10:06

Mercy was granted as the Tiffany Network switched to the Wisconsin-Cal State-Fullerton game. (That looks like three schools, but it’s two.) I never thought I’d be so happy to watch a game between Wisconsin and Cal State-Fullerton.

This might be a good time to point out that even though I grew up in Madison, I am not what you would call a Wisconsin Badger fan. I’ve got nothing against its basketball coach, Bo Ryan, or its players. I’ve just always had a hard time rooting for what I consider one of the most boring programs in college hoops. Since the program’s revival, Wisconsin has had exactly one electrifying player (Michael Finley). The rest of the last 15 years has been filled with the kind of grind-it-out, defense-oriented, ball-control basketball that could only win titles in the pedestrian Big Ten. The apex, or nadir, depending on how you look at it, was when the Badgers gave a national audience the single most boring Final Four game in modern history, a 53-41 loss to Michigan State in 2000 that was 19-17 at halftime.

That’s peach basket shit. The 13-2 run the Spartans went on to close out the game must have seemed like a torrential downpour to Dick Bennett, then the Badgers coach. Bennett’s crimes against basketball as entertainment are deplorable enough, but he also had the indignity of quitting on his team just three games into the 2000-01 season because of “burnout.” Add to that the incessant complaining by fans every time the Badgers don’t get a number one seed in the tourney, and it’s hard not to have contempt for this program. (The football program, another perennial also-ran, is just as annoying, but I’ll save that for another day.) I’m not saying I’m rooting for Cal State-Fullerton, but I’ve got no problem with seeing a 14 seed upset a 3 seed in this case.

10:38

That was a long anti-Badger rant that probably took up a good amount of viewing time. In fairness, I’ve been playing Scrabulous on Facebook as well. I’m addicted.

10:44

I saw the Britney Spears How I Met Your Mother promo! She asked Doogie, “Can we have sex, THEN go shopping?” Get it? Sex? Doogie? Having sex is inherently funny. Now I can die in peace.

(I had a Kevin Federline/Law & Order joke in place here, until I remembered that K-Fed has already been on CSI, and Law & Order has already ripped the Britney/K-Fed story from the proverbial headlines. You have to be pretty quick to do satire, these days. Maybe I should write OJ jokes for Leno in my old age.)

10:47

Mike Krzyzewski, in a press conference, said of Belmont, “We were just playing cat-and-mouse. We wanted to see if we could let them back in it and still beat them in the last minute. Really, we’ve been looking past this round and all rounds till the Final Four.”

Kidding.

10:55

Cal State-Fullerton’s coach looks more like a high school band teacher. Also, if people can say Cal State-Fullerton without a problem, they should be able to handle Wisconsin-Eau Claire. If they ever need to say it.

Speaking of my alma mater, I realized that if UW-Eau Claire ever turned Division I and made the tournament, its celebrity fan that CBS would have to cut to would be Kato Kaelin. That’s pretty bottom shelf, although I’m not sure if it’s any worse than Vince Gill.

11:10

“Wellington Smith” does not sound like the name of a player for West Virginia. It sounds like the name of an Ivy League WASP in a bad frat boy comedy.

11:38

Arizona-West Virginia. Blah. What was I saying about this being the greatest sporting event known to man?

11:52

Not only does West Virginia have a Wellington Smith, but Arizona has a Chase Budinger. Is this March Madness or America’s Cup?

12:00

West Virginia will go on to face Duke. That’s day one of the Big Dance. It wasn’t as “mad” as in years’ past, but tomorrow is a new day. In the meantime, I have a Scrabulous game to wrap up.