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No one's said they couldn't win this thing, have they? I mean, I picked against MSU against Northern Iowa and against Tennessee, based on the Lucas thing, but I don't think it's ever really a surprise when Izzo wins in March. The bigger surprise to me is that Butler is favored on Saturday. A Horizon League team favored against a Big 10 team with a berth in the national title game on the line? That seems bizarre.

Each round the Spartans win, of course, just makes it hurt that much worse for Terps fans. Georgetown has wins against half the Final Four field, and the Terps had one of the Four Finalists all but beat a week ago. And yet here I am in Fredonia, without even a thought of trying to get to Indy.

Well, I'll disagree with you about the ACC. People were down on Duke, in my opinion, because we've seen Duke disappoint in March in recent years. Teams certainly seem to get in these March ruts, even as their personnel changes, and I think there was a thought that when Duke left North Carolina and faced talented teams (Georgetown, Maryland, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech), the Dukies lost.

That said, I had Duke in the Final Four in two of my three brackets. Not because I loved their chances, but because I didn't see who else was gonna make it from that bracket.

As for ACC bias, the ACC did not have a great tourney. Sure, some of these results are so close you can't really make any conference-vs-conference judgment, but when a team like Florida State goes out in the first round against Gonzaga, Clemson fails to live up to its seed, the team that tied for first in the league can't survive the first weekend, etc, this wouldn't seem to be the time to defend the ACC.

Well, this is all semanticizing, and I'm not going to convince you in 200 words here, but the point is that even playing against the highest possible seed in each game, Duke's road seemed a bit easier. Did Purdue prove they still had chops without Hummel? They won two games, one against Siena and another in a real battle against A&M. Would you rather face that Purdue team than Tennessee or Michigan State or Maryland or Butler or Wisconsin or Temple or Cornell? I would.

Same thing with Baylor (and obviously Duke didn't have to play the highest seed in every round if they met a third seed in the Elite Eight.) Yes, Baylor is talented, but the reason many, many people had them going to the Final Four is because of a perceived weakness in Duke, so saying Duke then beat a team that people picked to go to the Final Four is sort of circular.

Look, we'll see against West Virginia. If Duke wins that game, no one will complain. If they get mashed off the court, then people will again complain. I still think Duke had the easiest path and the least deserving resume, so I still don't get it.

I'll pass along your wishes, but I don't know that I can endorse it. There were a lot of people who reveled in the reception GWB got when Nats Park opened, and so if anyone feels like turnabout is fair play, etc etc. And as long as people are debating whether or not to boo the Prez, they don't have to worry about whether or not to boo the players/front office.

You got to figure this is home turf for the Prez, though; I wouldn't expect many boos.

I've never met him.

This might be the first time he's ever been compared to the Black-Eyed Peas.

I will say that no one likes Skip Bayless or Jay Marrioti or most of the yodelers, but their ability to make you anger and foamy-mouthed keeps them in business.

I've never met Marrioti or Bayless either.

I understand the complaints, but I think he does a good job with that site. And he's been very kind to link to me many, many times over the years.

And aside from all that, I retweeted what I believed to have been a full and complete quote from him about the liklihood of the Redskins doing anything they could to nab Sam Bradford, but when he said I had skipped the part about "my gut feeling is...." then I think he could justifiably say I took his words out of context. "Gut feelings" mean nothing more than "when I was in the shower this morning, I thought..." That's a lot different than a declarative.

Well, Butler will be a real draw for me, just to see if random small conference school could actually win a national championship. But, say, West Virginia vs Kansas State wouldn't have done much for me, even though they'd have been non-usual subjects. I'd have been much more interested in John Wall vs. Evan Turner. Maybe that's because of the Wizards implications. I don't see the Wiz taking Cam Thoroughman.

Good work by Mike Prada at Bullets Forever, ruminating on the loss of Gee and the implications for the front office.

One thing that Ted Leonsis has always always stressed is openness toward the fan base about the future; the blog helps a lot with that. I'm not sure you could say the same about the Wiz front office this year. Obviously there were a lot of times they were hamstrung by the legal process, but losing Gee and then attributing that to cap space doesn't seem to make much sense to fans.

As for Gee's decision, he gets to play in the playoffs, and he gets a non-guaranteed deal for next year, right? That's not a hard call.

Turner?

Yeah, but that was written pre-bracket, right? Or am I wrong? I was all about picking DUke to go out early until I saw the brackets, and I couldn't think of anyone else to choose out of that regional, which is why, as previously mentioned, I actually picked Duke to the Final Four. Go look at the WaPo bracket challenge; my picks are public. Duke is the only one I got right.

I still don't think they would have made it out had they been Kansas or Kentucky. Syracuse, maybe. But if I've helped you enjoy this even more, I'm very happy about that. I'm not even joking. Most of my sports-related satisfaction is over proving other people wrong, and I think them for affording me that joy.

I think my previously expressed opinion is that the colors will one day be changed, but the name will remain. I have no sources, facts or actual information in publicizing this opinion. Just seems to make sense to me.

I think there were a lot of motives behind the name change from Bullets, but the very public reason had to do with gun violence, and Abe Pollin backed that up with anti-violence spending. Seems to me that it's a politically tricky thing to go back to Bullets after all that. And I don't think every time a team changes ownership, fans or the league want/expect a name change.

But the colors are an abomination, and teams change their colors.Teams changed by Ted Leonsis, even.

I guess I'm more interested to know why an applied mathematics professor has a photo of Christian Laettner sitting on the toilet? I don't have pictures of anyone sitting on the toilet, much less college basketball stars.

I'm glad that Laettner is no longer involved with D.C. United. Now we can all go back to our diviniely ordained feelings for the dude.

Yeah, that wasn't one of my grander evenings. I did walk around the concourse about 7,000 times, though, and you can only walk past that Dunkin Donuts so many times before you stop. Thanks for never at least stopping for small talk so it would seem like I was being useful.

My work days are basically 8-5 nowadays, so I feel like if I'm out at a night event, it's all bonus work for The Post, and I don't have to work too hard. B

Sure, if you want to tail me, that's fine, but the donuts are on you.

Sure sounds like we're going to Pittsburgh now, right? Though Leonsis counsels us that no decisions have been made. Maybe we're better off not making our Jan. 1, 2011 plans.

I've never watched Top Chef. And I'm all about reality TV, I just have enough shows in my life. So I'd choose the Caps.

You know, I was actually rooting for the Devils against Baylor? Having seen Baylor in person at the 2008 opening round at Verizon Center, and having seen them on TV at least twice this year, and having decided at some point that the Big 12 was overrated, I said on a chat two weeks ago that people selecting Baylor to the Final Four "made me giggle," or something like that. I then repeated that in the office. So merely for Internet pride, and to prevent people from copying and pasting my words in this space, I was rooting for Duke. Amazing.

I don't know that I hate Duke. I find it a lot harder to hate college kids. I absolutely "hate" the Yankees and Cowboys more than any other teams. (And I say "hate" in quotes, because of course I'm perfectly objective, and the "hate" is merely an imagined construct to help me understand what goes on in the minds of fans.)

As much as I'd love to imagine what the "something else" might be (he was falling off a cliff two years ago, and in mid-flight made a list of 73 things he wanted to do before he hit the ground, and one of them was buy an NBA franchise featuring a star player who had recently spent time in a halfway house), yes, Ted Leonsis actually wants to buy the Wizards.

Not that this is a realistic option, because of gate and whatever else, but would a 32-team single-elimination NBA tourney for the championship thus capture the nation in the same way? I wouldn't think so.

Also, why do college kids cry more than pro players? I mean, it's not like their DNA changes from the age of 19 to 23? And a lot of pros are younger than college kids, anyhow. I don't cry much (mostly at cheesy movies), but I don't think the frequency changed between college and post-college life. I don't get that. Do minor-league baseball players cry in the Carolina League finals? Is there a Carolina League finals?

Or they could just put a camera inside the Black Cat or something.

Clearly you're not the only one thinking of Maryland.

But I still say Michigan State went through a tougher road than Duke. New Mexico State was obviously tougher than whatever 16 seed Duke faced in the first round. Northern Iowa was a worse seed than Cal, but I think was pretty clearly a more imposing team. Purdue and Maryland were both 4 seeds, but I think a fully healthy Maryland trumps Purdue without Hummel. That leaves Tennessee vs. Baylor. I don't have KenPom ratings for the team, or any statistical measures whatsoever, but the Saturday before Selection Sunday, I wrote down a list of teams that I wanted to put into the Elite 8, and Tennessee was on my list. Baylor wasn't. At the worse, I think Baylor's increased toughness over Tennessee is balanced out by the other three.

No. There's zero chance of that. I mean, I'm like the 17th option for Washington Post Live, if that. And every time I'm on, readers tell me I have a face for radio and a voice for blogging. Plus, I only own three suits, and two of them I've owned for less than two weeks.

I've met Kevin, but we don't know each other well. I'm waiting for him, or someone at U. of Maryland, to invite me to teach a course on blogging. That I would agree to do, in about 10 seconds.

The thing is, I said that in a podcast. In the Redskins Insider podcast. About 20 minutes into a 17-hour Washington Post podcast about the Redskins.

As I said it, I was like, "he's never going to hear this, right?" And sure enough, some other nasty blogger highlighted my words, and Florio saw it, and now it lives forever. This is like the Tony Kornheiser thing, except involving non-famous people no one cares about.

The lesson is: never, ever, ever say anything interesting.

Plus, not that I want to read back over the previous questions, but wasn't there something about tattoos in there? Pretty sure at least one or two of Duke starters (gasp!) have tats.

Yeah, that's my plan, although I'm working on something else that might make it impossible.

Also, not that I'm the most religious Jew in the world, but teams should be forbidden from having matinee baseball home openers on Passover. I mean, there's just too many bread products and beer products that I"d be interested in sampling.

I think 75-87 would be a real accomplishment. I'm gonna guess that's overly optimistic.

Wait, you're a diehard Republican and you root for Georgetown? No way!

Georgetown playing up/down to competition was about the least surprising thing in history. Or at least in the last two months of local college basketball. The Hoyas lost to Rutgers. Of course it was possible that they'd lose to Ohio.

Yeah, that was something new. Or newish, anyhow. I'm pretty sure Eric Prisbell wrote something about that for The Post, in some sort of forum or other.

Not that different floors added all that much regional character, but what character there was was smushed out. I'm sure there was an excellent reason. I'd rather they smush out the character of having submerged floors that leave you staring at Coach K in that chair instead of watching the action. That's much, much more distracting on TV than differnet floors.

Southwest. Rapid Rewards.

But I like the drive. I do think if you go 90 to 79 to the turnpike, it's probably the fastest bet, plus it allows you to visit that Dunkin Donuts in Breezewood.

I think I'm bitter at them from the 2008 experience. For two reasons:

1) I pointed to them as a possible upset team based on this absurd stat about underdogs that shot a great percentage from three or something like that. I mean, I did this in print. Like, the Secretary of State might have seen my tournament advice in the paper. And Baylor then lost to Purdue by like 48 points in the most boring first-round game in tourney history.

2) I was blogging that regional, and the Baylor kids were ridiculously entertaining and media-friendly. And then they were one and done, and so I had to make do with West Virginia, and yet somehow I still missed the story that Pete Thamel wrote in the New York Times that weekend, with the WVU guys mocking Duke for the number of supposed all-Americans on the roster.

I guarantee Thamel goes back to that well somehow this week. My friend Tom Scocca described that as the "greatest game story ever." It was pretty good. Go back and look it up. And yet I missed it. And somehow I'm blaming that on Baylor. Go figure.

The most important thing is to have winning teams. I'm no NFL genius, but it just seems to me like they're better off with a tackle. Enough other people have said that that I believe it.

That said, there's the Native American angle.....

(City Paper's Dave McKenna has publicly guaranteed that the Redskins would not touch Bradford, because of all the resulting stories about his Native heritage, and how revered he is on reservations, and the questions about "redskins" that would be raised. I happen to think this is bunk, but it has made me curious.)

So then you'd assume that pros who are retiring would cry in their final playoff run.

Sophomores cry. These are kids with two years of allegiance to a college program. Pros can have 10 or 12 years of allegiance.

I think it's because of behavior norms. You see college kids crying on CBS, and so you lose and you think, better cry now. Or maybe you don't "think" it, but you know somewhere in your skull that crying is an accepted, even celebrated response.

Agree. Clearly Georgetown should have been a 14 seed, having only made it to the Big East Final, while a middle of the pack MAC team like Ohio deserved probably a 4 or 5 seed.

(No, I don't agree. there are a zillion reasons that "weaker" college teams can compete with teams with better talent. You could never seed your way around that. Plus, the last few Final Fours have been dominated by high seeds, and something like 19 of the past 20 champions have been 1-4 seeds. They're doing somethign right.)

Well, I'm probably not technically supposed to drink when I'm on the clock. But I'll bear this in mind.

As for you, how are those gluten free beers? I've always wondered about that. I imagine they must be awful. I believe I would absolutely cry if I was told no more beer. I'm talking Adam Morrison after losing to UCLA style tears. That is also socially acceptable.

I saw on Twitter someone said RIT to the Frozen Four was a bigger upset than Butler to the Final Four. I haven't explored that comparison. Is it true?

I don't even know RIT's nickname.

Ok, I just googled it. It's the Tigers. Gosh, what a disappointment. A school like RIT, a massive underdog, and they're the Tigers? Blech.

This is really a grind, isn't it? At least for a while there was ostensibly the drama about clinching the top seed in the East, and the President's Trophy, but we're well past that drama. Now there's maybe Ovechkin individual goal honors, but no one really cares about that. This is just the waiting game.

So every day I check the 6-10 teams in the East, trying to figure out the best option if you combine travel ease, travel cost, story lines, liklihood of the Caps getting upset, etc. Here's my ranking:

1) Philly (Can't beat fan antics and easy travel)

2) Boston (Relatively cheap and easy, huge sports town should help our Web traffic, no chance the Caps lose)

3) Montreal (Massive fan interest, expensive travel. I'm told there's interesting, um, nightlife)

4) Rangers (I love New York, and I love the Garden, and it's easy travel, but two years in a row makes for a little bit of overdose)

5) Atlanta (last, now and forever)

Best how?

Wow. I don't think I've ever heard of someone having a grudge against Denver. But Mike Shanahan was fired by Denver. Doesn't that mean the city has released its hold on him? Maybe a secret part of him hates Denver, just like you do?

That was a good Slouch, wasn't it? Man, that dude is good at his job.

I make fun of people whose writing I don't like. If they knew this, I'm sure they would hate me, because I'm a total jerk about it. But they're mostly not famous. And I'm sure lots more people hate my writing, and my cushy gig, so they probably hate me with an intense burning spite. But I don't know about who those people are, so we don't really feud.

Anyhow who's famous enough to have a good feud with has never heard of me. And conflict makes my arms itch, so I try to avoid it.

Let's see, Colin Cowherd once said some moderately rude things about me. Does that count? I find him to be an almost unimaginably horrific talk show host. Does that help?

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(No, I honestly don't know. If there were massive votes to be had by selling out for soccer, I think someone would have done it by now. You all need to form a PAC.)

You can't click on a thought, though. That was time I could have been spending transcribing 2003 interviews with Vinny Cerrato from San Jose radio stations.

It does seem like it's getting easier and easier to get gluten free products, right? I've almost bought plenty of gluten free products accidentally in recent months.

That's true. But high school kids look even more regular. And middle school kids look like dribbling blogs of hormones.

Ok, that seems touching and nice.

Anyhow, I need to go. Grandparents have been in charge of granddaughter long enough. Will be back online at some point this week, and will get right on lining up an Opening Day one-on-one with Obama at Nats Park. We can search for the best Passover food together.