Last night the NCAA selection committee chose the 68 teams who will play in the annual college basketball tournament that begins this week, and the University of Florida is seeded number one in the nation.As I've written before in this space, I'm a huge basketball fan — but not so much of the college game in the past decade. Its best players rarely play longer than one season before taking their talents to the NBA (where they may or may not succeed), making the game a little less special.
That's what makes rooting for this Florida Gator team fun. Like UF's 2007 NCAA Championship team (led by Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer) in which all of the seniors returned for one more season, it's sort of cool to see the same men play together for several years. (And by the way, Noah has become a star in recent years with the Chicago Bulls.)
To get into the mood of watching the tourney, I tuned into to the two last big nationally televised games yesterday afternoon, Michigan State-Michigan and Florida-Kentucky, and neither was that compelling until the end of the Gator-Wildcat affair, in which UK Coach John Calipari brought his team back before losing by a point, 61-60.
But at the same time, the Miami Heat were hosting the Houston Rockets on ABC in a game that wasn't nearly as momentous, as the NBA's regular season still has almost a month to go before playoffs begin.
But no matter — the play was of such higher quality! And not just the majestic LeBron James, who remains at the peak of his powers as an athlete. Dwight Howard and James Harden brought the star power for the Rockets, and it was just a lot of fun to watch. And watching later this spring to see if James and the Heat can three-peat will be compelling drama.
Of course, LeBron James never even played in college.
Anyway, here's to March Madness.....and Happy St. Paddy's Day as well.
On the Sunday shows yesterday, we watched all of the various pundits weigh in on what the results of last week's CD13 (or FL-13 in national parlance) means for the rest of the nation.
And what a difference a street light has meant for the folks who work or attend Eckerd College...