That sucked

I was led to believe that an entertaining evening of sports was on tap yesterday.  I was misinformed.

First it was March Madness ending with a thud, but it was fitting that the worst championship game in years cap off one of the more lackluster tournaments. Sure there were exciting moments, but when you play 30-some games in a three week span, you're bound to get at least a few of those. I'm not saying we need to cancel the tourney here, but the growing randomness of it all is making the regular season increasingly meaningless. The 9th place Big East team just won the national title in a Final Four that featured zero #1 or #2 seeds, is this a good thing? There's something to be said for getting hot at the right time, but also for the 4 1/2 months of competition that preceeds the tournament.

I know three things:

College basketball needs more upperclassmen to stick around
I definitely do not want to see the tourney expand to 96-team
The Gophers must be worse than ever imagined to miss the NIT in this era of college hoops


Also failing to add much intrigue were the Twins, who predictably lost to the Yankees last night, but not in a fun way that would allow me to go on a tirade. Had the perfect Scott Baker rant teed up after he allowed two-run bombs in each of the first two innings, then something very strange happened...Baker began pitching capably. Now we've seen this before in spurts, but usually not in the middle of a meltdown. Usually if Moonshot starts bad, he stays that way, but last night was an exception. At any rate, the Twins still lost (I'm trying to be fair here, but don't you need the $23-Million Dollar Man to deliver in that spot?), but Baker's performance robbed me of a chance to question the decision to start him in the first place.

The thinking going in was, we're probably going to lose to Sabathia on Tuesday anyway, so why not start Duensing in game one and wave the white flag by trotting out Baker for the second?  As an added bonus, I'd get to use my 'Bake and The Fatman' joke.  That opinion got turned on it's ear when the Achillies heel ended up not being the pitching, but the Twins failure to get hits off a guy named after a car. Chevy Nova looks like a decent pitcher, but he's barely more than a rookie, and some of our seasoned veteran hitters needed to make some things happen. It was good to see Baker pitch somewhat competently, good to see Morneau and Thome getting into a couple, good to see T-Nish deliver a big hit, but it's still just another mark in the 'L' column.  Keep repeating after me, "we never beat the Yankees", "I expect nothing", "let's just try to take away a few positives".  Three more cracks to go.

Fortunately, the main event of the week is still on tap, hopefully college hockey can pick up college basketball's slack.  It's almost Frozen Four time, and I've got thoughts aplenty, stay tuned.