jenny has written a manifesto (roughly) about the pointlessness of blogging. her thesis seems to be "if i don't want to share my innermost thoughts, what is there to write about anyway?" the answer is, of course, "write about absolutely nothing, and do it frequently." personally, i hope she continues writing. that being said, i should probably also call her at some point.

i had my most productive day at work in months on friday, leaving the office at about 6:30 with tangible evidence of having done something, which is nice, and also doesn't happen so much. but i'm certainly farther along on our program than i was at this point last year (i hadn't started, although we did have two extra weeks), and i've got what seems to be a competent intern handling our media guide (which is what i was doing last year). so i've put everything on paper and i've laid out one page and i've set the template for all of the player pages, which is one of the longest and most annoying tasks. i'm comfortable where i am on that.

for the first time in a while, i really watched a fair amount of college hoops today. actually, the two big ten games, the finishes to the pac-10, a-10, and mac games, and the big east game is on now. that's a lot, i'd say.

i'm no dave nemo, but i'd like to comment on four teams:

1) illinois: is today's performance encouraging, or discouraging? i say the former, personally. they blew a lead a bit, but had enough to stick it out. this isn't a team that's played a great game against a good team in a long time (perhaps the first michigan state game). they held on against a very good wisconsin team at home, and they lost an interesting one against a very good buckeyes team last week. their signature blowouts - gonzaga, wake, and cincinnati - all happened in 2004. but they took a fighting-for-their-lives gophers club and held them off, despite not having their best stuff. i think it's a positive omen.

2) syracuse: hakim warrick's is one of the most exciting players in hoops. duh. mcnamara's a stud. forth and pace played for a championship winner. and they blew out uconn (though they let them sort of back in it) friday. they're in the best conference in the country. and they're probably looking at a two or three seed if their big lead over wva holds. i like them to go deep.

3) pittsburgh: i know they bowed out early, but i've loved this program since their big east finals run in 2001, when gurs introduced me to julius page and that one guard (brandin knight?) and that big euro monster. and i've loved chevon troutman for a fair amount of time, and i love mini-thug carl krauser. i've picked them to go to the final four in each of the last two years, and i'll probably lose because i'll make the same pick this season.

4) washington: nate robinson got a great sports illustrated writeup probably two months ago. i had heard about but not seen anything last year, when they made their unlikely run to make the ncaa tourney. i saw an espn.com nba draft ranking that listed him as the number 9 shooting guard in the draft, and i realized that, at 5-9, he's an off guard. this made me more intrigued.

so i watched him today, only over the last six minutes or so, and he was pretty much nonexistent. but with a minute left and the huskies up by one, u-dub isolated for him. top of the key, 40 feet from the basket. screen left, he doesn't use it. drives right past his man. leaps for a layin from the right block. channing frye, 16 inches bigger than robinson, goes up for the block. robinson hangs. frye goes to the ground. robinson banks it in. stoudamire blows an opportunity on the other end, and that's it.

point is, i like washington a lot. robinson's my favorite player in the tourney (although sammy mejia's up there, as is warrick, as is stoudamire.) the rpi system says the pac ten's better than you think. and the conference's unique thursday-saturday schedule prepares teams for the tourney. i like washington to go far.

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don't tell flax, but if these teams are in different brackets, they're my final four. i'd think illinois is a one seed, 'cuse and washington are threes, and pitt's a four. i'll never win, but i'll enjoy watching my teams flame out early.

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watched all of the cats yesterday afternoon, and it was sort of an empty feeling. of course, we sort of expected that. i've written this before, but i'll write again that i'm pretty excited about next year's club. this year, this crew had to adjust to life without jitim. next year, they'll be used to it. mo turned the corner to be the team's leader late in the season, and i think he'll carry it over for 30 games next year. or at least 22 or so. enough, that is. they lose davor, but research has indicated that cote is 6-8, 230. whether he'll fit in, we'll see. being that he played with mo in high school, i think he'll be able to.

they'll have a full season of the new vince scott. they'll have the (allegedly) talented redshirts active. (aside: treem says it's a bad sign that they weren't used this year. the more i think about it, the more i've decided i disagree. they offense is intricate, and a year of practicing and learning is probably pretty helpful. i look forward especially to sterling williams, only because i've always liked his chicago-based high school's nickname, the dolphins. perhaps they're close to the shedd aquarium, i'm not sure.) as i said, a greater amount of mo. presumably improved t.j. nice depth. tougher conference, but i think they'll rank better than eighth. i'm an idiot.

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while doing laundry today, i listened to ugly casanova's sharpen your teeth today. "hotcha girls" is a classic, and "barnacles" and "parasites" are tremendous. and "things i don't remember" is a ramshackle mess of an experimento-twang-skronk pop song. i like it a lot.