NCAA Tournament Ombudsman: Sponsored by Buffalo Wild Wings

After a weekend of total mayhem and madness, TWO has collected himself and is prepared to share the following reflections on the NCAA tourney's opening rounds.

1) Arizona. Some of you may have interpreted last week's "I can't wait for their Cinderella run" statement as sarcasm, implying that Arizona didn't belong in the tournament and wouldn't make a run. It wasn't sarcasm...incredibly accurate prediction. Humors aside, I will admit that Arizona, stunningly, has a case that they should have made it in the tourney after all. While beating Utah and Cleveland State wasn't the toughest route, the sweet 16 is the sweet 16. And as a man of integrity, I will say that I was wrong about Arizona. However, I absolutely stand by my argument as a whole - and also happily note that Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan failed to make any sort of run in the tourney. That, combined with my picking 14 of the Sweet 16, makes me both a man of integrity and a man who is almost always correct. It feels good. It feels really good.

2) Syracuse. I am rooting for Syracuse purely to extend the enjoyment of watching Syracuse girls, classes 2001-2008, go berserk all over Murray Hill. It is difficult to reconcile this with my rooting against Eric Devendorf, his unacceptable oncourt posturing and his equally unacceptable offcourt blaccent. If I wrote a movie about Syracuse basketball, Devendorf would be played by Justin Timberlake and Johnny Flynn would be played by Fife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest. And Fife Dawg would constantly beat up Justin Timberlake.

3) The Buffalo Wild Wings Commercial. Absurd. Unfortunately I can't find the basketball version of the commercial on the internet, but here is a football version from the fall, with essentially the same theme. The basketball version will be shown 1000 times each game for the rest of the NCAA tourney, so you can't miss it. The premise is that a bunch of fans - from New York and Boston - are watching a game together at a bar. They decide they are having so much fun that they ask the bartender to put the game into overtime. He sends a signal to a photographer on court who, by using an ultra powerful camera flash, prevents a Boston slam dunk that would have won the game. The fans are absolutely delighted!

What are the problems? First, Boston and New York fans would never harmoniously be at the same bar, and second, there are at least 5 black people wearing Boston jerseys. This is 5 more black fans than actually root for Boston (or, as it is also known, the "Nation's Capital of Sneaky Racism"). Even Boston's black players don't root for Boston. For example, Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett play to win for the Celtics when they're on the court, but as soon as they're back on the bench they heckle their teammates and revert to their default mode of hating the Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Revolution. Even the Revolution? Especially the Revolution. Third, the fans - for both sides - cheer wildly when the game is sent into overtime. Boston fans celebrating - thanking their lucky stars - that a Bill Buckner moment happened. Well, yeah, there may be years of agony later....but at least for now we get to enjoy an extra 45 minutes of Crispy Southwest Dippers and Huckleberry Lemonade!

And I think thats the reason why this seemingly innocuous ad has had such a strong reaction. Real fans, while their favorite teams are playing, are stressed out, sweating, gut-wrenched and at times possibly miserable. I worked with an English woman who was actually incapable of watching England's soccer team play. She was so nervous that she had to sit outside and have people tell her what was happening. Real fans don't like and have nothing in common with the happy-go-lucky, wide-eyed Buffalo Wild Wings people, who are just thrilled to be at a chain restaurant socializing and high-fiving each other no matter who wins or loses.

4) The Announcing. Fantastic. Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery do a great job calling their respective games and capturing the excitement and emotion of the tournament (see also Gus Johnson's Whisper). One of TWO's least favorite things is the understated play-by-play man. In the 1980s and early 90s, this role was filled by Pat Summerall - here's Summerall calling the final play of the 1987 NFC Championship Game. While I liked Summerall generally, he just struggled at capturing the emotion of a big play.

The current understated play-by-play man is Joe Buck, who is even worse because he's boring and smug at the same time, as if he's bigger than the moment and too cool to be excited. Here is Joe Buck calling arguably the greatest play in Super Bowl history. Transcribed: "Pressure from Thomas off the edge...Eli Manning stays on his feet...airs it out down the field...it is caught by Tyree."

Lets compare that to Gus Johnson calling the end of a college basketball game from a couple years back. Transcribed: "Throws it down court!!! Batista wiTH THE CAAAAAAATCHSDXL&HGR2&HHHGGHX!!!!!!!! AND THAAAAATS ITTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!! WHAAAAT A COMEBAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Can you imagine if Gus had called that Super Bowl play? He would have literally been screaming in tongues, bitten the ear off of the color guy and ransacked the booth. The transcript would have been entirely in wingdings.

5) Prediction. Villanova over Duke. Because I'd love it.

In conclusion, Huckleberry Lemonade sounds delicious.

ESPN Ombudsman: And the ESPY goes to Bill Simmons!

ESPN.com has no control over Bill Simmons - can it get worse?

Roughly 5 years ago, Bill Simmons, a man with literally no sports background, started writing ESPN columns from the "fan's point of view." Basically, his early columns were just his own humorous reactions and opinions on sports and related pop-culture. As these were well received, we got longer columns where Bill propounded inane theories and unburdened himself of various private musings and thoughts. Further validated by his growing readership and inferring that the public was fascinated with the minutia of his life, readers were introduced to his father, his wife and his college buddies, who would be quoted, at times extensively, in his columns. By 2006, a very self-confident Bill, who I will say again is a man with no sports background, got into public feuds with various NBA general managers. When, in 2008, he held out against ESPN's editing -essentially refusing to write - ESPN must have realized they'd created a monster. A guy who writes about himself (something that can't really be replicated) and who has the power to call the shots over the editors and higher-ups.

So what do you get when you combine a bizarre fascination with one's self, a validating group of readers, and the self-confidence that no one will edit what you write? You get the following - an article by Bill Simmons entirely about his dead dog. Now look, I had a dog that died, and I loved that dog. But if someone asked...IF someone asked...I would probably briefly mention his name, what kind of dog, when I had it and maybe one funny thing he used to do. One paragraph max. Bill Simmons, apropos of nothing, gives us 25 paragraphs about his dead dog. On a sports website. What could be more hubristic? What were the editors doing? And most importantly - what comes next? I have 5 column titles & ideas:

1) Good Night Neosporin. Wearing a McHale jersey, Bill bloodies his hand trying to dunk on an 8 and a half foot rim and must treat it with neosporin in order to avoid infection and scarring. Bill tells the story of being bullied in middle school and how he would eat some of the neosporin used to treat cuts and scrapes from these little tussles. 10,000 words later, Bill brings the story full circle and eats a little neosporin as he treats his hand

2) How 'Bout Them Apples? Bill podcasts from the grocery store and opens up to listeners about some problems he's had selecting fresh produce, his lactose intolerance and something he used to do with heated up banana peels in college.

3) Go To Hell, Dillan Moskowitz. Bill rips into one Dillan Moskowitz, a fat, slow, disgusting, racist third baseman on his son's tee ball team. Dillan, who incidentally starts over Simmons' son, probably takes creatine and is constantly peeing in his pants (Dillan's not Simmons').

4) Marcia & Tom & Something Else. Take an erotic and troubling journey with Bill as he talks about the two Bradys he thinks about in quiet moments as well as a story about a chance 1993 encounter with Oil Can Boyd in a Dunkin Donuts that begins with excitement and admiration but ends in prurience and shame.

5) Simmons - THE ONIONS! Bill spends 112 paragraphs spread over three weeks to detail his favorite sports daydreams about himself. Included in his opus is a daydream where Bill is the 7 foot tall Celtics center in Game 7 of the NBA Championship, and wins the title at the buzzer by dunking on Kobe Bryant so viciously that everyone in the arena suffers from dizziness and dry mouth, Kobe flies into the 3rd row of seats where several people are seriously hurt and the NBA cancels its 2009-10 season.

In conclusion, LeRoy Jenkins was the backup 3rd basemen on my tee ball team.