The weight of appearances

 By now I have seen the photos, which hardly makes me special. I mean, by now, every living soul in America has seen the photos -- including the President of the United States, probably, who's no doubt whipping up some harebrained executive order about it at this very second. 

The photos are of New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and New York Times NFL reporter Dianna Russini, allegedly gettin' cozy at a resort in Sedona, Ariz. In one of them they appear to be holding hands. In another they're hugging. In yet another, they're lounging next to one another poolside.

The photos hit the Great Intertoob Oz five days ago. A millisecond later everyone was Bob Beamon-ing to conclusions.

Which is to say they were assuming, from the photos, that Vrabel and Russini -- both of whom are married with children to other people -- were having a smoking-hot affair. OMG, look, Martha. They're sitting side-by-side at the pool! They must be boinking the living daylights out of each other!

Well ...

Well, here's what I'll say about that: Sometimes appearances deceive.

Both Russini and Vrabel said the idea they're engaging in Forbidden Love is ridiculous, and for once the Blob (which normally consumes salacious gossip with a big ol' spoon) is inclined to believe them. That's because, in all three photos, you can't see what's just outside the frame. You can't tell if or how the photos might have been cropped for maximum innuendo-y effect. 

"Oh, come on, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Who would do THAT?"

Oh, I don't know. Paparazzi. Your Aunt Myrtle. The guy down the street who insists on cutting his grass at 7 o'clock in the morning; the other guy down the street who comes out of his house to threaten him with an epic beatdown.

In other words: Damn near everybody.

So, sure, the photos suggest a certain intimacy, and it's true Vrabel and Russini are close, a relationship that goes back to when Russini was an ESPN beat writer for the Tennessee Titans when Vrabel was the Titans' head coach. Both Vrabel and Russini, however, say they were at the resort with a whole group of people who hung out together. So there could have six or seven other people sitting with them poolside. Who knows?

Beats me. 

What I do know is this: The weight of appearances is heavy, especially here in the Age of Gotcha. Which is why, for a journalist, there's always been a razor-thin line between cultivating sources and getting too chummy with them.

That's never been more true than today, when the relationship between sporting events and the media entities that cover them is pretty close to incestuous. The SEC Network, for instance, is owned by ESPN. Fox owns 61 percent of the Big Ten Network. And so on, and so forth.

Just in case you were wondering why, say, Alabama-Ole Miss got top billing on SportsCenter.

And so here are Russini and Vrabel caught, deceptively or not, on camera. And here is the New York Times benching Russini in one of its typically random spasms of journalistic integrity.  And here endeth the lesson:

Never get too close to your sources. Never cross that thin, thin line.

A "birdie" for the ages

 They're moving into the weekend down at Augusta National, and so far the defending Masters champ has everyone covered. Rory McIlroy is at 12-under after stacking a 65 atop an opening-round 67, and he's six shots clear of the field. That's the largest 36-hole in Masters history.

Which means he's either headed for an epic rout of the field, or an epic collapse. It's the Masters, so it could go either way.

And speaking of going either way ...

Let's talk about Robert MacIntyre, the most unruly Scotsman since William Wallace.

Rory's the story but Robert gave us the signature moment of the tournament so far as he was defacing the game in the first round Thursday. The No. 8 golfer in the world sprayed golf balls all over the Hallowed Grounds, shooting an 80 that ensured he would miss the cut.

But it was what he did on the par-five 15th hole that made him immortal.

What he did was, he took a gruesome quadruple bogey after finding water twice and then flying his next ball over the green. And then ...

And then, as he was fleeing the scene, he flipped off the 15th green.

Yes, that's right, sports fans. Showed that bleeping-bleep 15th his middle finger. Birdied the hole after quad-bogeying the hole, so to speak. 

This, it was reported, will likely earn MacIntyre some disciplinary action, because apparently you just can't go around flipping off landscaping, at least Augusta. The best part of that is the PGA said it would defer any punishment to the Masters folks, a notoriously humorless lot when it comes to the sanctity of their tournament and golf course. Which of course gets the Blob's notoriously irreverent mind imagining what that conversation will be like ...

Masters Official Howard Buckingham Prescott III: Flipping off Augusta National! Why, how DARE he! I say we pour honey on him and let the fire ants have at him.

Masters Official Wilbur McKenzie Portmandeau IV: But not on the course. After all, it gets defiled enough every year by the common people. And besides, FIRE ANTS? My God, they'll be EVERYWHERE. Perish the thought.

Masters Official Montague Marcus Aurelius V: Oh, there's no call for something so melodramatic, Howie. I say we simply banish the Scottish whelp from the grounds forever. And we instruct our security team to shoot him on sight if he so much as comes within two miles of Magnolia Lane."

Prescott: Just two miles, Monty? When did you get so soft? I say if he steps foot IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA again, it's hollow-point time for the haggis-sucker. Send him back to the old country in sandwich bags. I'm sure we could get the governor to sign off on that.

Portmandeau: Oh, my.

Aurelius: Oh, dear.

Prescott: Well, we have do SOMETHING radical, do we not? Otherwise before you know it people will be peeing in Rae's Creek and saying vile things about the Sarazen Bridge,  and calling the azaleas -- dear God -- "just a bunch of bleeping flowers."

Portmandeau and Aurelius (in horrified unison): No! Not THAT!

Braggin ri- oops

 Those Michigan Wolverines, they've sure been walkin' tall this week. A fan base that's never been accused of thinking too little of itself  has taken its swagger to even more obnoxious heights than usual.

Why, lookie here, America, they're saying. We just won March Madness! And lookie HERE! Our hockey team's ranked No. 1 and favored to win the Frozen Four this weekend! That's two ... two ... two nattys in one!

Or, you know, something like that.

Anyway, the UM backers have bragging rights, and by golly they've been exercisin' 'em. The champion of buckets, and presumed champion of hockey. All their Gretzkys had to do was brush aside troublesome Denver in the semis and then probably No. 2 North Dakota in the national championship game, and--

Oops.

Did I say "brush aside troublesome Denver"?

Well, forget that.

Forget that, because troublesome Denver, those plucky Pioneers, upset the mighty Wolverines in double overtime last night, 4-3. Kent Anderson netted the winner 7:29 into the second OT. Michigan pelted Denver goalie Johnny Hicks with 52 shots, and Hicks said "nuh-uh" to 49 of them. 

Now it's the Pioneers who are on to the title tilt, and -- what's this? -- it won't be North Dakota they'll be playing. The Fighting Hawks got kicked to the curb by underdog Wisconsin, so it'll be a 'dog fight for the championship.

And Michigan?

A refresher course in what happens when you get too full of yourself: Someone will always be there to stick a pin in you and let all that excess helium go whooshing out.

But, hey. You still got Dusty May, Yaxel Lendeborg 'n' them, Wolverines. So party on.

Tinkly pines of azaleas

 The Masters golf tournament began this morning down in Augusta, Ga., and, no, Scottie Scheffler hasn't won it yet. Neither has Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy or any of the other favorites among the twee golf set, who live for these four days like no other.

Me?

I think it'll be tinkly piano music over a Cathedral of Pines and a bed of azaleas in a playoff.

No golf tournament, with the possible exception of the Open when it's at St. Andrews, trades on its flora, fauna and geography like the Masters. It's a lovely place, Augusta, enhanced by all those beauty camera shots CBS puts up to shove the loveliness right down America's gullet. It is, to coin a phrase, Nature Unlike Any Other. 

Also History Unlike Any Other (although not really, considering the Open predates it by about 75 years). Also Self-Reverence Unlike Any Other, and Ritual Unlike Any Other, and -- the Blob's personal favorite -- Mayhem Unlike Any Other.

Weird stuff happens at the Masters, especially on the back nine on Sunday. Greg Norman blows a six-stroke lead. Rory McIlroy hits a ball onto the Butler Cabin's front porch, or nearly so. Drives sail into the pines; irons splash into Rae's Creek; green jackets go sailing off with the angels because, on Augusta's marble-top greens, Ricky Joe Farnsworth IV breathed too hard on a putt and sent it skittering a mile past the cup.

Either that, or Rory finally wins the thing and spends the next 15 minutes alternately weeping and laughing. 

That happened last year -- and, listen, if it didn't suck you in, you must have had a soul-ectomy somewhere along the line. It is, after all, the kind of drama that keeps you watching even though it's golf, and that separates the Masters from your weekly Citibank Mutual of Omaha Rubbermaid Open.

And, hey: There's always a chance Scottie Scheffler won't win.

Or Rory. Or Bryson DeChambeau. Or Jon Rahm. Or -- let's see -- Xander Schauffle, Justin Rose, Ludvig Aberg, Colin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland or Cameron Smith. Or even some random A. Bhatia or S. Im.

And speaking of random ...

I'm putting my dimes on Maverick McNealy.

He's a 30-year-old pro out of Stanford who's 41st on the PGA money list right now, and I'm not picking him just because his name is Maverick McNealy. OK, so, that's mostly why I'm picking him.

 I mean, come on: Has there ever been a better golfer name than Maverick McNealy?

You think Maverick McNealy, you think the suave, sashayin' jerk the hero must vanquish in a Dan Jenkins' golf novel. You think Shooter McGavin from "Happy Gilmore". Heck, you think Happy Gilmore.

Maverick McNealy!

Start sizin' him for that green jacket now. You heard it here first.

Hearing footsteps

 The person you most do not want to be today is named Kim Caldwell, who coaches women's basketball at the University of Tennessee. At least, you know, presently.

I say "presently", and also say Caldwell is the person you most do not want to be, because she is the new president of the Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop Society. Or the Waiting For The Phone To Ring Society. Or the Hearing Footsteps Society.

See, it's not just that she coached one of the most illustrious programs in women's college buckets to levels of mediocrity not seen since the late, great Pat Summitt was driving the team bus and personally washing its uniforms half a century ago. It's because the program has all but deserted her.

Know what the Volunteers' roster looks like, on this eighth day of April?

It looks like incoming freshman Gabby Minus.

That's it. That's the entire roster right now.

Everyone else has either graduated, hit the transfer portal or -- in the case of  Oliviyah Edwards, the No. 2 recruit in the SC Next 100 class of 2026 -- requested a release from her national letter of intent. Every ... single ... one.

I don't know about you, but this would make me a trifle nervous about my future in Knoxville, if I were Kim Caldwell. After all, young women used to crawl over broken glass to play at Tennessee. Now they're fleeing Knoxville like it's in fire.

Now, losing your entire roster, it must be said, doesn't always mean Coach is about to get an anvil dropped on his or her head. Roster upheaval is just part of the landscape now in the age of the unrestricted transfer portal. No one, for instance, is thinking Darian DeVries occupies a hot seat at Indiana simply because another roster turnover seems imminent in Bloomington.

Of course, DeVries is still getting his feet under him, having just completed his first year at IU. Not even the delusional Hoosier fan base is calling for his scalp quite yet.

So you could argue it's a tad melodramatic to portray Caldwell, who just completed her second season in Knoxville, as dangling from a fraying rope. But it's harder to make that play after the season the Vols had in Caldwell's second crack at it.

A preseason top-ten pick, Tennessee went 16-14 and lost its last eight games. The Vols lost by 30 to former nemesis UConn in February, the second-worst loss in program history. They lost seven games by 15 or more points. One of those was a 76-61 first-round loss to North Carolina State in the NCAA Tournament.

It was only the third time in 44 years they'd lost in the first round of the Madness.

So, yeah. Maybe Kim Caldwell dangling from a fraying rope is not so melodramatic.

Nor is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or waiting for the phone to ring. Or hearing footsteps.

A champion for these times

 The Michigan Wolverines are your NCAA men's basketball champions, and, listen, no carping from Statler and Waldorf up there in the peanut gallery. This is how it's done now, in the Transient Twenties. You can either get with the program, or continue to mourn the death of the set shot and basketballs with laces.

I say this because the Wolverines were sneered at in some quarters as store-bought, which wasn't entirely untrue. Almost all their key parts, after all, came from somewhere else: Aday Mara from UCLA; Elliot Cadeau from North Carolina; Morez Johnson Jr. from Illinois; and the piece that fused all the others from UAB.

That would be Yaxel Lendeborg, gimping around out there on a shaky knee he injured in Michigan's 18-point leveling of Arizona in the national semifinals. He scored 13 points in the title game but wasn't anywhere close to 100 percent -- which is probably why Michigan only beat UConn by six, 69-63.

But back to this store-bought business.

The rebuttal to that is, who isn't these days?

Yes, Michigan was a collection of vagabonds, but with few exceptions (cough, Purdue, cough) almost everyone is. Did Lendeborg, Mara, Johnson and Cadeau get NIL dough from Michigan's deep, deep pockets? Of course they did. Did they also transfer to Michigan because they were promised, and got, something they weren't getting elsewhere?

What do you think?

Look, even that paragon of the old school, Robert Montgomery Knight, didn't win his third and last natty until he broke his longstanding embargo on junior college transfers. And, yes, that's not quite the same, but in a way it's exactly the same. Because just as he wove JC transfers Keith Smart and Dean Garrett into the IU system in 1987, Dusty May -- a student manager in Knight's program way back when -- wove Mara, Johnson, Cadeau and Lendeborg into a cohesive whole 39 years later.

He took Lendeborg and made a first-round NBA pick out of him. He took Mara and Johnson, the two big men, and turned them loose. And he took Cadeau and standout freshman Trey McKenney and molded them into a devastating backcourt.

It was almost exactly the way Cori Close built UCLA into the juggernaut that won the women's title 24 hours earlier. Like May, Close had a pile of NIL money to spread around. And like May, she susequently built her team around two homegrowns -- Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez --  and a core of transfers: Lauren Betts from Stanford, Gianna Kneepkens from Utah, Charlisse Leger-Walker from Washington State and Angela Dugalic from Oregon. 

 In other words, both Close and May took a lot of disparate pieces and figured out the best way to fit them together. And isn't that what every good coach at every good program has done since ... well, since there were laces on the basketballs?

And so raise a glass to the Wolverines, the best team in college basketball for a good part of the season and now its champion. They're the first Michigan team to win a natty since Glen Rice. Rumeal Robinson and Steve Fisher 37 years ago, and the first Big Ten team to win it all since Mateen Cleaves, Tom Izzo and Michigan State in 2000. 

Champions for those times, Fisher's Wolverines and Izzo's Spartans. And now, a champion for these times.

Bragging rights of a fashion

 UCLA's women utterly demolished a good South Carolina team yesterday to win the national championship, and good on the Bruins.

Good on Lauren Betts, the indomitable 6-7 center. Good on Gabriela Jaquez, who had the game of her life (21 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, one steal). Good on Kiki Rice and Gianna Kneepkens and Charlisse Leger-Walker, and head coach Cori Close, who at last grabbed the ring after 15 years in Westwood.

Their championship banner will fly now with all the others in Pauley Pavilion, and if there's any harmonic convergence in all that, it's that 10 of those banners hang there because of John Wooden. Who didn't win his first national title at UCLA until he'd been there for 15 years -- or, in Wooden's case, 16.

Of course, the Big Ten can't claim bragging right rights for any of Wooden's titles. It can, sort of, for Cori Close's.

In fact, if the Michigan men roll over UConn the way they did over Arizona the other day, the Big Ten will be able to claim utter dominance over college hoops, sort of. They'll have BOTH the men's and women's championships in their barn.

Sort of.

"Why do you keep saying 'sort of', Mr. Blob?" you're saying now.

Because ...

Well, because the Blob is old. And cranky. And stubborn. And doesn't hold with newfangled .... stuff.

See, nothing against UCLA, but in Blob World it's not a Big Ten school, even though it's a Big Ten school. Yes, technically, I suppose, the Big Ten can claim the women's title as its own. But to cranky stubborn geezers like me, no way, because UCLA will never be a real Big Ten school.

Neither will Oregon, Washington and USC, fellow refugees from the Pac-12. Or Rutgers. Or Maryland. Or even Nebraska, although the Cornhuskers at least fit the geographic and cultural footprint.

I know, I know. And nothing will ever be as good as Atari, Betamax and eight-track tapes, either.

But I can't help what I can't help, and I can't help thinking it's kind of cheating for the Big Ten to claim the women's title, and -- if what happens tonight is what I think will happen -- to lord it over everyone as King of Buckets. I mean, how can big an achievement is that, really, if  half the major schools in the country are Big Ten schools? The odds will always be in your favor, to quote "The Hunger Games."

"Wow, you're quoting 'The Hunger Games' now?" you're saying. "How modern of you."

Yeah, well. I'm not that much of an antique yet. At least occasionally.

This, however, is one of those occasions. On this, I'm as antique as your grandma's lace doilies. On this, I am hopelessly, irrevocably lost in the past.

Bragging rights for the Big Ten?

Of a fashion, it says here. But only of a fashion.

A vote for Mee-chigan

 Ah, those clever Wolverines of Michigan. They've got me painted into a corner, the rascals.

Last night in the national semifinals they disposed of the team I told everyone was the best still standing -- Arizona -- like the Wildcats were a used tissue. Led wire-to-wire, the Wolverines did. Led 10-1 2:26 in. Led by double digits at the 5:31 mark. Won by 18, 91-73.

It was Arizona's third loss of the season. Its other two were by four and three points, respectively. 

And so, on to the national championship game tomorrow night. And here's where Mee-chigan has me hog-tied.

Waiting for the Wolverines, you see, will be UConn, which held off Illinois 71-62 in the other semifinal. It will be the Huskies' third trip to the title game in four years. They scooped nattys in the other two.

I devoutly hope they don't scoop a third in 36 hours or so.

This is because the Huskies are coached by Dan Hurley, a terrific coach but also a singular asshat. Most of America agrees with me on that, I think. And so most of America, I think,  will be rooting for Michigan -- including me.

Which is the problem here. Because I've never been overly fond of Michigan, either.

I think they're snobby. I think they think they're better than everyone else, always going on about the Big House and what-not. I think maize is not a color, dammit. It's a vegetable.

And so when Michigan fans call it "maize-and-blue" when they're actually dressing in yellow-and-blue?

I think they just sound pretentious.

On the other hand ...

On the other hand, I really like their basketball team.

I like the way they play. I like the way their coach, Dusty May, coaches. I also like the fact he's NOT an asshat, but a classy guy with a great basketball mind and an ironclad work ethic.

Know where Dusty was during the first half of the UConn-Illinois semi, for instance?

He was sitting courtside like an ordinary Joe, scouting both teams. 

I like that.

I think focus like that deserves to be rewarded. I think not being an asshat deserves to be rewarded. I think, for one night, I can call yellow "maize."

OK. So, no.

I mean, there are limits. There just are.

The Zen of the sideline

  Saw Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley holler at each other last night after Staley's South Carolina crew knocked Geno's UConn squad out of the women's Final Four, and, listen, boys and girls. I'm tellin' you right now you've got it all wrong.

You think Geno was acting like an ass because he was all mad his undefeated, defending national champion UConns got derailed on their presumed march to a second straight title.

You think Staley was acting like an ass because, by god, she wasn't gonna get yelled at without yelling back.

Nah, nah, nah. They were just practicing the Zen of the sideline.

They were just letting out all that emotion before it gave them an ulcer the size of Neptune. They were, as the saying goes, Releasing Stress. Nurturing Their Mental Health. Finding Inner Peace.

"'Finding inner peace'?" you're saying now. "What does a basketball coach behaving like a  platinum-grade jerk have to do with inner peace?"

Well, it's because you don't understand the Zen of the sideline. Which is different from your normal Zen. 

In your normal Zen, see, you find your center, your balance, through meditation and quiet reflection. In the Zen of the sideline, you find it by letting your inner asshat run free so it doesn't upset that center/balance. It's a pretty simple concept, really.

"So when Bob Knight threw the chair, he was in fact merely practicing this Zen of the sideline?" you're saying now.

Yes.

"And when Gene Keady used to get so upset he'd rip off his jacket and throw it on the floor, same deal?"

Yeppers.

"And when UConn men's coach Dan Hurley -- who's a total buttwad, by the way -- yells and screams like his diaper's wet, he's merely centering his balance or balancing his center or whatever?"

Indeed.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, Mr. Blob."

Yeah, well. Whatever floats your boat, pilgrim.

Oops. I mean GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF YOU IGNORANT BLEEPING-BLEEP BLEEPING-BLEEPER!

Ah. Much better.

Cruds alert!*

(* -- i.e., not a normal Cruds alert.)

No, this Cruds alert is to alert you to the fact that Konnor Griffin, baseball's Next Great Superstar If My Pittsburgh Cruds Don't Screw Him Up, makes his MLB debut today in Pittsburgh's home opener. And I for one am extremely excited/extremely nervous.

I'm extremely excited because by all accounts Griffin, a shortstop who's still just 19 years old, could be the greatest Pirate since Roberto Clemente.

I'm extremely nervous because ... well, because he is a Pirate, aka a Crud.

Which of course means bad stuff could befall poor Konnor, catastrophic stuff, like forgetting how to play baseball. I don't think this will happen, but as someone who's followed my Cruds for the last 34 years of supreme Cruddiness, I never count my Ws until they're buried in an avalanche of Ls.

Or, you know, something like that.

In any event, Konnor Griffin is apparently the best prospect oldtimers have seen in years. He stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 222 pounds, and he can hit, hit with power, run, field and rescue puppies from fires. He went though A-ball and Double A last summer like a Kansas tornado (or rather, Mississippi, which is where he's from), batting .333 with 21 home runs and 65 stole bases in 122 games. And in five games this season Triple-A Indianapolis, all he's done is bat .438 with three doubles and three stolen bases in 21 plate appearances.

So, yes, we can hardly wait, we uncrushable Crud-ables. If Griffin's half what he's supposed to be, Primanti Bros. will name a sandwich after him. Yuengling will introduce a super-hoppy IPA in his honor. Konnor's Korner will become a thing, and even diehard Steeler fans will have to admit baseball might not be the wuss sport they thought it was.

Heck. With Konnor out there hittin', hittin' with power and stealin' bags, the Cruds might actually emerge from decades of Cruddiness and become the Pirates again, a real for-sure major league baseball team. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "This Griffin dude may indeed prove to be Clemente with a dash of Pops Stargell and a pinch of Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen and Rennie Stennett, but the same doofuses still run the show there. If they can trade him away for a sackful of magic beans, they will.

"I mean, we fear and loathe any mention of your stupid Cruds, as any sane person would. But let's not get carried away."

Sorry. Too late.

Blast(-off) from the past

Watched Artemis II rise into the heavens on a pillar of smoke and flame last night, and I was six-almost-seven again. Which is a nifty trick considering how far up in years I am these days.

It was the first rocket launch I've seen in eons, and it was on both TVs above the bar in my usual hang. And as I watched -- as everyone there watched -- that inner 6-year-old came roaring up from the depths, looking on with all the old wonder.

It wasn't 2026 anymore, suddenly. It was 1962, and the tech boys in mission control were saying "Godspeed, John Glenn," and the guy every 6-year-old in America wanted to be was riding a tin can into immortality.

Made three orbits, John Glenn did, while every system in the tin can slowly failed. When the heat shield warning started blaring, the tech boys decided to bring him down, hoping against hope the damn thing stayed on and Glenn didn't return to earth a cinder.

He didn't, of course. And a certain 6-year-old sitting in his living room on the southeast side of Fort Wayne became a gold-card space program fanboy.

I followed every launch after that, as the 6-year-old turned 7 and then 8 and finally 14. When Gordon Cooper made the last Mercury flight, I went out in the backyard to see if I could spot him flying over (I couldn't). I watched Ed White walk in space and Gemini 6 and 7 fly mere feet apart and Gemini 8 dock with the Agena (and then nearly kill Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott). 

White, Chaffee and Gus Grissom? Yeah, I was as shocked as anyone when they were killed in that Apollo 1 flash fire. Borman, Lovell and Anders? Damn straight I sat up late on Christmas Eve in '68 to watch the featureless gray of the moon's surface slide beneath Apollo 8, while the three of them read from the Book of Genesis.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep ...

And then Frank Borman, giving the benediction: 

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas -- and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

Seven months later, I stayed up late again to watch Neil Armstrong take that one small step for a man. Got deathly ill overnight. Underwent surgery the next day so the docs could yank out my hot appendix.

Needless to say I'll never forget Apollo 11. As if I would have anyway.

No, I'd remember Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, and Alan Shepard, and Wally Schirra and  Malcom Scott Carpenter and Deke Slayton. And also the three Apollo 13 guys, Lovell, Swigert and Haise. And the crews of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles, God rest their souls, and now the crew of Artemis II.

Who are mission commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.

Godspeed, gentlemen and lady. Godspeed.

Masters of decorum ...

 ... or, you know, snobbery. Depends how you look at it.

This upon the news the grand poobahs who run Augusta National, and the Masters golf tournament, have somewhat surprisingly given the OK to let wild man/famous-for-being-famous Jason Kelce on the premises next week as a broadcaster. Now, I can't be sure about this, but I'm guessing this means Kelce has signed a blood oath NOT to do the following things:

1. Take his shirt off.

2. Take his pants off.

3. Address the "patrons" as "My golf bros!" while taking his pants off.

4. Try to jump Rae's Creek in a golf cart while taking his pants off.

5. Smoke the azaleas.

6. Ride a Harley down Magnolia Lane and pop a wheelie in front of the clubhouse.

All of these might or might not be in Kelce's toolkit; past performance, at least in this case, does not guarantee future results. Certainly you'd have to lean hard on the latter, given Augusta's draconian rules about behavior within its gates.

The place has always had an almost comical reverence for itself, aided and abetted by the genuflection of its longtime broadcast partner CBS. By now you're as familiar with the CBS treatment as you are with breathing: The tinkly piano, the sunlight-through-the-pines camera shot, the soft-focus closeups of azaleas and immaculate greens and various other flora. And then of course the traditional benediction: The Masters ... A tradition unlike any other.

No one deviates from that script at Augusta, lest they be cast into outer darkness. Jack Whitaker once was banned from the premises for half a dozen years or so because he used the word "mob" to describe the patrons' mass pursuit of a certain golfer. And irreverent quipper Gary McCord was excommunicated for quipping, "I don't think they mow these greens, I think they bikini wax them."

Now, that's a funny line, and McCord likely could have gotten away with it at, say, the Greater Cheez Whiz Open. But not at Augusta, and not at the Masters. He might as well have unzipped and answered nature's call in the Cathedral of Pines.

("Good heavens!" you can imagine some green-jacketed Smedley Chesterfield III saying. "This McCord fellow is an utter barbarian. Why, we provide PLENTY of Port-a-Johns here for his sort. Someone ring the gendarmes and have him escorted from the premises. And not gently, by Jove!")

Anyway, Augusta is Augusta -- and so, as Michaleen Flynn said in "The Quiet Man," the proprieties at all times. Which means Jason Kelce signing his name in blood, presumably. And it means Pat McAfee, yapping little poodle of the airwaves, will once again be denied entrance, the poobahs having decided his show would desecrate the sacred grounds.

"We have attempted to be part of the Masters at the Wednesday Par-3 thing for three consecutive years now," McAfee said on his show the other day, according to the website Awful Announcing. "They told us to go to hell. So I think you should be happy about that, that they do try to preserve it as a whole. They have a certain thing that they are looking for."

And it ain't Pat McAfee in one of his vast collection of tank tops, obviously. Or, apparently, Jason Kelce poppin' wheelies.

Foolery vanisheth

 (In which the Blob once again escapes the Sportsball corral. You know the drill.)

Today is April 1, which used to be a day for gags, practical jokes and general seventh-grade boy tomfoolery. Hey, look, your barn door's open! April fool! Hey, didja hear the cafeteria puts catfood in its meatloaf? April fool! Omigod, you've got a HUGE booger hanging out of your  left nostril! April fool!

Or how about this one: Hey, look! There's a picture on the internet of Kristi Noem's husband wearing ginormous fake boobs!

Oh, wait. Turns out that one's real.

Which of course is the whole problem with April Fool's Day here in 2026.

See, America, and the world in general, has become such a galactically bizarre place that fooling people with tomfoolery has become passe. All those outlandish pranks we used to pull on April Fool's Day pale in comparison to simple reality now.

Like, you know, Kristi Noem's husband being revealed as an alleged cross-dresser with ginormous fake boobs.

I admit this did sound like an April Fool's joke to me, initially. Raised a skeptical eyebrow. Thought it was social media doing its usual social media thing, a sort of an enhanced version of little Joey putting fake vomit on little Susie's seat in math class.

Only later did it become clear it was real vomit.

Which is a shame, sort of, because it means foolery of the April 1 sort is vanishing because, seriously, how can it top Kristi Noem's hubby and his Hindenburg mammaries?  Just when you think you've seen it all, Bryon Noem pops up on your feed to say, "Nah, bro. Not even close."

(In all fairness, it's hard to blame him. I mean, if you were married to Cosplay Rambolina, you, too, might occasionally get the urge to slip into a sleek little Prada number and dab some Chanel No. 5 behind your ears. Especially if you kept hearing about her cattin' around with that sorry-ass Corey Lewandoski.)

(And how rich is all this, by the by? A woman who thinks drag queens are evil sorcerers forcing our children to wear bouffant wigs and stilletto heels has a husband who's ... a drag queen? Beauty.)

Anyway ...

Anyway, Bryon Noem's just the tip of the iceberg of April Fool's-like weirdness these days, beginning of course with our Fearless Leader and his clown-car cabinet. Hey, didja hear our Secretary of Defense is a former Fox talking head and religious fanatic who likes to style himself the Secretary of War? Didja hear our Educashon Secretary came from the educashonal world of pro wrestling? Didja hear the head of Health and Human Services is a heroin burnout and conspiracy kook?

Or how about the 23-year-old former stock boy who's in charge of the anti-terrorism wing of the Department of Homeland Security? Or the new head of DHS himself, a former MMA fighter and all-around loon?

April fool!

Or, you know, NOT April fool.

Now, it must be pointed out here that there is a preponderance of leg-pulling fakery going on out there on this day, but more and more actual human behavior eclipses it. There's an entire genre in some news outlets devoted to the real-life adventures of the doofuses collectively known as Florida Man, for instance. And of course the real-life adventures of Fearless Leader himself pretty much could all be passed off as April Fool's jokes, they're so completely off the rails.

My favorite, and a lot of Americans' favorite, is about F.L. gifting his cabinet members with Florsheim shoes he declared the best ever made in the entire history of shoemaking, or some such thing. None of them were sized right, apparently; Secretary of State Marco Rubio's pair were so large they looked like literal clown shoes. Yet Rubio and the others all wore them because they were apparently afraid not to.

"Oh, come on, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "We're no April fools. You can't get us with that one. I suppose next you're gonna tell us the President's going to start naming stuff after himself, or getting others to do it for him, like he's Gov. William J. Le Petomane or someone.*

(* -- Gratuitous "Blazing Saddles" reference)

Well, actually ...

Robot wars

 We're not a week into the wrapper-fresh season yet, and the Blob already thinks baseball -- the most over-stat-ted game in the world of games -- needs a new stat.

I think MLB should add ABSW to WAR and PEACE and all the other analytics that so fascinate baseball nerds.

"What the heck is ABSW, Mr. Blob?" you're asking now.

Well, it stands for "Automated Ball-Strike Wins", and it would measure every MLB team's success in utilizing the newfangled ABS system to challenge a plate ump's call. It's just like batting averages, except in this case it would be second-guessing averages.

"'Automatic Ball-Strike Wins'," you're saying now. "Would that be before or after replacement?"

Stop it.

No, what got me thinking about this was what happened in the Yankees-Mariners game last night, which the M's won 2-1. It was the Pinstripes' first loss of the infant season, but get this: They went 5-for-5 in ABS challenges.

Five times a Yankee said, "Yeah, you missed that one, ump." Five times the ABS system backed him up.

The plate ump in this case was Mike Estabrook, and he must have hated that. In fact, I'm guessing every umpire in MLB despises ABS. They must hate it worse than Sarah Conner hated all those Terminators.

"(Bleeping) robots," I imagine them grumbling. "Job's tough enough as it is without (bleeping) Data looking over our shoulders. (Bleep). Why can't Captain Picard just shove him out an airlock or something? Make it so, (bleep), yeah."

Sorry, boys (and now, girls).  But Jean-Luc ain't comin' to your rescue.

You're stuck with your robot umps, and God help us if it ever goes beyond that. All it'll take is your clean-hitter hitting an 0-for-31 slump, and XLP Model 34 will be replacing him in the lineup.

Until then ...

Until then, XLP Model 34 will be limited to embarrassing MLB umps. Or enraging players and managers by saying, "Nah, Blue got it right this time."

At which point Earl Weaver will come out of the dugout and kick dirt on XLP Model 34. 

Man. How great would THAT be?

When the joy is gone

 Max Verstappen isn't the first driver to decide he doesn't like his new car. But he is the first one who's won four Formula One driving titles and more F1 races (76) than anyone besides Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.

He remains, if not the best wheelman in motorsports, at least one of the top two or three. On a good day, with a good car under him, everyone else might as well stay home. You're not gonna beat him.

Who can forget last year, when, even in a Red Bull ride that was not nearly as dominant as it had been, he won six of the last nine races -- including the last three -- to nearly overhaul Lando Norris for his fifth F1 title?  Finished just two points behind after trailing Norris by 104 at one point.

So, yeah. Max was still Max.

Now?

Well, now the cars are all different, thanks to an overhaul of F1 regs. And Verstappen hates the change. Says it's now "anti-driving."

Says it's just not fun anymore, and he's thinking seriously of walking away from the sport at the end of this season.

He said all this after finishing eighth in the Chinese Grand Prix -- the new wunderkind of F1, 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli, collected his second straight win of 2026 -- and, sure, the immediate reaction is, well, he's just mad because it's harder to win these days. More than whiff of gonna-take-my-ball-and-go-home in that.

Except.

Except, Max has always said he'd stick with F1 until it wasn't fun anymore. He said this when he was winning those four straight titles and damn near every race on the skeddy. And he said it even when he was no longer the champion, or before he ever was.

"I can easily accept to be in P7 or P8 where I am," he said last weekend. "Because I also know that you can't be dominating or be first or second or whatever, fighting for a podium every time. I'm very realistic in that and I've been there before. I've not only been winning in F1."

 But?

"But at the same time when you are in P7 or P8 and you are not enjoying the whole formula behind it, it doesn't feel natural to a racing driver ... Then at one point, yeah, it's just not what I want to do."

And here, of course, is where we need to point out Verstappen is still not yet 30. So of course he puts a premium on having fun doing what he's doing. Having once, eons ago, been a 20-something myself, I know this is true. You don't so much care about the money, even (and perhaps especially) when you're either not making any or, like Max, filling entire bank vaults with it. The joy is the thing.

And the joy is gone, for Max Verstappen. Just as it goes for athletes at the other end of the chronological spectrum, when age and infirmity drains what used to be an inexhaustible reservoir of passion.

No one questions the 38-year-old linebacker with a quantum of knee surgeries in his past when he steps away, saying that passion can't beat out the pain anymore. But when a Max Verstappen talks about quitting at the peak of his powers because it's no fun anymore?

Well, then he's just a sore loser. Or seems so.

Me?

I think it's just 29-year-old Max Verstappen being 29-year-old Max Verstappen. And being who he's always been.

Finally, Four

 Well, alrighty then: Arizona, Michigan, Duke-Er-UConn, Illinois.

There's your Final Four, America.

"Wait, who is Duke-Er-UConn?" you're saying now.

Well, it's UConn, but until the very-very-very end it was Duke.  The Blue Devils led by 20 for awhile, and then they led by 15, and still, even when the game clock go down to six minutes or so, they were still leading by double digits.

And then ...

And then, some stuff happened, and then some other stuff happened, and finally with a sliver of a fraction of a second left, this kid from Indiana, I don't know, downtown Hooterville or someplace, and when it came down Duke, er, UConn had won 73-72 and was going to the Final Four. 

In Indianapolis, no less.

A mere 25 miles west of where the Indiana kid, name of Braylon Mullins, played his high school ball.

"The Indiana kid sent us to Indianapolis," Mullins' teammate Alex Karaban crowed.

Indeed. The Huskies are going to Indianapolis, where they'll play an Illinois team that's been good to occasionally great this season, and if this is nivarna in Storrs, Conn., it's something else again in the rest of America. That's because Braylon Mullins' 35-foot, radar-guided, last-second three means we'll be subjected to another week of UConn coach Dan Hurley, aka The Most Annoying Man On The Planet.

I fully expect him to beat Illinois Saturday night and advance to the national championship game, because the Final Four sometimes has a mean streak.

I also expect the other national semifinal, 1-seed Arizona vs. 1-seed Michigan, will be your de facto national championship game.

The Wildcats and the Wolverines, after all, have been the dominant teams in Da Tournament, and not by a little. Arizona has won its four tournament games by  34, 12, 21 and 15 points. Michigan has won its four games by 21, 23, 13 and 33. Their collision in the national semis will likely be the first time either has broken a sweat.

I'm picking Arizona by, who knows, maybe another 35-foot splash with a sliver of a fraction of a second left.

Then I'm picking the Wildcats to beat the Huskies for the national title.

Unless ...

Unless the Final Four leans into its mean streak again, and we have to watch Dan Hurley cut down the nets while "One Shining Moment" plays in the background.

Please, God, anything. Anything but that.

The prodigal sleaze

 I don't know what kind of hooch they're selling down there in the bayou, but the folks in the LSU athletic department need to lay off it. It's done ruint their minds, as the saying goes.

This upon the news that former LSU basketball coach Will Wade -- last seen in Baton Rouge offering a recruit a barrel of illicit cash on an FBI wiretap -- is returning to LSU in the same role, four years after the school booted him for getting it sideways with the feds and the NCAA. 

"Why would LSU do that, Mr. Blob?" you're undoubtedly asking now.

Beats me. Gotta be the hooch, I figure.

On the other hand, it's LSU, which has not been known for the quality of its judgment lately. It poached Brian Kelly from Notre Dame because it thought its football program was the greatest in America (Spoiler alert: It's not). Then it had to eat a gargantuan buyout when it deemed Kelly unworthy of such greatness. 

After which the governor of Louisiana started running off at the mouth about how there was NO WAY he would ever allow such a buyout to happen again. That got the athletic director fired -- which left LSU with no football coach, no AD and not much of a clue.

Apparently the Bengal Tigers still don't.

And apparently Will Wade, the prodigal sleaze, is still ... well, a trifle sleazy.

A year ago almost to the day, see, he signed a six-year deal to coach the Wolfpack at North Carolina State  -- and, no, I don't know what they were thinking, or drinking, in Raleigh, either. Now, just 12 months later, he's bailing.  

(A brief aside: The people caterwauling about the selfishness/lack of loyalty among today's portal-hopping college athletes should take note of this. They clearly learned it from their coaches, who've been displaying exactly the same selfishness/lack of loyalty for decades.)

The oddest thing about this whole affair is Will Wade didn't exactly bring home a string of national titles the first time LSU came calling. In five seasons under his hand, LSU lost 10 or more games four times. And the Tigers advanced beyond the round of 32 just once, losing in the Sweet Sixteen in Wade's second season.

Which of course makes LSU re-hiring him even more bizarre.

I'm tellin' ya, man. That hooch must be powerful stuff.

End of a lovely line

 For awhile there, the long hallowed run looked extendable. Purdue, and the Braden/Fletcher/TKR triumvirate, led by seven at the break. They still led by seven two-and-a-half minutes into the second half. And then ...

And then, the best team left in March Madness hit the gas. And the Purdues and their three-headed paragon of sticking with it ran out gas.

It was Arizona 44, Purdue 17 the rest of the way, the 1-seed Wildcats simply too much the way they've been too much the entire tournament. In four games so far, they've won by 34, 12, 21 and 15 points. No matter who wins the other two Elite Eight games today, they'll go to the Final Four as the betting favorite.

And so no shame for the Boilermakers, who squeezed as much as they could from what they had until they couldn't squeeze anymore. For the second straight game, they shot poorly -- 38 percent this time out, including 8-of-22 from the 3-point arc -- and that more than anything doomed them when Arizona turned up the heat. In the second half, the Boilers were just 9-of-26 from the field, and clanked seven of their eight 3-point attempts.

But shed no tears for this Purdue team, and especially for Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn, who looked in the postgame presser to have shed more than a few. They won 117 games as Boilermakers, more than anyone in program history. They took Purdue to the only Final Four it's seen in 46 years, and the only national championship game it's ever seen. And they leave with their names all over the school's record books.

Most assists in a career (Smith). Most 3-pointers in a career (Loyer). Most games played in a career (Smith, Loyer, TKR).

The last perhaps being the most notable, in today's rootless landscape of have-mad-skills-will-travel.

"They're great," Painter told TBS yesterday, at the end of this lovely line. "They emptied their tanks. Every single day they worked at it. They really set a standard for our program and that's what you want. You want guys ... who keep taking it to another level."

And do it in one place.

Return to Bogeyville

 Tiger Woods rolled his Land Rover the other day down in Florida, got clipped for misdemeanor DUI and sat in a jail cell for eight hours, and I think I've figured out what he needs right now.

No, not more rehab from his latest back surgery.

What he needs is driver's ed.

This is, after all, the fourth time he's crashed a motor vehicle since 2009, and the second time he caught a DUI charge for it. The last crash before this one was a doozy, smashing the hell out of his leg and likely ending his time as a serious competitive golfer. It was also the stupidest; he was doing 85 or 90 on a twisty stretch of California road where the listed speed limit was 45. 

In this latest incident, he was speeding along a road not far from his Jupiter, Fla., home when he came up on a truck towing a pressure cleaner, swerved to try to pass it, and nudged the trailer just enough to flip his vehicle on its side. No one was injured, but this latest return to automotive Bogeyville came amid growing speculation that Woods would attempt to play the Masters in a couple of weeks.

Or, you know, not.

He's 50 years old, his body's a surgical Erector set, and he apparently can't drive for doody. The last, of course, has no impact on whether or not he can still play golf like anything more than the ghost of himself. But rental car companies around Augusta, Ga., no doubt already have his picture up.

And, no, not with a caption of him saying, "When I'm looking for a good rollover plan, I choose Enterprise."

More likely, it's "Under no circumstances rent this man a vehicle. He crashes more than (IndyCar driver) Sting Ray Robb."

What's in a nickname

 Comes now the news that Caleb Williams, exciting young quarterback of your Chicago Bears, is looking to trademark the nickname "Iceman," and my inner Old Man Shouting At Clouds is wondering just who these whippersnappers think they are, consarn it. And also dagnabit.

This is because, long before Caleb Williams came squalling into this world, George Gervin had already laid claim to that nickname. He was the Iceman. Is. Always will be, no matter what Williams and the trademark boys decide to do.

Now, maybe Caleb and the rest of the whippersnappin' johnny-come-latelys don't know much about George Gervin, given that he did his thing 50-plus years ago. So perhaps a brief tutorial on the Iceman is required.

Back in the 1970s and '80s (yes, long, long ago), Gervin was a 6-foot-8 splinter of a man, all sharp angles and folding-chair pliability. He came to the Virginia Squires in 1972 out of Eastern Michigan University, then was traded to the San Antonio Spurs, where he spent 10 seasons and made his rep as a virtual scoring machine.

Utilizing the silky finger roll he made famous and silkier jumper, the Iceman played 14 seasons in the ABA and NBA, averaging at least 14 points in every one. He finished his run with 26,595 points (a 25.1 average), 5,602 rebounds and 2,798 assists, and more scoring titles than any guard in NBA history until Michael Jordan came along.

Inducted into both the college and professional basketball Halls of Fame, Gervin was voted one of the top 50 players in NBA history in 1996, and one of the top 75 in 2021.

That's who the Iceman is.

And Caleb Williams?

He led the Bears to the NFC Central title last season and showed enough flashes of brilliance -- who could forget that ridiculous touchdown pass to Cole Kmet against the Rams in the playoffs? -- to suggest he could develop into an all-time great. But he aint' the Iceman.

Sorry, kid. George Gervin bought that one with a million finger rolls, a million years ago. Try again.

Throwbacks

 Take a good long look at the team wearing black-and-gold today, because they are a snapshot from a different time. Sepia tones would suit them well.

And, no, not because Braden Smith has one of those glorious old-timey beards that suggests his name should be Graber or Yoder or something suitably Amish, or that he time-traveled forward from the halcyon days of 1882.

No, sirree. It's because Braden Smith and his beard are there at all.

Four years after coming to Purdue, see, he's still at Purdue, where a few games back he became the NCAA's all-time assists leader, shoving Bobby Hurley off that particular mountaintop. (A feat for which he should be knighted, by the by). He's still at Purdue, and Fletcher Loyer's still at Purdue, and so is Trey Kaufman-Renn.

They came in together four years ago, and now they're going out together as Matt Painter's latest senior class. No one in the rich history of Purdue basketball have won more games  than their 117; it eclipses the previous former record of 116, set just last year by their former teammate, Caleb Furst.

What that tells you about Painter's program is it's a dinosaur, but a damn majestic one. It's a throwback to the days when a recruit came to a school and stuck around and grew into a fully formed adult, which is half of what four years in college is supposed to do for you. s. And the faithful who came and filled the home barn with their sound on game days got to watch that process happen right before their eyes.

In other words, Purdue basketball under Painter -- and before him, Gene Keady -- is a culture, not a bus stop. Which is both wonderfully refreshing and as quaint as milk in glass bottles, delivered to your doorstep at the crack of every dawn.

No more. Milk comes in cartons or plastic these days, and you get it at the local superstore. And NIL money and the unfettered transfer portal have transformed big-boy college sports into a vagabond hellscape in which "student-athletes" endlessly ride the rails in pursuit of a better deal.

Rosters routinely turn over completely, or nearly so, from year to year now. Group of 5 schools become de facto farm teams for the Power 4s. And that mossy old saw about not being to tell the players without a scoreboard has become bedrock truth in places like ... oh, say, Bloomington, In.

Not so two hours to the north and west, where the old ways are largely still the way.

Oh, Painter has lost a player or two to the prevailing zeitgeist -- one of them, Cam Heide, played for the Texas team Purdue slipped past the other night -- and the day may come when even Purdue will not be able to keep the tide from coming in. But for now ...

For now, the old-look Boilermakers are a college buckets heirloom, and today they play 1-seed Arizona for a spot in the Final Four for the second time in three seasons. The Wildcats, who more and more look like your impending national champs, are of course favored, led by Jayden Bradley, Brayden Burries and Koa Peat.

Bradley's a senior. But Burries and Peat are freshmen, and neither is expected to be back in Tucson next season. The NBA beckons.

Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn, meanwhile, will be playing today for their 118th win for Purdue. They're the most decorated trio of Boilermaker seniors since Troy Lewis, Todd Mitchell and Everette Stephens, the fabled Three Amigos of four decades ago. 

Take a look today, people. Take a good, long look.

You may never see the like of it again.

Baseball!

 Got up this morning and the ground was white with frost, which is not the way Mom Nature is supposed to behave on the fourth full day of spring. Some folks just aren't raised right, I guess.

However.

However, the other day the mercury breached 75 degrees, and I went for a walk in shorts and a T-shirt, and reawakening was everywhere. People's lawns were greening up. Here and there were splashes of yellow -- sprays of daffodils; the first blooms of yawning forsythia. And the lilac bush outside our bedroom window was alive with fat green buds, thisclose to busting out.

So, yes, spring has sprung, despite this morning's uncouth misdirection play. And I know this because, as with every year in the life of an old sportswiter, it's not just the rhythms of  nature but the rhythm of our games that tell me so.

Which is an overwritten and purplish way of saying baseball's Opening Day is tomorrow.

The capitalization is intentional, especially for those of us who remember when it was an Event and not just an event, not just baseball's first act in a months-long slog. Back then the Reds had the honor of kicking things off in Cincinnati, where Opening Day was a great big coming-out-of-winter party that lured thousands of giddy Cincinnatians outdoors no matter what kind of weather early spring chose to serve up.

Sometimes it was warm. Sometimes it was not. And one time at least, if memory serves, Cincinnati woke up on Opening Day to a couple inches of snow, and there was a photo on the wires of pitcher Randy Jones of the San Diego Padres building a snowman in the visitors dugout.

I don't know if that will happen tomorrow in San Francisco, where the Giants and New York Yankees begin the MLB season with a stand-alone game. And I for sure don't know if it will happen Thursday in Cincinnati or the eleven other cities that will host Game 1 of 162.

What I do know is the seamheads have come out with their predictions for this season, and at least one of them -- baseball writer Bradford Doolittle of ESPN -- has my Pittsburgh Cruds ranked 22nd out of 30 MLB teams. He's predicting a .500 season (81-81) for the Cruds, which would be their first non-losing season in eight years. He's also predicting they have a 32 percent chance to make the playoffs and a one-percent chance to play in the World Series -- which ain't great but is a better than the zero-percent chance they've generally had since their last appearance 47 years ago.

Apparently this meager uptick in fortunes is due a pitching rotation led by Cy Young winner Paul Skenes, Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft. It's also due a 19-year-old wunderkind named Konnor Griffin, whom the seamheads swear is the greatest five-tool player they've seen come down the chute since, I don't know, the last greatest five-tool player to come down the chute.

And, yes, I can already hear all of you tuning up.

"Oh, great," you're saying now. "I suppose this means you're going to be posting even MORE Pittsburgh Pirates crap this year. Especially if the Pirates' braintrust doesn't turn Konnor Griffin into Peter Griffin, and Oneal Cruz stops kicking baseballs around like Lionel Messi, and everyone on the pitching staff manages to avoid elbow twinges and the like.

"Sooo much to look forward to."

Darn skippy there is. I mean, my Cruds and every other team in MLB -- even my wife Julie's beloved Boston Red Sox -- are undefeated so far. Which means 162-0 is STILL POSSIBLE.

Hope springs eternal, as they say. Even when spring itself is white with frost.

Children of the corn

 Repeat after me this morning, boys and girls, and remember the words well: 

Alvaro Folgueiras.

That's "A" as in "Alvaro," and "F" as in "Folgueiras". Also "H" as in "Holy crap are you KIDDING me?"

No. No, we are not, boys and girls.

That really was the correct score you saw pop up Sunday evening, and that really was a bunch of black-clad children of the corn hopping around like they'd just sacrificed another yokel to He Who Walks Behind The Rows (gratuitous Stephen King reference). That really was Iowa 73, Florida 72, and down goes one of the NCAA Tournament's 1-seeds -- and the defending national champions -- in the round of 32.

And all because of A-for-Alvaro, F-for-Folgueiras.

Who bottomed the go-ahead three out of the corner with 3.9 seconds to play last night, thus becoming -- for now, anyway -- the unlikely face of March Madness. A 6-10 reserve forward from Malaga, Spain, Folgueiras averaged 8.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists this season for the 9-seed Hawkeyes, last seen finishing ninth in the Big Ten with an overall record of 23-12. They went 10-10 in conference play.

No matter. Last night they won thanks to Folgueiras, a 32.7 percent three-point shooter who played 18 minutes for the Hawkeyes, scoring 14 points. None, of course, were more seismic than that corner three, which bedded down neatly to leave the Gators, and presumably most of America, with their jaws agape.

It was climax of a day when three 4-seeds-or-better went down and several children of the corn had themselves a day. Iowa's cross-state rival Iowa State, a 2-seed,  smoked 7-seed Kentucky by 19, 82-63, the Wildcats' worst NCAA Tournament loss in 54 years. And then there were your Purdue Boilermakers, alma mater of popcorn mogul Orville Redenbacher and conqueror of 7-seed Miami (Fla.) by 10, 79-69.

The 2-seed Boilers won despite an uncharacteristically sloppy game from point guard Braden Smith, who scored 12 points and dished eight assists but also kicked it away eight times and missed nine of the 12 shots he put up. That left it up to the other two members of Purdue's grand senior trio, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer, to ride to the rescue.

Loyer, a sometimes streaky shooter, un-streaked for this one, scoring a career tournament high 24 points on 6-of-7 shooting including a perfect 4-for-4 from Threeville. Kaufman-Renn, meanwhile, added 19 points and nine rebounds on a day when Miami outboarded Purdue 33-25, including 14-4 on the offensive end.

Again, no matter. The Boilers are off once more to the Sweet Sixteen, their seventh trip there in the last nine seasons. This time around, there was an added, um, sweetener: Sunday's round-of-32 win, Purdue's seventh straight, was also head coach Matt Painter's 500th career win at his alma mater.

The Boilers next get 11-seed Texas, who knocked out 3-seed Gonzaga on Saturday. The Longhorns are significantly better than their seed, with savvy guards and a gifted big in Matas Vokietaitis, a 7-footer from Lithuania who went for 17 points, nine boards and two assists against the Zags. He'll give TKR and Oscar Cluff all they want down low.

As they say in the movies (or not): Onward.

Alma matters

 Two seconds on the clock and Eugene Parker at the stripe.

Let's begin there this morning, shall we?

Let's begin 53 years ago -- 53 years! Ye gods! -- on a March evening in Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, New Haven High School leading Concordia Lutheran High School by a skinny point. The wondrous Mr. Parker is getting ready to shoot a one-and-one for the Cadets. We're all wearing those goofy paper bowlers over in the New Haven section, because that's what you did during sectional week, and we're hissing "Miss it! Miss it!" at the wondrous Mr. Parker.

Well, OK. So not me.

Me, I'm shaking my head and saying (mostly to myself), "He's not gonna miss these."

And of course he didn't, being Eugene Parker and all.

And of course New Haven lost again, by a skinny point, 'cause it was sectional week, and losing's just what we did during sectional week.

Lost with my great senior class, Joe Vidra and Rick Rutledge and Tom Muth and them. Lost the year before -- again by a point -- in the sectional championship game, with all of the above plus 6-foot-5 Ken Ehinger, who kept getting fouled by Andy Replogle of Snider and THE OFFICIALS REFUSED TO CALL IT (Not that I'm bitter or anything). Lost with little Dave McHenry, and big Mike Sickafoose, and a whole pile of others across the years.

Wait, did I say years?

Decades. I meant decades.

Because, see, my alma mater never so much as won a sectional for the first seven decades of its existence. And it never won a regional. 

Wait, did I say "never won a regional"?

Had never won a regional. I meant "had never won a regional."

Because, see, I woke up last Sunday, and saw that my alma mater, the proud purple-and-gold, won a regional for the first time in New Haven's 103-year history. And then I woke up this morning, and saw that a kid named Tarvar Baskerville -- Tarvar Baskerville! Is that a great name, or what? -- made a driving layup with 2.9 seconds showing last night, and New Haven went on to win the Logansport 3A semistate, 59-55 over conference rival Columbia City.

Which means, of course, that New Haven is going to the state finals next week.

Give me a minute. I need to process what I just said.

New Haven ... is going ... to the state finals.

Whoa.

They're going with Baskerville, and also Daylen Jackson and DaMarcus Wright and Jadrian Ezell, and also Lavell Ledbetter. None of them are taller than 6-5, which figures. Six-five was about New Haven's limit, at least in our day.

Along with head coach Brandon Appleton, these Bulldogs will head down to Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indy next weekend, and of course they'll be decided underdogs. Waiting will be third-ranked Indianapolis Cathedral, which knocked off No. 1 Silver Creek last night to win the southern semistate. 

Not that any of that matters, at this particular moment.

What matters is New Haven High School, the old alma mater, is going to the state finals. 

And so hand me a paper bowler. Dress me in gold and purple. Make me sing our school song, which IU stole from us, and round up Vic the Bulldog, and repeat the magic words, slowly:

New Haven ... is going ... to. the state finals.

Whoa.

Down goes David

 Begrudgingly, today, we begin with a basketball score: Tennessee 78, Miami (O.) 56.

And, yeah, yeah, yeah, yada-yada-yada, I can hear the slide-rule boys now. The RPI jockeys ... the Quad Squad ... the SOS (Strength of Schedule) Brigade ... they're all sneering, "See?"

Great. Here's a cookie. Now go away.

Don't want to hear anymore about the RedHawks getting washed by 22 in the NCAA Tournament yesterday, and not looking good doing it. A team that lived by the three died by the three, missing 22 of their 29 attempts from beyond the arc as Tennessee slammed the door on that locale. A MAC school with a MAC school inside game was Windexed by 17 rebounds, 42-25.

 A 6-seed SEC school that was bigger, faster and more athletic won laughing against an 11-seed. So what else is new?

The aforementioned sneer-ers who take that as vindication for their absurd contention that a 31-1 Mid-American Conference school did not belong in the Big Show can go fly a kite. Because Tennessee did what Tennessee was supposed to do. And if it proved Miami didn't belong what about, oh, say, Prairie View A&M?

Who lost to defending national champion Florida yesterday, 114-55.

Lost by four more points than it scored, in other words. Trailed 60-21 at halftime. Shot 27 percent (17-of-63), including 6-of-22 from beyond the arc.

In other words: Miami wasn't the only David who got ball-peened by Goliath yesterday.

It was not, shall we say, a day for busting brackets, which was a shame but also an excuse to check out every so often from wall-to-wall hoops. Tennessee and Florida rolled. 1-seed Arizona paved Long Island by 34 (92-58). Two seeds Purdue and Iowa State cremated Queens University and Tennessee State by 33 (104-71) and 34 (108-74), respectively.

(The Boilermakers, by the way, brushed aside the Royals with regal disdain, shooting 63 percent including 58 percent from the arc. Braden Smith scored 26 with eight assists and Trey Kaufman-Renn 25 to lead the Boilers; Smith and backcourt mate Fletcher Loyer combined for 38 points and were 8-of-14 from Threeville. The highlight of the night was Smith becoming the NCAA's all-time leader in assists, knocking that annoying little dweeb Bobby Hurley off the top of the ladder.)

What else?

Well, it was such a chalky sort of day we didn't even get a 12-over-5 scare.

Five-seed Texas Tech breezed past Akron, 91-71, and five-seed St. John's erased Northern Iowa, 79-53. Even the 7-vs.-10s went according to form, although 7-seed Kentucky needed Otega Oweh's buzzer-beating Hail Mary bank to force overtime and knock out Santa Clara, which had just taken the lead on Allen Graves's three with two-odd seconds to play.

That was your excitement for the day.

And the next two days?

Hey. That's why we watch, right?

Welcome to the Madness

 This is what you call in sick for, what you eat wings and drink beer at straight-up noon for, what you fill out a bracket for and then say, "Aw, hell, I knew the Tar Heels were a buncha mids this year. Why'd I pick 'em?"

Welcome to the Madness, boys and girls. Welcome to -- maybe, possibly -- the two best days of the year.

That would be the Thursday and Friday that kick off the NCAA Tournament, also known as the Burn Your Bracket Zone. This is because sometime on one of those days, and frequently on both, some trust-fund baby seed goes down to some wannabe from the sticks.

Usually, it's a 12-seed taking out a 5-seed. Because 12-over-5 has become one of those immutable March Madness laws of nature, like the Big Ten, SEC and ACC always getting eleventy-hundred teams in the show, even if occasionally some of them are Northwestern or Mississippi State.

At any rate, 12-over-5 is a tournament talisman, and, hey, guess what? We didn't go two hours until it happened yesterday.

Come on down, you High Point (N.C.) Panthers!

Who sent big-deal Wisconsin to the sidelines in the first slate of games, 83-82, a more-than-usual shocker mainly because Wisconsin came to March on something of a roll. Won five of their last six games, the Badgers did, finally losing to top-seeded (and NCAA Tournament 1-seed) Michigan by a measly three points.

But High Point, the proud champions of the Big South Conference, sent Wisky back to Madison on a late layup. Boom!

No other 12-over-5s happened on Thursday, but a couple of 11s-over-6s did, and that's almost as good. Texas took down BYU, and -- perhaps more notably -- plucky Virginia Commonwealth upset the aforementioned North Carolina Tar Heels. Came from 19 points down to win in overtime, 82-78, and hooray for the, um, Commonwealthers.

(No, that's not VCU's nickname. Its nickname is the Rams. Clip and save for your next round of sports bar trivia.)

Other than that ...

Wait, what?

Oh, man, I almost forgot!

How 'bout those mighty 16th-seeded Siena Saints, everyone?

Who, OK, wound up losing to overall top seed Duke, but only by six, 71-65. Before that, the fightin' Saints scared the pedigree out of the Blue Devils, leading by 11 at halftime and by 13 early in the second half. They continued to lead until just 4:25 remained, when Isaiah Evans drove hard to the iron and laid it in to finally put Duke in front.

Ah, well. On to today.

See ya at noon. Wings and beer on me.

Play-in payback

 Because I am a retired newspaper guy who is occasionally hijacked by his inner 8-year-old, I came up with the perfect headline for Miami (O.)'s ten-point win over SMU in Dayton last night.

"Nyah, Nyah, Nyah-Nyah Nyah" is what I would have stripped across the top of the game story. Editorial balance be hanged.

I would have done this because Miami caught a raft of grief from various shady network analysts (Come on down, Bruce Pearl!) and slide-rule dudes, who determined the 31-1 RedHawks were a fraud who had no business in the NCAA Tournament. The RedHawks' strength of schedule -- as determined either by Quad 1 wins or quad pulls, I can't remember which -- was down there with Popeye the Sailor Man, pre-spinach. Beat a lot of Dog's Breakfast States and Bricklayer A&Ms to pile up those 31 wins.

Me?

I thought that was a pile of its own, and not a fragrant one. I figured any MAC school that went 31-1 damn well deserved a role in the Big Show, on account of MAC schools have a long history of jumping up and whipping their betters in said Show.

The selection committee apparently agreed, although with some reluctance. Yeah, the bracketeers let Miami in, but only in the play-in games. To get in the actual tournament, the RedHawks would have to beat the Mustangs, who play in the hoity-toity ACC and thus were installed as 6.5-point favorites.

Well, nyah, nyah nyah-nyah -nyah. Miami won 89-79 and was rarely challenged, never trailing after going on a 14-2 run in the middle part of the second half. SMU led 49-48 at the beginning of that run; it was the only lead the Mustangs had in the second half.

The RedHawks rode 16 threes to the W, their most ever in an NCAA Tournament game. Their 89 points were the most a Miami team had scored in the Madness in 68 years. 

"The reason people love March Madness is they love to see quote, unquote, upsets," Miami coach Travis Steele said when it was done. "This wasn't an upset tonight, at all."

Indeed not. And speaking of non-upsets ...

Let's hear it out there for the Howard University Bison, who were not upset at all about winning THEIR play-in game Tuesday to advance to the first round of Da Tournament for the first time in school history.

I bring this up because occasionally my inner Civil War nerd wrestles the steering wheel away from my inner 8-year-old, and therefore I say, go, Howard. This is because Howard, a historically black research school, was founded in 1867 by Oliver Otis Howard, a Union general in the Civil War who lost an arm at Fair Oaks but went on to become one of his side's more competent combat generals. 

This is despite the fact he's been unfairly maligned for being asleep at the switch at Chancellorsville, when his Eleventh Corps crumbled before an overwhelming surprise flank attack by Stonewall Jackson. That no one else saw Jackson coming either seems not to have altered the Union Army's perception that the Eleventh Corps -- and thus Howard -- let them down.

Well, phooey on that. 16-seed Howard takes on 1-seed Michigan tonight in the first round of the Madness. I don't see any Joe Hooker or Ulysses S. Grant U.'s doing that, do you?

So there.

'Dog show

 Baseball is our game, Walt Whitman once wrote, but he never saw what happened in Miami last night. He never heard a bunch of scrappy underdogs -- because aren't underdogs always "scrappy"? -- singing, shouting, howling "Gloria Al Bravo Pueblo" into the south Florida night as if it were, I don't know, "The Star-Spangled Banner" or something.

"Gloria Al Bravo Pueblo", you see, is the Venezuelan national anthem. And that's what a bunch of weeping, hugging Venezuelan baseball players were singing at the end of Venezuela 3, USA 2.

Turned the championship game of the World Baseball Classic into a 'dog show, the Venezuelans did. As in, "underdog show."

The Americans were supposed to win last night, transforming what is frankly America's Passed Time into America's Pastime again. But, just as in 2023, they lost 3-2 in the title game. Three years ago to Japan; last night to the Venezuelans.

Which suggests America the Great Exporter has done a bang-up job of exporting one of its most cherished cultural treasures.

And the hugging and crying  and belting out of their national anthem by the Venezuelans?

Well, that suggested something else.

"This country needs this happiness with all the things that we've gone through," said designated hitter Eugenio Suarez, who delivered the go-ahead RBI double in the ninth inning.

And, yes, everyone knew what he meant, or at least every Venezuelan did. Assigning political motives to an athletic contest is often the most lazy of cliches, but it's impossible to view Venezuela-USA solely through the lens of runs, hits and runners left on base. Not after the United States spent months violating Venezuela's sovereignty, killing its citizens and waylaying its shipping. 

Culminating, of course, with the raid that kidnapped Venezuela's admittedly vile gangster  Nicolas Maduro, and whisked him off to the U.S. -- for the crime, essentially, of denying America access to  Venezuela's oil.

Now a new regime is installed that may or may not play ball with America's own Regime,  and may or may not survive without resorting to Maduro-esque brutality. In any event, it's welcome to more instability for another South American country.

So, yes. Venezuela needed this happiness, as Suarez said. And if winning a baseball game is pale business compared to getting kicked around geopolitically by a perceived bully, it was at least, for one night, a sliver of payback.

Gloria Al Bravo Pueblo 1, The Star-Spangled Banner 0. For one night, anyway.

Meanwhile, in soccer ...

 The World Cup is coming to America this summer, and, as with so much in these fraught and lunatic days, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Inviting the world to come to a nation that fears and despises most of the world will do this to a guy.

In our post-funny farm reality, after all, "America First," is little more than shorthand for "America Says (Bleep) All Y'all." This is especially true right now of Iran, which the U.S. and Israel are currently bombing back to the Stone Age for fun and profit.

Here's the thing, though: Iran's soccer team has duly qualified for the World Cup. It's on the World Cup schedule. Its first two games are against New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles.

However.

However, now that we've attacked Iran, and Iran has retaliated, Iran's participation in the World Cup has become problematical. An Iran sports official has already said the team shouldn't compete at all.  And our very own Fearless Leader, Donald John "Do What We Say Or We'll Kill You" Trump, has said it would be a good idea if Iran's team stayed home because the U.S. can't guarantee its safety.

Not, "We'll do everything in our power to ensure the Iranian team has a safe, enjoyable tournament." No, sir. Instead, it's,"We can't guarantee the Iranian team's safety."

Which suggests pretty strongly the U.S. wouldn't put a lot of effort into trying to.

Now, that might be a tad unfair. And it's probably too much to say it's tantamount to inviting every flag-draped wack job in America to consider the Iranian soccer team a target of opportunity. More likely, Fearless Leader, as is his habit, simply didn't consider all the consequences of his words.

On the other hand ...

On the other hand, he's so far around the bend now he's forgotten there ever was a bend. So who knows?

In any event, the Iranians' latest solution, rather than staying home altogether, is to get FIFA to move the Iranians' group games to Mexico, whose government seems to at least have retained a modicum of sanity. This would be unprecedented barely three months before the start of play, and indeed FIFA seems to disinclined to do so.

The safe bet right now: FIFA won't move the games, and the Iranians won't come. As someone who spent the balance of his working life observing the healing power of athletic competition (at least sometimes), I find this dismaying -- if hardly surprising in this case.

Healing, after all, doesn't seem to be on anyone's agenda these days. Only smashing things up.

Bracketology ... ology

 So Selection Sunday is over, and now we know what's what in the coming Madness. Which means, sharpen up those pencils so you can pick Siena to knock out overall 1-seed Duke in the very first round.

(I'm kidding, of course. Duke won't lose until the Sweet Sixteen, when the Blue Devils lose to upset-minded Northern Iowa.)

Anyway, the bracket is bracketed, or something, and I must say there are travesties, as usual. Poor Auburn, a glittering hidden gem of a .500 team, didn't get in, which left Bruce Pearl all grumpy. And while the selection committee begrudgingly let 31-1 Miami (O.) into the show, it's making the RedHawks have to win a play-in game against SMU to really get in. 

(Which, all kidding aside, really is a travesty. Not when the sixth-place team in Conference USA gets in free and clear, and also the third-place team in the CAA and the fifth-place team from the SoCon.)

(Those would be Kennesaw State, Hofstra and Furman, respectively. Kennesaw lost 13 games, Hofstra 10 and Furman 12. Hofstra and Furman have cool nicknames, though -- the Pride and the Paladins, respectively -- so I can't hate on 'em too much. Plus one of my favorite authors, the late Pat Conroy, a point guard at The Citadel, played against Furman back in the day.)

"What's with all the parentheses, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now.

Beats me. I just start writing and stuff happens.

"Also, are you EVER gonna mention Purdue, for God's sake?" you're also saying.

Yes, I suppose we should get around to that.

That's because the Purdues rose from the dead last week to win the Big Ten tournament, kicking No. 1 seed Michigan's high-falutin' behinds from stem to stern in the title game. The Boilers won 80-72, never looking back -- well, almost never -- after breaking a halftime tie and leading by as many as 14 points in the second half. 

Oscar Cluff (21 points) and Trey Kaufman-Renn (20), suddenly absolute beasts down low, put a hurtin' on Michigan's gargantuan front line. Braden Smith put up a stat line for the ages -- 14 points, five rebounds, 11 assists, three steals a block and zero, zippo, nada turnovers -- and running mate Fletcher Loyer added 14 points, four boards and five dimes of his own.

And before you ask ...

No, I don't know what's gotten into the Purdues, but it's powerful stuff. They blew through four opponents in four days, none of them one-possession final scores. If I had to guess, I'd say head coach Matt Painter said one of two things to them prior to heading for Chicago:

1. "OK, guys. It's time to quit screwing around."

2. "OK, guys. We've kidnapped all your parents and are making them eat dorm food. NOW will you quit screwing around?"

In any case, Purdue enters the Madness playing impeccable basketball, and it was rewarded with the 2-seed in the West Regional. The Purdues play the Blob's favorite no-hoper Queens University in the first round, then would likely have to wade through either Miami (Fla.) or Missouri, Gonzaga and Arizona to get the Final Four. 

Some people think that means the selection committee did the Boilers dirty again. The Blob figures Purdue was possibly looking at a 4-seed going into the Big Ten tournament, so the Boilers should take their 2-seed and be thankful for it. Plus, it stands to reason to get to the Final Four you're going to have to beat a heavyweight or two at some point, so what else is new?

"How about that favorite no-hoper thing?" you're saying now.

Well, yes, I still love my Royals, especially Rex the Royal, their fuzzy lion-thing mascot with the battered crown. But I can't take them over Purdue, so I've recruited an emergency backup no-hoper.

Come on down, you Siena Saints!

Who, OK, probably should have been in a play-in game instead of Miami, too, on account of they've lost 11 games and finished third in the MAAC, whatever that is. But their two best players are a Gavin and a Justice, and how do you not love that?

Gavin is Gavin Doty, a 6-5 guard from Fulton, N.Y., who leads the Saints in scoring (17.9 ppg) and rebounding (7.0 rpg). Justice is Justice Shoats, who's 5-11, hails from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and averages 13.2 points and 4.4 assists.

The Saints are probably going to get laminated by Duke, but, then again, maybe not. I mean, it's a Saint against a Devil. And who do you like in that matchup?

So, go, you Saints. Your hometown of Loudonville, N.Y., is behind you, and all the Franciscans who run the place, and every one of your 3,500 or so undergrads. 

Also, go, Furman, you Paladins, you. And, go, California Baptist. And, go, Hofstra and Kennesaw State and High Point and Lehigh and all the other littles who every year make the Madness the Madness.

And, yes, go, Purdue.  Play hard, Boilermakers, as Gene Keady always admonished. Your  parents can only take so much Tuna Surprise from the dining service.

Boiler bounce

Well, this is not what we expected. Seems they are full of surprises, these Purdue Boilermakers.

When last seen they were dragging a two-ton anchor into the Big Ten tournament, having lost four of their previous six games -- including four straight in Mackey Arena, where opponents usually come to have their innards rearranged. The bracket bros somehow still had them a 3-seed in the Big Show, but hardly anyone not wearing black-and-gold -- and several who were -- believed it.

And then ...

Wait, what's this?

Purdue 81, Northwestern 68 in its Big Ten tournament opener game in Chicago.

Purdue 74, Nebraska 58 in the quarterfinals.

Purdue 73, UCLA 66 in the semis.

So it's Purdue vs. top-seed Michigan in the championship this afternoon, and what in the name of Braden Smith is going on here?

Well ... Braden Smith, for one thing.

Purdue's indefatigable point guard hasn't scored a whole lot -- he was just 1-of-7 against a crippled UCLA team yesterday -- but he's done some stellar point-guarding dishing 16 assists against Northwestern, 12 against Nebraska and nine more against the Bruins. That's 37 in three games if you're keeping score at home, a Big Ten tournament record.

And among those who've been prime beneficiaries of Smith's largesse?

Trey Kaufman-Renn and Oscar Cluff, who answer to the name "Purdue's inside game."

Awakened from their intermittent slumber by either the Windex gods or a few withering stares from Purdue coach Matt Painter, they've been the most obvious reason for Purdue's own re-awakening. In three tournament games, thanks primarily to TKR and Oscar, the Boilermakers have out-rebounded their opponents by 12, eight and 11 boards, respectively. That's plus-31 on the glass by the Blob's reckoning.

What else?

How about defense?

Well, again, in three tournament games, they've held their opponents to 68, 58 and 66 points, respectively. They've held Northwestern, Nebraska and UCLA to 47-of-113 shooting, or 42 percent. This is a marked improvement over their four losses prior to this week, when opponents torched the Purdues for 86 points per game on 53 percent shooting.

So there you have it. The Boilers have their bounce back -- or at least what Purdue Pete 'n' them assumed at the top of the season their bounce would look like. 

Today?

Well, today, they run into Dusty May's Michigan juggernaut, so the Boiler Bounce more than likely gets bounced.

But, hey. At least there is a Bounce again, right?

Today in names

 I don't know who's going to do what in the conference tournament semifinals and finals this weekend, which means I for sure don't know who's going to A) make the Big Show; and, B) win the Big Show.

What I do know is San Diego State has 'em all beat in one of the Blob's favorite parlor games, Awesome Names I Have Known.

The Aztecs squeezed past New Mexico 64-62 in the Mountain West semifinals yesterday, and now they'll face top seed Utah State in the finals. Utah State is 27-6 and finished 15-5 in the conference, so the Aztecs are probably going to wind up watching the Aggies hoist the championship trophy.

However.

However, you know who saved the 'Tecs yesterday, with 17 points and six rebounds off the bench in 28 minutes?

Kid named Magoon Gwath.

Magoon Gwath!

If there's a better name in all of college basketball this year than that, I've not yet come across it. Plus, he can play a bit. 

He's a 7-foot sophomore out of Euless, Texas, who averages 8.8 points and 4.2 rebounds, and he shoots just shy of 53 percent. Friday was his ninth double-figure scoring effort this season, and he's logged 20 or minutes in a dozen games. So he's well in the Aztec mix.

But, wait, tell 'em what else they've won, Johnny Olsen!

In addition to Magoon Gwath, see, San Diego State also has a player named Pharaoh on their roster.

His full handle is Pharaoh Compton, and he's a 6-7 sophomore from Chicago. Pharaoh doesn't get near the playing time Magoon does; yesterday, he logged just seven minutes and collected a couple of rebounds. 

So to sum up: A Magoon, a Pharaoh and a berth in the conference finals. How do you not root for that?

Yay or nay?

 Your previously unbeaten Miami (O.) Red Hawks got knocked out of the Mid-American Conference Tournament the other day, and so now we wait to see if they get into the Big Tournament at 31-1.

The Blob says yay, on account of even the selection committee wouldn't be that gutless or lint-brained.

Other folks (though not many, truthfully) say nay, citing Quad 1 wins or the hypotenuse of a right triangle or other such esoterica.

The Blob maintains, as it has all along, that if you go 31-1 as a member of the MAC,  snubbing you because of some mathematical hoo-ha would suggest your tournament should not be taken seriously. The MAC, after all, has historically acquitted itself fairly well in the Madness. A 31-1 team from that conference therefore is not likely to embarrass either the Madness, nor the committee that sets its field.

Of course, this would have been a moot point had UMass not jumped up and beaten the Red Hawks the other day. This means, if the committee does the right thing, that the MAC will get two teams into Da Tournament for only the sixth time since the field jumped to 64 teams 41 years ago. The last time it happened was 27 years ago, when Kent State won the MAC tournament after -- you guessed it -- Miami won the regular-season title.

And so deja vu all over again, as Miami again awaits an at-large bid after blowing through the MAC regular season without a nick. 

In the Blob's world this means Miami should have already secured the MAC's automatic bid, because I cling to the antiquated (and thus unpopular) opinion that the team that wins the regular season ought to get the nod over, say, a "meh" team that gets hot for four days. The former proved itself the conference's best over the long haul; the latter simply happened upon a bag of magic beans.

And, yes, I know, this would reduce the conference tournament to mere sideshow. But on this one I stand with John Wooden, who once told me conference tournaments were nothing but an additional revenue stream for said conferences.

So, let them be that. And if the regular-season champ doesn't win it, whoever does will at least get a nice trophy out of the deal, and maybe a banner to hang in the home gym.

And what's wrong with that?

'Cat food

 Your Indiana Hoosiers checked out of the basketball season last night -- I suppose we should say probably checked out, or more than likely checked out -- and suddenly the taunt comes back to me, ancient now, an artifact moldering away in the history books like those five NCAA championship banners hanging at one end of Assembly Hall.

The taunt went like this, back in the days when Bob Knight and his mighty Hoosier legions used to come to Welsh-Ryan Arena and tattoo the Northwestern Wildcats eleventy-hundred to twelve or whatever:

That's all right ... that's OK ... you'll all work for us someday!

That was the go-to for those snobby smart punks in the Northwestern student section when the game was hopelessly lost. The implication, of course, being that someday Northwestern grads would be running the country, and IU grads would be asking them, "Would you like to make that a Valu Meal?"

Fast-forward to Wednesday night in the United Center up in Chicago, where it was the Wildcats once again doing the tattooing. 

The final this time was Northwestern 74, Indiana 61 in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, Darian DeVries' crew going down without much of a fight. Leading by a point at the break, the Hoosiers were outscored 38-24 in the second half, getting nothing from pretty much everyone except Lamar Wilkerson, who scored 17, and Tatyon Conerway off the bench, who added 14.

Except for Wilkerson, no Indiana starter scored more than six points. And the Hoosiers' two big men, Sam Alexis and Reed Bailey, managed all of two rebounds in a combined 50 minutes of playing time.

Two rebounds. In 50 minutes.

Northwestern's Nick Martinelli, meanwhile, flame-broiled Indiana again, going for 28 points on 10-of-18 shooting. This was just a couple of weeks after he dropped 28 on the Hoo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoosiers in Assembly Hall, as IU blew a big lead and lost 72-68.

It was one more "L" in a season-ending spiral that saw DeVries' guys lose six of their last seven games and likely fall out of the NCAA Tournament picture, although somehow the bracket bros still have them on the bubble. The loss also was a significant one, because it was Indiana's sixth straight to Northwestern going back to 2021.

Wednesday's loss made it seven straight. 'Cat food, apparently, is what the Hoosiers of the 2020s are right now.

And now the ancient taunt resurfaces, if slightly altered. It goes like this now:

That's all right ... that's OK ... at least your football team can play!

Who'd a thunk it?

That long, tall shadow

 Wilt Chamberlain was in the news twice this week, which is pretty remarkable considering the man died 27 years ago. But that's how it goes when you cast the sort of shadow across your domain Dipper does so many years after he stood bestride it.

It's a shadow longer even than his seven feet plus one inch, and the domain is still compelled to acknowledge it 53 years after Wilt Chamberlain put down the basketball.  That it continues to do so reminds us continually that no practitioner of James Naismith's humble little game has ever so dominated its fundamentals.

For instance: Did you see what Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat did last night?

Scored 83 points in a blowout win over the Washington Wizards, Bam did. Got up 43 shots and made 20, including seven threes. Shot a mind-warping 43 free throws and made 36 of them. Got things started with a 31-point first quarter. A 31-point quarter.

The 83 points was Adebayo's season high by 43 points, and it was the most points scored by a single player in an NBA game since the late Kobe Bryant went for 81 two decades ago. And it came just a couple of nights after Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder tied an NBA record with his 126th straight 20-point game.

Know whose record he tied?

"Would it be Wilt Chamberlain's?" you're saying now.

Good guess.

Know why Bam Adebayo's 83 points is still only the second-most points scored by a single player in a game in NBA history?

"Would it be because one night in Hershey, Pa., Wilt Chamberlain scored 100?" you're saying.

You got it.

Astounding as Bam's big night was, see, he still came up 17 points short of Wilt's big night. Seventeen points. And until SGA came along, Wilt's 126 straight 20-point games was the league record by ... wait for it ... 34 games. Know who was second, with 92 straight?

"Would it be Wilt?" you're saying.

Dang. You're getting good at this.

Yes, it was Wilt. He followed his 126-point with another 92-point streak, and he did it across just three seasons. The only other player in the top three on this list, besides Wilt and SGA, is Oscar Robertson -- and he's a distant fourth with 79 straight 20-point games. 

If you're keeping score at home, that's 47 games behind Wilt and SGA -- more than half an NBA season. 

And the record for most relevant mentions in one week of a guy who's been dead for 27 years?

I'm guessing it's two, and Wilt holds that one as well. Just as he does 71 other NBA records.

He's the only player in NBA history ever to average 30 points and 20 rebounds in a season, and Wilt did it seven times. He once averaged 50 points a game for an entire season, and once grabbed 55 rebounds in a game. And he remains the only center in NBA history to lead the league in ... wait for it again ... total assists.

That long, tall shadow. It does linger, right, SGA?

"Honestly, it feels almost like a mythical creature," he said the other night, when asked about Chamberlain's legacy. "It's not real."

Indeed.

Ch-ch-changes ...

 ... to quote David Bowie.

Yes, David could tell you (although, on second thought, probably not, and only partly because he died ten years ago) what keeping track of the NFL's offseason is like, especially with the free-agency barn door opening up this week. Guys are changing teams faster than Leo DiCaprio changed identities in "Catch Me If You Can." It's almost impossible to wrap your head arou--

You there in the back, wearing the throwback Jim Kiick jersey.

"Tua's still a Dolphin, right?" 

No! Tua's an Atlanta Falcon now! Presto-chango!

"So who's our quarterback?"

Your quarterback is ... drumroll ... Malik Willis!

"Malik Willis? I thought he was in Green Bay."

Au contraire, mon frere. He's a Fish now. Double presto-chango!

Malik's a Fish, and Tua's a Dirty Bird, and Mike Evans, last seen as Baker Mayfield's go-to wideout in Tampa, is a 49er. The Bears traded DJ Moore to the Bills, and free agent Olamide Zaccheaus signed with the Falcons. Maxx Crosby, the Raiders' pass rusher par excellence, is a Raven now; the Raiders, in turn, just signed, like, five new guys. 

And your Indianapolis Colts?

They traded their top receiver, Michael Pittman Jr., to the Steelers and signed Alec Pierce to a new $116-million deal. Also, it looks like they're going to retain quarterback Daniel Jones, which suggests the Colts are banking on Jones-to-Pierce as their big-play connection.

Is this wise?

I dunno. We'll see.

Without Pittman, won't Pierce draw DBs like flies? Or will the likes of Josh Downs, Ashton Dulin and Laquon Treadwell be productive enough to keep the coverage balanced?

Again, we'll see. 

One thing's for sure, it won't be boring in Indy in 2026, or in a lot of other places. So many new faces in new places; so many questions popping up with th-

You there by the window, in the throwback Steve Largent jersey.

"At least we've still got Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III, though, right?"

Ummm ...

Well, no. He just signed a choke-a-horse three-year deal with the Chiefs. The $45 million haul makes him the highest-paid free agent running back in NFL history, and now he'll be lining up in the same backfield with Patrick Mahomes. Which means more State Farm commercials starring Patrick, and more shampoo commercials starring Patrick, Kenneth Walker III, and Troy Polamalu, and more Subway commercials featuring Patrick, Kenneth, Taylor Swift's fiancee and maybe even Andy Reid.

"OH ... MY ... GOD! The Chiefs? The frigging CHIEFS?! I thought we were finally done with the Chiefs! How could you, KW3?"

I know, I know. I feel your pain. So would David Bowie if he were still alive.

OK. So probably not.