Butler, Baby Wipes, and Bilas...

How did I manage to schedule a 6 pm appointment on the day of the Men's NCAA College Basketball Championship?! For friggin' sake, I've got three different brackets taped to my living room wall, I started a blog as I have sold my soul to ESPN and CBS coverage of the tournament, and have a tattoo of Bryant Gumbal on my right butt cheek (okay the last one I promise was a joke).

Maybe two months ago when I set the date and time of the meeting I was subconsciously vacating myself emotionally from a potential and painful loss.

Well Butler's loss that is...

When my appt was over and I left the office around 8pm, I hesitantly turned the car stereo knob to the scratchy, barely audible, station broadcasting the game. I was fully expecting a blowout - to hear eardrum shattering cheers from Blue Devil fans. Surely Scheyer had delivered at least a Walmart sized Easter basket of threes by now.

To my satisfaction, I was completely wrong (insert "I am a glutton for punishment"). Butler was in fact down only by a deuce heading into the second half.

My drive home was speedy, albeit anxiety ridden. Probably the way Jay Bilas feels when he suspects his barber is leaving a bit too much on the sides of his normally militaristic buzzed do'.

You didn't have to get a ruler out to measure my hair, or at least the follicles standing erect on the back of my neck as my Swedish auto raced the streets of the Pacific Northwest searching for my living room's television signal. The radio blared sound bytes of close game and I couldn't help but fathom that this coach from Indiana, this guy with the boyish good looks and team full of Bullpups might just be able to pull of this Cinderella story.

Tenacious D (defense that is), kept the Bulldogs within a few points up until the last minute when they came within one -- a single basket separating them from modern day Hoosier status.

Hayward, the basketball man child, the player who I thought all season resembled a kid in my kindergarten class that sported a Kool-aid mustache everyday, had a chance to win it, but in a flash of glory, his shot just barely missed.

Zoubek's free-throw sealed the victory for Dukies everywhere -- the game was over and the Cinderella story was history. The carriage that pulled Butler to the championship game turned back into a pumpkin.

On the other hand, as a fan, I couldn't have wished for a more intense final five minutes. This was no blowout. The school with barely 4,000 students produced a team worthy of rivaling any Big East, SEC, ACC, or Whatever CC, the tournament had to throw at them.

Coach Steven's team put up a valiant effort. He's friggin' 33 years-old. In fact I believe -- about as old as one of Bill Raftery's ingrown toenails!

The Bulldogs will be back-- not the Diaper Dandy's of this season. I envision them sporting "Pull-ups" and refusing the Baby Wipes next year. Sorry Dick.

Yes Scheyer

Mike Krzyzewski has done it again. Once more Duke's evil genius has found the correct mathematical equation and grouping of talent to make it to another Final Four. From the way the announcers have been spinning it, you would have thought that Duke hasn't enjoyed tournament success since Kennedy, but the truth of the matter is that Krzyzewski has taken his team to the big dance a handful of times -- I'm entertaining a number like 16.

Baylor on the other hand, hasn't been to the Final Four since 1953. We're talking decades, back when people were just getting warmed up to the idea of the color television, a far cry from today's halftime Hooter's commercials.

Today's Elite 8 game was quite a battle however. Baylor did everything right up until the end, when Duke, led by a pesky John Scheyer, went on a mini run that gave the Blue Devils just enough momentum to dash any Bears hopes of making it to the Final Four.

Duke had no answer for Baylor's big men. More specifically, Ekpe Udoh and Quincy Acy, who combined for 30 points. Krzyzewski and an animated assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski, were shuffling big men in and out like Tiger Wood's uses up call girls. It was Duke's outside game, chiefly the work of Nolan Smith, who led all scorers with 29 points, that sealed the "W". Zoubek and the Plumlee boys experienced the wrath of the Baylor inside game, and were forced to kick the ball out to their guards.

Unfortunately for Bears fans, their team just wasn't able to pull it out.

Baylor loses a talented senior guard Tweety Carter this year, but the Bears will certainly be back. They gave every top seeded team they encountered a run for their money, and even brought a normally cool and collected Krzyzewski to his feet in angry rage during the first half. Kudos Baylor!

Tournament Projections: East Coast Bias

Cal is predicted by Andy Glockner of Sport's Illustrated to go into the Big tourney as a No. 12 seed. Are you serious? Is the East Coast bias such that premier Cal players like Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, and Theo Roberson are not even going to see themselves in the top ten?

Look, while there is no denying the fact that the East Coast has fabulous programs, including tremendous teams like Duke, Syracuse, Kentucky, and Florida to name a few, but it is so obvious each time a new Coaches or AP poll comes out that the basketball reporting press suffers from a serious case of East Coast bias.

When ESPN set up shop in Seattle last week to broadcast the network's main prime-time matchup between the University of Washington Huskies and the UCLA Bruins, I almost blew a gasket to see Jay Bilas and Bobby Knight reporting in my own background -- in the same time zone no less. In fact it provoked an awkward, giddy feeling like the way you feel on a first date: anxious and excited, while simultaneously espousing strange body twitches and sweaty palms.

Think of the last time you saw Dick Vitale announce from another venue besides the ACC or SEC, or any East Coast "C" for that matter? I certainly can't. Maybe throw in a Texas vs. Oklahoma game for kicks, but in my experience I've never heard "Diaper Dandy" references to any West Coast players. It is my belief that the closest Vitale has been to the West Coast in recent years was most likely a Hollywood studio that he filmed his last Hooters commercial at.

In the wake of countless predictions that the Pac-10 will only receive one bid to the tournament, my question is: What's the beef ?

Certainly it has been an up and down season in the Conference, where the top five teams have traded in-conference rankings like musical chairs, but it doesn't signify a lack of talent, or that a top Pac-10 team can't beat a highly ranked East Coast opponent (think USC's win over Kentucky in January).

Maybe it has something to do with the convenience of the East's broadcasting schedule, particularly for those living on that side of the country. A blogger for instance, from Kansas, is going to be able to make a report that afternoon depending on which teams are scheduled. Whereas the WCC, or Pac-10 teams typically don't begin play until 7, he/she is going to be in bed by that time. As a result they garner less cred and often don't make it to deadline.

Ultimately, the combination of timing, the lack of viewership (with the exception of the handful of local West Coast sport's networks), and most of the dominating voices on television hailing from places like Duke, Notre Dame and Michigan (think Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps and Jalen Rose), talented teams on the West Coast are often snubbed and undervalued come ranking and tournament time.

Yuck!