The Goat Pen

And our carpool ride just went bye bye. Any of you North Carolinian types recommend a spot to stop overnight betwixt our nation's fine capitol city and Boone, NC? Looks like it's about a seven hour drive.

I have to drive to a place called Blowing Rock, NC, this weekend - a stone's throw from Boone, I'm told - for a wedding. I will play my Pete Papageorge CD at full volume and wave at young hedgehog as I drive through the general Research Triangle area. I'll also see if I can find Buzz Peterson wander...

Debbie Yow said in Gottfried's introductory presser that Gary Williams sabotaged the NC State coach search. Conversely, how about every knows that Ms. Yow is a giant a-hole and nobody wanted to work at a place where she was AD?

Anybody! An assistant. You think someone like Mike Dunlap wouldn't have gone there? Not a proven failure who was run off by his own alma mater.

Lamar also had former Marquette lunatic/coach Mike Deane as their head coach for a time.

Missouri could have hired King Rice and instead went with Frank Haith? What was it about Frank Haith's work at Miami makes Mizzou think he's going to lead them to the promised land. Was it the one NCAA appearance in eight seasons? The single season of .500 ball in the ACC? By the way, aggie, I notic...

What's with pretty decent jobs hiring new coaches that are going to do absolutely nothing for fanbases yearning for winners let alone improve the product on the court? Missouri and NC State both made awful hires.

Oh boy.

How many times did Smith get the ball like under the basket and chuck up a wild shot at the wrong side of the rim? I mean, seriously, the guy's a 7-footer, isn't he? And I used to like Matt Howard, but now realize he's just really annoying. I think if he had another season of eligibility, many of yo...

I keep thinking back to Andrew Smith clanking layup after layup off the rim, and I want the memory of that game forever stricken from my brain. That Wisconsin-SW MO State game from like 1999 or whatever was a veritable barnburner compared to that nonsense.

The ninth place team in the Big East, a team St. John's beat by like 2,893 in February, won the national title. That's some stuff right there.

My favorite part of the postgame celebrations was when Jim Nantz asked Kemba Walker like 14 questions...and answered every single one of them himself.

The thought occurs to me that we probably could have expected a cruddy Final Four in hindsight. They were playing at the home of the Houston Texans, were they not?

18 percent shooting, and that was with the great burst of late scoring. I'm sorry I compared them to Wisconsin. That's an affront to the basketball that Wisconsin actually plays.

If Matt Howard had Duke on his jersey instead of Butler, I'm pretty sure he'd be the most hated college basketball player in the country. Man, can he flop.

The NCAA should prohibit Butler from postseason play indefinitely for this performance.

How does a team go 32 minutes of a game and literally only have one bucket from within the three point line?

Looks like WC went kaput mid-tournament final.