Hoops and Twins

Not quite a repeat of last night. And if Drew Neitzel wasn't junk, maybe that would have been a game worth watching. The games tonight averaged 17.5 point winning margins, compared to last night's 13.5 with an OT game... plus the UCLA game was a close game, it's just not many people stayed up to finish it.

Looking ahead to tomorrow: I'm going to take UNC and UCLA. North Carolina has been a wrecking crew. (They played an exhibition today against the Heat and beat them by 30. Wait, that was the UNC girls team? Just kidding.) I like Louisville, but I think I remember their collapse against Illinois in the Elite 8 a few years ago... and I can't pick against the Heels in Charlotte. (I could be wrong about the Illinois/Louisville game, I'm too tired to research it.)
As far as the West Regional Final goes, I can't pick Xavier. If Collison/Westbrook can lock down 5footnothing Drew Lavender, it's over. And I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't be able to. So there's that...

The Baseball (in America) opener is Sunday night and the Twins open Monday. The Twins made a move today that Twins fans have been waiting on, optioning Francisco Liriano to the minors. I think a lot of us were holding out hope that Liriano would be the Liriano of '06 already, but I think we all knew that, realistically, it's going to take a while. Let's keep our fingers crossed that all goes well in both rehab starts and he can make it back to the big club in mid-April.

The rotation is set and it appears that LeAnne (my lovely, blog-supporting wife) and I will get the pleasure to see Boof pitch on Tuesday night. I think this will be the 3rd time in a row she's see him pitch and I think I've seen him pitch live no less than 6 or 7 times. In fact, the first Boof-pitched game we saw, we bought the tickets hoping to see Liriano. Lirano got scratched the night before the game due to elbow pains. Looks like we haven't quite come full-circle.

More tomorrow...