Your March 9 Madness Report

Everybody fills out their brackets in the teams' colors, right?

• It was a day of upsets and near-misses.  Cincinnati simply out-played Syracuse, Baylor needed to win to offset the humiliation of highlighter-yellow unis, and Kentucky coasted on talent.
• Joakim Noah's hair is, indeed, still ridiculous.
• I finally read the ESPN: the Magazine article on the Cats. (My beau apparently subscribes. Who knew?) Loved this quote from Cal: "This team has already been told: If you win, it's going to be about you, and if you lose, it'll be about me.  So go play."  Truer words have never been spoken.
• Tom Izzo defends Bruce Weber more forcefully than my Illini alumni friends do.  I've actually always respected Izzo, but he seems increasingly strident this year. 
• I cry every time somebody references the anniversary of Biggie's passing.  Moving on.
• Doris Burke's ninety-second post-game interview with Yancy Gates was far and away the best piece of sports reporting I saw all day.  (So good that I'll let her hairdo slide without comment.) I truly believed that this is a kid who recognizes that he made a huge, nearly life-altering mistake, and is fully repentant. 
• The Cards play the Bearcats in the Battle of Teams We Peripherally Follow Big East Finals tomorrow night.  I feel like I've already seen that matchup fifteen times this year.  I guess the same could be said of UK-Florida.

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