Fear Of A 96 Team Bracket

(Graphic Credit: RushTheCourt.Net)

Before I get back to football, there's one more pressing matter I need to address before the eyes of America turn back to Major League baseball and the endless speculation if Butler head basketball coach Brad Stevens will be heading to fill Holy Cross' sudden vacancy at head coach now that Sean Kearney was terminated after one disappointing year.  (Either that, or he's going to depose ex-Lehigh head basketball coach Billy Taylor at Ball State if David Letterman has his way.)

No, it's the hottest off-the-court topic in the land: whether the heavily-expected merger of the NIT and NCAA Tournament will make March Madness, worse or worser.  Is 64 perfect, and 96 terrible?  Will it mean there will be no more Butlers, as New York Daily News writer Dan Weiss opined?  Is it only about the money, as CBS Sports' Dan Ratto thinks?

Ratto is correct - for what it's worth - since part of it is certainly creating more games to fill more TV time and to give more corporations a chance to spend more money.  But for the Patriot League champions of the world - the little guys - is the 96 team bracket something to fear, or embrace? (more)

Butler - Almost - Did it

(Photo Credit: Yahoo! Sports/Getty Images)

A piece of history was made last night in Indianapolis.  Duke won a basketball game 61-59 over a tiny school in Indianapolis, and but for the curse of some unkind rims go Butler into the history of the NCAA tournament.

The Bulldogs lost the game, but by playing the way they did, as strong as they did, with not one but two chances to still win the game at the end, they won the respect of the entire country.  The world knows they were two rims away from doing what was unthinkable going into the tournament: really, really win the whole damned thing.

It's a bit of a cliche to say that "there are no losers out here tonight", as Jim Nantz said in his broadcast last night, in a game that will be right up there with Villanova in 1985 and North Carolina State in 1983 as one of the greatest championship games of all time.  But it's true.  At no time did anyone watching that game think Duke ran away with this.  Not one person could watch that game and say, "this Bulldog team should just be happy to be here".  It took an all-out effort - by Duke's players and coaches - to win this game.  Butler came up short - a couple of rims short - but their run shows that the championship is no longer an exclusive club. (more)

Philly Won't Have McNabb to Kick Around Anymore

(Photo Credit: Joe Gill/The Easton Express-Times)

So here I am, about four blog postings behind.  I haven't talked about women's basketball, and the gap between the Lehigh's and the UConn's (who blew out Baylor by 20 points last night).

I haven't talked wrestling - where I have a recap of the NCAA championships that I've been sitting on for two weeks.

And I haven't talked football, where Lehigh is in the middle of their spring season with a boatload of optimism for next year.

So what am I going to talk about instead?  The McNabb trade: which leads me to my first Nixon quote on this blog.  Like it or not, Philly fans won't have McNabb to kick around anymore.  (more)

This Weekend, Everyone Ought To Be A Butler Bulldog

It used to be - once upon a time - that the spring was my quiet season, when I didn't really comment that much about sports.  But with Lehigh making it into both the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournament, it's been a lot more compelling to follow all the action and keep a close eye on the proceedings.  (Even though my Villanova/Temple Final four pick seems, in retrospect, crazier than picking Lehigh to upset Kansas in the first round.)

Usually by this time of the tournament, my NCAA pools are busted wide open, the out-of-control athletics departments at, say, North Carolina or Kentucky are looking at winning the national championship, and I'm busy breaking down the offensive and defensive spring rosters for Lehigh football.

But a funny thing happened on the way to inevitability: Butler won me over.  Maybe it's because I'm the fan of a "smaller conference", or maybe it's because I'm genetically programmed to root for the underdog.  But for a multitude of reasons, I'm foursquare on the Butler bandwagon this weekend. (more)