if second place is the first loser, then is it bad that i am hoping for the bronze?


and so it goes. my hopes for back-to-back pool wins, for three out of four, for my own little bracket dynasty are no more. following the results of this weekend, the best i can now hope for is third place. the silver lining remains, of course, that the basketball will kick serious butt on saturday and hopefully monday (the one game i should actually be able to sit down and watch). but so far as my pool goes, the leader and kiker are out of reach. the best i can hope for is a jump from sixth to third. i wish i could realistically look back and say that if only kansas had taken care of business, i would still be right in it. but i can't. because in that same thought process, two other images pop up. the first? if some guy from xavier hit his last free throw, ohio st. would be out too. the second? if jeff green was called for a travel, there's another final four pick flushed and i would be sitting with florida as my lone representative. so, with the way things have gone this year, between third and sixth is probably right about where i should end up.

i can't say the brackets have been a complete washout (pun intended for the one person that will get it). it looks like i am going to take the home bracket wager and get out of doing the laundry for a week. i'll enjoy that. and so, as far as my journal goes, i bid farewell to the ncaa tournament. 'twas fun. see ya next year.

one sports related snippet. did anyone else catch my own personal us soccer pariah landon donovan score three goals (all world class) this weekend? wow. go get 'em, tiger. string a few games like that together and wear the sweet new uniforms more often and i might just take you off my shit list.

so, you're telling me the nice guy that painted my house is a douchebag?
(if by douchebag, you mean a backstabbing, self-serving dick? yes.)
((this will probably turn "r" rated))


hopewell, mother-scratching baptist church. church number two (behind my own) that has fueled my venom over the lifespan of this journal. it's an easy target, but not for obvious reasons (that it's baptist). it's an easy target because, like huffman, i have information about the inner workings of hopewell baptist church. the policies. the politics. the characters that make up the staff. the wonderful youth and college-age that i've been lucky enough to be around. my source, of course, is andy. my dear friend that played a huge role in my ever considering my own church staff position. andy was on staff at hopewell for almost five years. over the course of many a dreamland lunch did we, along with kiker, discuss and dissect what it was that frustrated each of us with church in general or specifically.

hopewell baptist church started it's turn toward the dark side in my eyes a couple years back. it was around this time that the pastor of this church, responding to "concerns" (loyal readers know how much i love "concerns") from the congregation, shut down andy's basketball ministry. this was a ministry that invited the league i commissioned into it's gym and made for marvelous theater when we played our church basketball league championships on it's floor. because of the success of the basketball ministry, though, andy started seeing an influx in young people that came to the gym for pick-up nights. some of these young people being black may or may not have been the catalyst for the "concerns". not long after the "concerns" were raised, andy's youth pick-up nights were abolished and soon thereafter the gym was closed to anyone that did not have a direct connection (read: was a member of) to hopewell baptist church.

soon after this, andy and his group held a rock concert on hopewell's campus, which also caused an influx of young people and also caused "concerns". needless to say, no more rock concerts.

the last couple years have been littered with frustrations for andy and his family. you see, andy is baptist in name only, and his theology differed from his senior pastor in many ways and his children's pastor in every way save the idea that jesus was lord and savior to them both (you would think that this minute detail would be a simple enough thread that the three could work together. or that it was a simple enough idea to hold any church together. or any two christians. but if you think that, you are wrong.). andy knew that his time at hopewell was coming to an end. it was becoming too hard to swim upstream, but he struggled through the hard times because he loved the young persons that he ministered to.

but then, the shit hit the fan. sticks and stones may break bones, but words always do more damage. word began to circulate that the senior pastor at hopewell may or may not dally in what we call "a love for the naked ladies". that the word came from inside the pastor's home should mark that piece of evidence as fairly credible, but that has become a tangential issue altogether. (listen, we all have our vices. one man may have espn. the other may have playboy. who am i to judge? i could give a shit.) the word circulating scares the pastor. the pastor sees it necessary that his "tracks" (yuck) need to be covered and starts phoning around his congregation that the word circulating is completely false. that he has no idea where it came from. no, wait he does. and that person is andy's wife. andy's wife is telling people the word. and the word is lies. she's a liar. and she's married to andy. so, that must mean andy's a liar. and his kids are liars. and we won't stand for having liars (or black people. or gay people.) on our staff. hell, we won't stand for having liars (or black people. or gay people.) in our church. so, get the fuck out, andy and april and your kids. get the fuck out and don't come back. oh, and don't worry about coming and telling the group good-bye. i'll tell them for you. i'll tell them that you are liars and that we can't have liars (or black people. or gay people.) in our church or ministering our young people. so, get the fuck out and good riddance.

andy is fired.

"excuse me, sir. will you tell the young people about your porn?"
"i don't know who told you about that, probably those rickles, but it was a LIE!!!!"
"a quick follow-up. so, you do not lie, pastor?"
"may god, himself, strike me dead if i do."

(the imaginary thud i just heard in my head was the guy that painted my house keeling over and hitting the floor. dead. because he does lie. and, shit, he gave god permission.)

pastors in churches (maybe especially in small baptist churches. maybe not) get too much credit. sure, they should be held to a higher standard, but it doesn't mean they always can reach the bar. should hopewell think less of their pastor if he likes looking at women? probably not. should they think less of him because instead of attacking an issue like a man he chose to slander a staff member and his wife (both members of his church)? definitely. what will come of hopewell? who knows. i will pray for the members of the church. i will pray for the senior pastor. i will pray for the young people that may or may not maintain contact with their youth pastor because of this. outside of that, though, i could give a shit. hopewell now becomes one of any number of churches with problems and secrets and "concerns" that i won't think about anymore, because it is unhealthy for my personal walk for me to do so. so long, hopewell. good luck.

in andy's case, he is in a better place now. he isn't on staff with a lying, fair-to-middling painter, pornhound of a senior pastor. he can start fresh. maybe not on the timetable he would want, but it'll work out, because andy and april are good people. and good things happen to good people. sometimes, shitty things do too, but it will work itself out.

andy and i talked today about what a shame it is that the definition of a church has become so perverted in our heads that we weren't sure that we wanted to be a part of one anymore. that we should just start something on our own. a haven for christ-followers that isn't called church. maybe blurch. or something cool, like stridex. our blurch motto would be something like, "come to stridex. where jesus will wipe away your sins." yeah, that'd be cool.

bill evans, you are a dick. i don't like you because you shit on my friend. and his wife. and their family. and the youth of your church.

i am ashamed that sarah and i paid you to paint our house.

i hope it was worth it.

and that, my friends, is why i am not a betting man


after realizing that the duke loss was just the tip of the iceberg of failure, i figured i would just wait to update until the carnage that was the first four days of the ncaa tourney gave way to monday and a day of contemplation. the way things have played out seems quite odd. with only a couple exceptions, goliath has beaten down david. not only has david been beaten, but goliath took his big stick and shoved it up david's (shut yo' mouth!!!)

as far as my pool goes, i am losing to everyone bar one, but i am trying to keep my eyes on the prize. i wrote last week that you want to win the pool, not the first weekend and i stick to that. that there are 14 brackets in front of me, 3 of them belonging to freaking girls, leaves me with less confidence than i had, say, this time last year. if the remaining four rounds play out in my favor, though, i could still be talking dynasty. we'll hold off on that for now.

the silver lining in the cloud is this. without any "cinderellas" to speak of (no. butler, southern illinois nor unlv count. all three ended the season in the top 25), the basketball this coming weekend should be out of this world. i hate that i'll be working or playing softball (i really don't hate that part) during most of the games, but the tv in the office will be tuned to cbs.

i've had to turn the talk radio off today, because you can only listen to so many morons calling in and giving their utterly idiotic reasons as to how they just "knew" that kevin durant was overrated. overrated??? he scored 30 in their loss!!! i would still pick texas over usc every day of the week and twice on sunday. hell, i would still pick kevin durant, me, andy, kiker and sarah over usc every day of the week. maybe just once on sunday, though.

so, i lick my wounds and change my expectations. that's ok. i really like basketball. still two weekends to go before focusing all my attention on the nba and the suns.

did i mention softball starts this weekend?

i hate duke


it only took three quarters of the first day for me to reach my first "what was i thinking?!?!" moment. i, perennially, hate duke. can't stand them. can't stand coach k. really couldn't stand j.j. redick. but this year's team was a little different. they were still a team with mcdonald's all-americans littering the roster, but they were young and kinda scrappy. i like paulus. and he played out of his mind tonight. but they lost. what makes it worse is that i picked them to upset pittsburgh saturday. so, i am out my first sweet sixteen team with the night session of day one still to go. good grief.

oh yeah, and remember how my "science" included the notion that chalk picks are lame? yeah, well, every higher seed won the first eight games of the tournament. who knew.

thus far, the world hasn't exploded yet (meaning my elite eight are all still around), but i have learned my lesson with duke. always root against them. always pick against them.

got it.

may i have this dance?


well, we are four hours away from the tip of the first game and my first "upset" pick. not that bobby knight as a 10 seed would be a huge upset over a 7, but it still counts. i have to say, i couldn't be any less confident about my overall picks and final four this year, but they are set. let the pieces fall where they may.

a couple questions from tuesday have been answered.

my final four? florida. kansas. ohio st. georgetown. i know. i know. it's the farthest thing from a reach that i could possibly come up with. three number ones and one of the hottest teams in the country. my guess is that jay bilas has the same four. i couldn't get past "they eyeball factor", though, and these are the four teams that i am riding.

my lowest seed to make the sweet sixteen? i stuck with my guns on this one and went with the uber-talented and uber-young georgia tech yellowjackets. they have talent that makes mark gottfried blush. here's hoping they can put it together for a couple wins.

and god bless you, kevin durant. the best player in college basketball kevin durant. after playing out the texas/north carolina series in my head, i had you winning in game seven with a 25 foot three over the top of brandon wright. what's silly is that i think texas can beat the number one seeded tar heels, but not georgetown. oh well, here's hoping that my new favorite college player jeff green carries his hoyas to the final four and boosts his draft stock on the way.

so, the process is complete. i will, rest assured, be updating you along the way. i am crossing my fingers that i still have 12 or 13 of my sweet sixteen still alive come monday. we'll see.

here's to four days straight of basketball. enjoy.

nobody knows anything
(especially the "experts")
(most especially jay bilas)


i talked about this concept this time last year shortly after everyone's OVERWHELMING favorite, uconn, pooped their pants and lost to george mason, but nobody knows anything when it comes to this tournament. that is why it is madness. that it why it is great. that said, the following can be taken with a grain of salt or as the advice of a self-proclaimed expert (i am defending a pool title this year. that, alone, makes me a more credible analyst than jay bilas.). here is the "science" i will subscribe to when i fill out my bracket tomorrow night.

* don't listen to anyone. this is of the utmost importance. again, no one knows anything. do not trust espn. si. your mother. or your friends. especially your friends. everyone becomes a college basketball "fan" when march rolls around, but most likely, most of these "fans" have not watched any college basketball up until this point. maybe their team. but your friends know nothing of winthrop. of niagra. hell, they probably don't know anything about anyone other than the top seeds. do not listen to anyone. especially your friends.

* chalk picks are lame. if you plan on picking the higher seed in each game, don't fill out a bracket. one, it's not going to work. two, it's lame.

* don't pay attention to any streaks. if you do any sort of research, you are just wasting your time. it doesn't matter if a team has won 20 straight coming in, or found their way in through the backdoor. it just doesn't matter. what will matter is who's the better team. in most cases.

* picking too many early round upsets will kill you. only rarely will a pool be decided by a margin small enough to make you think that one pick in the first round would have made a difference. you want to separate yourself from your pool. i get that. but you want to win the pool, not the first weekend. what happens when you are picking your final four teams and two of them are already out of your bracket because you thought michigan st. was a cool pick over north carolina or you thought pennsylvania was good enough to knock off texas a&m? you are going to be screwed. that's what.

* finally, the eyeball factor. if you find yourself picking a whole lot of teams that you couldn't name one player off of, two things have happened. one, you haven't watched any basketball all season and you are pulling picks out of your ass. if this is the case, the only way you will win your pool is out of sheer luck. two, you are listening to the "experts" again and letting them sway you. the eyeball factor is the most important factor when picking a bracket, because the best way to pick a game is this. play the game in your head seven times and pick the team that wins the imaginary series. that's the secret. if you haven't seen teams play, well, i don't know what to tell you. you can always go check and see who jay bilas has in his bracket. if you've seen teams play and can work with the "eyeball factor", then you are way ahead of the game.

the madness of it all is that my science could win me a pool, or it could finish me dead freaking last. either way, it's my method and i am sticking to it. tomorrow...

the picks.

why, brackets, of course!!!
(if you are a subscriber to this blog and do not follow ncaa men's basketball, this week's posts may not be up your alley. sorry.)
(not really. you should be swept up in march madness just like the rest of us.)


over the next three days, i am going to try and make several, short posts concerning the tournament leading up to wednesday evening when i fill out my bracket. it will kind of be my way of thinking out loud to you, the reader, and myself in order to document the trivial process that is filling out a ncaa bracket. mind you, i take this matter very seriously. unlike a lot of people out there (hopefully, not YOU), i fill out one bracket. not multiple brackets with multiple results so that somehow, some way you can claim a winning entry. one bracket. selection sunday is now in the books. the brackets are set. the favorites are in place. here we go.

i'll start this little experiment this morning with my initial observations of the brackets, themselves, and the analysis (or outrage) of my boys on espn. i have yet to cull the blogosphere this morning to see what everyone else is talking about. my sole influences as of this morning come from the worldwide leader. and so, here's what's been on my mind since last evening...

* damn. is it just me, or does ohio st. have a really easy road to the elite 8? kansas was placed in the bracket as the overall number one, but they are going to have to go through a tough second round game against maybe kentucky and then a sweet sixteen matchup with virginia tech, a poor man's kansas. even though i'll be rooting for tennessee in the top half of the south, i don't see anyone giving ohio st. a decent game until they play texas a&m in the quarterfinals.

* speaking of number one's, north carolina got screwed. marquette is a really good 8 seed and possible second round game. and then kevin durant in the sweet sixteen. (dick vitale voice screams...) are you kidding me???

* kevin durant got screwed. i won't waste an entire post on him. you already know how good he is. and i want to think he could be this year's carmelo. but as of this morning, i have not convinced myself that he could beat north carolina.

* strongest region? east. by faaaaaaaaarrrrrrr. weakest? south.

* great first round games? notre dame/winthrop. kentucky/villanova. indiana/gonzaga. bc/texas tech. louisville/stanford.

* second round games i am salivating over? florida/'zona. usc/texas. unc/marquette.

* lowest seed i could see myself picking to make the final four? kevin durant.

* lowest seed i could see myself picking to make the sweet sixteen? 10. georgia tech or texas tech (what can i say? i am a sucker for bob knight.), although i know for a fact at least one 11 or 12 will make it.

* arkansas made it in??? really? syracuse isn't in??? really?

* i was listening to a radio guy driving in to work yesterday and he summed up my feelings on the first weekend quite nicely. the first two days are great for one reason. to see which little team knocks off a big team. or more appropriately, which big team chokes it away to a little team. after the first two days, though, i start rooting hard for the big teams. i don't want teams in the sweet sixteen that have no chance of winning the tourney. i don't care about feel-good stories. i want good games. with the best players. the biggest stars. don't give me george mason. uconn choked last year. i hate "cinderallas".

* and one nit note. from number 4 in the nation to a number 5 seed in the nit? roll tide.

mercifully, the season comes to an end
(because if you are good enough to be ranked as high as number 4 in the country before christmas, the nit does not count)


reasons why alabama sucked this year...

1) ronald steele was hurt. you have to start here. the following reasons will cover the majority of the season's ills, but if your preseason all-american guard is no better than 75 percent all year, you have a major problem.

2) alabama runs one play. alabama runs the "ucla high-post offense", which means both big men find space at the free throw line where the ball is dumped into one of them. as this happens, one wing player, usually alonzo gee, dives into the lane for a pass and the other wing waits for the defense to drop down and holds his spot for a possible three. alabama ran this play to perfection countless times in it's run to number four. the play stopped working in the second half of the notre dame loss and the season was lost after that. yes, mark gottried, other coaches watch tape and make adjustments. you do not. alabama's other "plays" consisted of dropping the ball into richard hendrix and letting him bull his way to the goal and dribbling around the perimeter before yakking up a three. these are not plays. this is just basketball. easy to defend if you've ever played seven year-old recreation ball.

3) mark gottfried waited to find depth until the season was lost. who is justin tubbs? mikhail torrence? demetrius jemison? yamene coleman? alabama's bench. you are not in the minority if you do not know these bench players. mark gottfried was not introduced to them until february.

4) mark gottfried cannot coach defense, and evidently, neither can any of his other coaches. if you've watched one alabama basketball game, you've watched them all. no other sec team gives up more wide open looks from three as does alabama. which brings us to number 5...

5) mark gottfried cannot coach effort. every team plays the 2-3 zone, just like alabama. every team plays man-to-man, just like alabama. other teams just play hard. and therein lies the difference between every other sec team and alabama. why did alabama squeak out victories at home and get blown out on the road? because talent can win games at home. effort wins games on the road, and alabama didn't play hard. whether it was the "star theory" i alluded to earlier in the season that caused this or something else, the fact remains that if you watched an alabama game, any alabama game, you wondered why the other team always looked like they were playing harder than the tide. this was absolutely excruciating to watch, game in and game out, if you wanted alabama to live up to it's potential. which brings us to our final point...

6) alabama was the biggest underachiever in college basketball this year. nationally, alabama had a preseason first-team all-american in ronald steele. they had a preseason top ten ranking. and they had many "experts" hailing them as final four contenders. that's all well and good and it makes this season even harder to swallow, but let's keep the final point local. the subjective criteria will be this. in the sec, with my eye judging the league's talent, how many nba-level players does each sec roster contain? we'll start at the top.

florida - (4) espn projected this week that florida's frontline (noah, horford, and brewer) would be lottery picks in june. their point guard, taurean green, could also play in the nba. so, they are stacked. they should be good. and they are. they are the anti-alabama.

alabama - (4) steele, davidson, hendrix and gee. florida? potential number one or two seed. threat to win the title. alabama? nit bound. ouch.

tennesse - (2) lofton and maybe one of their young big men.

kentucky - (2) morris and crawford.

lsu - (1) big baby.

miss. st. - (1) jamont gordon.

vandy - (1?) maybe derrick byers.

for every other team in the league (arkansas, auburn, ole miss, georgia, south carolina), it would be a stretch for me to think that they would place a current player on an nba roster in the next three years. and compared to every other team in the league, save florida, alabama is absolutely loaded. so, take away an injured steele. that still leaves mark gottfried with three blue-chip cards to play with. but, he didn't know how. he just knew how to clap his hands like mike dubose and throw his jacket on his floor. those were his go-to, inspirational antics. and so alabama will take their talent and lose to some mediocre team in the nit. i will not be watching when it happens. i will be watching real teams with real coaches play in the real tournament.

mark gottfried, as has been addressed, can recruit his butt off. think of the talent on the elite 8 team from a few years ago. think of gerald wallace. kennedy winston. rod grizzard. ron steele. richard hendrix.

then again, maybe i should be happy with that. incredible talent. consistently in the top 25 and in the tournament, but no real chance to win a national title. because when you get into the tournament, the guy on the other bench is always going to outcoach your coach. maybe i should be happy with the ceiling being set at the sweet 16, but i am not.

neither should alabama.

you had me at "for only $27.95, you can own 'the evidence that could change history'"


i've been tracking the "breaking news" this week of the "jesus family tomb". chris perry and i talked monday morning, and we told each other that we'd be interested to see how a few things played out. (one) how would the mainstream media handle the "news"? to be honest, i've been a little surprised at how little play, actually, i've seen the story get so far on broadcast television and cable news outlets. sure, there have been segments focused on the "discovery" here. full hours of anderson cooper there. but all in all, there hasn't been the sound and the fury that i was bracing for. at least not yet. (two) how would the "news" be received by christians in general? would we be dismissive? defensive? annoyed? apathetic? my bet is on the latter, but it is far too early to tell. christians are notorious for jumping on things way past their prime, so as soon as this "story" starts to go away, jesse jackson will come out and start badmouthing titanic and telling us that archaeology is fool's science. just wait, this will happen. right around easter. i am also waiting for someone to tell me that this "news" is another sign of the apocalypse or satan just trying to keep a christian brother down. if someone could actually go on bill o'reilly and say this, that would be awesome. (three) will james cameron be shot? this also, is yet to be determined, but too much blood over the course of history has already been spilled in the name of jesus to not go ahead and waste an extra bullet on this guy. right? of course, i am kidding, at least the part about shooting james cameron, but this guy has always seemed a little too smug and sure of himself for my taste. i am really only waiting to see if "the jesus family tomb" documentary is a set-up piece for the "how james cameron was shot by a crazy christian activist" documentary that will air on discovery during may sweeps. if this happens, don't look at me. i am just the messenger. but i would check ted nugent's house. that guy is crazy. i'll keep tracking the story, but i keep wondering to myself. if had had news "that would (really) change history", would i sell it? would the temptation to make an extra buck be too much? or would i just call keith olbermann and ask if i could break the news on countdown. i think countdown would be cooler. and waaaaaaayyyyyyyyy more credible.

in other news, it looks like rick owen is leaving huffman. i would tell you that i am surprised. shocked! flabbergasted! floored! but those would be lies. this is about as predictable as the braves blowing a first round playoff series (sorry andy. i've got some bill simmons coming out of me too.) it just makes too much sense not to leave when you're on top. to leave after hitting that last second shot to win the finals like jordan. to leave when the progress your church has made under your leadership is the stuff of legend. what? what do you mean "huffman is not on top."? oh, that's right. we are still sinking. "they say that the captain stays fast with the ship, through still and storm." not here, dude. here, the captain takes a pay raise, a new title, a new house and leaves while the gettin' is still good.

more on this soon. i can't wait for church in the morning.