MARCH MADNESS - PART IV

***BYE BYE BIG EAST***
They started with 11 teams and are now down to 2, UCONN and Marquette. Notre Dame lost to Florida State, due to the big equalizer: the 3-point shot. FSU canned 9 of 19 and stifled ND with a swarming defense. Syracuse suffered a lose because of a different kind of equalizer: inexperience. Too many underclassmen and only one senior. Marquette shut down Jackson underneath and Boeheim failed, as he often does in big games, to adjust his offense.
There are still three #1 seeds left: Kansas, Ohio State and Duke, and three #2 seeds: Florida, San Diego St. and North Carolina. Throw out the season records now. All of the eight remaining games in the next round should be interesting. The lower-seeded teams that are still in, will probably have a tough time maintaining their momentum because of the 4 or 5 off days. Still, the games will be worth watching...if the announcers will just shut up.
Pittsburgh coach, Jamie Dixon, seems to have escaped unscathed after making what I call the biggest coaching gaff of the tournament.

From Gregg Drinnan, Kamloops, BC, Daily News: “Being a proud Canadian, I once again am rooting for Yukon to go all the way.”

***BASEBALL IS 10 DAYS OFF***
The Mets finally woke up and dumped Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo, eating a total or $18 million in salaries. To show you how desperate the Phillies are with the health problems of Chase Utley, they went and signed Castillo. They would have been better off trying to talk 66-year old Davy Lopes into a comeback.

Alex Rodriguez hit his 5th homer of the spring yesterday. Looks like the power is back. We'll see if this carries over during the regular season.

Last year, people made fun of Yankee catcher, Franciso Cervelli, for wearing the over-sized batting helmet after suffering a concussion. The laughing may stop now; Minnesota Twins first baseman, Justin Morneau, is wearing the same style helmet after his concussion. He's very vocal about getting MLB to make them mandatory. I wish him luck.

Annie-O is burying me in the NCAA Tournament bracket, and I don't want to talk about it. When is the National Cheerleading Competition?

CP-