Random Thoughts

I will have my Final Four breakdown posted by Thursday or Friday. I am salivating over the Saturday night games. The Ohio State-Georgetown game gives us Greg Oden v. Roy Hibbert in a battle of college hoops top two centers and the Florida-UCLA game is a rematch of last year's championship game, the first such game since Duke met UNLV in the national semi-final back in 1991... How did UNC blow that game yesterday? Did Roy Williams know he had timeouts in overtime? Tar Heel Nation can't be too happy this morning... More important than their loss to Georgetown, North Carolina lost 21-year-old Jason Ray, who plays the school's mascot ,Rameses, to injuries suffered when he was struck by a car outside his New Jersey hotel prior to Carolina's game against Southern California... Craig Hansen got beat up by the Reds today. He lasted only 2/3 of an inning and allowed five runs on two hits, two walks and he hit two batters. Hansen will almost certainly start 2007 at Pawtucket. The good news from the 5-0 loss was that Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched five scoreless, hitless innings, striking out six (but he did walk five batters) and Jonathan Papelbon pitched a perfect inning in relief... My annual baseball preview should be finished later in the week... Some of the best news of the day comes from ESPN. They are making a quarterback switch, so to speak, on Monday Night Football that will work out for viewers like the Brady-for-Bledsoe deal worked for Pats fans. Mr. Negative, Joe Theismann, is out while Ron Jaworski is in for MNF starting this season. Jaws joins Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser in the booth. I love this move... Now that Papelbon is closing, rumors of a potential trade of Joel Pineiro are starting. I say hold on to Pineiro until teams start begging for bullpen help so that the Sox can sell high on a low risk offseason signing... Hope that Laurence Maroney's shoulder surgery doesn't hold him back as the Pats are counting on him to be their featured runner in 2007. Obviously, the news of this surgery coupled with his rib cartilage tear during the season are explanation enough for his lack of production down the stretch and in the playoffs... Will the Pats use one of their two first round picks in April's draft on a running back? I'll unveil that prediction in my next Mockery of a Mock Draft...