I image that that the only thi...

If you’ve been watching the NCAA Basketball Tournament and you haven’t learned anything about college basketball then you most likely need to find another pastime. I’ve been watching it for 35 years or more and it still never ceases to amaze me. The past two weeks have been like watching a new Super Bowl every day for four days each weekend. To say that I’m a bit emotionally drained is an understatement. I actually had to take a break from watching all sports in general for about 48 hours last week just to regroup myself and prepare for this past weekend’s onslaught of upsets and surprises. As usual, college basketball did not let me down.

My NCAA bracket is toast. It’s over for me, bracket wise that is, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been screaming and talking trash to my friends and neighbors. I image that that the only thing that burnt worse than my losing bracket picks are the egos of the number 1 teams that got knocked out. Conversely there are no more number 1 team’s remaining. Both Alabama (Grossly Overrated) and Houston fell this weekend to underdogs, Houston lost to my beloved Miami Hurricanes and Alabama to San Diego State. Shockingly enough, Florida Atlantic eliminated Kansas State in a battle of epic proportions in front of a star studded, high dollar, Madison Square Garden crowd including future NFL Hall Of Famer Eli Manning and Civil Rights Advocate, movie producer and Part Time Life Coach Spike Lee to reach its first Final Four appearance EVER! My only big bright spot in my bracket of picks was wait for it, that’s right folks, if you’re trying to remember who it was that wrote about taking FAU seriously, you can look no further because it was me, right here on SportsBookStuff. LOL, I rest my case.

The fact that both FAU and The Miami Hurricanes are going to the Final Four solidifies the claim that South Florida is a basketball Mecca. Now if we could get both of these teams as well as The Miami Dolphins working on their football game we might actually be getting somewhere!

The Final Four is now set. Miami will take on UConn and Florida Atlantic University will play San Diego State. For both FAU and Miami, it’s a very big deal just to be playing as it’s the first trip for each of them. The exposure that The Final Four gives to schools on a national television level is priceless. It’s like getting a free 2-hour advertisement in front of millions of viewers. After the crazy upsets and on court drama of the last two weeks I can imagine that the national viewership will be even more then usual. The possibility that there could be an all-Florida final between FAU and Miami this coming Monday will make it even more interesting. The advertising execs are officially salivating. Play On!!!

Football of course is still lingering in the back of everyone’s mind. The off-season shenanigans taking place in the NFL are still getting huge front-page attention in print, on line and in television media. No, Arron Rogers has not announced where he will play next year (not that I actually care) although the New York Jets remain a strong possibility. The circumstances surrounding Lamar Jackson continue to get more and more bezaar with no name individuals and unauthorized negotiators literally coming out of the wood work. I think many will agree with me when I say that if Lamar had hired an agent to negotiate his contract he would have had a deal done by now and all this drama surrounding him would have never happened. As it is he’s making himself look bad and we all know that in The NFL image is everything. Agents, like lawyers (and many of them are lawyers) have a purpose in this world and that purpose is to represent your best interests. Someone once said that “A man who has himself as his lawyer has a fool for a lawyer”. In this case I feel that statement can be applied.

The NFL draft is fast approaching. With this in mind we’ve gotten to watch many eligible players show their stuff at both the NFL combine and individual Pro Days held at their respective schools. It’s been interesting and entertaining to watch but I can’t come away from these displays without feeling that they’re somehow pointless in a practical sense. No combine drill or Pro Day display of talent is gonna replicate real time on the field play. Sure, we all know you can throw a football 60 yards on target and hit your receivers but can you do it into double coverage with 360-pound defensive linemen getting set to pancake you? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. For now, it seems to me that the pro day scenarios are just a long-choreographed Instagram feed.

I know that one thing is for sure in this upcoming draft and that is it will be heavy with quarterbacks. The expectations are high and the candidates are many. Bryce Young (Alabama), Will Levis (Kentucky) and Stenson Bennet (Georgia) have shown great arm strength and have had stellar college careers and should be first rounders. My favorite, Max Dugan (TCU) remains overshadowed by the Alabama/Kentucky/Georgia media freak show but then I remember when they ignored Tom Brady as well. It’s another case of “We’ll have to wait and see”. It’s hard for me to get hyped up about The NFL Draft as Miami doesn’t even have a pick in the first round after trading it away for Tyreek Hill. Besides, The Dolphins have Tua, right? In the end I’m hoping maybe Lamar Jackson decides to home to Florida and all my troubles will go away!

Lamar!! Miami awaits you!! Play on!!!

Kev