Things we've never watched...Not one second!

1. American Idol
2. Lost
3. CSI-WhateverIt'sCalled
4. Grey's Anatomy
5. House
6. Chuck
7. Family Guy
8. NCIS
9. Two and a Half Men

Good gawd, man, could it be true?!?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Verizon will carry the iPhone next fall!

Best we can do...

4 final thoughts on Tennessee & State...

1. Why anyone would ever pick against Tom Izzo during March Madness is mind boggling. That guy is total money during the tourney. His players come and go and he keeps chugging them deep into March every year.

2. Could the refs have screwed Tennessee more today?!? Every close call went against the Vols.

3. The Sons of Bruce Pearl played really hard, but their big guys seem to be lacking intelligence on the defensive end! And you simply cannot allow State to score on an out of bounds play with one second on the clock before halftime.

4. He has nothing to do with UT or MSU, but we can't resist one final jab at Kentucky's John Wall! If you're the best player on the best team, shouldn't you get your team to the Final Four?!? Especially when the other team is playing its second string point guard (due to injury). And we're pretty sure the rims are still vibrating from his 1-5 three point bricks. Classic.

Oh, well...

As if we weren't already screwed with Our Bracket, K-State losing a few minutes ago made it official. We are in a pool with nearly 50 other peeps. Coming into today, we were sitting at number 23. However, we had K-State in the Final Four where as many losers actually went with Syracuse. A Wildcat win today would have catapulted us into the top 8. Ugh.

Guess now we will pull for a West Virginia - Butler championship game.

Oh, one final thing. K-State's Denis Clemente is twice the college player Kentucky's John Wall is.

Love it...

A nippy 29 degrees right now. Off to the book store and then home to build a fire and get ready for March Madness.

Tomorrow, Vols = Coin. Go Vol$!

Wow...

Stayed awake for all of the Xavier-K State game last night. It was the most exciting game in recent memory. We told you K-State was good. (We have them in Final Four with Kentucky, Duke and, oops, Kansas.) We just didn't know Xavier was that good. Wow.

Hello. Congrats. Goodbye.

Off to the National Honor Society Dinner. Quite the honor. Still, the Blackberry will be tuned in to March Madness games. And at the first available opportunity, we will be gone.

72 hour window of busy-ness begins...

1. This afternoon we have to take The Playmaker's Sister to the final dress reversal of her school's talent show. Practice is from 4 until, well, no one is quite sure when it will actually end. And parents have to stay -- no drop and leave allowed.

2. Tomorrow night we have a school function. It is actually quite an honor. But we will save the details until tomorrow night. However, tomorrow night sees March Madness resume. And therein lies the problem.

3. Friday night is the aforementioned talent show. That's, like, a 7-10 commitment. Ugh.

Hmm...

We have scheduled a late night encrypted chat session with Our Tech Guru (RCM) to discuss the merits of hopping on Apple's latest deal. In an effort to clear out its inventory of 3GS iPhones, The Sons of Steve Jobs are selling the phones contract free for $599. Now contract free means you don't have to deal with AT&T's well documented crappy service/coverage. That's the good news. However, that also means the phone comes locked -- as in it won't really work. Of course, even the worst techno geek in the world is familiar with jailbreaking. Jailbreaking allows a user to "illegally" program the phone to do things that the carrier does not want you to do. Only in this case, Apple intends to look the other way. So it comes down to this -- is $600 too much to pay for getting an iPhone minus the headaches that come with AT&T?!?

I gotta go...I got a test

After School Special

Communists, look away!

Michigan State sends home perennial loser Gary Williams @ the buzzer.

Kansas...wait for it...LOSES!

We told you a month ago. We told you 10 days ago. There was no way the Kansas Jayhawks were going to win the NCAA Tournament. Watch Northern Iowa's Ali Farokhmanesh hit the shot of the tournament...a 1-on-3 pull-up trey to clinch the win.

Best we can do...

Coach Cal's house

Amazing...

Simply put: If you don't like March Madness, you are a frigging communist.

Day one is not even half over, and there have been, like, 12 upsets already.

We had the live feed of the games from CBS.com on in the classroom this afternoon. We told the kids it was "OK" to "monitor" the games "from time to time."

Classic.

Even more classic is the discovery that the CBS College Sports channel (their answer to ESPNU) offers coverage of the best game you aren't getting on your regular CBS channel. So now you get two choices of which game to watch. And because we subscribe to a sports package, we get the HD version. (People who don't pay for the sports package still get CBS College Sports in non-HD.)

By the way, it goes without saying that we will not be at work tomorrow. (Personal Days -- use 'em or lose 'em.)

On the eve of March Madness...

Unlike 90 percent of the clowns who claim to have seen this live, we really did watch it as it happened.

Four on the floor...

1. The new parts were put on the elliptical yesterday (thank goodness for extended warranties)! After a month of jogging, we humped the elliptical today for a mini 35 minute workout. Our quads and calves are simply burning. Ugh.

2. Took advantage of the first day of sunshine in five days and practiced with lacrosse with The Playmaker's Sister in the driveway! Spring ball starts in two weeks.

3. Burgers and hot dogs on the grill tonight!

4. After four years, we finally blew the picture tube (actually called a picture bulb) on the 50 inch Samsung HD! For the last seven days, we have been "slumming it" with the 32 inch LCD HD. Good news, as in less than an hour Captain Ray will be here to help us install the new bulb. The odds are also 2-1 that he will come with some form of bottled fluid intoxicants.

Yes - please!

Ryan Howard for Albert Pujols?!?

Do it. Now.

Good gawd, man. With Pujols in our lineup, we'd go 110-52.

And with ease.

John Wall hype continues to grow...

From day one, we've never been on the John Wall bandwagon. Sure, he's a good player. But people talk about him as if he's the second coming of LeBron. He's a 6'1" lead guard who can get to the rim on anybody. As for his outside shot -- well, yours is better than his. He shoots an ugly push shot that is an open invitation for any NBA player to reject. We're pretty sure The Playmaker could block him. (Sure as hell #31 could.)

So it was today that we watched the Kentucky - Mississippi State SEC Championship. Down two with with about 15 to play, Wall had the ball and missed an easy 6 footer in the lane. Brad Nessler and Jimmy Dykes (a UK guy) said NOTHING. Through piss poor execution on State's part, Kentucky got the ball back with 5 seconds, still down by two. Wall launched a wide open set shot from 20 -- it barely grazed the rim. Luckily, teammate DeMarco Cousins (a future 76er come June) got the put-back at the buzzer. Again, Nessler and Dykes say NOTHING about Wall's Woes.

The game went into overtime. Wall had the ball behind the three point line as the shot clock was winding down. He got forced to his left and threw up a total prayer. It somehow went in. And then Nessler and Dykes go ape-sheeeeet over Wall. Dykes spews on about big players hitting big shots in big situations.

It made us want to puke.

John Wall is a good player. But he doesn't even compare to Coach Cal's last two freshmen phenoms, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans. Not even close.

And this is not a Louisville Guy going anti-UK. In fact, after watching Duke, Syracuse and Kansas, we decided last Thursday that Kentucky will be our pick to win it all.

The things we don't know...

We don't know everything about sports. We used to. But not anymore. That's what happens when you get married and have a family. Your in depth knowledge on a variety of things shrinks. It just does.

Last night we were watching New Mexico State and Nevada play in the WAC Championship. Stephen Bardo (Illinois guard, 1980s) was doing the color commentary. In the pregame, he was raving about some 6'9" sophomore from Nevada named Luke Perry Babbit. He said the only question in his game was, "which position he will play in the NBA." Our ears perked up. A top flight NBA prospect we had never heard of?!?

Then they showed his picture. He had a mop of hair like those high school kids in Alabama wear. He was pasty white. They showed some highlights. He looked like a D-2 athlete. We figured Bardo, so low on ESPN's lineup card he is the equivalent of the 11th man on the team, was just reaching for something (anything!) to talk about.

Two minutes into the game we joyfully conceded Bardo was dead-on.

On back to back possessions, the left-handed Babbit hit a step back NBA three and then filled the lane for a monster two-handed-slamma-jamma. When the game was over (NMS won, 80-79), Babbit had 33 points (10-19 from the floor, 10-10 from the foul line), 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block. And he played the entire game.

k

Wow.

Friday night thought...

Tomorrow will be our first Saturday off from coaching in a long (long) time. And we will welcome it. As we detailed in an encrypted e-mail to SJH24 earlier in the week, we are suffering from a little bit of Urban Meyer burnout. Going 27-1-1 is great, and something we are extremely proud of, but it did bring with it some self-imposed pressure each week. So we will get to relax for the next month or so. However, we will go watch a game tomorrow afternoon. One of the 6th grade teams from our school has a tournament game tomorrow and we will take The Playmaker with us to go watch. Yes, he will wear his Kobe Air Force kicks. And, yes, he will bring his ball to get up some shots in between quarters.

Have a good night and stay safe.

Disappointing, but not surprising...

Other than last year, Louisville has never played well in Madison Square Garden. The reason is obvious. Their roster is always littered with New York and North Jersey kids. When they come back home to play (especially in the Big East Tournament), they are treated like NBA stars. The problem is they usually play like high school scrubs.

Take last night's game against mighty Cincinnati (with their nifty 7-11 conference record). Cincy won, 69-66.

The Cards got absolutely crushed on the boards. The Bearcats dominated the glass to the tune of 46-29. Center Samardo Samuels (Jersey) had ...wait for it ... 4 rebounds in 31 minutes. The leading rebounder for Louisville was point guard Edgar Sosa (NYC). He had 6. The problem was he played like crap in the second half. (This after he showboated for his homies in the first half while getting 20 points.) He made bad passes. He jacked NBA 3's. He played piss-poor D.

So now UL will get punished by Coach P (Table for two!) for the next four days while they wait to see where the selection committee will send them.

In the meantime, maybe they should work on their rebounding. And stay the hell away from NYC.

Tonight's dinner...

Salmon on the grill

Very interesting...

Took The Playmaker to his first penance today. Our wife is Catholic and we are Protestant. So we have a whole bunch of issues with this penance thing. Alas, good fodder for another day.

It's all about the Benjamins...

Met with the tax guy today. Using a new one this year. Dude is money. Anyone who uses a CPA instead of a tax lawyer is effing crazy.

Tres tired...

1. Three mile run at 5:30 AM.

2. Grocery shopping for 1 hour.

3. Shopping with The Playmaker's Sister (AC Moore, BJ's, Target, Sports Authority and Factory Outlet Shoes) for 2 hours.

4. Two hours of baseball, basketball and lacrosse with The Playmaker.

The perfect season...

This morning, Your Bucks put their undefeated record on the line for the final time this season. It was our toughest game of the year. Fittingly, it was against the only other undefeated team in the league. We trailed most of the game before getting the lead at the very end. In a very physical game, the Bucks won by a score of 30-28 -- to end the season 8-0. It was probably our lowest output of the season. And that was due to the fact that D-bag coach from the other team had a player who was close to 5 feet tall. (In a league of first and second graders, that makes him Shaq.) Being out-sized we can handle. However, the aforementioned D-bag coach allowed Shaq to sit in the paint and double-team whichever one of our kids drove the lane. The Playmaker, donning new Kobe Airforce kicks, scored the first 8 points of the game. That prompted the A-hole coach to move Shaq onto him the rest of the game. (Which was actually a dumb move, since Shaq was double-teaming him anyway.) The Playmaker finished with 10 points (5-10 shooting), 12 rebounds and 3 blocks (all against Shaq, whom he guarded the whole game).

So we won our third consecutive championship this year. (Flag football and soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter.) For the year, we are a collective 27-1-1.

Getting ready 4 Saturday...

Getting ready for The Playmaker's last basketball game of the season tomorrow morning. Trophies, certificates and a pizza party will follow the game. We may even have a surprise guest show up.

Thought 4 the day...

If I had it good, they wanna label me a bad man. With a bad plan, runnin' with this bad clan.

Planning for the future...

Just got back from Mr. D's. We started laying the groundwork for The Playmaker's summer workouts. Mr. D wants to put him on T-Grove's program -- the same one that #12 has followed for five years. It's all good.

Best we can do...

Cool outfit...

Pass the Hemlock...

Tired and depressed.

Ugh...