The most recent scandal to occur within the world of sports involves former USC Trojan, and eventual NBA basketball star, O.J. Mayo. It has been alleged that Mayo accepted monetary and material gifts appraised in the neighborhood of 30k during his high school and brief collegiate tenures. So the story goes, Mayo has had a long standing relationship with a Los Angeles event planner named, Rodney Guillory; who, was apparently being bankrolled by a Northern California sports agency by the name of Bill Duffy Associates. I won’t bother enumerating the particulars, but the gifts were aimed at, and evidently succeeded, in obtaining an informal commitment from Mayo to allow said agency to represent him once he turns pro.

If the story plays out as it is supposed to, denial will rule the day. Mayo will deny it. USC will deny it. Mayo’s former high school(s) and middle school(s) will deny it. Reggie Bush will become inextricably bound to Mayo, and we will be exposed to yet more babble trying to convince us of the gravity of both figures. Arlen Specter, with all the free time that politicians seem to have with the election and war going on, will probably address Congress concerning the issue, any day now. ESPN, along with the rest of the underfed sports media, will invade the lives of anyone to ever brush elbows with the guy in an attempt to put together a 15 min. segment, which will be used to spearhead a larger segment examining the ‘corruption’ in amateur athletics.

The moral flavoring of it all is almost palpable. I won’t join the proselytizers and condemn Mayo. I also will not defend him, for the simple fact that I do not think he needs defending. I will, instead, argue that he is both product and victim of a duplicitous system of hypocrisy that produces its heroes and criminals from the same mold.

What can be said of Mayo, can be said of many ‘amateur’ athletes. Here, we have humble beginnings giving rise to a player with prodigious talent. He has proven highly successful at every stop during his young career. He was touted as the next ______ (fill in whatever name you like, I’m sure it will just be applied to someone else next year) while still in high school, and was able to gain acceptance to a university he probably couldn’t have been admitted to if not for his playing ability (although, I did read that Mayo scored in the 95th percentile on the ACT). After a brief stop in academia, he will join the ranks of professional athletes, whereby, he will enter the aristocratic lifestyle of privilege conferred by fame and money.

That is only the face of the matter. Consider the social elements associated with premiere athletics. As a society, we dote upon our athletes. We liken them to gladiators, and pay handsomely to watch them compete. We empathize with their every success and failure as if it were our own. We extend them every exception from our moral and legal rules. Any possible way that a society can elevate a class of people for doing absolutely nothing deserving of such merit, America does for its athletes.

This process begins at an increasingly early age, where we teach our children the modern hymn, ‘blessed is the athlete.’ One can imagine the credulity of a child leading him to conclude that their value is directly correlative to their athletic ability. If you’ve ever experienced, or at least witnessed, the phenomenon that is fatherhood at youth sporting events, then you know full well what I mean. The successful ones will come to realize that it is possible to achieve significant degrees of distinction and privilege through the agency of sports.

Where does this adulation come from? Maybe it’s our inner primate gravitating towards conflict. Maybe we simply love to be entertained. Whatever the reason may be, there exists a surplus of what the economists call, demand. In the world of finance, demand invariably leads to investment. As luck would have it, investing in sports has proven to be quite lucrative. When we consider that the arms of modern marketing reach farther than any of us can ever hope to outrun, we come to understand the causal chain resulting in the ubiquitous profusion of sports in American life.

To describe professional sports in this way seems to give no cause for concern or controversy. As a society, we generally understand and accept the necessary business elements that allow for the existence of sports. Strangely, one could not describe collegiate sports in this same way and not cause uproar and outrage. Herein, lies the crux of our (and O.J. Mayo’s) problem.

Collegiate athletics is the proverbial temple on high. With the exception of the Olympics, it is the grandest vestige of uncorrupted human competition. Money, drugs, and other external influences are kept at arm’s length, allowing the participants to compete in the most natural of ways. These elements mix to form what I call the ‘amateur ideal.’ It is fundamentally moral in nature, and like most ideals, it strays from observable reality in obvious ways. Why do we, as a society, insist on our student-athletes being pure (often meaning poor) as the undriven snow? I can understand the aversion to drugs, as they have the potential to skew the playing field, but at what point in a basketball game does it become important whether the point guard paid for his television, or not?

I don’t think anyone will consciously claim that it is important; at least, not to the competition, itself. If that be the case, then the amateur ideal must refer to the way in which we prefer to view our student-athletes. If I were asked to describe a student, certain adjectives invariably come to mind. Words like young, naïve, lost, developing, future, promising, etc., and I think such words can be applied to students much younger than the collegiate ones being discussed. As a society, I think we rightly feel obligated to protect our still developing members, such as children and students.

I find nothing strange in such a stance, however, a problem arises when our conception of scholastic innocence comes in contact with the uncompromising view that corruption accompanies money. The opinion that money and power can have a corrupting effect upon people is by no means new. When examined within our present context, the idea of a monied student seems to represent the most gnarled of paradoxes. What is it about an amateur athlete that has accepted money from a booster that leads society to collectively denounce and defame him? It is a direct consequence of the fundamental incompatibility between the rosy ideal of amateurism and the staunch belief that money is inherently corrupting (particularly to our youth).

One might argue that it should not be too much to ask for an athlete to wait until they actually do become a professional to accept the benefits of the trade. I think an examination of the financial forces that provide for collegiate sports will make that statement much more difficult to accept. When one also considers the coddling and favoritism we extend to the athletic members of society, particularly the prodigious ones, we come to understand just how hypocritical it is to indict the athletes we have nurtured within a system of our own design.

In addition to being a haven for student-athletes to mature and grow, collegiate athletics is also a wildly lucrative business that grosses millions upon millions of dollars in revenue each year. Now, the actual product being sold is, of course, the athlete. As defined by the creed of amateurism, the athletes can receive no portion of the proceeds derived from their toil and strife. On top of this, student-athletes are not allowed to accept any of the advantages or benefits that have been groomed to expect (and by this point, are probably used to receiving). This is the case, despite the very observable way that we teach our talented athletes that they are exempt from many of the limitations placed upon other, less exceptional, members of society. This is in part due to the cultural emphasis placed on athletics, but the other aspect is their potential earning power. When they are denied financial benefits, a gross iniquity reveals itself in light of the business that thrives off the labor of the athlete. To put it plainly, what do we call it when one person works for free (not out of charity, mind you), and another person receives all the benefits from that work? You got it. Slavery!!!

One can argue that the university is giving them an expensive education for free. How does that apply to athletes such as O.J. Mayo, who not only do not graduate, but aren’t even close to doing so? In truth, there are many (not all) high caliber student-athletes that have no business being allowed to call themselves students, at all. One only has to peruse the collegiate sporting section to see that universities are disciplined by the NCAA for scholastic violations involving athletes on a regular basis. Consider a few examples, such as Miami University, which has had legitimate felons on their football roster. How about the eternally inexplicable and almost indigestible fact that Patrick Ewing attended Georgetown? I won’t presume that all athletes that elect to leave college for a professional athletic career never had any intention of fulfilling their degree requirements, but the numbers are telling (particularly in basketball). For every Shane Battier or Tyler Hansbrough there are 99 Allen Iversons or O.J. Mayos. I don’t think that is mere coincidence, either.

If collegiate sports are a business, then it must exist within an economy of exchange (according to capitalism, anyway). The athlete is offering their talent, time, image, etc., which can be placed at the unhindered disposal of the university. If we are going to avoid the conclusion that slavery is the basic form of college sports, then the institution must offer something in return. If it’s not the education that continually attracts America’s developing athletes, then what is it? The answer: a stage.

Collegiate sports, offers a stage upon which to showcase the athlete. They presume to offer this under the façade of education, and the pledge to guide the maturation of our youth; however, its reality is achieved (and funded) by claiming the right to any and all proceeds made in the use of that stage. It is nothing more than a prudent business exchange. It misuses the concept of education, and all the illusory benevolence inspired by the amateur ideal, to veil the fundamentally self interested motivations that produce and sustain any capitalistic business.

Academia, itself, is a business. Athletics can turn it into big business. Student-athletes, such as O.J. Mayo, are not playing sports while they work on their astrophysics degrees; nor, are they asked to. Their student status exists in the form of a mutual lie. For the athlete, school represents a gateway to the pros (one that is now required). For the school, the athlete represents a gateway to a high level of income, national exposure, and further recruitment to perpetuate the cycle. Nothing I have said, thus far, is mysterious or idealistic. It’s basic business.

If we revisit the plight of O.J. Mayo, again, we may notice that the reasons for which he has come under scrutiny by the media seem both hypocritical and empty. We are a society that champions the exploits of our athletes, which leads us to prize and foster athletic ability among our membership. Yet, we are an economically driven nation, of which athletic enterprising ranks among the most lucrative. We have obvious demand, but because the sports industry sells people and not peanuts, the line begins to blur when we consider the nature of our supply. Capitalism and amateurism cannot coexist. The former says ‘profit at any cost’, and the latter says ‘purity is paramount.’ To teach our athletes that privilege is the antecedent to sports, and then deny them that expected privilege on moral grounds that are not only not universally observed, but prove highly beneficial to the incumbent system, is beyond criminal.

With that said, how is it that we have come to look down upon a career athlete, such as O.J. Mayo, who has been groomed by his surroundings and society at large, to expect exemptions and caveats because of his abilities? How is it that a product of our cultural love affair with athletics is reviled and derided when he arrives at the necessary intersection between power, purity, and money? We built the very train tracks that our athletes run on, yet we have the audacity to judge the train as it passes?

To conclude, there can be no justice under our present circumstances. The reasons why society has placed the athlete on a pedestal are not compatible with the ethical posturing of amateurism. One of them must be removed from the equation. The most pragmatic solution, in my opinion, would be to discredit and discontinue the stereotype that money necessarily corrupts. Without such an assumption, the ideal of amateurism pertains only to substance enhancement, which is completely compatible with the business elements I have discussed.

Even if O.J. Mayo admits to accepting all of the gifts that the media is speculating he did, and more, it would not suffice to thin the hypocrisy at its root. O.J. Mayo is exactly the person we have taught him to be, and is only accepting that which we have taught him to feel entitled to. And, that is to say nothing of him, as a person. The ideologies conflict in such a way as to produce an endless supply of free labor for collegiate athletics, but the moment financial sovereignty is compromised, the moral guard dog is loosed, aided and abetted by the media. If morality is to hold any water it must do so in all contexts, and to continually subvert it in the name of business, only to later stand upon it cloaked in self righteous indignation, is to openly caricaturize it. Until fundamentally corrective changes are made within the system, we should expect to see the O.J. Mayos of the world paraded in front of us by the same hypocritical system that first deemed him worthy of recognition to begin with.

The tiny liberal arts school from Davidson, North Carolina is impossible to root against.

Ranked No. 10 in the Midwest Region, the Wildcats of Davidson College have now officially upended the No. 7, No. 2 and No. 3 teams en route to an incredible run through the 2008 NCAA Tournament.

After beating Gonzaga* in the first round, Davidson defeated a perennial giant in NCAA hoops, the Georgetown Hoyas, to make the Sweet Sixteen. The excitement spread all the way to the Davidson board of trustees, who offered its student body of 1,700 undergraduates an all-expenses paid trip to the Sweet Sixteen game against Wisconsin in Detroit.

Think the move paid off? Ask the Badgers, whose own championship dreams were squashed by the Wildcats Friday night with a 73-56 win.

At the center of the Davidson run is the thin-framed, baby-faced sharpshooting sophomore, Stephen Curry, son of former NBA player Dell Curry. His 40, 30 and 33 points in the first three rounds, respectively, all managed to come at the perfect time of each game.

Curry has the face of a high schooler, but the jumper of a seasoned vet.

And, despite his small body frame, Curry has managed to carry the Wildcats on his back all the way to the Elite Eight, where they will face the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks.

Like every other round so far, experts predict Davidson to lose Sunday. But can the Wildcats momentum be stopped?

Or, will they managed yet another amazing upset, silencing doubters and continuing the plight of the small school — a la George Mason — and make it to the Final Four?

Find out tomorrow at 5:05 p.m. EST, when the little team from North Carolina sets their sights on the giant school from Kansas.

How can you not root for the little guy?

*Correction: I mistyped and put Notre Dame here by mistake before. My apologies to the N.D. alums!

After averaging 20 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4 assists per game through his NBA career, Chris Webber is ready to hang ‘em up.

Growing up in the D.C. Metropolitan-area, the main lingering memory I have of C-Webb is when the Washington Bullets mistakingly traded him to Sacramento for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe, instead of Juwan Howard. No disrespect to Howard, who had his best NBA years in D.C., but C-Webb has Hall of Fame numbers and was much more exciting to watch.

Webber, Howard, Gheorge Muresan, Calbert Cheaney and Rod Strickland helped excite the area when intact and healthy. Here was Mike Wilbon talking about those Bullets as they were fixin’ to pick up Webber from Golden State for three 1st-rounders and Tom Gugliotta:

Even before The Trade had been announced or even completed, there was hysteria. The Washington Bullets didn’t have enough people to answer the phones or take the requests. People were walking up to the front door and pulling out checkbooks, credit cards. A guy from Pennsylvania called and bought four full season tickets — that’s all 41 home games. Lawyers and pols and VIPs called wanting in. Maybe USAir Arena isn’t so far after all. More than 500 season-ticket plans had been sold by 9:30 last night. At one point, hours before anyone knew whether Chris Webber would be coming to town, a Bullets sales staffer stood up and said to anyone who could hear above the screaming telephones, “The town’s on fire!”

The Washington Bullets have a superstar. Someone to put on posters and billboards, someone whose jersey fanatic teenagers will want, someone whom people will happily pay to see, someone who looks at Shaq and Barkley and Kemp and Pippen without blinking, a legitimate all-star prospect who can take a team deep, deep into the NBA playoffs. You think Washington is just a Redskins town? It isn’t. It’s a town long suffering for a Young Hoop God. It’s a town where people will write a check for two seats at $1,200 each to see Chris Webber in uniform, or even at a news conference.

The gang, along with Webber and his hysteria, took the Bullets to the playoffs after a nine-year drought. They fell short of championship dreams thanks to some guy named Michael Jordan. (Who hasn’t MJ made “fall short” at some point during his run?)

As mentioned above, Webber was traded away from Washington in ‘98 after the team decided he was too much trouble and needed to be split from Howard, who was his close buddy at the time.

I reiterate: Washington traded the wrong guy. Case-in-point can be seen by the career-setting stats C-Webb put up in Sacramento:

When Webber arrived, the Kings also signed center Vlade Divac and drafted point guard Jason Williams. In his first year with the Kings (the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season), Webber won the rebounding title averaging a league high 13.0 rebounds per game. The surprising Kings team made the playoffs, almost upsetting the veteran Utah Jazz. In years to come, Webber and the Kings became arguably the most exciting team in the league, and NBA title contenders. He was named to the All-Star team again in 2000 and 2001 while cementing his status as one of the premier power forwards in the NBA. Webber peaked in the 2000-01 season where he averaged a career-high 27.1 points. He also averaged 11.1 rebounds and was 4th in MVP voting. Webber was an All-NBA player five years in a row as a Sacramento King (1999-2003), making the 1st team in 2001 for the only time in his career.

On July 27, 2001 Webber signed a $127 million, seven-year contract with the Kings. In the 2001-02 NBA season, Webber led the Kings to a franchise record 61-21. He also made his fourth All-Star team and they made it to the Western Conference Finals, against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Kings lost in 7 games.

Webber went on to play for the 76ers, Pistons and a very brief stint with the Golden State Warriors (again). His numbers, as they sit, are Hall of Fame worthy.

(Flickr Image / Vedia)

Webber first stepped into infamy as the lead member of Michigan’s “Fab Five” team — Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson — who went to two straight NCAA finals in ‘92 and ‘93 but lost both times. The second loss made C-Webb famous for all the wrong reasons when he called a time-out Michigan did not have with 11 seconds left against North Carolina with his team down 2 at the time. The ensuing two free throws helped UNC seal the victory. Many folks still blame Webber for that loss but I hold to what a coach told me long ago: “No one play determines 40-minute-long games.”

I am not a member of the “sound bite” decision-makers of America club, but those who are will only remember Webber for his last NCAA game. Following the political theater taking place with pundits and opponents jumping on Senator Barack Obama for words of those around him, earlier today on The Starting Five’s message board, I pondered whether C-Webb could coach without having to pop young hoopster knuckleheads upside the head for talking trash about “the time-out incident.”

There are too many persons in the world who, unfortunately, would judge both Obama and C-Webb by one decision of their entire lifetimes.

C-Webb does great work in the community and from everything I’ve read about him is an all-around great person. (I say that from my outsider’s perspective in mind, of course). I hope he keeps up with the charity work and doesn’t fall out of the spotlight. Even during his “get high” days in D.C., C-Webb still smiled, signed autographs and did all the other good stuff for the community.

I respect the socially conscious athlete and hold him in high regard for being one.

Maybe he will push past doubters and become a coach down the road. He will just have to keep in mind that, because of either haters or jokesters, whenever he calls a time-out he had better be ready to pop a couple folks upside the head!

UNC’s Quentin Thomas was always better than Bobby Frasor, but never better than Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson. With injuries to Lawson this year, Thomas’s playing time increased to a respectable level, and he can proudly say he contributed to getting the Tarheels into the Sweet Sixteen.

His years at UNC were filled with lots of injuries, bench-warming and one National Championship in 2005. Lots of stories for Thomas, but I was happy to see ESPN’s Heather Dinich write a piece on his role through the years at UNC.Everyone knows the bigger names like Tyler Hansborough (who looks like Hacksaw Jim Duggin) and Ty Lawson (one of the top PGs in the nation). Every once in a while it’s great to peek down the bench and see the story of the kid waiting in the wings.

No amount of Old Spice, Axe body spray or visits to a local confessional will overcome the guilty pleasure that is enjoying NCAA March Madness “one-tourney stand” games.

Also known as “one-and-done theater,” games where freshman superstars are forced to play one year of college basketball before reaching full eligibility to play in the National Basketball Association are wrong on nearly all accounts - the one exception, of course, is their extremely high entertainment value.

Those freshman phenomenon players help fill the NCAA courts with a much-needed excitement-boost, overshadowing most upperclassmen (*insert Tyler Hansborough of North Carolina adoration and fan love notes here as an exception to this rule*) in popularity, talent and, according to many NBA scouts, professional potential (I shall call it “pro-po” from this point forward for no reason other than to mock the lazy “American way” of abbreviating everything, at every opportunity)

There is no mistake in the tremendous draw of watching freshman phenoms with plenty of pro-po to go around, O.J. Mayo of the University of Southern California and Michael Beasley of Kansas State, face one-another head-to-head in the NCAA tournament. Both players were highly recruited coming out of high school, so much that had NBA league commissioner David Stern not implemented a critical change to the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the National Basketball Players’ Association in 2005, both would be earning millions among the professional ranks.

Instead, Mayo, Beasley, Derrick Rose of Memphis, Eric Gordon of Indiana and Kevin Love of UCLA, play one year of what amounts to a college fundraising tour of sorts, earning money for everyone around them - college teams, divisions, coaches and sponsors - but receiving very little to keep in their own pocket.

In these “one-tourney stand” cases, the argument that the fabulous freshman are “rewarded with a free education” is null and void because even as much as sticking around their temporary college of choice may be appealing, passing up the chance to step into the pro ranks and immediately make millions is a temptation few can pass on.

If one of the main goals in attending college is to absorb enough smarts to venture into the working world and make good money, why would any government constantly promoting a system where individual wealth is celebrated deny any citizen their right to earn a living working legally?

Some of these young players use their wealth to turn their lives around after growing up in poverty. Families and friends are given a ladder to escape a debt and disparity. Some invest back into the economy, give back to the communities they either grew up in, or moved into by way of their work or travels and but are inspired to help (Warrick Dunn, anyone?).

Of course, there are those who blow millions-on-end on trips to Las Vegas, gambling and acting a fool (Charles Barkley, anyone?) as some young adults with more money than brains quite often do.

Who are we to judge how people spend their money?

Sure, M.C. Hammer went bankrupt after a few years on top of the world. If we had the chance to go back in time, should he not have been eligible to be a professional entertainer?

What about the participants who were victims of the Dot Com bust? Many made money quick but invested and spent poorly, and the floor fell from beneath them. Would an age-restriction have protected young, talented techies from falling flat on their face?

I say let the pennies fall, or grow, as they may.

Adults in America are responsible for their own actions. For every story of difficulty and downfall, we have others filled with hope and happiness. Aren’t most other career choices in life filled with the same?

Yes, there will be cases where some kid athletes are over-hyped coming out of high school and eventually fall flat on their face in the pros.

Isn’t the nature of investing in Wall Street similar? Invest your life savings! High risk, high reward! Lost it all? Ah, that’s the nature of the biz! Get up, dust yourself off, and get back on that horse!

Yes, there will be those same over-hyped kids who declare their eligibility for the NBA Draft, accept money and gifts from anyone ranging from sports agents to the tooth fairy, and end up hearing their name called in the draft the same number of times I hear mine every year - zero.

Aren’t college admission processes similar to this very situation?

The way to correct the problem is not to penalize the kid who will fall victim to over-hype - be it inflicted by their community, school, family or even their own - but rather, instead of clipping wings and revoking college eligibility if mistakes are made, leagues and colleges need to allow more flexibility.

Much too often in society too much focus is paid to penalization, when the world would be better off if more focus was spent on rehabilitation.

Many kids deserve a second-chance; maybe some do not. Sometimes falling flat often leads to a more “enlightened” point-of-view on life and its many opportunities.

Some people will receive lemons from life and turn them into projectile devices; some will make lemonade.

There are many excuses and conspiracy theories as to why the NBA and NFL have their age-restriction rules - league racial discrimination, protecting the youth from themselves, protecting the jobs of older leage players - and I “reject and denounce” them all:

League Racism
The majority of high school kids affected by the age-limit restriction rules are African-Americans. The majority of NBA and NFL players are African-American. The majority of players both affected and protected by this rule are of the same racial background, so…

Youth Protection
Some young persons who get rich quick are not quite mature enough to be responsible adults. Do we restrict lottery winners by age, too? Does Wall Street have an age-restriction? Where does the over-regulation of self start and end? As I said before, the best way to protect the youthful athletes is to pick them up if they fall. Rehabilitation over penalization.

Protect. Those. Vets.
Kids these days are bigger, stronger and faster. Call it a change in the tide, or a shot to the buttocks (speculate at your own leisure, folks!) but these days talent floods the streets similar to odors in New York City. Leave it to teams to determine whether they should keep veteran players around or draft “The Next…” Though I cannot imagine the scenario, I would only question teams if they started picking up youthful players in order to save money - similar to how some companies either hire migrant workers or export their jobs to places like India.

Whether or not the NBA and NFL have good intentions or not makes no difference. Citizens of this free nation have the right to earn a living working legally, and the two leagues are in violation with the Constitution and the aim of this free nation by holding those young players back from going pro after high school.

As an avid hoops fan, I benefit quite a bit — though nowhere near as much as colleges and conferences — from the restrictions Stern implemented. Because of the rule, this year I was able to watch Derrick Rose and Kevin Love carry their respective teams into the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. Without the rule, I may have only seen the two get a handful of minutes as they played for horrible NBA teams, and never had a reason to be excited about watching them play. It is a great feeling watching highly-skilled college games, filled with NBA-talented kids competing where they have no business playing if they would rather be elsewhere - especially in the pros. A great feeling that feels so good, yet so wrong.

There is no sense in players being forced into college for a year and given restrictions on receiving benefits and gifts, while their schools and conference divisions reap millions worth of rewards as the over-hyped phenoms continue to put fannies into arena seats. What is the lesson learned here?

Many mocked the way Mayo recruited himself to USC because the way he went the process was so far-fetched, hilarious and absurdly “Outer Limits” - where down is up, up is down, and players recruit themselves to college and not the reverse, as tradition set - we cannot help but tune in.

What’s one more delectable, despicable, enjoyable, guilty pleasure to go around?

With the excitement of the NCAA March Madness Tournament in full swing, I figured it best to drop in and wish everyone much luck in your bracket pools. Well, as it goes, this only applies to those outside of my own; if you are in my pool, just to let you know, Kent State lost already so you’re toast.

And as keeper of the faith and all that is good in American society, I must add a few tips to the degenerate gamblers out there: please avoid gambling away anything other than your hair, ham sandwiches, haircuts, ham sandwiches and firstborns (Rumpelstiltskin, anyone?).

My bracket this year is my safest ever (check it out on ESPN’s Tourney Challenge, Username: MECTimHops) and I am a little disappointed in it, because I typically take pride in following random teams throughout the year and picking (50-50 on the success rate, admittedly) an out-of-nowhere (to others) upset.

Full disclosure: I do root for the University of North Carolina, and have since I was a wee one. They are the consensus #1 coming into the tourney, so picking them worked out quite fine. After watching their resiliency in the Clemson game (the Tigers’ Booker is an animal — he just swatted my last sentence into the stands just now) and throughout the ACC tourney, I think they have the right amount of things working in their favor. Although, if the East part of my bracket works out like it should (because of my amazing, safe pick ‘em skillz), then Indiana will take on UNC for a very tough match-up, though I favor the ‘heels by way of their much-superior coach. With that said, I do believe in jinxes, so I apologize to other ‘heels fans out there, because I may have just ruined their chances!

Stuck at work late, I’m exercising my after-hours right to peruse the CBS website and watch these games online.

Happy Tourney Day, to all!*

*I told you folks in my tourney pools I wish nothing but ill wishes and sour dreams for your brackets!

Sure, Yao Ming is good for a laugh or two in credit card commercials. But where was the Chinese giant when his team needed him most?

Or, maybe, Yao was just where he needed to be - safely injured on the sidelines - in order for the Rockets to find the inspiration to catapult to the top of the West.

A more superstitious man may call Yao’s injury good luck. With the smoke cleared and history the Rockets’ streak officially halted at 22-straight wins, second-best in NBA history, maybe the Rockets will admit the same - Yao’s injury was more of a blessing than a curse.

To the practical mind, no injury can be unlucky. But the superstitions mind works differently - bear in mind quite a few professional athletes are extremely superstitious - and they would be more eager to entertain and more than likely embrace the idea of a “fortunate injury” to a degree.

Take a look at the turn of events:

When Yao was around to help, Houston played fairly well, but remained outside of the playoff picture.

When the Chinese import fell to injury, the team proceeded to be great - at a level of historic proportions - and managed to obtain the top spot in the West.

Of course, like all good things, the streak eventually had to come to an end.

Houston’s cause wasn’t helped out by running into the “green monster” of the league, the Boston Celtics, even as they too were short-staffed.

(Side note: As if their 50-total-win mark did not make it clear enough, Boston made a statement last night by beating a very good team despite their best shooter, Ray Allen, sitting out with a minor injury. They are as deep a team as the league has.)

To be fair, the Rockets were assisted by many factors throughout their historic streak. They were fortunate enough to play Dallas while Dirk Nowitzki was sidelined; and the Lakers sans Paol Gasol. Ideally, Ray Allen missing from the Boston game would have been helpful, but at that point the streak had ran its course.

Retrospectively, Houston’s 22-game winning streak is as amazing as they come; maybe even more so than previous streaks, considering Houston’s largest piece (literally) was missing in action throughout the majority of the run.

The ‘72 Los Angeles Lakers rallied around one of the greatest centers ever, Wilt Chamberlain, en route to their record 33-game win streak.

Who, exactly, did the ‘08 Rockets have to rally around?

With most teams honing in on the Rockets’ lone superstar left standing, Tracy McGrady, offering double- and triple teams at times, the onus fell on Rafer Alston, Shane Battier, Dikembe Mutombo and the rest of the gang to pick up the leftover slack needed to outlast their opponents.

No single player necessarily stood out as the catalyst of their historic streak. However, ESPN did a great job Sunday night, highlighting one of the major keys to the streak - Shane Battier’s lockdown defense. Against Kobe Bryant, literally, on nearly every shot, Battier conducted a game of “peek-a-boo” with #24.

Everyone who ever endured painfully long hoops practices has heard the term “get a hand in his face!” repeated on every level, from every coach. A longtime defensive guru, Battier actually listened and gave a perfect example of to execute the “hand in the face” effectively. The Houston team helped out when needed, but their defense proved to be their best asset.

Mind you, the “hand in the face” method will not always shut down the best shooter in the game; I am looking forward to the next time the Lakers take on the Rockets, and Kobe plays with an extra chip on his shoulder. But as was clear through the last seven weeks, the Rockets constantly had luck/karma/fresh h2o on their side.

And as each teammate picked up the slack from their missing-in-action anchor, playing great defense and finding good shooting fortune throughout, the feat became all the more spectacular.

Even as the Rockets remain atop the Western conference, no one knows their true identity. Are they the Houston team before the streak, who stood on the outside of playoff contention looking in? Or are they the Houston team that won 22-straight games, managing to win even as they were under-staffed and under-appreciated?

This Houston team has the resolve to succeed without their anchor; they just need to keep the faith.

I am unaware of any special addition or subtraction of items in the Houston water supply, but please, if you are from the area, please ship some this way.

The Rockets’ star, shooting guard Tracy McGrady, cannot advance in the NBA playoffs to save his life, but damn if he hasn’t figured out how to accomplish personal feats worthy of historical mention.

20 wins in a row is an amazing feat, no matter the sport, and no matter how pretty those wins are. Consistency in professional sports is difficult to maintain, no matter how you look at it.

Fresh off the 18-1 New England Patriots’ season, we are all well-versed in the emotion floating around perfection. Of course this is not complete perfection, but rather 20 games worth of it.

But I can’t help but let the devil’s advocate in me ask the question: If one of those wins isn’t a championship, what worth does it have?

Since this is professional sports, isn’t the goal to “play to win The Game,” meaning — The Championship? Ah, to belittle such a great accomplishment feels foul on many accounts, but someone had to ask.

I will never fully understand why, on February 22, 2007, one of the NBA’s toughest competitors (No. 1 goes to Allen Iverson, hands down), Dwyane Wade, was carted off the floor in a wheelchair after separating his shoulder. He didn’t injure his legs, knees, ankles or toes — essential body parts needed for walking — but rather, he injured his shoulder.

I imagine if A.I. were to remark on that injury, the quote would be something along the lines of:

We’re talkin’ bout a shoulder injury. Not a leg, knee or hip. A shoulder. Not a pinky toe, shin or groin. A shoulder injury. Come on? A shoulder injury…

With that said, it’s easier said than done to assume others may have reacted “tougher” if placed in a similar situation, walking off-court using our healthy, functional legs following the same collision. If Wade needed a wheelchair, one of us might have needed an air lift. But I digress.

A nagging knee injury has bothered Wade this season so, with the Heat’s season sitting at 11-51 and any hopes of being admitted attendance to the playoffs in any way/shape/form ruined, the team decided to let the 4-time All-Star, 1-time NBA Finals MVP sit out the remainder of the season.

Good for him; smart planning on the team’s part. The team is easily one of the worst in the league. At the moment, they are the bottom-feeders in the East. They shipped off the Batman/Robin (depending on what angle you prefer) of their ‘06 Championship operation, Shaq, but in return received an all-around hoops animal in Shaun Marion. With the benching of Wade, the rest of the team can get used to playing together and, as you see with coach Pat Riley’s absence, they already started planning for the future.

Listening to Mike & Mike the other morning, Mike Greenberg sounded especially upset at the notion that Dwayne Wade would shut down to nurse his injury, and made note that his kid wears Wade’s shoes and jersey, and that Miami season ticket-holders were being duped.

I smell hypocrisy. Isn’t this the same Mike who saw his favorite quarterback, Chad Pennington, fall to a season-ending injury, and rooted for his Jets to lose the last few games of the season so they could get Reggie Bush in the draft? It’s funny how the mind works sometimes.

Wade has never been a person to just quit on his team. He wasn’t handed the 2006 Sportsman of the Year (over a fan-fave Brett Favre, mind you) because he isn’t a team player. One championship, a finals MVP, 4 All-Star appearances and 3-time All-NBA should earn him that much respect. There’s no use in risking further injury to the team’s best player when the season is beyond lost. Fans of the team and Wade — and even the parents of Wade’s younger fans — should understand this.

The most wonderful time of year is here for sports. It’s called March Madness and it’s the sports world’s savior for disasters like steroids, spy-gate, the BCS, crooked refs, hockey, criminal activity, and more. March Madness is sports at its most pure and at its best. Those first four days of the tourney, that wonderfully long weekend of sunrise-to-sunset college basketball is a cure-all to the anti-climatic and scandal-ridden world of games that we have to endure month after month.

Before the tournament begins, though, the field must be set, meaning the brackets must be filled out. That is accomplished, as most of you know, by the NCAA Selection Committee. This group of 10 bear on their shoulders the task of seeding the 31 teams that earned automatic bids by winning their conference championships. They then, and most importantly, pick the remaining 34 “at-large teams” that will also be welcomed. That final product of 65 schools will be introduced at 7 pm this month on March 16^th.

But there is one glaring problem with this whole process and it will surely, perhaps even this year, bite the NCAA right on its overly-confident hind-side. The bracket unveiling happens at 7 pm this year, as it does every year, on a Sunday night in mid-March. The problem is that with all of those career-changing selections being made, the NCAA has little time to compose itself since five conference championship games will be played earlier in the day on the 16^th.

What does that mean? Well, if you’re one of the 15 teams or so that are on the tourney “bubble,” meaning you may get in, you may not, you now have the selection group juggling your fate based on what happens an hour prior to the show’s start. This rushed schedule does not help the NCAA at all and I fear it will ultimately lead to an embarrassing situation.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never taken 65 of anything and ranked them, paired them together for competitions, and then assigned them to cities they must travel to based on geographic location, but I assume it’s pretty hard. It’s so hard, in fact, it would seem a group of 10 different deciding individuals may need up to a day to finalize such an important happening. Not the NCAA. With the show airing at 7 pm sharp, the selectors have the Big 12 conference championship starting at 3 pm (ending presumptively at 5) and the Big 10 conference title starting at 3:30 pm (ending at what they pray is 5:30). Now, if any bubble teams are involved and, in a worst case scenario, win those matches, the tourney committee then has to juggle the future of up to 15 school programs in about a half-hour span. Why do they put this pressure on themselves? Here’s what could happen…

Embarrassing scenario #1: According to ESPN’s Bubble Watch website, the Big 12 has only two locks, or tournament-guaranteed teams, which are Texas and Kansas. They also, have six bubble teams, or teams that could presumptively make it by selection. Now, let’s say for example that neither Texas nor Kansas make it to the conference championship on the 16^th. It’s 3 pm, and tipping off at center court are Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Both are decent teams despite their lackluster 15-13 regular-season records.

Now, one of those teams has to win and it won’t be until 5 pm, two hours before the committee’s final selections are aired. Let’s say the game is neck-and-neck and OK State wins on a buzzer beater. How many Big 12 teams does the committee let in? State is a lock because they won the title. Texas and Kansas are also locks. Now, what about the five other bubble teams that also have a chance? Who is let in and who is left out? Baylor and A&M had stronger records, but it was Texas Tech that lost on a lucky buzzer-beating shot. More importantly, what about the mid-major teams around the country like Creighton, Davidson, and VCU that are also competing for those spots?

Judgment is rushed in this scenario, and that’s not good for the NCAA or the game of basketball.

Embarrassing Scenario #2: Let’s say the Big 10 tourney title comes down to Wisconsin and Iowa. Now, Wisconsin is the #10 overall team in the nation and therefore a sure lock on a Big Dance future. But Iowa is not supposed to be in this situation. They were never supposed to get this far. And now it’s 3:30 pm and they’re tipping off for a shot at making it into the tourney.

College basketball games are a science of timing. They’ve got the minutes, the timeouts, and the guaranteed fouls down pat. College b-ball games universally last two hours in length. You can set your watch by it. Give your grandpa his pill when it starts and when it ends, because it’s going to be two hours. The NCAA counts on this, and it almost never fails them. But what if it does? What if the game lasts more than two hours and runs into selection-show-time, only there’s no finished bracket to present?

Take for example the Baylor vs. Texas A&M game earlier this year. The crowd in College Station, Texas, thought they had an exciting one going when regulation ended with a 64-to-64 tie heading into overtime. Little did they know that it would be five overtimes before Baylor walked away with a 116-to-110 win. Now, games like this are not common at all. But extended games of two and three overtimes happen commonly every year. What if one strikes the Big 10? Suddenly it’s unranked and unexpected Iowa battling mighty Wisconsin in the third OT at 6:25 pm.

The selection committee, in this situation, has to now make two tournament brackets for CBS to air. There’s the one where everything goes as planned and Wisconsin walks away victorious. And there’s the other where Iowa does the unthinkable and earns an automatic berth into the Dance. It would seem, considering this is a TV show and graphics and scripts must be written and loaded, that a half-hour is not enough time to make such crucial judgments.

Worse yet, the pressure of such an enormous task in a short time panics the selection crew sending them all into the fetal position. Greg Gumbel must now adlib on screen at 7 pm for minutes on end as a disappointed nation waits to see where they’ll have to travel on the map to see their beloved team play. Advertisers freak.

Why is the NCAA risking this?

College basketball is a powerful and influential industry. It shapes portfolios and, more importantly, it shapes lives. All of this is excluding the hundreds of millions in cash that exchange hand-to-hand from gamblers every year.One need only look to Gonzaga University for proof. Now a tournament staple, the Zags didn’t make it to the Big Dance for the first time until 1995. After some successful runs, they charged all the way to the Elite 8 in ‘99 forever changing the landscape of that school. In one year, Gonzaga saw a 22% increase in student enrollment. That’s without mentioniong the millions it made in donations, season ticket sales, and merchandise. The Zags now play in an arena twice the size of the one the ‘99 team dribbled in. Even the school’s business and science buildings saw extensions of  up to 47,000 feet added, due in part at least to the men’s team’s success.

With me personally, I had already picked out UNC-Wilmington as my school of choice in early 2002. But watching the Seahawks take down four-seed Southern Cal sure didn’t make me regret my decision.

And don’t tell me George Mason University is in worse shape than it was two years ago on this day.

Yes, the NCAA has a lot on its plate. The decisions their chosen few have to make are monumental and can define schools and lives for generations to come. With the Big Dance not beginning until a week after the brackets are announced, why still does the league insist on rushing their judgment? This risk-taking will ultimately lead to embarrassment, leaving no difference between the men’s hoop programs and the failures of the BCS. It’s not worth it.