Random Rambling

Unfortunately, Tuesday night was more of a funeral than I could have imagined earlier that morning. Although the committee is still roughly a month from locking themselves into a room for a day and coming out with 65 teams that will take part in the NCAA Tournament, Kentucky has just sealed their fate for March.

It was no surprise that they were on the bubble here in the second week of February. You could argue that it was more of a surprise that they lasted there long enough to even have this discussion now, instead of a month and a half ago when they were losing to UAB and San Diego at home. With the record loss to Vanderbilt on Tuesday though, the ticket to the NIT has been punched for the Cats. With the recent hot streak they were on, nobody could have predicted this one.

Sticking with college basketball, can anyone explain the luck of the Georgetown Hoyas? Seemingly every game they win is the lead story on SportsCenter coupled with the caption, "Bad Call". It was just three weeks ago that Bob Huggins had to use every Rage-aholics Anonymous technique to keep from destroying the referee that decided to chew his whistle when Ewing Jr. goal-tended a last second Mountaineer basket. Now, 75-feet away from the basket, a different ref decided the outcome of Monday nights game against Villanova by opting to blow the whistle on a meaningless bump.

The saddest part of this to me, is that on Tuesday Big East coordinator of officials Art Hyland, publicly backed the call made on Monday saying, "A foul is a foul". C'mon.

The refs who called the 2006 NBA Finals where the Mavericks were whistled when they breathed to close to Dwayne Wade thinks that call is a total joke. The truth is that we fans can live with a judgment no call, but putting a kid at the line with .01 second left in a Big East game is inexcusable.

Congratulations and Good Luck to the Indiana Hoosiers. I'm glad that I'll get to see you in the NCCA Tournament this year and look forward to watching Gordon in the pros, but if the damning evidence surrounding coach Sampson rings true, then Indiana and Kelvin are done for a while. This makes the second consecutive year that Sampson has received a letter from the NCAA saying that his recruiting practices are in violation of their rules. And while one could easily argue that the entire NCAA could be getting these letters and that the rules are a joke at best, Sampson continues to find himself on the wrong end. His arrival to Bloomington was met with charges stemming from his time at Oklahoma and now it appears that this is a pattern instead of just a single lapse in judgment.

Finally, to tail away from college basketball into some sad and bizarre news. As if the skate that a hockey player took to the carotid artery this weekend did not humanize sports enough for you, Vikings defensive lineman Kenechi Udeze has reportedly been diagnosed with leukemia. Leukemia? A four year pro out of USC, Udeze who stands in at about 6'3", 280 lbs., does not look like the type of guy who could be mentioned in the same breath with cancer, certainly not leukemia.

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