It seems to me that there is too much going on in the world of sports right now to know where to focus the majority of my time and interest concerning sports. The Final Four is this weekend, the NBA regular season and playoff race is rapidly winding down, baseball has now officially started (for the third time), the NFL draft is fast approaching, and Chad Johnson is doing telephone interviews on SportsCenter. Where do you start?

 In case any of you were wondering, my bracket looks pretty good for the most part. At least I can say it looks better than any of my friend's brackets that I've seen. I've got three of the final four teams in, with Kansas being the team left out of the four. I had Georgetown coming out of the Midwest but Davidson was having none of that. I don't feel too bad though; it's the first time all four number 1 seeds reached the Final Four in the tournament's history so I wasn't expecting it to happen. Also, I must boast how I PERFECTLY, yes perfect meaning I picked every game correctly, predicted the south region. Yes that region had the least amount of upsets but the Pitt/Michigan St. game was a tough one to pick and so was the Memphis/Texas game. My finals prediction is still very possible as I predicted that UNC and UCLA would be meeting on Monday, but if I could take a mulligan on my bracket I would replace UCLA with Memphis after I saw what they did to Michigan St. and a very good Texas squad. They were looking like the old runnin Rebels in the early 90's. Great stuff. So for now I'm expecting to see a UNC vs. Memphis finals matchup and I'm sticking with the team I originally picked to win it all, North Carolina.

 Can the Western Conference race get any tighter than it already is? If it could, it couldn't get much tighter. As the regular season winds down, we see a two vital spots being chased down, those two spots being the first seed and the eighth seed. Five teams are still in position to grab the number 1 seed with only a 2 1/2 game difference between the 5 teams. The eighth and final spot in the playoffs is currently being tossed back and forth between three teams, the Dallas Mavericks, the Denver Nuggets, and the Golden St. Warriors. The Warriors are currently on the outside looking in with an important game against the current top team in the west, the New Orleans Hornets, this Sunday. It's good to know that all the teams in the Western Conference will be playing every last game to the end as hard as they can as they fight for home court advantage in the playoffs. It's something that hasn't happened in awhile and will be fun to watch. We're already getting a taste of that playoff atmosphere before the playoffs have begun.

 As for baseball, and all of its many opening days and nights, I must say I'm am beyond stoked to watch my Seattle Mariners run away with the AL west title this year as they use their newly improved pitching staff, backed up by a solid defense, to hold opponents to a limited amount of runs as they compile a solid record and a spot in the playoffs. The only thing that concerns me is if we can get the bats going. In the first three games the starting pitchers have all done exceptionally well, with a combined .90 ERA coming from them, but the M's haven't fully taken advantage of this great pitching yet as all the games have been low scoring close games. We need Richie Sexson to step up this year; batting .205 this year just won't do, he needs to be the threat he was in Milwaukee and Arizona for us to put teams away early this year. So far his batting has picked up right where he left it last year, and that's not a good thing. But it's only April so I'll hold off for awhile, but things do need to get going for him.

 Has anyone heard who the Colts my grab in the draft? If anyone knows I would like to hear. The main item on the agenda for the Colts will be to get all their starters healthy and ready for the start of next season. But another Anthony Gonzalez type pick up wouldn't hurt either.

 Did anyone hear or see the Chad Johnson telephone interview yesterday? If you did, what did he say? I mean, I watched it - but I don't get it. Chad needs to calm himself down a little and think about what he might say before he does his next interview. But I must say I did find a couple quotes to be funny. After being asked by Brian Kenny what his intentions were when mandatory events started such as minicamp Johnson replied, "My plans are to show up and embarrass everybody that tries to cover me." Typical Chad Johnson statement, but it gets better. After receiving Johnson's reply Kenny said, "Ok, well then we look forward to you in the first camp." to which Johnson replied, "That's it?!!" like he realized he hadn't said anything of any importance and wanted to say something worthwhile. At this point Kenny didn't have anything left to ask and asked Johnson what he wanted to talk about. Johnson replied, "I don't know, anything else you want to talk about?" You might just want to watch it for yourself, I found it quite humorous. 

If all that isn't enough to keep a sports fanatic like myself busy then I don't know what is. Until next time, GO HEELS!!!

RIP Seattle Sonics

Chad Johnson Interview link below.

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Take out the BYU/CSU game from todays MWC tournament and you have yourself 3 of the most intense college basketball games thus far in championship week - and I'm talking all conferences.

San Diego St. just about blew a nice lead that they had built up for themselves in the first half by scoring just two field goals in the last 16:07 of the second half. But in the end the Las Vegas native Lorenzo Wade came up with the big free throws needed to seal the victory for the Aztecs.

The Aztecs now get a shot at the 1st place BYU Cougars tomorrow in semi final action. The Aztecs are the last team to beat the Cougars, as SDSU dismissed them on their home floor a couple weeks ago. Earlier in the year the Aztecs had a close game with the Cougars in the dreaded Marriot Center losing by just three points. It goes to show that the Aztecs are more than capable of knocking the top ranked Cougars out of the tournament tommorow evening. If they want to pull it off though, they will have to make more than two feild goals in the last 16 minutes. But my guess is that they will. As I said two days ago to Cougar fans on this very Blog, "Beware of the Aztecs!"

When a team goes 17-23 from the three point line in a game they usually win. But even with those odds Vegas still took the TCU Horned Frogs for all they had in their short stay. TCU didn't play like they were the number 7 seed playing the number 2 seeded team on their home court where they boasted a 21 game conference win streak. Rather, they assumed they had just as good of a chance to make it to the NCAA tournament than any other team playing that day. To them, it was just the first obstacle on their road to the dance, and that attitude almost gave them enough fuel to knock off my Runnin Rebels in the quarterfinals of the MWC tournament. If it wasn't for Wink Adams the rebels would be sitting on a real tight bubble right now, but now they are in a good position for an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament.

Tomorrow brings another challenge for the Rebels, and they will be expecting it this time, as they square off against the Runnin Utes and 7"1 Luke Nevill from the University of Utah. The Utes were able to pull off an overtime thriller against the New Mexico Lobos earlier today and will be looking to take advantage of another undersized team tomorrow. The Rebels and Utes split this year series with each team winning on their home floors, and that might just be the difference in tomorrow's game. The Rebels main focus will be to try to slow down Nevill as he brings in his 5 inch advantage over the tallest Rebel. It will take hard nosed defense and good excecution on offense, but the Rebels are more than capable of beating the Runnin Utes tomorrow. And of course, I predict they will.

So we'll see how it turns out, but I'm going to say to expect a UNLV/San Diego St. championship game this Saturday.

So the first day of the men's MWC tourney tipped off today and already we an upset on our hands. In most cases when the 8 and 9 seeded teams play to see who gets a shot at the first place team the next day, you wouldn't consider the game capable of producing an upset because both teams are around the same level and the game seems sort of pointless anyway. But in the case of the Colorado State Rams any win they get from here on out will be considered an upset. CSU managed to complete the entire MWC regular season without posting on victory, an ugly 0-16 record in MWC play. This is a team that has won just one Division I basketball game since December and was also defeated by Division II Panhandle St. (OK) earlier this year on their homecourt. Wyoming, though not by any means a top notch program this year, was all around more talented and just an outright better team than CSU. They at least managed to scrounge up 5 wins in league play this year, and played competitively in quite a few other games. This game, no matter how you look at it, was an upset in all cases.

Call me crazy, but BYU better not start to overlook these CSU Rams just because they've been the laughing stock of the MWC this year. I say this because another #1 seeded team found out that lesson the hard way today. I usually don't like to make comparisons between men and women's sports programs, but in this case I can't help it. The CSU women's basketball program, also a #9 seed in the tournament, managed to beat UNLV yesterday and then miraculously defeated the top seeded Lady Utes from the University of Utah. Not only were the Lady Utes the top seed in the tournament but they were also ranked 13th in the country. Another huge upset for a Colorado State sports program.

Again, I don't like to compare men's and women's sports programs, but right now the CSU Rams men's and women's basketball programs have a combined record of 3-0. The faithful CSU fans that made the trip down to Vegas this week, thinking their stay was going to be short, are probably now wondering just how much damage their teams can do in their respective tournaments. They don't call it March Madness for nothing!

Aloha Friends and Family,

I've decided to start a blog so all of you will have the privlage of hearing my superior sports opinion whenever your hearts desire.  We'll see how it goes and how often I will update it, but I'd imagine it will be quite frequently.

With it now being March I'm sure we are all anticipating the upcoming NCAA tournament, anxiously awaiting the relase of this years brackets.  But before we get to the main event, us who are faithful supporters of teams that reside in the Mountain West Conference have another tournament that will take the majority of our attention this week.  I'm of course speaking about the MWC tournament which will punch a ticket, for one of the nine schools who will be participating in it over the next four days, to go dancing next week in the NCAA tourney.

As you all know I'm an avid supporter of the UNLV Runnin Rebels and have followed their season closely this year.  What I've been hearing a lot of this week is how run down and tired this team is at the present.  Critics seem to think, because of some of the off court distractions that have taken place this year, that the team is now currently out of gas and won't be able to make a three game run through the MWC tournament.  It is true the roster has thinned out as the season has progressed but I'm not so worried about who isn't on the team as much as I am with who is on the team.  The Rebs 10 man roster has enough talent on it to compete, and beat, any team in the MWC as they have proven by beating every team in the league at least once this season.  Critics are mostly questioning their endurance and stamina, most likley drawing these thoughts from the lack of depth on the roster.  As a response to this, coach Lon Kruger (MWC Coach of the Year) has pointed out that his team is no more tired or fatigued than any other program at this point in the season, but people don't seem to be buying it.

Just a reminder for everyone, UNLV hasn't lost on their homecourt to a conference oponent in two years.  Sure they may be tired, but they get to sleep in their own beds, play on a court that is familiar to them, and play in front of their own fans.

I'm saying it right here and right now-UNLV back to back MWC tournament Champs!

And that doesn't necessarily mean we'll have to beat BYU to acheive it. 

Beware of the Aztecs cougar Fans!