Wide Left: March Madness, Bracketology Fatigue, NFL Bounties, Obama, Baseball

I nearly lost my voice at a Purim carnival. I hope you enjoy the rasp while you listen to Nick Tarnowski consistently put me, and my cantankerous attitude, in its place.

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We talk a lot about the upcoming conference tournaments to try and figure out which teams will be top seeds in the NCAA Tournament. We agree that Syracuse and Kentucky are locks for the top line, but have some debate of the other two slots.

Will the winner of the ACC tournament (if Duke or North Carolina) be placed on the top line? Will both teams? Or does Kansas have the fourth one seed in their hands to lose? What about the Big Ten champion? We discuss the possible scenarios.

Then, I go off the rails a bit, ranting about my new-found disdain for Bracketology. I do enjoy the helpful primer of which teams need to win this week as we head into the conference tournament, but I've grown weary of the "last four in" nonsense…and especially the "next four out" pabulum. Please, folks, we already have 68 teams in the tournament, do we really need a list of the remaining EIGHT teams that are ever-so-close to getting in?

Bracketology is like predicting the weather for five days from now when you know whatever happens over the next four days will change next weekend's forecast. Plus, unlike the weather, the bracket is ultimately decided by a bunch of people in a room, not by any real pattern. (Note: We taped this on Sunday night and ESPN's Joe Lunardi hadn't even updated his bracket after Duke lost to North Carolina the day before. What's the point of Bracketology if you aren't even going to update after enormous events that take place six days before the final list comes out?)

Having said that, we do wonder how much the Bracketologists are actually impacting the bracket. Does the selection committee follow the experts? Could Bracketology be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Upon Further Review

We discuss the NFL bounties and I use the term "mind-boggling" about 15 times. Why? Well, my mind was boggled by the fact Gregg Williams could get suspended for something a lot of teams do. That's not suggesting a bounty system is good for the game, it's merely wondering how many rocks the Saints investigation will uncover.

Also, is it not incredible this story did not break until ­the NFL released its findings? That may be the most mind-boggling thing of all.

Hello, the Media

I wrote about Bill Simmons interviewing Barack Obama and took a lot of heat for what I wrote. Nick gives me more heat. It's a rather frank discussion and while it may be redundant to what I wrote, we felt it was important to discuss on the show rather than duck the conversation. 

Baseball

We discuss the ongoing medical situation for Ike Davis of the New York Mets, who may have a rare disease called Valley Fever. We also lighten it up a bit to wonder at the spring training excitement surrounding the Oakland A's.

Happy Purim. Thanks for listening.