Note to self: Don’t be the reporter that breaks the story on John Calipari’s cheating ass. Your name will be smeared all over Facebook, which is almost as bad as getting your name smeared on blogs. Almost.

[The Caliparis continue to use social networking tools to bash Pat Forde]

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]

It’s not much of a shock, given that Kentucky is Kentucky, Memphis is Memphis, and his pay was double. Sleeping on it, to be honest, didn’t make much sense. (Let’s be honest — what were the benefits of staying in Memphis? Can anyone think of any?)

Hopefully Kentucky makes the tournament next year, or Carlipari’s stint might be brief. Ol’ Billy was 11 games over .500 in two seasons, won 22 games last year, and still got the axe.

[ESPN]

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.

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.

Listen closely, and you’ll hear freshman Derrick Rose dropping expletives when Joey Dorsey was asked about him being a freshman, and what it’s been like playing with him. I don’t know what Derrick thought Joey was going to say, but he seemed a bit nervous about a rather routine question with what one would think would be a routine answer.

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.