March 3, 1979. Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was atop Billboard's Hot 100. Regular unleaded gasoline was 75 cents a gallon. ESPN was still 188 days away from going on the air for the first time.
The NCAA basketball tournament begins a week from today with the First Four games in Dayton, Ohio.
Three springs ago, the University of Texas decided to sever ties with men's basketball coach Rick Barnes after 17 mostly satisfying seasons. Apparently having your team average 23.6 wins and reach the NCAA tournament 16 of those 17 seasons in a football-crazy state was no longer good enough.
Out on the Thompson-Boling Arena court, the one filled with dancing Tennessee Volunteers and a certain former Tennessee football coach turned athletic director who was campaigning for basketball coach Rick Barnes to be "national coach of the year," the school's first Southeastern Conference regular-season (co)-championship since 2008 couldn't have been sweeter Saturday evening.
It was 2:38 Tuesday afternoon when Keiana Gilbert limped onto the Maclellan Gym floor with the aid of crutches, one of those oversized, gray plastic boots covering her right foot.
Remember the disappointment when Geraldo Rivera unearthed the late gangster Al Capone's supposedly secret vault and found, um, dirt?
Last Tuesday night found new University of Tennessee athletic director and former football coach Phillip Fulmer at the Chattanooga Convention Center for the Classic 150's Roast/Toast of close friend John "Thunder" Thornton.
The really scary stuff for anyone rooting for Tennessee's Big Orange against Florida on Wednesday night came at intermission, when the greatest halftime show in history - Chinese unicyclist Red Panda - enlisted former Volunteers star and current Miami Heat guard Josh Richardson to help with her routine.
Good thing North Carolina didn't use the same legal team as Louisville for the Tar Heels' NCAA issues. If it had, it might have lost two national championship banners instead of none and had to repay 16 years worth of NCAA tournament revenue instead of none.
The NCAA men's basketball tournament begins three weeks from today in Dayton, Ohio, with the start of the First Four play-in games. If ESPN brackets guru Joe Lunardi is as accurate as usual, the Southeastern Conference will place a record (for the SEC, anyway) eight teams in the field.
