We’ve all lost perspective as sports fans. That all I’ve got. 

At least that’s the only thing I can think of when it comes to the UConn women’s basketball team.

Over the past week, as UConn inched closer to the win total of John Wooden’s UCLA teams of the early 1970’s and since passed them, I’ve heard a lot of chatter from a lot of people, who have all suddenly become experts on something they know nothing about. I’ve heard them say that this record really means nothing. That their competition is a joke. That the sport is a joke. That at the end of the day, it’s “just women’s basketball.”

Sadly what I haven’t heard is what’s most important of all. That since the streak started back on April 6, 2008, the UConn women have not only been the most supremely dominant team in sports, but also the mentally toughest and the best coached as well. Nobody gets to 89 wins in a row in any sport, at any level, by accident, yet all I hear is more excuses for why we shouldn’t be impressed by the streak, than reasons to celebrate. Which is a shame.

Again, I think we’ve lost some perspective as fans. 

And if you don’t mind I’d like to go ahead and do my best to provide some. Starting with that previously mentioned date, April 6, 2008, when all this madness began.   

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Twelve months. What a difference 12 months makes.

Twelve months ago, chance and circumstance brought me to New York City on December 9th, which in turn brought me to Madison Square Garden for the Kentucky-UConn game being played that night. I wasn’t planning on attending. But I’m a UConn fan and a UConn graduate, I was in New York, and figured, “Why the hell not?”

Unexpected to everyone in the arena- myself included- that night turned into a classic, one of those games that you’ll stumble across a replay of three, four, five years from now and get sucked into watching. It was physical. It was emotional. And when UConn lost, it was a kick in the stomach.

At least for me it was. But as I documented in my column the following day, it was anything but for Kentucky fans. That game wasn’t just a win, but the win. The win that welcomed in the John Calipari era. The win that washed away the pain of the Tubby Smith and Billy Gillispie years. The win that let the college basketball world know that Kentucky basketball- the team and brand that I’d grown up hearing about, but never seeing- was back after an extended disappearance. As I said in the article, for Kentucky fans, that win shouldn’t have meant so much. But it did.

Well 12 months later, here I am. I’m not the one patting Kentucky fans on the back and congratulating them, but instead, it’s the opposite. My team is back on top of the college basketball world. Maybe only for a day, a week or a month, but it feels good none the less. Last night’s win in the Maui Invitational, in November, in a time when we have real things to be thankful for (our friends, our family, those protecting us overseas), shouldn’t have meant so much. But for this one fan, it did.

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There are a few days every year that I look forward to above all others. The day of the Super Bowl. Opening Day of Major League Baseball. The day a fresh group of 18-year-old girls moves into the college right down the street from where I live. And for the last few years, the “College Basketball Tip-Off Marathon,” has been added as one of those days.

Simply put, I’m a college hoops junkie. That tends to happen when you grow in a state where the highest paid government employee is Jim Calhoun. So for me, getting the college hoops marathon this early in the season, is not only a gift, but a literal blessing from God. One that momentarily makes me forget that within a few weeks it’s going to be -400 degrees outside.

This year, I spent the college hoops marathon taking notes, and adding them to my vastly expanding database of useless information on these teams (Maybe it’ll finally pay off in March for once). I don’t have a great feel for every team, but Tuesday gave me an opportunity to get a much better feel on a lot of them. And before Thanksgiving, what more could a guy ask for?

Anyway, below are a dozen “big picture,” things I think about college hoops so far. Some are on teams we saw yesterday, and others from teams and players we saw over the weekend.

Nothing is set in stone, but Tuesday was a good primer for the next five months to come.

Here are 12 things I’m thinking…


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When I started this site a few years ago, one of the first articles I wrote was “50 Reasons To Be Excited For College Basketball Season.” Looking back, it wasn’t particularly funny, and doesn’t really read like anything I’d write now. But it was fun and different, and probably the first thing I ever wrote that got any acclaim outside my friends and family. More importantly, after struggling for awhile, that article was the first time in a long time that I enjoyed writing again.

And every season since, the 50 Reasons article has been one of my favorite to write. Not so much because I live and breathe college basketball, but more because it’s a cool measuring stick of where I am, and how far I’ve come in the prior year, and subsequent years before that.

With that said, I almost decided not to write the article this year. Because truthfully up until a few days ago, I really wasn’t all that excited about college basketball season.

You see, I grew up in a Connecticut, in one of the few places where the sport was king, and in a time whn the game really meant something. Kevin Ollie, Ray Allen, Doron Sheffer and Kevin Freeman weren’t just basketball players to me, but almost like extended family members. That tends to happen when you watch the same guys 35-40 times a year, for three or four straight years. You get to know their strengths and weaknesses, when they’re having good days and bad. Just like you would with a brother or sister.

The problem is though, that as time has gone on, college basketball has started to turn me off more and more. Some of that just has to do with age; I simply don’t have the time to invest (Ok, maybe that’s a slight lie) and the games don’t mean as much (That’s definitely a lie). Really though, my attitude has a lot more to do with the dynamics of the game.

While the one-and-done rule has a lot of perks, it has also to a large degree turned college basketball into a niche sport. Casual fans start following sometime in late February, stick around until the end of March, and then ignore the sport again for another 10 ½ months. And really, who can blame them? With the best players coming and going faster than Jay Leno trades in cars, why bother following the sport if you’re not a Carolina, Kansas or Kentucky fan? Why invest yourself, when as soon as you get to know guys, they leave campus for the pros?
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For any fan of college basketball, Monday night's National Championship game was the perfect ending to a wildly unpredictable and entertaining season. There was big bad Duke, a team in the highest rung of college basketball's caste system, owner of four National Championships and one mutant looking Hall of Fame coach, going up against tiny, little Butler, a team that would need a prayer, a miracle and an off night by Jon Scheyer if they had any chance of keeping the game close. It was a matchup made in college basketball (And CBS ratings) heaven.

But as great as the good vs. evil, David vs. Goliath storyline was, I for one never really bought it.

After all, it was Butler that had the home-court advantage and the most skilled player on the court in Gordon Hayward. It was Butler that came into the game 33-4, having not lost a game since before Christmas (You read that correctly. We are now more than a quarter of the way through 2010, and until Monday, Butler had yet to lose this year). And it was Butler that came into this game having beaten three straight teams that collectively had spent more time at the top of the charts this year than Justin Bieber. What exactly did this team have to do to prove they were a worthy title game participant? Challenge Shaq, Kobe and the 2001 Lakers to a pick-up game?

Looking at their wins was even more revealing. They'd beaten two of the top 12 scoring teams in college basketball (Syracuse and Kansas State) and one which prides itself on defense (Michigan State). They'd beaten teams that were guard oriented and big down. Teams that wanted to play fast and slow. Teams that played zone defense and man-to-man. What could Duke possibly throw at them
that they hadn't seen yet this year?
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For any of you who may be reading this, there’s probably a pretty good possibility that you know on Saturday night, I wrote an article titled, “Kentucky’s Elite Eight Loss: A Season To Remember, Even In Defeat.” Chances are pretty good you’re either a regular reader of mine, or more than likely were referenced here by another Kentucky fan or message board. Thank you for coming back.

The reason that I wrote that article on Saturday night was simple. As I stated at the time, I’m not a Kentucky fan, and have no affiliation with the school. But after my UConn Huskies played Kentucky in Madison Square Garden in December, I was fortunate enough to get in touch, and stay in touch with a handful of Kentucky fans.

Over the course of the season, those fans were nice enough to take me under their wing, and share “the ride,” with me, as their Wildcats went through an unbelievable season. They sent me links, funny videos and player news, as if I were a long lost cost cousin, and they were updating me on their own children. They didn’t do this because I asked them to, but because they’re some of the most incredibly gracious people I’ve ever been fortunate enough to be in contact with. And there’s no doubt they love their basketball team too.

When I sat down to write that article on Saturday night, it was for those fans, who had made feel like part of the “Kentucky family,” all season long. To try and ease their pain and put everything in perspective. I’m a sports fan who has been through tough defeats like everyone else (Including George Mason over UConn in 2006, which still makes me sick to my stomach). I figured I owed it to the friends I’d made in Kentucky, after everything they’d done for me all season. If I could make things just a little better for the handful of people who’d been so nice to me, it would be the least I could do. And truthfully, I never imagined it’d turn into anything more than that.
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(Author's Note: To those of you just checking out the site, please also be sure to visit late Wednesday afternoon, March 31, when Aaron will be publishing a special "tribute," to all the Kentucky fans who've been kind enough to reach out to him since Saturday evening. Thanks.)

I wasn't planning on writing tonight. It's been a long week, and a long month and a long college basketball season. Truthfully, I was really just hoping to kick my feet up, grab a few beers, watch some hoops and hit the hay early. Seemed like a perfect Saturday night to me.

But with West Virginia having just beaten Kentucky, here I am in front of my computer, trying to collect my thoughts on this game, and this Kentucky team. A team that might not be playing for a National Championship next weekend, but still may go down as the most fascinating of my lifetime.

Now make no mistake, I'm not a Kentucky fan. Quite honestly, I've never even been inside the states borders. And for most of my life I never really gave their basketball team much thought either. At least until December 9, when the Wildcats took on my UConn Huskies inside Madison Square Garden.

As I tried my hardest to describe the following day in my piece, "Kentucky-UConn: A Final Four In December," the level of fandom that I saw from the Big Blue faithful that night was unparalleled. I'm still fascinated, all these months later, at the passion the fan base had that night, when easily 10,000 people wearing royal blue and white filled the Garden to cheer for their team. For a a mid-week, seemingly meaningless, non-conference game.

I knew that what I had seen, and what I had written touched a nerve, when after publishing that article the following day, I had an inbox full of e-mails from Kentucky fans, and close to 100 comments on my old website (unfortunately, when the site got redesigned to look like this, those comments disappeared forever) all thanking me for documenting that game for them. To this day, that was the single most well received piece I've ever written. And I will forever be in debt to all Kentucky fans, and those who took the time to reach out to me.

After that experience, both at Madison Square Garden, and the following response as well, I started to follow Kentucky quite closely. Not just because of the graciousness of their fans, but because as the season went on, Kentucky happened to become the single most polarizing college basketball team I can ever remember.

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"I'm not here to talk about the past."

The famous words of Mark McGwire. He spoke them as he stood in front of Congress a few years back, trying to beg, borrow and steal his way out of steroid accusations.

I'm not here to talk about the past.

Well Big Mac, after last weekend's NCAA Tournament, I know how you feel buddy.

I came into last weekend brimming with confidence, like Tiger Woods on the 18th hole at Augusta- or in the VIP room of Scores, whichever you prefer- about this year's NCAA Tournament. Never had I seen more games and known more about the teams participating. This was the year I would own my NCAA Tournament pools. It wasn't if I was going to win them, but what the final margin would be.

Well, needless to say, I'm licking my wounds right now. I ended up with a grand total of half of this weekend's Sweet 16 picked correctly, with my National Champion (Kansas), and another Final Four team (Villanova) joining me on the couch to watch this weekend's games. Not exactly the opening two rounds I was hoping for.

But I haven't lost hope. And like McGwire, I'm not here to talk about the past. Which is why it's time for me to roll out my new predictions on this weekend's games, predictions I'm itching to share with you.

So sit back, relax and enjoy my retroactive NCAA Tournament picks, as well as some fun-facts I'll be be throwing in along the way.

And oh, if you're a gambling man (or woman), now would be the time to bet heavily against everything I'm about to tell you...

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Honestly, isn't the NCAA Tournament great? Just when you think things can't get any better, there's Bruce Pearl pacing the sidelines in his orange blazer and proving once again, that this is in fact, the best sporting even out there.

For anyone who watched, this weekend was obviously no exception. And after sacrificing my social life, and taking in as much of the weekend's action that I possibly could, it's time to hand out some awards.

Time to praise the good,  mock the bad, and recap everything else that happened in the NCAA Tournament's first weekend.

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Every morning when I wake up, as soon as my alarm goes off, I grab the remote and flip on Mike and Mike in the Morning. It’s not that I have a weird fetish for the guys or anything (believe me) just that it’s a nice way to ease into my day, and assure I don’t fall back asleep.

Well today when I woke up, Doug Gottlieb was filling in for Golic, talking about this year’s tournament and telling us everything we needed to know about Round 1.

Gottlieb’s a real smart guy and I love hearing his opinions. This morning he made a lot of good points, maybe his most important one being that this year more than any other, matchups are more important than the names on the front of the jerseys. Sure X team might lose to Y team and Y team would most definitely lose to Z. But if X played Z, uh ohhhh it could get ugly, and X would run Z out of the gym. Or something like that.

With that in mind, I present you my Final Four picks. While collectively I don’t like these four teams a whole heck of a lot, and most certainly don’t think they’re the four best teams in the country, I do like their matchups. Remember, these four teams don’t have to beat the entire field of 65, just the teams in their path.

Also in this preview, along with my picks, I’ll give you a quick recap of the entire region, and a first round upset to watch out for too.

It’s hard to believe, but we’re just about a day away from finally tipping off. Hope you enjoy this time of year as much as I do.
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