Saturday 03/08 (Very) Quickie

Championship Week really starts today, with 2 conference title games -- the Big South (featuring powers UNC-Asheville and Winthrop) and the Ohio Valley, featuring Austin Peay (which escaped with a 1-point win over Tennessee-Martin last night) and...

Tennessee State(!!!) , the sub-.500 marvel still on its glorious tournament run, after beating Murray State. Now, a Tennessee State win today would nudge its record to .500, but I'll take it, if it comes with the OVC's auto-bid.

(Remember my small-conference tournament rooting interests: Sub-.500 miracle runs rule, even if they KO the chances of big-conference bubble teams... and this year, for the first time in my 7-year rooting history with Florida basketball, I have a vested interest in NOT seeing those big-conference bubble teams get bounced due to some small-conference tournament insanity. Things are tough enough as it is for Florida.)

Waiting on Georgetown-Louisville, this afternoon, still trying to figure out if the Cards are for real as a Final Four contender... and UNC-Duke tonight, obviously.

The Nuggets are the hardest team to read in the NBA: They beat the Spurs last night, ending SA's 11-game W streak. In the East, they would be a Top 3 team; in the West, a playoff periphery team.

The league absolutely has to change the playoffs to simply let the Top 16 teams play for a title, seeded by overall record.

That would still put an East team -- the Celtics -- at the top of the playoff pile. Boston crushed Chicago last night on national TV.

Welcome back, Francisco Liriano -- remember my Summer of Liriano in the Quickie?

Tom Coughlin's new deal is official: 4Y/$21M. (Not a bad U-Turn from being on the firing line in September.) But DC Steve Spagnuolo is under contract for 3 years. Doubt either sees the end of either.

Roger Goodell to crack down on spying: Which only makes me think it was way more rampant than he or the league would like to have you believe. If it was just a one-off thing with Belichick, why would Goodell have to make institutional changes to testing and enforcement? Obviously, they know it's everywhere. (Or, at least, prevalent enough to monitor more toughly.)

Pac-Man Jones to the Cowboys? Heh.

Julius Jones to Seattle: Was it so long ago that Shaun Alexander was relevant?

Is Yi going to have season-ending surgery, too, like Yao? China ain't effing around. And it appears their stars -- and the NBA -- are bending over backward to accommodate.

Jack Roush insists that Carl Edwards' team didn't cheat. Do you believe him? I don't.

Wonder if Marion Jones will participate in prison intramural sports?

-- D.S.