Basketball season is over. Mission accomplished. 

So now what? The weather has turned warmer (must be that global warming stuff) and work is crazy. I’m finding that I’m more productive out of the office than in…what does that mean? It means that fluorescent lights are rough on me…that cubicle walls are stifling my creativity.

Fortunately, I work at a company that is understanding of my need for environmental hugs. It helps to be comfortable. It also is awesome to be able to work in these Mossimo cutoff sweat shorts during the day. I’ve been busting my tail to get this presentation done for my upcoming conference this week and I’m looking forward to working on some new projects.

So what now? The Masters is this weekend - one of my favorite golf events of the season. I won’t be able to catch most of it because I’ll be at the conference, but I’ll catch the final round and watch Tiger win another green jacket. 

My last few weeks has been absolutely crazy. I’m looking forward to a little slower pace for a while.

How have you been?

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It’s always fun to watch your favorite college basketball team smack your arch-nemesis in the face for 26 minutes of a game. The other 14 minutes were not nearly as fun. But I thought that what Bill Self told his team toward the tail-end of Carolina’s run was just great coaching:

“Hey, if I told you before the game we were going to be up nine with 10 minutes left, would we have taken that? If I told you we’d be up four at the under-eight timeout, would you have taken that?”

Perspective. That’s all it took for the Jayhawks to snap out of their funk and finish the job they’d started at the beginning of the game. The Roy demons are exorcised. Maybe we can lay that bad blood to rest and begin to honor a man who spent 15 years making Kansas a perennial contender in college basketball instead of booing him when he’s announced before games.

Tonight’s final is going to be a terrific game. Memphis has some terrific players, but Kansas is a better team. If Kansas can play as good as they did for 2/3 of the game on Saturday, I think we’ll see crimson and blue streamers tonight. If their defensive intensity remains high, I believe they’ll succeed. If not, Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts will play their game. Those two players are the only ones who present significant match-up problems for the Jayhawks.

And don’t give me that Joey Dorsey stuff. KU is just too deep at the post for him to be nearly as effective as he was against the Kevin Love Show. Love isn’t tough and he refused to contest Dorsey underneath. We’ll call him “Darrell Arthur”. But KU has Darnell Jackson, Sasha Kaun and Cole Aldrich who will be more than enough to combat Dorsey underneath.

I imagine that the Jayhawk fan in me is starting to cloud my vision a little, but I think KU is the toughest match-up Memphis will have faced up to this point. Two great teams will clash tonight and I am hoping for that celebration in Lawrence.

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

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I don’t care too much for the NBA. I have friends who love it, but I could care less for the most part, and for all the standard reasons:

• The players don’t play hard enough
• The players are paid too much
• Free agency gives you no ability to root for teams because players move around
• The dunk contest is boring

Don’t deny that the last one is a reason the NBA has gone downhill. The dunk contest lost its luster after Cedric Ceballos dunked blindfolded. There haven’t been any really innovative dunks in probably 5 years. That is, until last weekend’s All-Star Weekend.

The dunk contest was between Orlando’s Dwight Howard and defending champion Gerald Green from the jump. Both of them had brilliant dunks in the first round and really it was a contest between the two of the them. When Howard pulled out the Superman cape, you knew it was over. Still, Gerald Green’s “Birthday Cake” was one of the most creative dunks I’ve ever seen.

Just before the trade deadline, the Cavaliers, Supersonics and Bulls managed to work out a blockbuster trade that sent Big Ben Wallace and Wally “Don’t try to spell it” Szczerbiak to the Cavs to help out LeBron James. A sidenote of the trade is that it sent former Jayhawk (and Cavs contributer) Drew Gooden to Chicago, where he’ll be reunited with former teammate Kirk Hinrich. Two Jayhawks on the same NBA team? I may have just found someone to root for. Now if they would have only managed to get Nick Collison from the Sonics to the Bulls, we would have really been in business.

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Kansas Jayhawks basketball fan. I remember when I was 12 in 1988 and they won the National Title. I remember going to the Final Four in New Orleans to watch them in 1993 when Chris Webber called the timeout in the title game that sealed the game for North Carolina.

I’ve experienced the pains of losing to Bucknell and others, but I’ll forever be a Jayhawk, even if I went to Graceland.

Last night, I got to do something that I’ve always wanted to as a fan, but never had experienced - I got to see a game at Allen Field House, the hallowed, historic hall where the Jayhawks call home. My buddy Josh procured some General Admission tickets so we took the trek out to Lawrence with Brett and Mike D for an evening in the best college basketball venue in America.

We got there a little late (driving to Lawrence from JoCo when all of you work makes it hard to get there on time), but the game had barely started. We came in through the KU Hall of Fame, which is really cool. They have the old Midcourt up there, which is pretty neat.

The game was against Washburn, so it was bound to be a blowout, but the real exciting thing was that we got to see the return of Brandon Rush to action. Rush, who hurt his knee in the off-season, returned from surgery much more quickly than expected. I imagine that they wanted to give him a test against a lesser opponent just to see how he did. I think he ended up with 7 points, 0 turnovers, and a block.

It was a fun evening and KU ended up winning by more than 30. The halftime show was all of these frisbee dogs and it was pretty funny. One of them had a red-white-and-blue cape, which was hilarious. They also kept showing scores from the Oregon-Arizona football game, which had BCS implications for the undefeated Jayhawks. When they flashed up that Oregon was losing, the place went nuts.

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At 10:10 today (10/10…how clever!), the Sprint Center will open without an anchor tenant.

There are some people who think that’s a bad thing (*cough cough*). I’m not one of them.

Look, I realize that it sucks that people won’t have a specific team to root for over the next couple of years, but I will guarantee that there will be a basketball or hockey team (god forbid) in there before the end of 2008. The truth is that it doesn’t matter. The place is going to be wildly successful.

One of the most exciting things about it is that it all but assures the return of the Big 12 Tournament to its rightful place here in Kansas City. And while that might only be for a week in March, I’ve got an inside source that says that AEG has over 200 events lined up over the next year. Anchor tenants do not make money for facilities. They get free rent, they typically struggle through growing pains, and considering that our best bet is hockey…well…I’d rather get an Arena Football team.

I wish that folks would see the bright side of this arena. Hannah Montana, Garth Brooks, Elton John - these are acts wouldn’t come near Kansas City in the past because our facility was hopelessly outdated. They would have opted for other booming cities like Oklahoma City or Omaha who have had the foresight to actually build modern arenas. The only thing Kemper had to offer was the ghost of Owen Hart haunting the catwalks.

I recognize that you wish that you didn’t have to pay scalper prices for tickets, but you should be appreciative that we are getting those events to begin with. Would you rather have to travel to St. Louis and figure out a way to buy tickets there, travel, get a hotel room, etc.?

I am thrilled to have an arena of this caliber opening in Kansas City. Like I said, some of these events wouldn’t touch KC with a ten-foot pole until the new arena was built. And unlike the area surrounding Kemper Arena, the area surrounding the Sprint Center is already under development and will likely have some decent pull. Out of all the problems the Sprint Center has, I would imagine that there is not one that is larger than parking. And that will always be a problem until people make it a priority. I imagine that as soon as Paul Saleh or James Hance, Jr., can’t find parking, it will become quite a priority.

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As much as I despise Florida and its All-Ugly Forward Joakim Noah, I’m more disappointed in KU getting bounced from the tournament last weekend than in Florida’s repeat (and subsequent discussion of it being one of the best college teams ever).

I can’t figure out how a dude as ugly as Noah is being considered a first-round NBA pick…that guy is NO GOOD. He will stink in the NBA. Mark my words.

Not only that, I can’t figure out why scouts have Brandon Rush and Julian Wright both bouncing from KU to the NBA this off-season. In my opinion, Rush is the only one that could even consider it, but he stands to make a lot more money if he sticks around for a year. His stock could rise significantly (see: Corey Brewer, Florida) if he were to stay and lead the Jayhawks to their first championship in almost 20 years next year.

If both Rush and Wright return, we should be the pre-season #1. If we aren’t, I’ll be convinced that there are people voting that just don’t watch college basketball. For the first 2 rounds of the tournament, no one acted more like a #1 seed than my beloved Jayhawks. After a gritty performance against a tough Southern Illinois team, it was really a let down to see them self-destruct in a way to UCLA. And then, seeing UCLA get dominated by Florida was all the more frustrating, considering that we matched up much better against the Gators.

I think that Sherron Collins knee injury likely had a lot more to do with the loss than we thought, and I am anxious to see how he performs as a seasoned sophomore. Here’s hoping he keeps his weight down because when he lost that 20 pounds, he was KU’s X-factor.

Even if Rush and Wright both go to the NBA, Bill Self will just reload with a bunch more studs. I would just really like to see us play more together as a team than we seemed to in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. The coming weeks will be interesting and here’s hoping that everyone sticks around to make a run at greatness.

And here’s hoping that I never have to watch Joakim Noah dance ever again. Seriously. That dude got hit by the #1 Ugly Bus when he was crossing Main Street in Uglytown.

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Another basketball season, another first-round exit by the Kansas Jayhawks in the NCAA Tournament.

To be totally honest, I never felt really good about this game. In my pool, I almost picked Bradley (almost doesn’t count does it), instead of taking KU to the Elite Eight. Fortunately, I don’t have them out any further than that.

I’m still in decent shape as long as I don’t miss very many more games. Right now, I’m sitting at unlucky number 13, but if today goes well (and I need some help from Georgetown for that to happen), I shouldn’t be sitting too poorly going into the next weekend of the tournament.

I am hoping that with KU out of it, I can look at the tournament a little more rationally. Not that it matters much…I just wouldn’t mind taking home that 65%.

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Right now in my NCAA bracket, I’m 7th. I only missed 3 games yesterday and none of them were of major importance (Indiana, LSU, Alabama). I haven’t lost a Sweet 16 team yet, which is a first for me. I almost lost 2 Final Four teams (BC and Gonzaga), but they both escaped.

I’m not counting on winning, but it sure would be nice. There are 117 people in our pool at $10 each…winner gets 65%.

You do the math.

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Figure this one out:

KU beats Oklahoma on Sunday. Oklahoma was ranked #18, I think. They beat Colorado who is ranked #25. KU is ahead of both of them in the Big 12 standings (behind only Texas), but for some reason, KU isn’t ranked.

Methinks the pollsters are not watching the Big 12 closely.

At least Andy Katz has them in Bracketology, listed as a #6 seed. That sounds about right (Oklahoma is a #6 as well and Colorado is a #10). Inconspicuously absent? Missouri. Quin is done after this year.

UPDATE: Is it any wonder why Missouri isn’t ranked? Losing by 26 to BAYLOR. Pathetic.

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