For the second straight weekend the weather was nice. The birds were chirping. The grass was starting to turn green. The sun was shining brightly. And most of us were wearing a groove into a couch. Normally, the NCAA Tournament blows any weekend to hell. But couple it with a war, spring training baseball and the annual Hollywood masturbatory Oscars, and really, you shouldn’t be allowed to leave your TV.

As you all know, I was conflicted about the first game of the round of 32 in the NCAAs. My lifetime love of all things Notre Dame was clashing directly with my favorite college basketball program at the University of Illinois. What’s a guy to do?

Illinois made it pretty easy on me, really. They came out flat, got flatter, made one brief second half run and then laid down for an all-too-easy Irish win. Granted, your defense is going to look bad when Danny Miller is nailing 27 footers and Chris Thomas decides to play the game with reckless abandon, save for the reckless part.

It was easier to make a pregame case for an Illini win. They’d won nine of their last ten games. They were deeper. They hadn’t needed a guy from Milwaukee to blow a layup with one second left to advance.

But a little voice kept reminding me that this was a team that beat Maryland, Marquette, Pittsburgh and Texas.

In my brain I wanted Illinois to win for one selfish reason. I hate Lute Olson and Arizona and between Notre Dame and Illinois, Illinois seemed a better bet to be able to beat the Wildcats.

That was, before Gonzaga put on one of the most incredible displays of sheer “we don’t want to lose” effort I’ve ever seen. You kept telling yourself that if Blake Stepp had one more chance to win the game, he’d come through. He missed a shot that could have won it near the end of regulation, one at the buzzer in the first overtime and then two that could have won it in the second overtime.

Alas, Lute’s boys survived. Though they certainly tried to lose. So the little Catholic university in Spokane couldn’t get it done. It’s time for the little Catholic university in South Bend to take a shot.

You can make a case for the Irish.

They don’t do well with physical teams that outrebound them. When Arizona’s “big guys” are Channing Frye and Rick Anderson (Elvis), you don’t get to call yourself physical.

The Irish only go eight deep, and even then it’s really only six deep, so teams that use lots of players can wear them out. Here’s Arizona, the team so good that their second team would allegedly finish third in the Pac-10, and yet, Lute doesn’t use his bench. Moron.

Basically it comes down to two things. 1) If the Irish can shoot a decent percentage on their three pointers (they don’t have to go 11-13 in the first half again, just avoid a 2-12) and 2) if Matt Carroll’s ankle gets better by Thursday, Notre Dame can pull it off. It’s still not likely. But it’s something.

As for Illinois’ demise. Missing 13 layups didn’t help. Thirteen! Dee Brown played like a freshman. In fact, so did Brian Cook. His 19 points and 16 rebounds were deceiving. He shot 6-23 and most of his 17 misses were shots he usually makes. You can’t blame it all on him, of course, but you can blame enough of it on him.

Roger Powell’s ankle was worse than we thought. Luther Head re-injured his groin in the first half. But none of that answers the riddle as to why Illinois didn’t get up on the Irish and force them to drive to get shots. If you let Notre Dame shoot you lose. They did and they did.

Other than a Michigan State pummelling of Florida that almost nobody (me excluded) saw coming, the Big Ten had a rough second round. Wisconsin pulled one out of their hiney to beat Tulsa, and now they get to assume the position for Kentucky. Indiana played so poorly that Mike Davis turned back into Bobby Knight and went off on his team in the postgame press conference. Mike Davis just isn’t very likable, is he? Purdue put a scare into Texas, but we all knew how it would end.

I stand in first place in the Desipio Office Pool on espn.com, but my reign will only last until about nine o’clock on Thursday night. I picked a nice percentage of the games correctly, but with Illinois, Xavier and Mississippi State all drinking the Kool-Aid this weekend, I have no shot.

I’m going to do a whole article on the war coverage today, but this kind of relates. How annoying was the fact that CBS would show two minutes of commericals and then a two minute war recap with Dan Rather? Would it have killed them to have interrupted the commercials for the update instead of the game? Just a thought.

Before the season, if you knew that one site would have Kansas, Duke, Notre Dame and Arizona don’t you think you would have said, “Damn, Notre Dame made the Final Four!” Instead, that’s just the West Region Final Four. If you had tickets in Indianapolis last weekend, Anaheim next weekend and New Orleans after that, you’re the luckiest SOB ever. I really think that just the West should reinstate the region consolation game they had until the early seventies. You couldn’t get a bad matchup.

Anyway, a week from today is Major League opening day. In honor of that, our divisional previews will start this week. We’ve even assembled a group of real life (snicker, snicker) scouts to break down each team, just like we did for the NFL and NBA previews. So look for those.

On Saturday, WGN-TV showed the Cubs-Giants game. During the brodcast, Steve Stone ripped Giants outfielder Jose Cruz, Jr. for his bad fielding. The only problem was that Jose wasn’t in the game any more when the botched flyball prompted Stone’s wrath. Rather, Jose was in the Giants’ clubhouse watching the game on WGN and getting mad at Steve. Oops! In Steve’s defense–the Giants wear their batting practice jerseys for road spring training games (as do most teams) and theirs is black with black numbers! You can barely read them on TV, much less from the press box to the outfield. They are trimmed in orange so you can make them out. But still. Plus, you add in the fact that Chip Caray is the guy who is supposed to be keeping track of the changes and well…it’s not gonna happen, is it?

Always angry Andy Bagnato gives the Irish a shot at beating Arizona.

Notre Dame isn’t ready to call it a success just yet.

The Bulls are acting tough at least. Check out Ben Wallace’s very funny quote about Marcus Fizer in this one.

Bobby Hill might be checking the corn crop in Iowa again this spring.

Groucho with a ridiculous look at the upcoming NBA draft if everybody on the planet were eligible. Or something ludicrous like that. Dont’ even bother…

Rick Morrissey with excuses for blowing your NCAA pool.

The future is bright for Illinois. Very bright, actually.

Herb Gould concurs.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to give Mike Brey a backrub.

Mike Kiley with more on the lovefest between Steve Stone and Jose Cruz and how Bobby Hill’s demotion might mean Augie makes the team. Oh, for chrissakes, not Augie!

Peter Gammons loves the Twins. And really, why not? Who’s going to beat them in that division? The Indians? Too young. The Royals? Too dumb. The Tigers? Not a chance. Anybody else? I can’t think of anybody.

Chris Mortensen talks to scouts about Chris Simms, Rex Grossman and Dave Ragone. How’s this for a ringing endorsement on Rex? “It’s not just the height, because plenty of 6-1-and-under guys have had success in this league,” said a scout. “But he’s short-armed, he’s stubby-fingered, he’s heavy (220) and he ran a pretty slow 40 (5.1). And he’s erratic.” You know who he is? He’s a right-handed Cade McNown.

Spanish-yes.com on Michigan State’s perfect game against Florida.

EW goes backstage at the Oscars.

What’s TV going to show us in May? More reality crapola, of course.

EW on the political declarations during last night’s Oscars.

Michael Moore put down the doughnut to put down the war and the prez.

The Drudge Report has screen captures from that horrible six minute video of dead and wounded American soldiers that Arab TV viewers have been watching over and over again.

Drudge with some background on Time’s cover story this week.

Let’s just hope there’s some kind of plan.

The world’s greatest newspaper has the story of lions eating Christians in Iraq.