Random Saturdays

Waking up on Saturday to see that somehow I've moved up in my NCAA pool standings despite a shredded bracket (Clemson, d'oh!!)

• Some Pitt players show support for Obama: First, Bobby Knight. Now Barack Obama. The Democratic presidential hopeful received the support of some Pitt players after his NCAA Tournament bracket, revealed online Thursday, predicted they would reach the Final Four. Obama has the Panthers losing to UCLA in the Final Four. He has North Carolina winning it all and Kansas also in the Final Four, but his spokesman said the brackets have nothing to do with upcoming primaries in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
• Fire that spokesman. For us to believe that is akin to us believing that Hillary is a "monster" or that Reverend Wright didn't have any influence on you.
• For the record, Hillary didn't want to fill out a bracket without doing more homework. Doesn't she realize that nobody does any homework when filling out brackets?
  
• At least neither picked Kentucky and Oregon, two other states with upcoming primaries but are already out of the tourney.
• I keep seeing it mentioned more and more. Today it's in the PG, but the 'Stuff White People Like' blog is hilarious. "Hating Their Parents" checks in at #17; "Manhattan (Now Brooklyn too!) is #26; and #28 i "Not having a TV". So funny but so true.
• Couple of big tilts tonight, rivaling the nght in December when the Steelers, Panthers and Pens all played on the same night. No Stillers tonight, but the stakes are raised for the Pens and Pitt. What to do? Since the Pens game starts about two hours before the Pitt game, I think the strategy is to watch the Pens and devils battle for first in the Atlantic and tivo the Pitt/Michigan St game. You'll be able to quickly catch up on the hoops by FFing through the timeouts and commercials. Just hope that Steiggy doesn't ruin it by announcing the Pitt score during the Pens game.
• The Leafs are out of it so maybe we can understand a little insanity on the part of Toronto scribes. And Damien Cox is never one of the more balanced writers anyway. But his argument for the Hart borders on the edge. Lidstrom is his pick because the Wings almost fell apart when he was out. Now Lidstrom could probably win this award every year he's so good, but the Wings were really struggling even before he went down so this reasoning is flawed (Detroit was 0-6-1 in its last seven games before Lidstrom got hurt, but without him in the lineup, including the game he was injured and played just three minutes, the Red Wings went 3-3-1). Cox taps Brodeur as his 1A pick. Goalies are the most important players on any hockey team, but if you really want a goalie who has been most valuable, you have to look beyond Marty. Nabokov in San Jose, Giguere in Anaheim, and is you want to extend the Lidstrom argument, Conklin in the Burgh for how the team didn't disintegrate with Sid, should get consideration ahead of Brodeur. As for Cox not voting for AO if the Caps don't make the playoffs, that's another joke. AO should win unless Malkin tops him in the points race. Then it's 71's award. But here's another one to consider as well: Alexei Kovalev.