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?