Tell me the score in the morning

The NCAA men's basketball championship game started just before 9:30 p.m.
It will be over after 11:30 p.m., possibly pushing midnight.
The final score will be the same at 7 a.m. I'll catch up then.
The NCAA Final Four almost seems anti-climatic now. You have a nice shiny bracket the first weekend and lots of games to watch. As the tournament goes on, your bracket fades and it's easy to lose interest.
You watch some to keep up, but not with the same intensity.
I'd love to enjoy the whole game, but work beckons in the morning. They call timeouts tonight without regard to your bedtime.
SportsCenter and youtube awaits.

Going to the Big Dance

You know the four teams going to Atlanta for the Final Four.
The NCAA announced Monday the 10 referees who will be calling the games - including Mike Eades of Princeton, West Virginia.
Eades got his collegiate start doing games in the West Virginia Conference while I was covering games for the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.
This will be his first Final Four, and hopefully there's more in the future for him.

Tebowing at the tourney

ESPN tells how Tim Tebow asked to speak to Wichita State's team after they advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.
"Some of you might go play in the NBA or you might have great lives. But this is the time you will remember," Tebow said. "All of you all together, ballin' out there together, training together, putting in the heart and sweat, everything, caring about each other. You'll never forget it, guys, this is what it's made of and these are the special times in your life, regardless of what you do in the future."
Sweet.

Brackets and budgets

How does your bracket look going into the round of 32?
Are all your Final Four picks still alive?
If not, you might think you still have a chance to win your pool. If this game goes your way, you can climb back.
Instead, you'll spend the weekend watching other choices falter. In a world with millions of brackets selected, somebody will have better luck.
When talking about our deficit woes, some look at a certain part and think a little tweak can save the day. Raise the social security threshold for withholding a bit and you'll have enough money to keep the program solvent.
But hiking those taxes makes impacts elsewhere in the economy. Plug one hole and another develops.
President Obama may think his bracket still can win - even with 12 losing picks in the first 32.
Like his budgets, it's fatally wounded.

You call that a bracket?

How did President Obama do in the first two days of the NCAA tournament?
Twenty right, 12 wrong.
Wonder if Mitt Romney had better luck?

How's your bracket?

One game done in the NCAA tournament.
In a toss-up year, I made my final four picks with a simple criteria - teams that lost to Virginia during the regular season.
My final four is Wisconsin, North Carolina, Duke and N.C. State.
Let's see how I do.

Back in the NIIT

For Virginia men's basketball fans, there's still a chance at an NCAA tournament berth.
But it's slim to none, and slim just left town.
Virginia had some nice wins this year.
And some bad early losses.
Enjoy the NIT. You might be able to play more than one game there.

Ready for "One Shining Moment?"

Are you going to stay up after the NCAA championship game ends?
Ready for another edition of "One Shining Moment?
Some of us have to work in the morning.
That's why we have YouTube. To warm up for the game with last year's video.

A little more March Madness

The NCAA looks ready to add three teams to the men's basketball tournament - and Turner Broadcasting to the coverage mix.
A much better idea that going to a 96-team field. The top seeds will probably play winners of a Tuesday play-in game.
You'll just have to remember the channel numbers for TBS, TNT and TruTV along with CBS the first three rounds.

Butler did it

Butler 63, Kansas State 56
I know every sportswriter is thinking that headline. It works and it's great.
Reminds me of the 1993 World Series. We watched Joe Carter's series-ending home run. The TV camera panned the crowd and came upon a sign "Phillie-buster." That was our headline that night.
Wonder how many times "Hoosiers" will be mentioned on SportsCenter this week.
UPDATE: Only Kentucky left for President Obama's bracket.

President's bracket sinks

Interesting how AP portrays President Obama's picks in the NCAA tournament.
They emphasize he is among the top 12 percent.
They miss that he opened in the top 6 percent.
When your choice for national champion goes down early, there's only one way for your bracket to go - down.

42.2 percent of the nation went ughhh...

President Obama and many brackets crashed with Northern Iowa's 69-67 win.
Of ESPN's 4.8 million brackets, 42.2 had Kansas winning it all.
Only .9 percent had Northern Iowa winning in the second round.

Sorry, Mr. President

Villanova went down, costing President Obama one of his Final Four picks. His other Final Four picks - Kentucky, Kansas and Kansas State - play later Saturday.
The Big East has not been helpful to many brackets so far.
UPDATE: Two of Obama's Final Four picks made the Elite Eight. Kansas State goes down, and Kentucky trails by 14 with 4:12 to go.
UPDATE 2: All of President Obama's Final Four picks have been eliminated.

Big Least

The Big East conference has some great basketball during the regular season and tournament. Thursday, not so much.
Notre Dame, Georgetown and Marquette all lose to lower seeds. Villanova barely survives Robert Morris in overtime.
They had five teams in the NIT, and only two won.
Four more teams play Friday. We'll see early if West Virginia can maintain its tournament prowess.

Website to remember

Thursday and Friday, there are four different NCAA tournament games going on at the same time. Which game will you get to see?
This hard-working website has maps to each coverage window. Make sure to check back often during the weekend.

The best college basketball day of the year

Make sure there are fresh batteries in the remote. It's probably the best day of the year for college basketball fans.
Sure, the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament is exciting. But from coast to coast, today most of the best teams are on the court. Many more close games than blowouts are the order of the day.
You've got quarterfinals in the ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Atlantic 10. Semifinals in the Big 12, Big East, Conference USA, WAC, Mountain West and the Pac-10. While the ACC goes on dinner break, the Patriot League crowns its champion.
Twenty-two years ago, I began designing sports pages during this week. So much to fit on the front sports page.
Sit back, and see who makes it through to Saturday.

Final bracket update

I've had quite a few hits from people searching for NCAA tournament bracket info. Sorry to see it end.
The President and over a million participants in the ESPN challenge got UNC winning it all right. It moved the President to the 80 percentile, behind people who got more than 19 of 32 right in the first round.
By picking the highest seeds throughout until the final, I won the small Augustafreepress.com pool.

Obama bracket update

The President's pick of North Carolina to win the national championship looks pretty good right now. UNC was the most popular national championship pick - by 27.2 percent - so he won't move up much in the final ESPN challenge standings.
He might want to spend more thought picking government officials and trying to pick winners and losers among our automakers.

Elite Eight update

The President got five of the Elite Eight right, but his overall standing in ESPN's bracket challenge remains in the middle of the pack. And he lost one of his Final Four picks - Memphis.
I lead in the small pool sponsored by Augustafreepress.com. Why? I picked the highest seed in each contest. No pride in picking upsets, but no setbacks when an upset I thought would happen doesn't.

Basketball firsts

I used to enter both ESPN's mens and womens tournament challenges. With the women, I'd pick all high seeds and usually finish in the top 10 percent. There were very few bracket-busting upsets.
This year, it's the mens tournament where all 1,2 and 3 seeds are in the Sweet 16. Last night, three womens teams seeded either two or three in their regions lost. The women have eight more games tonight, but already have more upsets and parity than the men.