* * Special note: Today’s munchie is bite-sized. We do apologize for its brevity, but sometimes the man known as Tiger deserves his own morning post. And sometimes the MIND is caught elsewhere to add too much more… we promise to not slack too often. But if we ever do you may lambast us with kind words via email (mindritesports@gmail.com) or comments (below). * *

Did Tiger Win This Weekend? No? Ah… What Time Does Sopranos Start?
Let’s just all get it straight: it will always be Tiger versus the field. If Tiger is not competing at the end of a golf tournament, only friends and families of those competing are tuning in. Zach Johnson, an unknown roundabout the same age as tiger, won the Masters yesterday in Augustus after shooting a final round 69. Tiger finished 2 strokes back at +3 and, even when it came down to needing an amazing long-shot eagle on the final hole to take the match into a playoff, people held out hope. So if you say too much attention was paid to Tiger, you are always going to be wrong. Even if he finishes last.

So I was up incredibly early this morning and what do I find as I peruse through the NBA.com site? Top-ten dunk clips of one of my favorite players of all-time and one of the most vicious dunkers ever, Shawn Kemp.

Click here to see the clip.

One of the clips included features the old school Gary Payton tossing an oop to Kemp who, like only he and Barkley knew how to, graciously jams it home hard and with authority.

It brings me back to my mourning state-of-being, wondering what if he had had ten less illigetimate kids, stayed away from the Scarface-like piles of coke and just kept to what he was incredible at, would he of gone down as one of the greatest of all-time? Had the Sonics found a designated defender to hack Jordan, they’d of at least given a better run against the Bulls in their lone Championship series.

At any rate, thanks NBA.com for bringing me back down memory lane. Back when I liked a team other than hometown DC squads for a single player… who ended up taking the route of girls, drugs and blowing money on everything but smart things. He was the MC Hammer of hoops. And unlike with Hammer, I actually thought he had potential.

Oh my God, Dice K is so Nice-K!
Daiske Matsuzaka is his real name. Don’t bother remembering it unless you’re set to face the Schwab in the future. As if everyone in baseball didn’t see it coming, from now on you will hear approximately 23902309309 word-plays on his current nickname, “Dice-K”. Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe broke out “Ice K” (surely ripped from somewhere else) in his love letter about baseball’s hottest new thing, to go along with the following:

One game into Matsuzaka’s Red Sox career, it’s all good. So go out and buy that No. 18 jersey and have a bowl of Dice Kream and top it off with a Dice-K Tini at the Ritz-Carlton.

Oh, there’ll be plenty more where that came from! Whether or not he will be great for many years to come is yet to be determined, but BoSox Nation collectively touched themselves after yesterday’s great outing for the rook. He without a doubt looked wonderful in his first MLB start — 7 IP, 1 run allowed, 10 Ks — but crowning him the next “Pedro Martinez” after a single game’s work seems a bit premature. And he pitched against the Royals, of all teams.

Has he proved he is worth the millions the BoSox dished out? Not quite. But had I dished out that much for a player on my team, I’d overhype even his successful walk to the mound. Can’t wait for Americans to learn bits of Japanese and slowly realize what the word globalization really means… what a set-up!

Spurs Lure Suns Into Slow, Un-Interesting Loss
Most teams can hardly keep the Suns from scoring 37 in a quarter. Holding them to 37 first-half points should earn the Spurs a trophy. San Antonio held Phoenix to numerous season lows — 3-pointers (2 for 11), field-goals made (32), assists (14) and field-goal percentage (38.6%) –en route to a home victory last night. One thing other teams in the West should take from this game is that Phoenix is beatable, you just need to lull them to sleep playing a very boring, elaborate offense similar to the Spurs. Once the Suns start yawning, thus throwing off their shot accuracy, the game is ripe for the taking.

Agent Zero Out For Season, Wiz Fans… Rejoice?
When Caron Butler broke his hand and was set to miss what looked like the majority of the season, the team was finished. Gilbert Arenas is a stud, but without Butler, the Wiz would’ve been wading in the playoff waters until a true contender stepped in to devour the non-D playing squad from DC. With Arenas set to miss the season for sure thanks to a nasty meniscus tear, fans can now start to point fingers at the players who were going to ruin the Wiz’s championship hopes and dreams anyway. Case-in-point will be Antoine Jamison, whom loves to shoot and can point up good points from time to time, but for some reason always reads the alphabet like so: “A, B, C, E, F, G…” (One… two… three… ahhh! I get it… Thanks for comin’ out.) Here’s to hometown hoping that a quality player slips in the draft and the Wiz lose just enough games to get a quality spot to be there with open arms!

Donovan Stays, Juniors Go, Kentucky Looks to Plan Z
The story goes, Florida coach Billy Donovan asks the 4 juniors contemplating going to the draft — Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green — if they want to try for a third-straight NCAA Championship. The players look at each other, then back at the coach and simultaneously cheer, “F-U, Coach D! We want to get paid as much as you’re about to!” Then they all hold hands and giggle off into the sunset and have yearly H-O-R-S-E games to laugh and joke about when they were happy and less-rich.

The quick breakdown: Billy Donovan will remain at Florida because they promised to pay the man more than Urban Meyer, in principle. The Fab-Four-Floridians will head off to the NBA and get paid generously but realize that college groupies are much more generous than pro groupies. Kentucky is now set to give their most un-wanted top-tier program over to Texas A&M Coach Billy Gillespie, just as CBS Sportsline’s Greg Doyel told them. Press conference this afternoon.

I Wonder If Tiger Woods Hustles On The Side?
1-Under 72, but only 4 strokes from the lead going into Friday, I’m thinking the clubhouse with Tiger would be, as the old people say, a “hoot”.

Tiger: Man… I’m really stinking up the joint out there. I just wish I hadn’t sprained my hand counting stacks of these extra hundreds I have laying here by my side…
Field: Hey… wow… that’s a lot of money.
Tiger: Oh, this? I hear that sometimes… it’s… it’s ok. Would you like an opportunity to have all of this?
Field: (laughs) Ha… wait, you serious?
Tiger: As serious as Phil’s gut. (looks to Phil) Ain’t that right, Philly Cheesesteak? Mr. Phil Up My Beer Cup. Mr. “Phil more space on the frontside of my tummy than J-Lo on the backside of her…”
Phil: #$&^ you, jerk. Put your money where your mouth is!
Tiger: Always talkin’ about putting stuff in his mouth… as long as we keep everything away from your mouth, there may be survivors.
Field: Well… how can we…
Tiger: Me against you and Sir “Phil-in’ Like Seconds, Maybe Thirds” match me dollar for dollar if I come back and squash all you suckas, but if not this is all yours…

And so begins the set-up to which Tiger makes millions on top of what he already makes legitimately… who’d dare bet against Tiger? Not those still within their RITE MIND…

This section recaps the previous day or weekend sporting news events. Yes, many other people do the same, but we are quite content with picking and choosing the stories that happen to peak our own interest each and every A.M. we wake up and decide to be productive. We’ll do some tweaking to make it work with the MindRite way, but for now… do enjoy…

• The Washington Wizards see their best player, Gilbert Arenas, get injured in the first quarter of a second straight loss to the bottom-feeding Bobcats.
• Buster Olney asks where the stability is on the Washington Nationals team, while the Nats manage to break up the Marlins’ sweep attempt thanks to the ol’ vet Dmitri Young.
• Let the haters’ voices get louder: Bonds hits career homer number 735
• The Denver Nuggets pull off their third win in a row as coach George Karl returned to the bench after taking time off to be with his son, Coby, who had a cancerous lymph nodes removed Monday.
• ESPN’s TrueHoop Blog gets an interview from the soon-to-be Rookie of the Year, Brandon Roy and talks… babies?
• One of the many tributes to the late Eddie Robinson, from Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune
• Jean-Jaques Taylor says Robinson can be honored by more colleges hiring more black coaches.

Now that the NCAA hoops tourney is behind us, and the Florida Gators have been crowned the collegiate hardwood champs for the second time in as many years, we need to address a major issue plaguing March Madness.

The issue has nothing to do with hair high-jacking American Idol, Will Ferrell on ice skates, Britney Spears’ release/breakout from the psych ward or Dick Vitale’s feelings (surely his large heart is in many little pieces) now that his favorite ACC teams are no more.

This issue is simple:

The practice of filling out multiple NCAA Tournament brackets must be outlawed.

At this time every year, once all dust has settled from the tourney, self-proclaimed “geniuses” appear, claiming to have picked the perfect bracket, but failing to mention the extremely significant detail that the selection sheet they are referring to is number 249,848th of the 300,000 they filled out.

In order to claim “genius” status and expect any credit for correctly predicting winning teams through the tournament, you can only have filled out one bracket. Not two, not ten, not one hundred, just one. If the same bracket is used for multiple contests, that is completely acceptable.

The bottom line is, some lucky person should get credit for correctly picking winners; the same credit as a person who correctly gets all of the numbers involved in a Pick-3, Pick-4 or Powerball lottery drawing.

It’s not a knock on you the selector, it’s a reality-check on the selector’s claim to fame.

I have never claimed to be a NCAA hoops genius, nor will I ever. Every year it gets tougher to keep up with players, especially with the new age-limit rule forcing many sure-fire lottery picks to wander a college campus of choice for one year before bolting to the NBA. But one thing I hold true in the midst of all the madness in March, is my selections.

This year I went with the “Rooting Team Biased” sheet. Here is a complete list of NCAA Tourney Sheet Selector types:

Rooting Team Biased Bracket
Take my bracket sheet this year, for example. As a UNC Tarheel fan, I chose them to win the entire tournament. This year’s UNC squad had a legitimate shote, so my pick was not your normal, run-of-the-mill “Rooting Team Biased” pick sheet. If you were to select, say, VCU, Butler, Texas A&M Corpus-Christi, you fall in this category. Because no sane person in their RITE MIND had any of those teams winning it all. Usually this particular selector is so confident their rooting interest will trump on-court talent, which means they are the perfect mark for a ridiculous bet where you can cash in big-time!

Been Hittin’ The Bottle Bracket
This selector had a #1 seed losing to a #16 seed. They are so detached from reality in their selection sheet it makes the normal person sick. The term “logic” is foreign to them. They claim the starts are aligned, thus preventing the sure-fire team to beat from advancing past the worst teams in the land. Most likely they drink or smoke. A lot. And we won’t go into other possible causes for their ways (paint chips, falls as a baby, oxygen flow to brain, etc.) but we will say this - their dollars in the pot are just as good as the next selector.

Hater-Hater Bracket
This selector hates Duke so they had the Bluedevils out in round 1, not just this year (because clearly a Duke upset was the Fergie single of bracket picks) but for every year they have been filling out tourney brackets for office pools starting in the early 90s. It’s cool to hate teams for whatever reason, but when you’re in a serious office pool and picking those teams you want to lose in the first round you have issues. You are a hater. Welcome to the club where you have only a one in a million shot at a winning bracket. But this person does not care, because their sheet is a statement of them fighting against “the machine.” While they do that, others will reap the benefits of not letting anger cloud their judgment, thus giving them a shot at being a winner.

Al Gore Bracket
This selector bores you to tears. You waste away your life by looking at their bracket because you need only look at the rankings and figure out their predictable selection style. No 12 over 5 upsets, ever. You’d be hard-pressed even to find a 9 over 8 pick on their sheet. You absolutely think they know nothing about college basketball parity, and would be pissed off if they win your bracket. In which case, this year, you hate this person. Damn those better-than-the-rest Gators playing like everyone knew they would! Why didn’t they lose to that #16 team as predicted by the “Been Hittin’ The Bottle Bracket” guy?