Saturday is a very big day in American sports. It could go down as one of the most crucial in American sports history. The Final Four? No. Freddy Adu’s first game of professional soccer. The expectations on this kid are incredible; he’s only 14 years old, but already the burden on him is beyond what…

It’s an odd thing to put out a press release announcing that nothing is changing. It’s odd to make a big deal about a ten year contract continuing into its fourth year. But then, Pete Gillen’s tenure at Virginia has been nothing if not odd. When Pete Gillen was hired at UVA in 1998, he…

Surely by now you’ve heard about or seen the girl who won the McDonald’s All-American game dunk contest. Like most people, I was very curious, so I checked it out tonight. It was exactly what I expected. An absolute joke. Look, I’m not one of these slackjawed mouthbreathers who thinks that women shouldn’t be playing…

Like many college basketball fans these days, Chris Chase thinks that Mike Krzyzewski is evil. Unlike most of the other frothing haters though, Chris has the common sense to see that Coach K is a hell of a good coach. Chris even had the integrity to publicly admit it. If you haven’t seen his blog…

One of the interesting things about college basketball is that it’s the only major sport I can think of where there’s a universally agreed upon threshold of success below winning the championship. Sure, teams and coaches want to win NCAA titles, but more often you hear about the Final Four. At the beginning of the…

Obviously, I’m getting to this write-up a little late, as the Saturday games have already been played. Let’s pretend that hasn’t happened yet, shall we? Midnight Strikes Pop. UAB turned back into a pumpkin against Kansas. UAB’s modern version of Forty Minutes of Hell was a great story last weekend, but given five days to…

OK, if they weren’t already, my NCAA picks are dead now. For some reason, I was possessed by the evil spirit of Billy Packer when I filled out my brackets and I put inconsistent Wake Forest in the Final Four (along with even more inconsistent UNC). Poof. Big little men I had only seen St.…

I read two great letters to the editor in a recent edition of the News & Observer. Not great in the sense of impressive, but great in the sense that I laughed out loud at them and couldn’t wait to write about them. Unfortunately, I can’t find the damn things, so I’ll just paraphrase them…

Each year when I do my NCAA Tournament predictions, I fill out my bracket and submit it to whatever pool I’m in. I also keep a copy of my sheet to track my progress. When I get a game right, I highlight it in yellow. When I get it wrong, I highlight it in pink,…

There seemed to be a lack of upsets in the first round this year, with only three higher seeds advancing. It was kind of curious given the relative volatility of the top 25 rankings this year. Maybe the teams in the power conferences have finally realized that you can’t take any NCAA games for granted.…