John Feinstein was right.. this really is the worst sports month of the year. My library of college football media guides have yet to arrive, baseball is something I endure rather than enjoy and the start of training camp is about three weeks away. I was thinking about blogging on the over-the-top theatrics of Serena Williams last night but I’ll bite my tongue.. everyone seems to think it was gutsy for reasons I’ll apparently never understand. She said in an interview that she was willing to die out there. I don’t know about you but I haven’t heard of anyone dying of leg cramps before but I’m sure there were some undocumented cases of leg cramp fatalities during the civil war. What I find most mystifying about watching that match is why she thought it would be a good idea to whack herself in the leg with her racquet. I mean I guess I can relate, when I have a headache at work I usually just take the handset of my phone and repeatedly thump myself in the face and head until my headache goes away or until I’m unconscious and bleeding from my ears. Serena, just play tennis. Spare me the performance.

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No, seriously…

Mayor Bloomberg identifies the real threat to the safety of New Yorkers this holiday weekend — unguarded beaches and pools.

Apparently, some people in Japan are still really sensitive about the whole atomic bomb thing.

I’m officially declaring this Arizona woman to be the nicest person on the planet.

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SHOCKING NEWS! Joakim Noah isn’t enough of a front court presence for the Bulls and the team is looking elsewhere for additional help.

It could be a sad end of the road for former Jazz and Lakers guard Derek Fisher.

Sabres fans aren’t the only ones hit hard by the departures of Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. This story reveals one very interesting twist to this story. According to the paper, the Sabres and Drury had agreed on a 4-year deal in the fall but a contract was never presented to Drury to sign. Nice.

A discussion on a Pittsburgh sports talk show about the planned walkout by Pirates fans at Saturday’s game turned heated. I watched the video on the TV station’s website and the altercation in question is about 20 minutes into a show where the central topics of discussion are Zach Duke, Freddy Sanchez and Jim Tracy. Trust me, it’s not worth it. But here’s the link anyway.

If this isn’t a sign that the world, as we know it, is coming to an end, I don’t know what is: Cavs forward and walking muscle spasm Anderson Varejao could make more than $6 million next year.

The Magic corralled free agent forward Rashard Lewis. Watch out for the Magic next year. They’re some good guard play away from being a very competitive team.

T.O. is suing a New York nightclub for using his likeness and name without his permission.

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Well-rounded news…

Drowned in Sound is not at all excited about the prospect of a Verve reunion.

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Inside Baseball

Media Shift’s Mark Glaser says the future of journalism is bright. While I think that most of this piece is maybe overly optimistic. There is one part that I find a little ridiculous, “Bloggers and Internet readers, though they may have personal agendas, provide a free supply of fact-checkers.” That’s a nice way of identifying the role of bloggers in mainstream media.

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No, seriously…

Inmates communicate to each other through the toilet.

Domestic cats once roamed wild in North Africa.

Someone updated the wikipedia of wrestler Eric Benoit about the death of his wife — 13 hours before police arrived.

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The Worldwide Leader Andy Katz on players that were rewarded in last night’s draft for staying in school.

Are Knicks fans really betting on the low-post combination of Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph?

Shelly Anderson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette telling the world that Amanda Beard posed in Playboy for the money… talk about burying the lead.

The Buffalo News is reporting that Daniel Briere has rejected the offer made by the Sabres earlier in the week.

Congratulations, Bulls! You now have the worst offensive frontcourt in the NBA. I’m going to make a wager that the combined PPG for Noah and Ben Wallace is under 20.

No more Berlin Fire/Hamburg Sea Devils instant classics… (cue emoticon: sad face)

Interesting headline on this story about the Mavs taking Nevada’s Nick Fazekas.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a great piece on Atlanta native Pacman Jones and “where things went wrong.” Despite the claims of some of the dopes in this piece, it seems Jones had a history of being a malcontent.

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Well-rounded news…

Myspace is for dorks.

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No, seriously….

A six-month old baby girl is named after 25 different prize fighters.

A burglar called for a “time out” during a foot chase with police.

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 Kevin Armstrong, most recently remembered by this blogger for slurping Duke lacrosse, is reporting that the Hoover football program is under investigation for alleged grade changing.

Writing for Slate, Paul Shirley ponders what would happen if Kobe and Kevin Garnett ended up on the same team.

In a column, today in the New York Post, Paul Schwartz calls on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to begin docking teams who draft trouble players, a notion that I whole-heartedly agree with. I think too often teams are willing to take a flier on a guy with off-the-field issues if he’s talented enough. The league needs to ensure that doing so comes at a cost, Schwartz suggests draft picks or a tightened salary cap for those teams.

The New York Daily News is reporting that former Knick Allan Houston is planning a comeback and supposedly has a lot of interested parties, including, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, the Miami Heat. If they sign Houston, the median age of the Heat roster will be 56 years old.

Chris Webber is putting his personal collection of documents and letters from African-American leaders like Frederick Douglass, Malcom X, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Jr on display in Detroit. The exhibit will run through September.

Another column slurping the passion of Joakim Noah. This time its the Orlando Sentinel’s Dave Curtis.

The Dallas Morning News’ Tim Cowlishaw thinks the Cowboys should hold off giving QB Tony Romo a contract extension.

A very interesting piece in the New York Times about former Wisconsin forward Alando Tucker. Stephen Danley draws some very interesting comparisons to the perceived weaknesses of Tucker’s game and what some scouts believed Josh Howard’s weaknesses were coming out of Wake Forest four years ago.

The ASPCA has voted Georgia’s “Uga” as the most lovable mascot in all of college sports.

Andy Katz may want to have his home and/or his office at the Worldwide Leader checked for a radon leak.

My problems with Katz’s article on Joakim Noah started at the top and by the end had me worked into an absolute frenzy.

The first graph of Katz’s story:

“Joakim Noah has been the face of college basketball the past two seasons.”

I couldn’t disagree more, especially given that the two most notable players in all of college basketball last season were two freshmen who are locks to be the number 1 and number 2 picks in the NBA draft later this month, one of which was the National Player of the Year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there was no more overrated player in all of college basketball than Joakim Noah. Katz astutely points out that Noah has two things that Oden and Durant don’t: two national championship rings but come on, Andy. If you put Durant or Oden on those Florida teams with Corey Brewer, Al Horford, Lee Humphries and Taurean Green they beat every team they play by 65 points.

Noah’s constant “look at me” show isn’t going to fly on a team full of seasoned veterans. In “The League” he can’t be getting into scuffles with opposing coaches like he did this year with Vandy’s Kevin Stallings or swatting the pom-poms of cheerleaders out of his face.  What Katz confuses with passion and fire is really arrogance and bravado. More talk and less walk.

I think what bothered me most about Noah as a college player was the fact that he got as much attention as he did, much of which he called to himself by doing completely stupid, almost spastic dances at half court and pounding his chest like a dope any time he did pretty much anything he did but for all that attention, his game didn’t back it up. In his three years in Gainesville, Noah averaged 12 and 6. In an embarrassing moment for Billy Donovan, Dick Vitale accidentally told two Tennessee radio hosts that the coach was adamant that Al Horford would be a much better NBA player than Noah. Though the coach attempted to perform some damage control, Donovan never took back what he said or denied having the conversation with Vitale. Pretty telling, don’t you think?

Noah will be a marginal player in the NBA, at best. Can you picture Noah trying to post up Amare Stoudemire or Dwight Howard? And I doubt that Ben Wallace or Al Jefferson is going to let Noah hang around the basket to get those garbage buckets that accounted for most of his production at Florida. To his credit, Noah is a scrappy player that isn’t afraid to mix it up but the same can be said for Jeff Foster or Anderson Varejeo. Lacking size and speed, Noah is not a threat to penetrate like Andrei Kirilenko and has a terrible outside shot so there will be no Nowitzki comparisons here.

Whoever takes Noah on June 28 should think long and hard about what they’re drafting. Are they drafting Noah’s game or his mouth?

With March Madness tipping off Thursday (sorry play-in game participants).. everyone in your office or class becomes Andy Katz or Digger Phelps. But I guess that’s what makes this event great, right?

After looking at the brackets, there are certainly some interesting match-up possibilities. Of course, those matchups could be completely torched by upsets (i.e. last year) but here’s a couple as my bracket predicts.

Midwest Regional: Oregon/Wisconsin - Drinking the Pac-10 Kool-Aid is something I vowed never to do again but I’m awfully impressed by this Oregon team. The chance to see the Ducks, who handled any and all comers in the Pac-10 tournament, square off against the Badgers (see: POY-candidate Alando Tucker) is a game I’d pay to see. Oregon/Florida - Every one of the Worldwide Leader’s talking heads are picking the Gators to return to the Final Four but I’m not sold. The SEC fielded an unspeakably weak field this year and I’m not sure the Gators have what it takes to beat Arizona, Maryland and Oregon but this game could potentially be a classic. Taj Porter, Aaron Brooks and Bryce Taylor vs. Joke-kim, Brewer and Horford.

West Regional: Of the four regionals (go Hoosiers) this is probably the weakest and least exciting (go Hoosiers). The only potentially exciting matchup would be the elite 8 showdown between Kansas and UCLA. Though I have Kansas in the Final Four, I think they’re the most enigmatic. Bill Self’s resumé in Lawrence has been far from excellent and but I think the Jayhawks will have a relatively easy time disposing of everyone in their half of the bracket. The possible Pitt/UCLA storyline has people excited but I think Saturday night Pitt showed that if they don’t get good looks from the perimeter and Aaron Gray is defended well in the post, they’re easily beatable.

East regional: Hands-down the most exciting bracket in the tournament. Anyone of these match-ups will be worth watching: Texas/USC, Texas/UNC, BC/Georgetown, Washington St./Georgetown, Georgetown/UNC. If this weekend proved anything, it was that Georgetown is the real deal. The low-post combination of Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert might be the best in the country. I’m picking Georgetown to emerge from this impressive pack but I wouldn’t be at all surprised I were wrong.

South regional: O-H-I-O. That’s really all you need to say about this bracket. Memphis is the hottest team in the country, Texas A&M and Acie Law could be a tough out but the Buckeyes will be Georgia-bound when it’s all said and done. This is the bracket with the least amount of intriguing potential match-ups. Ohio State’s biggest challenge will be its own youth and inexperience and even though they’re awfully young — they’re awfully good.

My final four picks:

Losers of three of their last four, the Florida Gators, the defending national champions, are officially on a slide.

The Vanderbilt loss was tolerable but the losses at an LSU team that shot 52 percent and were playing without Glen Davis and at Rocky Top to a Tennessee team that I’m picking to make a first round exit come tournament have to make you wonder if this team really has what it takes to make a deep tournament run.

The problem with this team is simple: chemistry. Dickie V’s comments about a private conversation he had with coach Billy Donovan may have caused a permanent fissure between Donovan and “star” Joakim Noah. While he could have gone to the NBA last year and been a lock to go top 5 in a compartively weak ‘06 draft class, Noah would be lucky to go top 15 in a draft class that could include Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and Aaron Afflalo, if he declares after this season. Quite simply, averaging almost 13 points, 8 rebounds a night… the chest-pounding forward from New York City is one of the most overrated “stars” in all of college basketball. I can’t say I disagree with Donovan when he said NBA scouts would be crazy to take Noah over the 6′10″ Horford.

But all is not lost in Gainesville. If this team can pull together and make a deep run into the SEC tournament, they’ll be right back on track. In spite of this recent slide, I’d say the Gators are almost a can’t-miss to make it to the sweet 16.