It's the most wonderful tiiiiime of the yeeeear!

My post rate, never among the most prodigious on the intertubes, will drop off a bit for the next month or so as a significant portion of my post-writing time will be consumed by one of my favorite sports—college basketball. The ACC tournament starts tomorrow, and the Big Dance soon after, which means that I will be watching the television and trying to ignore Dick Vitale, Billy Packer, and Bill Raftery, or at least hate them to death.

Since my beloved, hapless 'Hoos have essentially zero chance of playing their way into the tournament at this point, I'll have to settle for keeping an eye on these three teams:

UNC—Having defeated the hated Dookies at Cameron once again, I'm hoping that my 'Heels can turn their momentum and improving health into a national championship. This guy to the left will have a lot to do with that, I'm sure.

Mississippi State—It's that family loyalty thing. I hope the Bulldogs don't end up in a region with UNC; that way I can still root for them to make the Final Four. The SEC West champions haven't picked up much buzz in what seems to be widely perceived as a down year for the conference, but they might be able to put together a good tournament run.

UAB—It's not looking so good after that terrible loss in the rematch with Memphis. Still, if the Blazers play their way into the C-USA Championship Game and don't get blown out by Memphis then they have a pretty good chance of making it in. As long as Vaden is hot, they have a chance to make some noise, though I doubt they'll go farther than the Sweet Sixteen.

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Mr. Excitement

Clint Bowyer finished the season-opening race at Daytona upside-down and on fire, and didn't finish any higher than third for the rest of Nascar's "regular season". But Nascar's points system has always been forgiving to a fella who just can't win a race, and the driver of the 07 did well enough in all those races to put himself in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, something significantly more popular drivers such as Mark Martin (who was semi-retired and voluntarily sat out several races), Dale Earnhardt junior (who sat out several races involuntarily because the engines his evil stepmother Teresa gave him blew), and Kasey Kahne (whose cars for most of the season just plain blew) couldn't manage. Of course, being the only driver in the 12-man Chase without a single win meant he went in dead last, and I'm sure there was a contingent of fans who hoped he would stay there as a stark argument that Nascar's championship system is still fluky. Not me, though -- from the moment I saw him step out of his flaming car and calmly stare at it, I figured he was a good man to root for. He rewarded that optimism at an opportune time.

Today's win at New Hampshire was not only Clint Bowyer's first win of this season, it was his first win on the Nascar Nextel Cup circuit period, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Beyond merely moving him up from 12th to 4th (a byproduct of the new Chase scoring formula which grants 10 points for every regular season win), it proved that he deserved to be in the Chase at all. That was especially needed coming off his disappointing performance at Richmond, where he challenged early only to spin out while trying to pass Carl Edwards for the lead. Though he managed to fight back to 12th in that race, and the quality of his run suggested his team was getting stronger, the spinout looked like a rookie mistake. A number of people were saying he didn't belong in Nascar's idiosyncratic little "playoff", but a win answers a lot of ills.

After a weekend full of surprises -- Mississippi State's big win over Auburn, somebody managing not to lose the ND-UM game, and 'Bama's stirring comeback over Arkansas -- it was nice to see the only contender who never won before take a trophy home in the first race of the Chase. Bowyer's only 15 points behind the leaders (Johnson and Gordon, with Stewart in third at -10), and though it doesn't seem possible that he could win it all, here's hoping Mr. Excitement has another surprise or two hiding somewhere in the 07 Chevy.

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Leverage

Man, there is a lot of chatter about Mike Vick these days. I used to think he wasn't quite as big a punk as his brother, but apparently family ties run deep. The talking heads all seem to expect a 1-year sentence at minimum, but I'm not so sure. Yeah, the Feds could give Vick all that jail time and make an example of him, but to me that seems like squandering their advantage. The sports guys have it right when they say that Vick's career can't really take even a year off -- he's an athletic freak, not a football mind, and without the constant exposure to field conditions his already-deficient technique could take an irreparable hit. If he spends a year in jail, that means he'll miss at least two seasons, and if that happens he may have no choice other than to come back as a running back. So basically the Feds have him over a barrel. If they hit him with even a fairly light sentence, his career might well be over.

But all that gets the Feds is Bad Newz Kennels. Wouldn't it make more sense to slap his wrist in exchange for having him roll over on all those guys his dogs fought against? There was a lot of talk early on in the investigation about how Mike Vick was a major player in the dogfighting world. The Feds can use that knowledge -- after all, the world of dogfighting has been notoriously difficult to breach -- and I think they might dangle a big fat carrot in front of Vick to get it. I think that maybe his plea deal will involve a 6-month sentence at Club Fed, with another 3-month commitment in front of a grand jury. Now if only somebody would throw Pacman Jones in jail...

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Who's now? Who cares?

Once upon a time, summer was the most glorious season of American sports. The height of the baseball season used to be the pinnacle of all-consuming athletic interest. Today, however, tainted and lethargic, baseball no longer holds our interest... or at least not enough to satiate the 24-hour demand of America's favorite sports network. Thus, ESPN is broadcasting their searing debate about "Who's Now?" It's an inane question, being seriously discussed on-air by men who are old enough that they should be ashamed of themselves for discussing it. I'm not saying that Fox Sports Net is any angel when it comes to this (the "Best Damn 50..." is also rancid programming), but ESPN is once again indulging its desire to be sports news, not just report on it. It's a desire I understand, and not an intolerable fault in the relaxed sphere of sports journalism -- the ESPY's, for example, follow a rich tradition of news organizations presenting sports awards (AP All-Americans, the USA TODAY/Coaches' Poll). But something less utterly stupid could be used to take up their empty programming time. I genuinely feel affronted that this pathetic "tournament" has been thrust at me as something I should appreciate.

I appreciate thought, and there are issues in sports that can be approached thoughtfully, and discussed without screaming and carrying on, or babbling about how popular some rich athlete is. But apparently ESPN believes its general audience is too damn stupid to appreciate thought -- which is probably why NFL Matchup is scheduled at 8 AM on Sundays rather than folded into the main NFL show. ESPN has long favored hootin' and hollerin' over serious discussion, quality shows like Matchup and Outside the Lines notwithstanding. And sometimes the formula works, especially on shows like Pardon the Interruption, where nobody takes themselves too seriously. But to see the inane treated as a matter of serious import, as it is in the "Who's Now?" segments, just pushes it to the edge for me. I may re-evaluate when football season rolls around, but for now, at least, ESPN is out of my channel rotation and my web digests. Apparently ESPN doesn't want to be watched by people who respect intelligent dialogue, and it won't be any great loss to me to give them what they want.
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