I'm going with after.

VCU isn't out of it yet, but it looks well on the way to saying goodbye to Odom in the next 24 hours. 39-28 BYU at the half.

Houston on its way to winning by 50 or so.

Wade and Brownell are off the table for teams hiring, so McNeese-Clemson no longer piques my curiosity. Meanwhile, I want to see if those D2 stars for Drake can hang with a top 20 type team like Missouri.

Purdue with a 5 or 6 shot possession. Came up empty. As the game goes on, it won't come up empty on those.

McDermott countered with a good timeout of his own after consecutive Blue Jay turnovers. Now four straight possessions ending in a three for Creighton. Louisville is in big trouble.

Smart timeout by Kelsey. Execution of play after the timeout? Not so good.

The only 1 seed to get a truly favorable location the first weekend is Duke, of course. It plays in Raleigh. Florida also has to play in Raleigh against Norfolk State, a school just 150 miles away. Not backyard for Norfolk State by any means, but far from friendly for Florida. Alabama gets a first round game in Cleveland against a team from a little over 100 miles away. But Cleveland hates all things Pittsburgh, so maybe Robert Morris from Moon Township won't get a bump.

No. Just wish you would drink Drano.

Our men's basketball season is over. AND I F'ING HATE IT!

The Luke Murray beat beckons.

I hope no one will shame me for not entering. I entered a few in a few years back, never won, but did fairly well in a couple, not so well in others, and had one year in which I lost 7 or 8 first round games in the last 20 seconds of regulation or in OT. I have found I enjoy the tournament more for itself than I do while worrying about teams I picked for my bracket.

I played squash at the rec center on Yongsan when I was about 12. One player would enter the squash court. Another player would go into the stands and try to squash the guy on the court with a basketball. Great game.

For some context about how good Texas in the 2001-02 through 2007-08 seasons, Barnes secured the second most wins of any coach in the NCAA tournament in that stretch. He tied with Self for 15, while Roy Williams ran away with it with 24.

No titles in there, but it's pretty hard to argue that 2001-02 to 2007-08 with a Final Four, two more Elite Eights, and two more Sweet Sixteens in a 7 year period were not glory days for our men's basketball program.

DeVries didn't get a head coaching job until his was in his 40s, but he did very well at Drake. Drake hadn't been in the NCAA tournament or even a MVC contender since 2008 when he took over in 2018-19, and he became its fourth coach in 4 years at that point. Medved finally got Drake into a winning record in conference, but nearly the entire roster disappeared with him. So three NCAA tournament appearances in his last 4 years and 4 straight second place finishes in conference was really good job. And he had WVU playing at a very high level this year before Tucker was lost for the season. It's not exactly like the state of West Virginia is awash in money to purchase basketball players, but he did well in raiding Okie State for Small and Illinois for Sencire Harris and Amani Hansberry and getting that group to the brink of a NCAA tournament bid. They f'd up against Colorado, but Colorado had gotten its act together and was 4-4 over its previous 8 games. I'm just surprised WVU lost him this quickly. Probably indicative of the level of expected NIL support.

One school not in the post season and snubbed for an NCAA tournament bid gets the first year coach from another such school. Match made in heaven. But DeVries is a very good coach who might come with a very good player attached. I wasn't that big on Tucker, but that 26 point, 6 assist, 0 turnover game in the OT win over Arizona made me a believer that he can be a good P5 player.

Davis was guaranteed a few weeks ago that he would return. That could be a really good team next year. Very good incoming freshman class and lots of guys eligible to return.

Because the world feared another poorly seeded UNC juggernaut? 87-52 with under 4 left.

Or you don't want to lose the life you have. See Mark Few.

Baptist equivalent of the Pope?

Not that big. Under 5M. Iowa balked because of having to still pay McCaffery about 4.4M.

Sorry, I thought we were supposed to come up with Bruno, Handsome Dan, et al.