SportsGrinder

What comes after Selection Sunday? Making Picks Monday? That doesn't have quite the same ring to it. But today is start of the best four days in college basketball. Finally, we know who's in and who's out. We know who got seeded where and what city everyone goes to. Better still, we don't have to hear the phrase "bubble team" for another nine months. Sweet. Now it's time for four glorious days of researching and ruminating, of scribbling and crossing out, of comparing guard play and shooting percentages, and finally making wild guesses based on which team has the hottest cheerleaders.

But you needn't fear the brackets. The Grinder has sure-fire tips for total tournament pool domination. And by "total domination," of course, we mean that we fully expect our picks to be totally screwed midway through the first games on Thursday. Nevertheless, here's our "Five Rules for Filling Out Brackets."

RULE 1: Don't Pick For Love
If you graduated from, say, Kansas or North Carolina, you might always pick your team to make the Final Four, just out of habit. You might even consider it dangerous juju to not pick your team to make the show. Which is fine. But we're trying to fill out a winning bracket here. Sentiment and superstition can't figure into it. Besides, it's a proven scientific fact that filling out brackets has no effect on a team's NCAA tournament performance. As long as you wear your lucky hat, shorts and socks, sit in your lucky chair and have the same lucky pre-game meal before tip-off, you'll be fine.

RULE 2: Don't Pick For Hate
If you went to Michigan, it's hard to pick The Ohio State to win, anything, like, ever. The same goes for Cal fans and USC, or Florida Gators faced with the idea of rooting for Florida State. Suck it up. We like the Trojans in a mild, 7/10 upset over Boston College and have the Seminoles whipping Wisconsin. Picking a rival doesn't make you a bad fan. But if you feel really guilty about, just promise to donate some of your tourney pool winnings to your alma mater's scholarship fund.

You know what really pisses us off? The NCAA has cleaned up their act (a little) in the past few years and this tournament now has a serious lack of villains.

Where are the guys you could have fun hating? The slick and sleazy coaches with shady connections to boosters. We miss guys like Jerry Tarkanian and his teams of barely-paroled felons, and creeps like Jim Harrick, Clem Haskins and Steve Lavin. Even crazy, old Bobby Knight has left for the broadcast booth. Who is fun to hate this year, Duke? Please. America has never a duller sports villain than Mike Krzyzewski.

Rule 3: Don't worry about crazy shit
Suppose (and this won't happen) North Carolina loses to Radford. You might be depressed because you had the Tarheels in the Final Four and now think your bracket is screwed. Not so, my friend. No one else in your pool picked Radford, either. If anyone was dumb enough to make that pick, she (because we all know it would be a "she") probably also made a bunch of other wild picks that will leave her bracket ruined by the end of the first weekend.

Ah, who are we kidding? She'll win. We all know that the cute girl in the office who knows nothing about college basketball, or sports in general, wins every year. Most often she uses a system of based on which school has nicer weather.

Rule 4: 13/4 is the new 5/12
A 12-seed beats a 5-seed every year, so conventional wisdom says you have got to pick one, right? But who? Or whom? Whatev. Should it be Northern Iowa over Purdue? Nah. Arizona over Utah? Negative, Ghostrider. It's a trick question. Picking 12-5 upsets has become passé. In 2009, we're going balls-to-the-wall and taking the #13 Mississippi State Bulldogs to shock #4 Washington in the west . But wait, it's a double, super, trick question. Because there is a pretty good looking 5/12 match-up; the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky over Illinois.

Speaking of silly college nicknames (and of Ancient Greek influence in 21st Century American life), barring upset, the Trojans and Spartans will reenact the Trojan War Sunday night in Indianapolis.

RULE 5: Ignore Everything You Just Read
Seriously. Our picks for the Final Four? They are LSU, Clemson, Missouri and Memphis. Not because we studied the brackets. We just really, really like tigers. Oh, also ignore anyone who tells you that a team will win because they have "a chip on their shoulder," from getting an unfriendly seed. By the same token, avoid teams with "something to prove" from how they played in the tourney last year. Finally, there is no dumber cliché in basketball than "momentum," as in "that team has momentum coming out of the conference tournament." Momentum doesn't last a week, folks. In college hoops, it lasts until the next big dunk.

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Holy crap! Six overtimes. There comes a moment in games like last night's battle between Syracuse and UConn when even people playing just want to get the freaking game over and go home. Has anyone ever read the "Iowa Baseball Confederacy" by "Field of Dreams" author WP Kinsella? It's a novel about a baseball game that goes into extra innings and won't end. Ever. Still, those six OT's were an amazing spectacle. And, as a bonus, we got to see Jim Calhoun mad.

Watching ESPN.com video is always a pain in the ass, but even the fifteen-second commercial first is worth watching to get the whole highlight package for this epic match.



DJ Gallo has done some nice work making fun of Terrell Owens. Just a few more thoughts on TO, because we'd like to get some prop bets on him down now.

Nah, not how many yards or touchdowns he gets in 2009. We want to bet the over/under on how many times Owens comes back after his very public "retirements"? We figure there will be at least two (tearful) press conferences, after this season and next. Also, when he does retire, how long before he goes on "Dancing with the Stars" and how many times will he drop Julianne Hough?

Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors does the weather for a local news show. Badly. Complete with a nice jibe from the anchor who introduces the segment:



Bill Belichick sings backups for Jon Bon Jovi on "Wanted: Dead or Alive." You can't make this stuff up. We just can't embed it. On so many levels, this clip violates the senses. But if like watching middle-aged football coaches dance awkwardly and sing off key to 80's pop, this link is for you.

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Obviously, it's March. The mad part. There is only one subject on the mind of real, red-blooded, American sports fan. Can anyone beat Manchester United? Kidding, of course. It's college hoops time, which always makes life worth living.

The conference tournaments are in full bloom, and the Big 12 has already been a blast. Last night Mike Singletary at Texas Tech went off for 29 points in nine minutes, 43 points total to stun the Aggies. Today, upstart Baylor knocked off top-seed Kansas. Meanhwile, Michigan crushed Iowa. Georgia Tech beat Clemson. Kentucky took down Mississippi and... We could go on.

Soon, Selection Sunday cometh, followed by three glorious days of mulling, studying and filling out brackets. (Like anyone else, we'll have our picks up.) Deadspin, via USA Today, via a bunch of press releases from phone companies, points out that a sufficiently wired gadget freak need not miss a bucket of the whole show. Almost. And with Direct TV, you can (as the blaring ad on ESPN reminds us every three minutes) be a "real fan" by watching four games at the same time. Never mind that it's neurologically impossible to process all the action of four simultaneous college basketball games.

There are, however, sports that aren't college basketball, though you probably won't care for the next few weeks. The New York Times has a story about Travis Henry that shows just how easy it is to blow several million dollars if you happen to have nine kids by nine different women. The US split with Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, with the South Americans all jacked about the one win.

There is also racing. Sadly, NASCAR is taking the week off, but a lot of old fashioned horsepower will be on display. The 2009 Kentucky Derby is the first weekend in may and, really, the prep races leading up the Run for the Roses is always the coolest part of the season. Now, in fact, is the time to sign up for the Road To The Roses Kentucky Derby Fantasy Challenge; the official fantasy game of the Kentucky Derby.

Yes, it exists. Are you really surprised? Players create stable of horses, then select jockeys and trainers, winning points based on results in the the prep races.

On the track, there's a gem this weekend. The Louisiana Derby, at the picturesque Fair Grounds in New Orleans, will feature some of the top three-year-old talent in the country. Except for Big Drama, a horse which has looked like a Derby lock since last year, but ke kicked himself in a stall, suffered a bone bruise and is done as Triple Crown contender. Tough sport, horseracing. Thse thoroughbreds have a lot of stuff that can go wrong.

Everyone enjoys the Sports Illustrated Cheerleader of the Week. What's not to love? Although sometimes you get the feeling that the people over at SI is pick the cheerleaders on the basis of misguided criteria -- like how well they can cheer. Case in point; current COTW, Rachelle from the University of North Carolina. She's sort of, that is.. Um, well.. How to put this nicely? She is kind of… Um. Well, there is no way to put it nicely. She is unhot. Don't click unless you need to cure a case of the hiccups. Really, is this the best the entire state of North Carolina can produce?

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Dwight Howard makes fun of Patrick Ewing. Because he can.




Yeah, we know it's easy to hate the term "bubble" in college hoops. But you might as well prepare yourself because that's all you're going to hear for the next week. Following Cleveland State's big upset of Butler last night, the Bubble Watch is already well underway.

The WBC just got (kind of ) interesting with a major upset. The Dominican Republic, of the 22 MLB players, lost to the Netherlands, a country which, we believe, is somewhere near Holland.

Some very good comedy came to a head last night. Drew Magary on Deadspin had been (badly) impersonating Rick Reilly on Twitter. So badly, in fact, he deliberately spelled the columnists name wrong. But that didn't stop the real Rick from getting mad.

Bill Simmons writes a story that has almost nothing to with sports. Really. It's about the Oscars, and figuring out a statistic to rank actors like they were atheltes. So, if you care what Bill Simmons thinks about cinema, or if the Oscars have anything at all to do with what actors you like, click on over, we guess. Kinda. Whatev.

The Eagles seem to hording cap room and the Cardinals look to be getting rid of Anquan Boldin. This pro-Eagles Yardbarker blogger says a trade is in the works. Wait. What? The Cardinals are getting rid of Anquan Boldin? Why, because he catches too many touchdowns? The trauma of a winning season was too much for Cardinals fans to take? They must need another decade of ineptitude to calm themselves back down.

Jay Cutler is unhappy in Denver. Very unhappy. Then again, you get the sense Jay isn't a very happy guy, generally, as some poor, unsuspecting NFL locker-room is in San Francisco, Detriot or Cleveland may soon learn.

Bettorfan.com knows why the Internet exists. They've got a collection of Hollywood babes who were cheerleaders back in the day. There are eSportsGrinderven a few surprises. Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock is no shock. But Fergie? What was she doing with the football team? A rocker chick like that should have been hanging out with freaks.

Finally, does it get any weirder that Fidel Castro blogging? Yes, Fidel Castro blogging about baseball.

SportsGrinder

Let's see, they tried it with the USFL. That didn't go so well. They tried with the XFL. That went even worse. Now we've got the UFL. Ugh. The start-up United Football League struck a deal with the start-up Versus network to air live weekly football games Thursday and Friday nights this fall. Each telecast of the four-team league (Yes, four whole teams.) will be about three hours, with all the games available in high-def. The league has already named its head coaches; Jim Haslett, Ted Cottrell, Jim Fassel and Denny Greene, and they will play in Las Vegas, New York, Orlando and San Francisco.

Okay, Vegas and Orlando, we get. But don't New York and the Bay Area already have enough pro football teams?

Founded by San Francisco investment banker Bill Hambrech, the UFL has pulled in $30 million from a consortium of backers that includes financier Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Tim Armstrong, a senior executive at Google.

Oh and the UFL is also reportedly interested in signing Michael Vick, in the (very likely) event that the Falcons can't trade him. Michael Huyghe, UFL commissioner and agent for Pacman Jones, says he let fans decide. "I think it's too early to tell, but we did talk about Michael Vick earlier." Huyghue told The Fly. "We are a fan-driven league, and with those types of situations, we would put it on our web site and let our fans make the determination."

Way to go, UFL. Awesome PR work. Hey, we hear Rae Carruth has been lifting weights and should be out of jail by 2018. Surely he deserves at least a tryout. In bonus Mike Vick news, the disgraced quarterback's home didn't sell when it went up for auction today in the ATL. Aw. So sad.

About 1:48 into this clip, Jon Stewart makes a good point. How come the Chicago Bulls got to visit the White House? Aren't sports teams supposed to win something before they get to meet the president?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Obama's First 100 Days - Privileged Executive

Sports on a Stick, which is indeed satire, has a funny story about an exciting new video game from EA Sports called, Tracy McGrady: The Rehab ‘09. For the first time ever, the story says, a game puts players "directly into shoes of a multimillionaire NBA superstar as he rehabs from a debilitating, possibly season-ending injury.” Clever. We are looking forward to becoming a trend in sports games. Who wouldn't want to play Alex Rodriquez Hip Surgery '09 and Warren Sapp: The Retirement.

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Bob Burnquist + 50,000 balloons + Cinematographer Ty Evans = Awesome



Manny Ramirez signed a two-year deal with the Dodgers; a surprise to no one except Scott Boras, who thought there was going to be a biding war. Page 2 has a collection of Manny's different looks though the years. Sadly, there's no picture of him throwing the Red Sox traveling secretary to the ground. Also, on P2, Jim Caple explores why fans, even in a recession, shouldn't get worked up about outrageous salaries in sports.

Sure, he says, Jim Calhoun is a jerk, but at least he didn't rob a bunch of charity organizations. Yes, Kevin Garnett "earned $174 million for running up and down courts in his gym trunks since 2000," but no one loses a job when KG misses a shot. Richard Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, "received $484 million during the same time period even though he led his company into bankruptcy and helped spur the current economic crisis." Good points. But we still get pissed about anyone, like Manny, whose making eight figures a year to play baseball and thinks it isn't enough.

Sign o' the Times in College Hoops: Last night was Senior Night in College Park, Maryland. The Terrapins, who got beatdown by Wake, had precisely one four-year player to honor; Dave Neal. Stay in school, kids. You know, unless the NBA offers you millions to leave.

The NHL is flooding all of creation with live coverage of the trade deadline. It's nice to see hockey bringing their marketing efforts into the 1990's.

We were thinking it would have been fun to hit the NASCAR race in Las Vegas last weekend. Now we are deeply, deeply depressed we didn't go. Because of the East Coast snowstorm Sunday, none of the drivers and crews were able to get out of Vegas and back to Charlotte. That means that pretty much all of NASCAR hit the strip. Including, TMZ.com reports, hometown boy Kyle Busch. The Shrub celebrated his win in that day's Cup race, the Shelby 427, by blowing $5,000 on champagne for fellow revelers at a Hard Rock Café.

Dang. "Fellow reveler" sounds like just the kind of gig we've been looking for.

SportsGrinder

Gunaxin, gets us going with the 10 most awesome basketball shoes of all time, including these too-glam-for-words, original 1970's Puma Clydes. We've sold bodily organs for less.

The Big Lead has done the dirty work of going through Mel Kiper's old draft predictions and calling him on his boo-boos. It's good clean schadenfreude, but it's not like Kiper is claiming he can predict what every player will do with every team, every year. Still, it's important to remember that being able to sound like you know what you are talking about, which Kiper does, and actually knowing what you are talking about, which he doesn't always, are two very different things.

With less than a day left until the NHL's trade deadline, teams has been busy clearing space under the salary cap. The NHL's waiver wire on Tuesday revealed that several high profile players have been placed on waivers, including Brendan Morrison, Gary Roberts and Satan. Miroslav Satan, that is, not the one with horns. Oh yeah. Also, Sean Avery is back and the Rangers got him.. Too bad. A shy, retiring guy like Avery shouldn't be playing in New York City.

Springtraining09.com which might be the least durable branding effort in the history of website names, complied a list of the 44 Worst Contracts in Baseball. This list doesn't include the one the Dodgers are about to sign with Manny Ramirez.

With just six weeks left in the NBA's regular season, it's time to start having the MVP conversation. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are the most obvious choices, but NBA Fanhouse makes the case for Dwyane Wade.

41-year-old Boris Becker got engaged to his girlfriend, Lilly Kerssenbergovert this weekend. Who cares? Extra Mustard does. They found a celebration of old jocks with young women. Good work SI. Keep the dream alive.

SportsGrinder

Deadspin today blesses us with the gift of Steven Russo. Russo, 36, has a son who attends Freedom High School in Bethlehem, PA. The pair decided to host a house party that included booze and a stripper pole in the basement. Yes, the guy has a stripper pole in his basement.

In attendance were several Freedom High cheerleaders, all under 21, who got hammered and participated in various shenanigans, like flashing and twirling on the pole. Want to take a wild guess who officials say supplied the booze? Yup. Steve. At the party, Russo served alcohol to his son's teenage friends and encouraged the girls present to take a turn on the pole. Allegedly.

Shockingly, photos of the party ended up online. Hard to believe, but true. Then someone, probably pissed offed because they weren't invited, told a school official. Now Russo is in just a wee, little bit of trouble.

But the Grinder salutes you, Steven Russo, even though you did something phenomenally dumb. We salute you on behalf of your son, for hosting the most kick-ass house party in Pennsylvania history. Hope it was worth it.

There is, incidentally, absolutely not truth to the rumor Steven Russo is an alias for Digger Phelps.



Obama has a beer at the Wizards game. The team won, too. We are taking this to be a very, very good sign. If the President can have a positive effect on that miserable squad, surely he can handle something as simple as the global economy.

Finally, Peter King takes enormous delight in the NFL's first big weekend of free agency. We can't get quite as excited about Bart Scott moving to the Jets. And, really don't we all think the Albert Haynesworth hype is a little much? He is going to Washington, after all, where big free agent contracts go to die. But King does have a solid explanation of the Matt Cassel trade that puts asunder all the nonsense about the Pats and Chiefs being in "collusion." The Grinder thinks Jay Mariotti should stop the collusion between his head and his ass.

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Stephon Marbury could play for Boston as early as tonight, against Indiana at TD Banknorth Garden and we still don't understand why. Ever since the Marbury-to Boston-rumors began, no one has been able to answer, or seemingly even address, why Boston wants Marbury to play on the parquet. Yeah, we know he can score consistently when he's on. The Celts will use him for points off the bench, letting Eddie House play two-guard. he's what they miss without Sam Cassell. But Marbury also hasn't played a real NBA game in more than a year and has shown a tendency throughout his career to pout like a whiny, little baby if something offends his delicate sensibilities. Ah well, it's only for the stretch run. If he doesn't work out, they will slice and send him to free agency.















The guy in the yellow shirt? Bashir Ramathan. He's a blind boxer in Uganda. No joke. A boxer who's blind. Ow. His club, East Coast Boxing is set to stage the first ever blind amateur boxing match between Uganda’s Ramathan and Tanzanian Simon Peter Omar on March 28.

The gents who wrote a behind-the-scenes book about SNL are doing the same for the Worldwide Leader. Little, Brown announced that it had signed Tom Shales and Jim Miller, co-authors of "Live From New York," to write a book about ESPN. The book currently has the catchy name of "The Untitled ESPN Book," but they'll probably come up with a better one. This will be great. We're looking forward to tales of Chris Berman and Keith Olberbman coming to blows in the cafeteria and finally learning the truth about Suzy Kolber's hair.

Maurice Clarett, reports Deadspin, is blogging from jail. He was easy to dislike during his troubled, ill-fated, (insert cliché here) career at Ohio State (for about five minutes) and the NFL (Way to go Mike Shanahan!). But this doesn't seem like that same guy we knew. Maybe Maurice really has grown as a person. Or maybe he knows he has to write nice thing if he wants an early release, and so hired another prisoner to make him look good.

Tiger Woods may have been beaten on the links, but he still won something. Manofest.com has a list of the hottest PGA Tour wives and Elin Woods came out on top. There's no doubt she's fine, but we are partial to David Toms' wife, the MILF-tastic Sonya Toms.

The Browns traded Kellen Winslow to the Buccaneers for draft picks. Browns general manager George Kokinis said of Winslow, "We appreciate his passion for the game and wish him success in Tampa Bay," That's GM-speak for "Take your big mouth, your freak injuries and hit the road."

Early this year, CMT kicked off a new season of Cribs with a special NASCAR edition, starring Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. The next episode, with Martin Truex Jr., will be shot March 3rd. The irony is that NASCAR drivers, during the season at least, spend approximately one day a week at home. If that.

Manny Ramirez rejected the latest offer from Dodgers. What else can you possibly say about this guy? And by "this guy," of course, we mean Manny's agent, Scott Boras. He's the worst.

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It looks like Ron Mexico is about to be let loose. A bunch of sources are reporting that Michael Vick has been approved for home confinement and could be released to his Virginia home (the one he might lose because of bankruptcy) as early as May 21.

The question now becomes when, or if, NFL commissioner Roger Goddell will reinstate Vick to the league. We are guessing he will, but not for 2009. Goddell will probably throw down a one-year suspension, meaning Vick has to prove he can stay clean for a year to play in 2010.

The Falcons, who have the anti-Vick in last year's rookie phenom Matt Ryan, would love to trade Vick's rights to another team, but probably won't get much value. This is not a running back who drove drunk and or a wide-receiver whose gun went off at a nightclub. Those crimes were stupid. Most crimes are. They are committed from a combination of stupidity, greed and passion. But dog-fighting, and the savage way Vick treated his animals, suggests more than mere stupidity or greed, and these certainly weren't impulsive acts. His crimes speak of an innate cruelty; a methodical, almost compulsive sadism towards creatures with no power to resist. That's hard to comprehend, let alone forgive.

For NFL teams, Vick becomes a complex equation. The Grinder has always hated his style of play, which turns the precision timing of modern offenses into an improvised sandlot game. But Vick probably does (still ) have enough ability to help a bad football team win a few more games. Still, he brings enormous emotional baggage. Any team that signs him will face a massive public relations firestorm, almost certainly losing hundreds or maybe thousands of season ticket holders. That has to be weighed against whatever benefits Vick would provide, and it's hard to imagine that any team would take the risk. Yet, one probably will. Maybe it'll be the Bengals, who don't seem to mind felons. Or the Raiders, who love them. We'd like to see Vick go to Cleveland. Not for any football reason. Just for the irony of seeing him play for the Dawg Pound.

Bill Simmons + Deadspin + Joel McHale from"The Soup" = Darn Good Comedy

Jason Whitlock explains why Jim Calhoun's rant over his bloated salary was such a pathetic, shameful display. But Jason leaves out one point. Calhoun thinks he's worth whatever he's being paid because UConn basketball supposedly brings $12 million dollars to the university. But Calhoun ignores that he can't do it alone. He, personally, doesn't bring in all that money. It takes a combination of staff, coaches, ticketing, security, vendors and, oh yeah, the young men and women who play basketball. Surely, they bring something of value to the table, what being the ones who dribble, pass and shoot the ball. Whether college players should get paid is a topic for another day. Right now, we just want to point out another way in which Calhoun is a jerk.

Finally, with all the Tiger hype coming back online, Holy Taco helps us remember that not all golfers are superhuman robots. Check out the Eight Greatest John Daly moments.

SportsGrinder

Deadspin is utterly obsessed with picking apart Rick Reilly. So much so, in fact, many might call it dumb, pointless, even cruel, and point out that the obsession is most likely based on professional jealousy. The Grinder, however, would disagree, because we are also obsessed with Rick Reilly and have no qualms about admitting that it's dumb, cruel and we're jealous. He's just so rich and famous -- at least rich and famous for a sportswriter.

In this column, the world learns that Reilly, a confirmed blog-hater and maker of "mom's-basement" jokes, has a personal website where he posts random thoughts on whatever suits his fancy. Um… Rick? We hate to break this to you, but that is what the kids today call "blogging." Actually, wait. That was a lie. We didn't hate breaking that to you one bit. Truth be told, we enjoyed it immensely.

Valentine's Day Weekend, the Memphis Grizzlies' Marko Jaric eloped with his Brazilian supermodel girlfriend, Adriana Lima. Strangely, martial bliss doesn't seem to be helping his game. In his last three appearances, Jaric has scored precisely zero points, going 0-for-10 from the field. Weird. He suddenly seems tired. Wonder why?















Oh. Yeah. That's why.





Baseball America has finished posting it's list of the Top 100 prospects. Fun to browse, but will even half these kids see time in the big leagues? Meh. Here's a baseball story we like more: Athlete Makes Funny Ad.

Everyone at the Grinder, as readers know, couldn't be more gripped by the momentous, earth-shattering news that Alex Rodriguez used steroids. Thankfully, Selena Roberts' expose in Sports Illustrated was just a teaser for a book whose publication has been moved up to April. Apparently, "A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez" includes salacious details about Rodriguez sex life. (No, we aren't linking to it.)

Just imagine! A big league baseball player who likes sex. That is a stunner. Seriously? The Grinder is trying to think of a way to protest our massive indifference to this story, and maintain that every moment spent watching, listening to, or reading about A-Rod is time that could be better spent scrubbing toilets in a Mexican jail.