Thursday Quick Hits: March Madness Is Here

By Sean · Thursday, March 20, 2008 · 12:52 AM |  Share | 3 Comments 

• The NCAA Tournament begins today, meaning work productivity is about to take a huge hit. To help the cause, let me tell you about something that anyone at work should know about. It’s called March Madness on Demand. MMOD will allow you to watch games live (except for the one being shown in your local market) and will make the day go by much quicker. And in case your boss happens to stroll by when you’re watching, there’s a handy “boss button” that displays a spreadsheet with one click, saving you from possibly getting fired.
• My picks for the NCAA Tournament can be found here. I have North Carolina winning it all over UCLA in a close game.
• Awful Announcing has the coverage maps for the first-round games of the Big Dance.
• Charles Woodson donated $150,000 to the University of Michigan for two scholarships.
• The Michigan women’s basketball team is in the WNIT. This is the first time the women’s team has played in the postseason since 2002. Considering where this team was a year ago, I’d say any postseason tournament is a huge step in the right direction. It just shows you that Kevin Borseth is a great coach and has the program headed for bigger and better things.
• The Big Ten Network has a video on spring practice for the football team. MGoBlue has another one as well.
• Sam Webb talks Michigan recruiting and the impact Mike Barwis is having on it.
• Yesterday was supposed to be the Michigan baseball team’s first home game since renovations overhauled Fisher Stadium, but bad weather postponed the contest against Oakland.
• Michigan men’s basketball assistant coach Jerry Dunn is a finalist for the James Madison job.
• Maize & Blog compared the hockey and basketball teams’ games from last Friday, and the results are pretty depressing for basketball fans.
• If you have a Wii and are planning on getting NCAA Football 09 for it this summer, make sure to keep the cover out of sight as Sparty is on it.
• The Ann Arbor News’ 4-day series on Michigan athletes and academics wrapped up yesterday, and I’ll admit, I didn’t even bother reading the new articles. I tried, but after the first few lines couldn’t stand to read anymore. Overall, the series turned out to be a whole lot of nothing to me. Basically, the AA News pointed out over the last 4 days that Michigan athletes take easier classes, don’t take on majors that require a lot of time, and get put in easy classes to boost their GPA. Well thanks, because that was such a well kept secret.

  I get that the attitude of “everyone is doing it, so we can too” isn’t a good one to have, but to seriously compete in college athletics, athletes don’t have the time to dedicate their lives to academics. That’s just the way it is. And although some may say that the Ann Arbor News did a great job investigating this issue at Michigan, I would strongly disagree. Nothing new was brought up over the course of this series, and I really am surprised that 7 months of work resulted in things we already knew for the most part. Then again, if 7 months of investigating only turned up the notion that athletes have an easier time in the classroom, then it is a sigh of relief as that much time spent digging into some schools would uncover things much worse.

• I usually never see eye-to-eye with Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, but I commend her for defending the University against the Ann Arbor News’ series.
• Finally, I think Autumn Thunder sums up the thoughts of most Michigan fans with what I would say is his best photoshop yet. I know, I know, Carty wasn’t the only one behind this series as many people were involved, but he has become the main target of criticism for some reason.