FILE - In this March 26, 2014, file photo, Wisconsin's Traevon Jackson dribbles past the NCAA logo during practice at the NCAA men's college basketball tournament in Anaheim, Calif. A federal judge ruled that the NCAA can't stop players from selling the rights to their names, images and likenesses, striking down NCAA regulations that prohibit them from getting anything other than scholarships and the cost of attendance at schools. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, Calif., ruled in favor Friday, Aug. 8, of former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon and 19 others in a lawsuit that challenged the NCAA's regulation of college athletics on antitrust grounds. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) NCAA tournament
Tick-tock. The madness starts in minutes. (Of course if you are an after-lunch 5-at-10 reader, well, the madness is already here.)
What do we know? What do we expect?
We know to expect the unexpected. We know that the leader of your office pool on Saturday morning will almost assuredly not lead it a week form Saturday. We know the first game of this weekend is about coaches preparations and handling nerves. The second game is about adjustments and talent - or the teams believing they have the most talent and talentedly playing with the most belief.
We also know there's a couple of ways to play along, and you have until noon to enter.
There's the March to the Madness: First-Out, Last-in Challenge. We have about 30 or so entries and we'll post them either this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. If you want to play, the rules are easy: Pick the No. 1 seed you think will lose first and the last double-digit seed you think will be left standing. Our official entry is Oregon and Wichita State.
There's also the traditional NCAA tournament sheet contest in conjunction with ESPN 105.1 The Zone and Penn Station East Coast Subs. Go to espn.com and click on the tournament bracket icon. Group name is ESPN Chattanooga and the password is press row.
Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
Mocs take their swing
UTC has had a magical season.
Splendid in fact.
This is the best collection of talent and commitment since we moved to Chattanooga in 2002, and it's not really close.
This bunch has 29 wins including a trio of impressive road wins before the conference season started at Illinois, Georgia and Dayton. In truth and in retrospect, only the win at Dayton can be considered a real upset. Remove the names and the preconceived images, and UTC is favored over Illinois and likely a pick 'em against Georgia.
This team is that good.
But can they be that good on the grandest of stages?
Tonight the Mocs face Indiana. You may have heard something about it. (Side note: Here's the excellent tag-team coverage from TFP aces Mean Gene Henley and Mark Wiedmer - a tandem that is to college hoops coverage not unlike what Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith were to fighting aliens in "Men in Black" - with astrong Weeds column and Gene's excellent beat coverage.)
The Hooisers are a 10-point favorite according to the folks in Vegas.
We believe it will be a closer game than that. We think the Hoosiers will win a close one, but are truly rooting for the Mocs.
A win tonight moves this bunch into the discussion among the most accomplished UTC teams in its Division I history. A lose tonight would not drastically change that, but the nature of college basketball is that your narrative is written in March.
Sadly, it's too often like a college class in which 50 percent of your grade is the final exam. Getting to this point has been special and magical and fun, and a loss can't alter that one iota but it will be part of the first sentence of the obituary of this record-setting bunch. "UTC won a program record 29 games before falling to perennial power Indiana in the NCAA tournament."
But what about a win? Wow, what a win would do. An exclamation point that would in a lot of ways have the Mocs on the cusp of the preseason rankings next year. A win jumpstarts what - with the returning players and the expected return of Casey Jones - would be arguably the most anticipated UTC season ever.
The ride has been great, and we all are appreciative.
But on this St. Patrick's Day, when the luck of the Irish - We like our chances with a McCall over a Crean on this day especially - abounds and the magic and the madness combine before us, let's go Mocs.
Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry, right, shoots over New York Knicks' Robin Lopez (8), Carmelo Anthony (7) and Derrick Williams (23) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 16, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) Home Warriors
This is ridiculous. The Golden State Warriors thrashed the New York Knicks Wednesday. It's their 50th consecutive home win.
The last time the Warriors lost at home was an overtime 113-111 loss to Chicago on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015. To make this stat even more eye-popping and the Warriors' home dominance even more staggering, that loss ended a 19-game home winning streak. It was a surprising defeat since the Warriors missed all 13 of their second-half 3s, something that seems impossible when watching these current Warriors play and pass and shoot.
So, if not for that uncharacteristic performance, the Warriors would be staring at 70 consecutive home wins. Seventy.
The last time the Warriors lost at home we were trying to figure out what "Deflate Gate" really meant, had not seen images of Jared Fogle and Bill Cosby in handcuffs for sexual crimes and believed that Donald Trump was a harmless eccentric who liked to fire people and make billions.
Now, the Warriors are the most electrifying show in sports.
Steph Curry scored 34 on Wednesday in the 121-85 rout of the Knicks. (How overwhelming was it? Only one Warriors player - James Michael McAdoo played less than 10 minutes.)
As for Curry's excellence, well, his eight 3s Wednesday extended his regular-season record to 330. with 15 games left, Curry certainly has a shot at 400 3-pointers in a season, which is staggering to think because the record before this season was Curry's 286 3s last season. Curry's averaging 4.9 3s a game, so if he plays all of the remaining games and hits his average, that would be another 73 3s.
If Curry hits the 400 mark for 3s, that would mean he beat the previous best any player has done in the history of the league by almost 40 percent. Wow.
The best comparison to what Curry is doing is Babe Ruth's back-to-back seasons in 1919 and 1920. In '19 Ruth hit a MLB record 29 homers. The following year, he broke the record on July 19th and finished with 54 homers, an increase of more than 85 percent from the previous best ever. (Ruth's dominance that year can't be overstated, since he hit more homers than every other team in the American League. Curry is 25 3s behind Minnesota, which has the lowest total among NBA teams.)
Still, anytime you can be compared with Babe Ruth, you are elite.
This and that
- Former Braves first baseman Adam LaRoche retired from baseball this week after the Chicago White Sox told him he needed to dial back his son Drake, 14, from coming to the ballpark everyday. Here's the story and while the sentimentality is clear, the White Sox are right in this. The fact that LaRoche was willing to walk away from a $14 million contract is completely his decision, but there aren't any other jobs out there that allows kids to come to work with parents every day.
- Thought this was interesting. Mark Wahlberg and The Rock are part of a lawsuit asking for $200 million because two writes say Wahlberg and The Rock's HBO series "Ballers" was lifted from their ideas. Not sure how that will work, but if someone sued them for $200 million alleging "Ballers" stinks, that case would be a slam dunk.
- Interesting debate going on in the city of Chicago about the city trying to ban the Cubs from using smokeless tobacco. We used Copenhagen for a long, Long, LONG time before quitting cold turkey several years ago. (That was a LONG weekend friends.) We're super happy to be done with that addiction, but we have a hard time for a city telling adults they can't participate in legal activities. Dangerous slope right there for your random municipalities. That said, the one group of folks in this country that have zero protection from the PC police and the overreaction outrage crowd are tobacco users. Man, think if there was another subculture of folks who were targeted like they are. Yes, we get the second-hand smoke argument and understand that one. But this is about smokeless tobacco too which has no bearing on anyone other than the user. And if we're going to ban that, what's next hot dogs and beer? If that's the case the Cubs won't be the only ones not wanting to be at the ballparks in Chicago.
Today's question
In honor of St. Patrick's Day - and it's Patrick Duffy's birthday, too - we'll do a Rushmore of Patricks.
Also, today Kurt Russell turns 65. We think a Rushmore of Kurt Russell movies is a fine topic as well.
Go, and remember the mailbag.