First weekend thoughts

 And now Da Tournament -- the Dance, the Madness, the Big Show -- advances to the Sweet Sixteen, and what have we learned so far, class? What great truths were revealed, or at least reinforced, by all those misses, makes, rebounds, turnovers, goaltends, fouls and should-have-been-fouls?

A few thoughts, random and otherwise ...

* Traveling? We don't need no stinking traveling.

Or at least not at the end of Maryland-Colorado State, when the Terrapins avoided a 12-4 upset thanks to Derik Queen's last-second Samsonite act. Which is to say, he beat the buzzer to hand the Terps a 72-71 win, but he also traveled like Marco Polo on the play and got away with it.

Codger Nation immediately raised hell. The Blob, also a codger but an occasionally contrarian one, did not. That's because, let's face it, traveling went out with laces on the basketball. It's been only a sporadic concept since the rulemakers decided the Euro step was a legit basketball move and not what it actually is, which is traveling with a fake ID.

* Dan Hurley continues to be the most annoying man in basketball.

This after the UConn coach pissed and moaned like usual after his two-time defending national champion UConn Huskies were eliminated by 1-seed Florida, which got its board shorts scared off it by Hurley's bunch before surviving 69-67.

The champs went out on their feet, in other words. Hurley, being Hurley, went out telling Baylor -- up next at their site against Duke, another No. 1 seed -- he hoped the Bears didn't get (bleeped) the way Hurley's team got (bleeped).

Very nice.

Or to paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about Bernard Montgomery: Insufferable in victory, even more insufferable in defeat.

* Kelvin Sampson earns some flowers.

And, OK, I know what you're going to say: "Kelvin Sampson? You mean the guy who blew up IU's program in just a couple short years? That Kelvin Sampson?"

Yes. That Kelvin Sampson.

Whose 1-seed Houston Cougars got past 8-seed Gonzaga to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, but not before the Bulldogs were as tough an out as everyone expected them to be. Sampson acknowledged as much on national TV, saying everyone should take a moment to salute the 'Dogs.

"Let's stop and congratulate Mark Few and Gonzaga," Sampson said. "For what they've accomplished ... they've been such a shining light for basketball programs and basketball coaches for a long, long time. There's nobody I respect more than Mark Few, and there's not a basketball program I respect more than Gonzaga."

Sampson said all this after Houston escaped the Bulldogs 81-76, and after Sampson consoled Gonzaga redshirt senior Khalif Battle in the handshake line. In likely his last college game, Battle missed a 3-pointer with 14 seconds left that would have tied it, and he was in tears when Sampson approached him, eschewed the handshake and instead threw his arms around him.

Whatever else you want to say, think or believe about Kelvin Sampson, that was pure quality. 

* Purdue? Still Purdue-in'.

You know the story here, if your blood runs black-and-gold: The Boilermakers entered the Madness as one of the more perplexing teams in the show, a team that ascended to the top of the Big Ten in January and then lost six of its last nine games. Got washed by 18 from the Big Ten tournament by Michigan, a team the Boilers had ball-peened by 27 six weeks before. 

Drew a shaky 4-seed in Da Tournament, immediately making them a sexy upset pick against a 29-win High Point team in the first round.

Uh, no.

Instead, the Purdues wore down High Point late to win by 12. Then they routed McNeese State, a 12-5 winner over Clemson in the first round, in a 14-point win that was never that close. The Boilers fled the scene from the outset, going up 27-11 and 36-14 in the first half, then building the lead to 26 in the second before taking their foot off the gas. 

In both games they departed from their usual script, pounding it inside to Trey Kaufman-Renn and outrebounding High Point 45-24 and McNeese 41-24.

That's a combined 86-48 ass-whuppin' on the glass if you're keeping score at home.

Now?

Now the Boilers get Houston late Friday night, which is likely when the clock both literally and figuratively strikes midnight for them. Or not. At this point, who knows with the black-and-gold?

* And the Conflicted Bowl goes to ... Arkansas and John Calipari.

Who ushered Rick Pitino and 2-seed St, John's to the sidelines in one of the weekend's hardest-fought, if ugliest, games. The Razorbacks, a 21-13 10-seed coming in, shot a respectable 42.9 percent but were just 2-19 from the 3-point arc. The 27-4 Red Storm, on the other hand, went down in a storm of bricks, shooting 28 percent (21-of-75) and clanking 20-of-22 from Threeville.

The Big East player of the year, RJ Luis Jr., set the tone for all that, going a horrendous 3-of-17 and looking so lost down the stretch Pitino benched him for the last five minutes as the Hogs pulled away to a nine-point win. 

So off Calipari and his underHogs go to the Sweet Sixteen, while Pitino's stellar season abruptly ends. And why was this the Conflicted Bowl, you ask?

Well, because it was Calipari vs. Pitino, of course. Two guys a lot of hoops fans consider dirty because of past indiscretions.

The Blob's position on this is Pitino is and always has been the far more skeevy of the two. Partly this is personal bias -- in my 38 years as a sports scribe, Pitino is the only person I know for sure lied to my face -- but part of it is the record, too.

Pitino, after all, oversaw a Louisville program that was rotten to the core. Calipari, on the other hand, is decades removed from a player-payola scam at UMass, and the only apparent thing he did wrong at Memphis (along with Indiana and several others) was recruit Derrick Rose -- who was subsequently accused of having someone take the SAT for him in high school, causing the NCAA to invalidate an entire Memphis season.

After which Calipari went to Kentucky, where in 15 seasons he never ran afoul of the NCAA.

So I guess, in the Conflicted Bowl, the good guy won. Or the better guy at least.