Weekend winners
* The NCAA tournament in general. We finally got some drama and good games. That's good. (Well, not on the women's side, but that's another topic entirely.) The craziness of the first two days has settled for the most part - with the huge exception of Syracuse, which got to the Final Four as a 10-seed (and made a winner out of Mark S.) - and the quality of the Final Four is pretty excellent.
* Buddy Hield. Speaking of excellent. Dude is in some rarified company. In the last 30 years, players to average 25 points per game and lead their team to the Final Four are named Larry Bird, Glen Rice, Dennis Scott and Buddy Hield, who was awesome Saturday night with 37 points as the Sooners toppled No. 1 seed Oregon.
* Jason Day. Dude is golfing his ball and is the No. 1 player in the world. He however does not measure himself against other golfers by height.
* Whomever placed a $100 bet on Syracuse in January. That ticket, if the Orange wins two more, would be worth $100,100.
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski watches during a college basketball practice in Anaheim, Calif., Wednesday, March 23, 2016. Duke plays against Oregon in a regional semifinal game in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson) Weekend losers
* The NCAA tournament as a way to crown a champ. It's amazing for our brackets and for the drama. So that's cool. But as a way to determine the "best team" or a true champ, it's a farce. Jim Boeheim said he was surprised that his Syracuse team even made the tournament. They are now in the Final Four. They were one of the last at-large bids. Now they are two wins from a title. Is that a testament to the balance/mediocrity across the game? That's certainly a discussion. But this tournament, in all it's craziness and drama and whatever adjective you want, does not determine which team is the best. It determines which team is the hottest.
* College hoops regular season. We have had this conversation before, but doesn't Syracuse's magic of this weekend - and the huge, Huge, HUGE favor MTSU did by dumping Michigan State - make the argument that this tournament has left the regular season with less than meaning than ever? Syracuse is 5-5 in their last 10 games and they are in the Final Four. Read that again. Also, because of one awful call late, Kansas, which won its 12th consecutive Big 12 regular season title, is out. And history will judge Syracuse's season as more successful than Kansas' because of one weekend.
* The NCAA. Hey, wonder how many puff-and-circumstance-less NCAA commercials we'll get to see during the UNC-Syracuse showdown, considering each has the lingering residue of major academic scandal all over the program. Syracuse, which some how broke major rules for more than a decade yet did not do it in the one year that the Orange won the title in the self-reported investigation and the NCAA eyes, sat out last year's tournament as penance. UNC is waiting for the rulings on the two-decade-long grade fraud allegations. Remember gang, the NCAA it's about the student-athlete. Ha.
* Mark Emmert. The NCAA chief normally holds a state of the NCAA press conference at the Final Four. If he does this year, it should have a strikingly different feel, since the first dozen or so questions should be about the UNC-Syracuse showdown that could be sponsored by the college-sports version of Chico's Bail Bonds. Hey, maybe he could get some pointers from NASCAR boss Brian France, since college hoops and NASCAR share the unofficial slogan of "If you're not cheating, you're not trying." (Runner-up slogan of course: "Honesty, the best way to lose.")
* Coach K. Duke got bounced by Oregon last Thursday and the Hall of Famer had some postgame words for Oregon's best player, who hit an uncontested 30-footer in the final seconds of the already-decided game. It was a meaningless shot that got meaning because it went and Coach K told Dillon Brooks, "You're too good of a player to do that." When asked about it after the game, Coach K lied and said he didn't say it. He apologized Saturday, saying he should not have talked to "reacted incorrectly to a reporter's question." OK, but man, it feels like Coach K is getting a pass on this, right? Imagine his reaction if someone had preached to one of his players and then lied about it? (And we certainly think that someone needs to pull Grayson "Cobra Kai - sweep the leg" Allen aside for a little talk about sportsmanship.)
* Non-hoops division: U.S. men's soccer. Jurgen and Co. lost to Guatemala over the weekend and put their World Cup hopes in doubt. The U.S. losing to a country the size of Guatemala is akin to Ford Motor Co. losing to your Uncle Ed's used cars. Guatemala would be the 37th biggest U.S. state - smaller than Tennessee, but a tad bigger than Kentucky.
Connecticut's Katie Lou Samuelson, left, and Saniya Chong, right, celebrate near the end of an NCAA college basketball game against Mississippi State in the regional semifinals of the women's NCAA Tournament, Saturday, March 26, 2016, in Bridgeport, Conn. UConn won 98-38. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill) UConn dominance
There was discussion from a Boston columnist that UConn's dominance of the women's game is bad for women's basketball.
You can debate that, but there is no denying UConn is dominating in such a way Tiger Woods is impressed.
The Huskies were up 61-12 over the weekend. In a Sweet 16 game. They are 120-1 since losing to Notre Dame in 2013. All of those wins are by double digits.
There's almost always someone who jokes that a really good college champ could compete with the professionals. That's nuts. (Last year's Alabama team would be at least a two-touchdown underdog to the Titans, who were the worst team in the league.)
Here's betting that this UConn - the team that beat a ranked team by 60 to get to the Elite Eight - would be able to play in the WNBA.
As for Dan Shaughnessy's comment about the UConn dominance being bad for the game, well, maybe not.
The first two rounds of the NCAA tournament are up 46 percent in TV numbers.
Also, we have always been in the camp that a truly dominant force in any sport is good in general for the sport. Think Tiger at his apex. Or the Warriors. Or the Yankees back in the day.
It gives the casual fan a couple of connections to the random sport. Everyone wants to see excellence, and those examples were/are truly excellent. Plus, that excellence gives most a rooting interest one way or another. And, that excellence has us talking about women's college hoops on the Monday morning after the men's tournament.
That possibly can't be bad for the game in general.
That said, the overwhelming dominance of this run - while it has merits - it also is sucking any drama out of this. At some point that finality and certainty - when the tournament started UConn was a 1-to-9 pick in Vegas, meaning you had to bet $900 to win $100, and the rest of the field was 6-to-1 (and that's crazy, and correct) - hurts the game.
And that's not UConn's fault. That's on the rest of the game to get better and match that excellence.
Think of it this way. UConn is close to becoming a sunrise. Yes, you occasionally will make the effort to get up and see the sun rise, and it can be glorious viewing. But you know there will always be tomorrow, and another chance to watch that excellence.
Man, that's dominance.
This and that
- UTC football is ready to get going. Here's TFP UTC ace Mean Gene Henley's spring primer.
- Villanova is a two-point favorite over Oklahoma in the early Final Four matchup and UNC is a 9.5-point favorite over Syracuse.
- UT Lady Vols lost over the weekend in the NCAA women's tournament. Strong finish to the worst season in program history. (And yes, getting to the Elite Eight in easily the worst season in Lady Vols history screams volumes about the depth of that history. Next year will be a huge one for Holly Warlick.)
- Bracket craziness. Of the 13 million-plus brackets entered in the ESPN.com tournament challenge, 1,140 of them have this Final Four. (Here's betting a lot of those folks have a direct connection to Syracuse.)
- The next frontier of Title IX may be protection for sexual orientation. Here's a very interesting story about the Prairie View A&M women's basketball coach who was fired, at least in part, because she suspended two players who started dating. (Of course buried in the details of the PC outcry in this is the simple fact that the coach had a very clear rule against this for obvious reasons since earlier in her career an assistant coach started dating a player.) Buckle up, and yes, another scenario in which the lawyers will cash checks.
- One of Mississippi State's top football recruits apparently was videoed punching a woman. Here's the story.
Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma yells to his team during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against South Florida, Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Today's question
Is Geno Auriemma the best coach of anything on the planet?
Is he in the discussion of Rushmore of basketball coaches of all-time?
Where does he rank in the pantheon of coaches, current and all-time?