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Here's a comment I just posted on GoVolsXtra (you can see it here):

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As anyone who is even an acquaintance knows, I LOVE March Madness. I love the drama, the passion, the stories, the Cinderellas, the athleticism, the coaches, the games. I love the underdogs pulling the upset, I love the team that puts it all together, I love the game planning and counter-planning. I love it all.

And of course, a big part of March Madness is filling out your brackets. You can do it at CBS, or at ESPN, or as part of countless office pools, online pools, and friend-to-friend pools.

I do mine as part of the ESPN Challenge. They've got one for men and one for women, and you can enter multiple brackets. I usually do at least three different brackets for both men and women:

• an Almost Chalk one (the way I actually think it will turn out)
• an Upset Special (throw in some likely upsets along the way)
• an Emotional Favorite one (one of my teams makes a deep run that isn't expected)

So, if you want to see my brackets so far, make the jump and see if you agree:

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Hope you heard what I intended -- that great old Christmas song, sung by Andy Williams, that now serves a dual purpose by signifying it's time for March Madness!

My sports year runs from fall (college football) to March Madness, with a little golf thrown in to tide me over during the summer. Don't like baseball, really, so the NCAA men's and women's tourney is the climax to my sports year. It's also an amazing spectacle, a source of endless debate and wonder, and a great time to live in the center of the basketball universe, Kentucky!

I'm a little different from many of my basketball friends, though -- I follow men and women. This year I've got the UT, UK, and UofL men's teams to follow, and the UT, UK, and NC State women's teams to follow. (I've added NC State to the mix because Kelly Jolly is coaching there.) Both Tenn Tech teams, and the U of L women, are done for the year. (But ... watch out for the UofL women next year; those kids are growing up, and may be a force next year and the next.)

So, as we move through the next four weeks or so, those of you who read this for politics, policy, or faith, will have to put up with some basketball talk as well. It will end when the two National Champs are crowned and we do the post-mortems. In the meantime, I'll try to write a little about other stuff, once in a while. :-)

I've been a Vol fan for a long, long time -- over 45 years. As such, I've seen some amazing Vol moments. But one happened this weekend that deserves some recognition, some attention. In fact, it's almost unprecedented. You ready? Here's the first part:

Bruce Pearl's Vol team won 20 games for the fifth year in a row.

I know, I know -- here in the land of Big Red and Big Blue, no one gets excited until it's time to hang a banner. A 20-win season is the minimum that's expected. But at UT, where men's basketball has traditionally been the 3rd most important sport (behind football and women's basketball), those 20-win seasons have been few and far between. Five in a row? Only Don Devoe did it before now.

But here's the real record-setting second part:

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Being a Vol fan, I naturally cheer against all things Florida. The animosity is good-natured -- this is sports, people -- but still, a win over Florida is always extra-special. And for years, I've joined Vol fans in calling Billy Donovan, the Florida men's basketball coach, the wonderfully appropriate sobriquet of "Eddie Munster." If you've seen pictures of both gentlemen, you'll immediately see why.

After the events of this past weekend, I have sworn that off. When it comes to Billy Donovan, it's ixnay on the unstermay stuff. In fact, I have a new respect for Mr. Donovan. Make the jump to see why.

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You want to know why I love college sports? You want to know why I keep loving it, even in the face of egotistical coaches, colleges selling their souls, and players suspended for majoring in stupidity? It's because of stories like THIS:

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Stumbled across the ESPN/ Sagarin All-Time Rankings for college basketball the other day, and just found the whole list fascinating. Sure, it's just one guy's rankings, but at least it's based on a system and not on a bar bet. You can find the rankings here (PDF) -- take a look to see where your alma mater ranks all-time.

Here's the real fun, though: I pulled out our three local teams, plus my home team of Tennessee, and did both a data table and a chart. (Yeah, I know -- seriously geeky.) Take a gander ...

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Some final comments on women's basketball before I pull the plug on sports until football starts in the fall (sorry, just not much of a baseball fan):

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Time to put some picks up for posterity, especially since the semis are about to start for the men.

Men

MSU vs. UConn -- I pick MSU, primarily because of Izzo
Nova vs. UNC -- I pick UNC. They just look too strong to me.
Final -- UNC vs. MSU -- I pick UNC to cut down the nets.

Women

UL vs OK -- I'm going to go out on a limb here and pick Louisville. I think they are loose and ready.
UConn vs. Stanford -- I'm picking UConn -- but would LOVE to see Stanford upset them again like last year.
Final -- UL vs. UConn -- Sorry, got to go with UConn. Just too strong. BUT, if Stanford beats UConn, I pick UL to beat them. (Doesn't make any sense, I know -- I just think Louisville would be so relieved not to see UConn again that they'd be ready and primed.

Let the games begin!

I'm not your typical C-J basher. In fact, one of the first things we did when moving to The Ville in '92 was to subscribe, and I've been a loyal, cover-to-cover reader ever since.

So, when I gripe, it's not the everyday whining you read elsewhere. And I'm griping about this -- the C-J blew it on the Lady Cards coverage. In fact, I thought they blew it so thoroughly that I wrote them a letter about it. Make the jump to see some of it --

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Tough, in-your-shorts full-court press. Multiple versions of that press. Able to play zone or man, and again it's in-your-face, wear-you-out defense. An All-American senior on the team, with another senior that plays sidekick and doesn't mind being in the shadow a little (but which everyone who knows the team will tell you is the ying to the poster player's yang). A coach who believes in amazingly hard practices, amazingly tough teams, and outworking everyone else in preparation. A team that likes to run, but that can grind it out as well. Hits the threes, hits the boards, drives the lane, beats you lots of ways. Now which Louisville team is this? Even more important -- which Louisville team is in the Final Four?

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And make no mistake -- Louisville lost. They played the worst game of their season, and maybe of their lives. Even the Notre Dame loss didn't look this bad.

Take nothing away from Michigan State; they played a great game, and had a superb game plan. But Louisville had the better athletes, and the better team, by far. They should have won this game by ten.

Instead, they got outplayed, and Rick Pitino got outcoached. Izzo's plan for breaking the press worked like a charm, and his plan to feed the high post made a slow, flat-footed center the player of the game. Louisville never adjusted ... and when their defense didn't produce what it always had, they had no other answer.

Based on a few comments here and there, I wonder if something happened before the game. The team looked asleep, or tired, or distracted, or something. Was there a blowup of some kind? Did they party too long, or too late? Did Pitino de-motivate them in some way? I don't know the answer, nor do I know if there is even a realistic question. All I know is that the team that played on Sunday looked nothing like the team that had won their last 12, nor did they look like the athletic, hard-working, in-your-shorts-defense team I saw in those wins.

Thanks to T-Will and Earl for great careers. Two Elite Eights and the Big East championships are nothing to sneeze at. You will be remembered fondly and warmly for all time.

But any time your names are mentioned, people will probably ask, "What happened in that last game?" And we'll wish it could have ended differently.

Say "Tennessee basketball" and a number of expected images come to mind: the Lady Vols cutting down yet another net, Chris Lofton hitting yet another 3, the Smoky mascot in his orange tux as the band plays yet another repetition of "Rocky Top." Add to those some more recent images, including sell-out crowds for the men's team and Candace Parker showing "8" to the crowd after last year's NC, and you'd understand the excitement and expectations that have always surrounded the women's program, and recently spread to the men's as well. Knoxville was on its way to becoming another Lexington or Louisville, where basketball was more than just the filler between football and spring football.

The success of both programs over the last two seasons only adds to the pain of this season. After a football season so bad that the school fired the coach that won it all in '98, we were all looking forward to a great season of basketball. The women have injury issues? No problem, Pat will figure it out. The men lost both some great shooting and some great leadership? No problem, Bruce is a miracle worker.

Turns out, no one figured it out, and there were no miracles. Just one of the most frustrating and disappointing seasons the Orange faithful have ever experienced. Why did it happen? Make the jump, and I'll give you my I'm-just-a-fan thoughts ...

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Doggone Mormons. I thought I could trust them. I thought they would come through in the clutch. I mean, if you can't trust those dudes in the white shirts and ties, riding bikes and doing missionary work in the Bible Belt, who can you trust? That's what I thought, too.

This year, though, the Mormons let me down.

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The UofL Lady Cards finished 2nd in the Big East, with their only conference losses being to undefeated UConn. They are ranked 5th, are #4 in the RPI ... and are just a few hours from Bowling Green, where Western Kentucky hosts some first-round games in the Women's NCAA Tournament. Everyone -- and I do mean EVERYONE -- figured Louisville for a #2 seed and being sent to Bowling Green.

Instead, the Lady Cards got stiffed. Only slightly, granted -- they're a #3 -- but stiffed, nonetheless.

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