Those are my picks for Saturday. I’d like to go with George Mason, but… I think Florida combines an organized, multiple-option offense that’s difficult to defend, with disciplined, poised, play, and freakish athletes. I don’t think they’ve played a team yet with that kind of combination. Wichita State lacked the freakish athletes. UConn and Michigan State lacked the organized, disciplined play. UNC lacked experience, poise, and focus.

It wouldn’t shock me if Mason won, though… they are that good. I could envision them really slowing the game down, feeding the post, getting Noah and Horford in foul trouble and taking their chances with some big-balls plays down the stretch. That’s going to be hard to execute, though.

It’s not that I don’t think Mason is good, I just think Florida’s better. I feel bad about it… I do want them to win. I’ll be rooting for them. I just don’t think it’ll happen.

And by the way, it would be a real nice change of pace for a team to win a tournament, and then take the microphone and say, “Hey, no one thought we could do it, no one believed in us,” and have it not be complete horseshit. I don’t think that’s happened since the 2004 NBA Finals.

On the other side, I like LSU. And again, it’s not because I think there’s anything particularly wrong with UCLA, but LSU has just mowed through everyone, teams who play a variety of styles. They’re peaking at the right time, they’re getting good decision-making from their guards, and their post players are just buck nasty. I think they’re beating UCLA by 10 or more. I like LSU on Monday night, too.

You?

My advice to owners of any convenience stores that happen to be near Camden Yards in Baltimore… stock up on the profylactics. Anna Benson owes some nay-nay to a lot of Orioles employees, and some of them are probably going to want to strap up twice.

Kris Benson has evidently cheated on her. That’s what she’s saying, anyway… and this seems like a lot less fun now. In case you’ve forgotten, or haven’t been sufficiently reminded in the past few hours… Anna once vowed to fuck all of Kris’s teammates if he ever cheated on her.

“I told him, ‘Cheat on me all you want.’ If you get caught, I’m going to [have sex with] everybody on your entire team,” she told Howard Stern on his radio show in 2004. “Everyone would get a turn.”

This was better when Kris was a normal, average, dude, and Anna was the crazy, attention-starved, loathsome whorebag. But if he’s the one cheating on her… well, that makes him the douchebag. I don’t care how crazy she is, you married her, dude. That locks you in. They are now co-douchebags… and as irritating as I find this woman, he’s the bigger douche. And yhere are no winners when douchebags marry each other.

One other little note from the article…

Anna Benson’s lawyer filed the divorce papers yesterday in Atlanta, where the couple has a home.

The papers say the seven-year marriage is “irretrievably broken,” and does not mention what a source called the X-rated real reason for the breakup.

“We chose not to go that route at this point,” said Jeffrey Bogart, her lawyer.

What? Why wouldn’t they go that route? Restraint and discretion do not seem like the Anna Benson route to go… you know this is coming out sooner or later. If it was something that Anna Benson was reluctant to talk about in public, Kris Benson was doing something real freaky. There may be a young woman near Baltimore’s spring training camp who has some Louisville Slugger splinters in a sensitive area.

I’m all for in-depth reporting, but I don’t think it’s necessary for FoxSports.com to let us know every time a Rangers pitcher has his salad tossed.

Picked this up at FoxSports.com, via Fark.com…

Jim Boeheim and a few other coaches have gone on record as saying that they’d like to see the NCAA tournament expand the field. The argument is that there are more teams now, and in fact, more good teams, which is something I agree with. I still don’t know that it makes it necessary to have more than 64 teams in a tournament to crown a national championship, but it’s true… the mid-majors have really closed the gap on the big guys. Now, I’m not sure if these proposals are designed to get more Hofstras into the tournament, or more Michigans… but it sounds nice in theory.

I don’t think it’s something that’s really likely to happen, but the movement appears to be gathering steam. If it does happen, I a few requests:

1) If there are more play-in games, they should make every effort to make them seem like a real tournament game. I forget who Monmouth played in the play-in game this year, but that team, who won a conference tournament, did not get the same attention that the other teams in the tournament got… they got a Tuesday night game in Dayton. Congratulations. I don’t think it would be fair to make these conference tournament winners play in tournament games that aren’t really tournament games. In fact…

2) The play-in games shouldn’t always be just winners of the small conference tournaments. I’d rather see teams like Cincinnati or Florida State, big schools who didn’t quite have the chops to get in, duking it out for a spot. I think winning a conference tournament or regular season title, no matter how sucky the conference, is a bigger deal than going .500 in the ACC. I’d rather see the conference winners rewarded.

And 3) Please don’t fuck with my bracket pool. If you’re still announcing the teams on Sunday evening, then you can’t start having 6 or 8 games on Tuesday. That doesn’t give me enough time to organize a completely legal, not-for-profit tournament pool.

Sorta. New Vikings head coach Brad Childress had some things to say recently about Daunte Culpepper’s choice of off-season rehab locations. Childress wanted him to come to Minnesota and use the team facilities. He called Daunte to tell him that.

Before trading Culpepper to the Dolphins, Childress sent Vikings trainer Eric Sugarman to Orlando in February so he could monitor the quarterback’s progress while also evaluating the facility where he had been rehabilitating his surgically repaired right knee.

Sugarman’s findings didn’t go over well with Childress.

“He (was) rehabbing in a HealthSouth place in Orlando,” Childress said. “I close my eyes. I’m seeing a Chinese restaurant, a HealthSouth place, a laundromat and a strip mall. And I’m thinking, ‘What did they have in there?’ They had a StepMaster and some other things.”

During Sugarman’s visit, Culpepper’s personal trainer offered to have the quarterback show Sugarman his progress, Childress said. Both trainers and Culpepper headed to a nearby paved lot.

“They go into a Wal-Mart parking lot to do his movement,” Childress said. “So you can understand where I’m coming from. There’s the HealthSouth, the Chinese restaurant, the laundromat, here’s the alley, out the backdoor and into the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“I’m like, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ Are you with me? I’m going, ‘Come on now. Is he better served here in the fieldhouse or the Wal-Mart parking lot?’”

Just for the record, I have no problem at all with Daunte Culpepper wanting to rehab in a strip mall if he wants to. The off-season belongs to the player. Maybe he’d be doing himself and the team some favors if he worked out on-site, but he shouldn’t have to. In the off-season, I don’t think he owes the team anything.

I do think Childress’s quotes are pretty funny, though.

Kris Benson, seemingly normal guy, is probably standing in the middle of a muddy creek right now, thunder and lightning illuminating the sky behind him, dripping wet, arms stretched to the sky, rain pounding his face, tasting the sweet taste of freedom. Anna Benson, crazy whore, has filed for divorce. Wherever he is, I’d like to buy Kris Benson a drink.

No longer does he have to sit there and look embarrassed when his wife shows up to a Mets Christmas function dressed like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus was a Thailand hooker. Look at Kris in that picture there. He’s thinking, “You fucking cunt, look at you. Look at your giant fake tits. There are kids here. This is a Christmas charity function, not a Tijuana bar crawl. Have you no shame? No class? And why are your teeth so fucking big? God, I hate you.”

I just hope for the sake of everything holy that there’s a pre-nup involved. I doubt there was. Kris, almost literally, pulled Anna down off the stripper pole and married her. If there was no pre-nup Anna Benson will now start the decline from online poker endorsements to straight up porn. If every other fastball Kris Benson throws, however, goes towards maintenance and upkeep on her tits, then she won’t have to.

Anyway, um… maybe I shouldn’t be saying any of this. There are real people involved, there’s a child involved, and these are real people going through real things, but… I dunno, I’m just having a hard time picturing Kris Benson being unhappy right now.

So, yeah. Best of luck to everyone involved.

And for more on the history of Anna Benson, I suggest looking at Deadspin’s Anna Benson section here.

Aaron Hill and Russ Adams, infielders for the Toronto Blue Jays, noticed that pitchers Roy Halladay was spending a lot of time with A.J. Burnett, his new training partner. So Hill and Adams had them a couple of t-shirts printed up with Burnett’s and Halladay’s pictures on them, and under the pictures were the words “Brokeback Mound.”

That’s not bad. I think the Brokeback Mountain jokes have pretty much run their course, but… you that’s not bad for a couple of Toronto relief pitchers. But it pales in comparison to the revenge had by Halladay and Burnett.

Step 1: Halladay and Burnett hired a plane to fly over the field before a game with a sign that read, “Aaron, will you marry me? I love you. Russ.”

Step 2: They arranged for Hill and Adams to be married. Really. They decorated the clubhouse with wedding decorations, hired a caterer, a DJ, a videographer, had wedding gifts and everything. Hill’s car had blue and white balloons all over it, with signs, including one that said, “Watch us turn two later tonight.”

Step 3: During a game against the Phillies yesterday, a plane flew overhead that said, “Congratulations, Aaron and Russ.”

I might have a new favorite baseball team.

A bunch of old guys that I’d like to hang out with pulled off a pretty sweet little trick… in 1963, some guys were sitting around in a bar came up with the idea of founding a fake institution of higher learning. They called it “Maguire University” and they used it to hoodwink the NCAA into giving them free Final Four tickets.

I don’t know exactly they went about it, but they must have just called the NCAA and said, “Hey, we have a school,” and the NCAA said, “OK, your tickets are on the way,” because really, all they had was their idea.  There was no team, no school, no nothing.  And it worked.  The NCAA send them Final Four tickets for two years. Air Force even called them up once and asked to schedule a game against them.

This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.  It ended when some Chicago columnist eventually broke their story in the Chicago Tribune, and that was the end of it. But they’ve still found a way to attend each of the last 44 Final Fours, which is oustanding. These men are heroes.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if they did their investigation and came back and said, “Well, we just can’t find any evidence that Barry Bonds used steroids. Not a shred. The guy’s clean.”

Really, what is this process going to consist of? Unless the entire investigation consists of just going to Barry’s house and saying, “Hey, did you do steroids?” and then taking his word for whatever answer he gives… this seems like a giant waste of time. Hey, I’ve got a hot tip for your investigation: read that Shadows book. I think those guys were pretty thorough. They even hired a former Senator to conduct the investigation… which has got to be the easiest job ever. They could’ve hired any homeless guy. Isiah Thomas couldn’t fuck this up.

Bud Selig also announced today that Major League Baseball is launching an investigation of whether or not Kerry Wood is injury prone, and whether or not Randy Johnson is unattractive.

I just don’t know why this has to continue. He used steroids. Punish him or don’t, and then let’s find something else to talk about for a while.

These are pulled from a Washington Post article today that makes George Mason seem like about the most likable team in college basketball history. It’s a nice article by Mike Wise, and gives you a look at the honest, goofy, nature of this team and their head coach.

• Coach Jim Larranaga does not use profanity.

• Larranaga’s salary is 1/9th of Billy Donovan’s.

• Larranaga’s first assistant coaches lived in his basement.

• A quote from freshman Sammy Hernandez, who loves Scarface: “First, you get the money. Then, you get the Final Four. Then, you get the woman.”

• Jai Lewis is nicknamed “Giggles.”

And here’s another good one from Adrian Wojnarowski at ESPN.com. It’s a little bit more about how Mason got to where they are, the kind of people they were looking for, and how they’ve gone about things. Both quality reads.

I’m a couple days late on this, but I did want to mention Roger Clemens’ unusual pregame habit of smearing Icy Hot on his junk. If you missed it, The Rocket amazed his Team USA teammates by slathering Icy Hot on his upper thighs and all over his manbag before starting. He says he doesn’t like to get comfortable on the mound.

And that’s a pretty good way to accomplish discomfort. Now, for those of you who have never had Icy Hot or a similar substance on your genitals, and you heard about what Clemens did and you thought, “That’s gotta be uncomfortable,” you have no idea. You really have no idea.

Once, through a set of odd circumstances that I’ll spare you, I inadvertently rubbed some Bayer pain relieving cream south of the border and into surrounding areas. I think the Bayer cream and Icy Hot have the same active ingredient, but I’m pretty sure that the Bayer is significantly stronger. I might be wrong about that. I know that Bayer is the strongest one I’ve ever tried.

Anyway, at first, it burned as you’d expect it to. Then, the burn began to intensify and I started to realize just how sensitive the skin is on certain parts of the body. A minute later, I was thinking, “Jesus, this is intense.” A minute later, it was, “Alright, this is not motherfucking normal.” Another minute, and it feels like someone is extinguishing a cigar on my taint and I’m wondering if I’ll ever get an erection again. And a minute later, I’ve got the affected area uncovered and exposed to air, and I’m fanning it and praying out loud. A minute after that, I’m thinking that the cream may have done some permanent damage and a visit to the emergency room is not out of the question.

So yeah… Roger Clemens is a crazy Texan fuck. And while doing some research for this post, I found that there are apparently people out there, more than just a couple of them, who at various times have thought it would be a good idea to jerk off with Icy Hot. There are tales here, and here. I had no idea this was so prevalant.

NFL.com’s Vic Carucci comes to the defense of the NFL today in light of their decision to limit the enjoyment we can all have by watching football. Here’s a little of what he says… and my reply isn’t to Carucci so much as it is to the NFL.

Players can still spike the ball in the end zone, spin it on the ground, and dunk it over the goal post if they like (and are able to). They also can dance and even leap into the stands.

Oh, good… they can do things that we’ve all seen 7,000 times. I really can’t get enough of that spike. That one sends shivers down my spine. Thank God they have left that bastion of the game alone. That’s every bit as exciting as Brett Favre licking his fingers.

As they watched videotape of games played during the 2005 season, members of the committee concluded that celebrations simply were getting out of hand. The biggest problem was that they were taking too long and slowing down the game unnecessarily.

I’m not buying that. If the NFL wants to stop slowing the game down, they can stop with the 4-minute breaks to watch instant replays. They could pay attention to that little clock that’s supposed to tell them when they’ve seen enough. I can’t recall a Chad Johnson celebration lasting longer than 20 or 30 seconds. We’ve got sequences of field goal–commercial–kickoff–commercial, and Steve Smith doing a five-second snow angel is what’s slowing the game down? No. That explanation just doesn’t wash.

I believe that this is being done for the same reasons that the NBA implemented their dress code… the players have to be acceptable to corporate sponsors. We can’t have these silly negroes doing all their crazy dances and acting all showboaty. That’s not what life is like in the corporate world, and those are the people we have to make happy. Our socks will all be the same height and color, our towels will be measured and clean, and we will behave in a civilized manner.

You remember how much everyone enjoyed Chad Johnson’s and to a less extent, Steve Smith’s, touchdown celebrations last year? The NFL didn’t like it. They saw you smiling, they saw you laughing, they heard you talking about it with friends and co-workers… and they will have no more of it.  Soon, they will send security guards into the stands to slap the beer out of your hand and punch you in the face if you smile.

Everyone must be the same. Everyone must be palatable to corporate sponsors. Everyone must behave like a good little boy. The NFL is going to make their celebration rules a new “point of emphasis,” meaning that if anyone tries to do something people might enjoy, they’re getting a 15-yard penalty on the ensuing kickoff.

I have been mildly critical of the excessive celebration before, but… just because I feel it’s a little bit selfish, doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it. Chad Johnson improved my Sundays last year. Fact. And I’m sure he did the same for a lot of people… I just cannot fathom why the NFL would want to stop him.

Chad Johnson, to his credit, is not discouraged.

“Of course you can not stop someone as creative as me. How can this bother someone as creative as me? Tell the competition committee that Chad said you can’t cover 85 and there’s no way you can stop him from entertaining.”

I’d like to believe you, Chad. But the NFL has a long history of extinguishing fun wherever it exists. They’ll find a way to get you.

There’s been some discussion about the appropriateness of the IRL people going ahead with the race on Sunday after Paul Dana died on the track earlier in the day. I don’t have a clue what the right answer is… but the safer decision would probably have been to push it back a day or two, or cancel it all together.

I remember a few years ago, a WWF wrestler died during a pay-per-view event, and the WWF caught hell for continuing with the show.  I haven’t seen a whole lot of outrage about IRL’s decision to go ahead, and I’m alright with that.

I’d have cancelled it if I was in charge. And that’s not a criticism of the people who actually had to make the decision… I don’t know that there is a right and wrong here. I know a lot of fans paid for tickets and traveled a long way to get to the race, and that’s just a tough situation. If it was me, I’d have had a hard time sitting there and cheering for anyone just hours after a guy had died on that very spot just hours ago. But I certainly understand if not everyone sees it that same way. I just hope that they made the decision with their hearts, and not by a TV schedule or any other financial reasons.

To change the subject a little bit, it’s really sort of amazing that this kind of thing hasn’t happened more often in IRL. The way his car was shredded, it looked like it was made of styrofoam. Is this safe? Is professional car racing safe? Mark McGwire hits a few extra home runs, Jose Canseco writes a book, and we get a congressional hearing on baseball. How many people have died in auto racing over the years… and not a word? If I had a kid, I’d rather see him shove a needle full of dianabol into his ass than get behind the wheel of a race car.

Deadspin asked yesterday if the current NCAA tournament was the result of great basketball, or just great finishes and not-so-great basketball. Could a team like George Mason get to the Final Four if teams today were as good as they were back in the day? And what was the deal with that ugly-ass Memphis/UCLA game?

It’s kind of a long answer… I believe the game this year is in just as good as shape as it was 5 years ago. I mean, I’m not thrilled with the current state of basketball in general, but this year isn’t any better or worse this year than in the past few. There’s nothing wrong with the top seeds. I think what you’re seeing is the result of a few things.

First, mid-majors are getting better and better athletes all the time, because there are more and more of them to go around now. The different between a guy who ends up at Mason and a guy who ends up at UConn might be just 2 inches in height. A few more inches on the vertical. A little more accurate jumpshot in high school. It’s not much. I’m so impressed with Mason’s post players. They’re 6′6″ or 6′7″, but they’ve got great moves in the post, nice touch, comfortable with their backs to the basket, they play patiently, the make good decisions with the ball… there aren’t a lot of guys in college basketball who can play like that, and Mason has a couple of them.

And of course, it’s easier for a team like George Mason to keep their guys together for four years than it is for Duke or UConn, who spit out NBA prospects like a PEZ dispenser. That means a lot… especially in an era where guys aren’t at all fundamentally sound to begin with. Give a good coach a bunch of guys who will work to improve, and in four years, he’ll have them playing intelligently enough to beat teams with superior talent.

As for that Memphis/UCLA game… aberration. If Memphis shot the ball at the same percentage they had all year long, we wouldn’t have heard a word about this. I think it was just an example of a young Tiger team getting nervous, tensing up, being unable to establish a rhythm, and shooting like Jerome James after a couple bottles of Mad Dog 20/20. And they dragged UCLA down with them, they played to Memphis’s level, and we had an ugly game.

Other than that, I think the basketball’s been outstanding. The teams that are playing the best are where they should be.