You can view it here. And though I haven’t looked into next year’s rosters, and really have no clue who’s going to be good and who isn’t, I find it odd that they put UNC as the No. 3 team under the assumption that Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson return. If that’s the case, Danny Green and Tyler Hansboro will be the only players gone, Marcus Ginyard will be back, and Ed Davis will take over for Tyler Hansboro, and he showed in this tournament that he can definitely handle the load.

Anyway, enjoy the preseason, way too early top 25. It is what I thought it was.

[Rivals]

If you went through the bracket when they were first given, and you said, “You know what, I think I’m going to have the top 16 teams in the Sweet 16,” then you’re probably doing pretty well right now, given that Arizona and Wisconsin (both 12 seeds) are the only two “surprise” teams in there, if you can call them that.

The best game waiting in the flats? Mizzou and Memphis sure looks tasty, and I think watching guards play guards in Duke and Villanova will be fun. My original Final Four was Villanova, Mizzou, Louisville and UNC. If I had to go back and change it, I’d swap Mizzou out and insert Uconn, who’s been beating teams like they’re a high school Texas all girls team (it’s a hundred point reference, people).

The rest should be entertaining. The tournament resumes this Thursday.

…. everyone called in sick to work, even a mouse (yeah, couldn’t think of anything better than rhymed with house).

Tomorrow marks the madness, and it begins at 12:20, sharp, with Butler and LSU, then five minutes later kicks off the beating that will be Memphis and CS Northridge, and then five minutes after that we’ve got BYU and Texas A&M.

At 2:30 Purdue and Northern Iowa tip off, which should prove to be a very good game; UCLA and Virginia Commonwealth, thought to be another good one in the hopper, isn’t until after 9:00 p.m., same with Illinois and Western Kentucky, which might very well finish with an upset (if you can call W. Kentucky winning an upset).

All in all, it’ll be a good day. Call in sick to work, sit back, drink some beers (the doctor’s told me it’s a good way to cure the flu), and enjoy the first couple days of March Madness, which are surely two of the best days of sports. My Final Four: Missouri, Villanova, Louisville, UNC, with UNC beating Louisville in the title game. Enjoy the madness, everybody.

Tonight’s game between Oklahoma and Kansas is set to decide who’s the top dog in the Big 12, and without Blake Griffin, my guess is Kansas is the top dog in the Big 12. The stud forward will sit out because of his concussion suffered on Saturday, and Oklahoma will be without its leading scorer and leading rebounder and really the leading reason they were No. 2 in the nation. Good luck, Sooners — this game should be like watching their football team trying to score in the redzone back in January.

In an attempt to probably capture more money, Bill Self said he woudl entertain the possibility of coaching for Oklahoma State. Once the money came pouring in for Kansas, Bill Self suddenly wasn’t very interested anymore.

“Home called,” Self said. “And we love home. But this is home now.”

“There was never serious interest on our part in leaving the University of Kansas,” said Self, who has won 142 games, four Big 12 titles and a national championship in five highly successful seasons with the Jayhawks.

“But there was serious interest in listening and helping Oklahoma State in a way that would put their basketball program in the position they want it to be in. We visited and slept on it and came to the conclusion that I felt all along that the time is right for my family to be in Lawrence, Kan., and lead this program, hopefully, to bigger and better things in the future.”

The noise you just heard? It was many Kansas fans, all collectively breathing a sigh of relief.

You see what winning a National Championship does for a man? Three weeks ago, 1st and 10, a show I rarely watch, pondered whether or not Bill Self was on the hot seat. He hadn’t been to a Final Four, had fallen short each year with lots of talent and, generally, was known as a guy who could only coach in the regular season.

Three weeks later, the man is going to be able to go to any school he wants for about any amount of money he wants. With Oklahoma State looking like they’re going to back in the Brink’s truck, Kansas donors are willing to empty their pockets, as well.

Immediately after Kansas beat Memphis in overtime Monday night for the NCAA championship, speculation intensified that oil and energy magnate T. Boone Pickens might be coming after the Jayhawks’ coach on behalf of Oklahoma State.

“If they’re going to need to raise a lot of money, I’m sure there will be many people who step forward,” Dana Anderson, a businessman/developer and prominent Kansas donor, told The Associated Press. “Bill Self is a great individual and a great coach and he’s perfect for Kansas.”

I like basketball. But $165 million? Give me a plane ticket, a hotel in Vegas, and a couple of cheap strippers, and I promise I’ll do more with that money that any delight winning a National Title can give me.

It’s a little late on the win, but I was too lazy last night and too tired this morning. So this morning I write to you that the Kansas won a game in which Memphis absolutely blew; and when I say “absolutely blew,” I mean shitting the bed as badly as one can shit a bed.

I saw Memphis up eight with less than two minutes to go, ran to the laundry room, threw some clothes in, came back, and Kansas had cut it to five with a minute and a half. I watched Memphis miss free throws like they had all season and, before you knew it, I watched Mario Chalmers make a three because he wasn’t fouled at halfcourt, and then watched Memphis make a halfcourt heave when they had a timeout.

John Calipari, your coaching blunders won’t be forgotten.

Above is a clip of how the Jayhawks won the game, or how Memphis imploded under pressure. We don’t get to see Mario Chalmers’ miraculous three-point heave to send it into overtime, but watching the expression on CDR’s and Derrick Rose’s face is way more priceless.

Enjoy your win, Bill Self. And your $2 million dollar hike in base pay this year.

Tonight marks the last day until we’re stuck with nothing but MLB and NBA — unless, of course, you’re an NCAA Women’s fan — so let’s make the best of it.

Kansas and Memphis tip off at 9:21 tonight, which means I’ll be up much later than I am on most other nights, where I’m asleep before the sun has set and most 8th graders are still outside playing baseball.

I can’t imagine there’s many Memphis fans out there — unless you’re born a Memphis fan, and if so, I’m sorry — so my guess is most are hoping against John Calipari and his band of dirty recruits (yes, I hate Calipari).

If anything else, I hope for a good game. Outside of the Davidson/Kansas game, and the Western Kentucky/Drake game, there haven’t been a whole lot of nail-biters, at least not by your normal tournament standard.

I’m a hardly a Jayhawks fan, but for tonight: Rock, Chalk Jayhawk! (I still don’t know what the hell that means.)

Derrick Rose didn’t take any questions from the media on Sunday, and the cause was a little odd: The man, as it turns out, didn’t feel well because he ate too many Gummy Bears.

“He eats Gummy Bears and Starburst for breakfast, and Twizzlers and Honey Buns for dinner. That’s why his stomach hurts,” fellow guard Chris Douglas-Roberts said. “We tell Derrick the whole year, ‘Stop eating so many Gummy Bears and Sour Straws.’ But he can’t. … Nobody eats Gummy Bears more than him.”

It’s good to know that a guy who may be picked in the top five of this year’s NBA Draft bases his diet around Gummy Bears, Honey Buns, Starbursts and Twizzlers. I’m guessing he won’t be gracing the cover of Men’s Health any time soon.

I was pretty amped about last night’s games; the idea of seeing Calipari lose again and Roy Williams vs. his old team was an exciting concept to me. I figured both games would be nail-biters, the type where you have lead change after lead change after lead change, and it ends on some crazy shot that somehow finds the bottom of the net as time expires.

In all actuality, we got none of that.

The Memphis/UCLA game featured one team that jumped all over the other team’s back, and another team that just couldn’t score for the life of them. I’d heard about Kevin Love all year and, living on the East coast, hadn’t really had much of a chance to see the guy play. What I saw was a fat white guy that hardly resembled someone ready for the NBA. On the flip side of that, Derrick Rose, who I’ve criticized often as being overhyped, looked absolutely ridiculous. Neither Westbrook nor Collison could guard him, and UCLA’s staunch defense looked rather flimsy.

And for those of you who watched the UNC/Kansas game, well, I’m sorry. I was drunk, thankfully, so what I remember is only bits and pieces, but enough to know that 10 minutes though I’d lost all interest.

The end result is Kansas and Memphis (I’d called Kansas in the finals, but had Memphis losing in the Elite 8), and we can only hope there’s a little more tension and excitement in that game than in the previous two. My pick’s Kansas, but I’m a bit nervous; Memphis has looked absolutely unstoppable, and having to watch Calipari lift the trophy may be completely nauseating.

My prediction: Kansas 77, Memphis 72.