What's up with the "First Four"?

The University of Kentucky Wildcats are the big favorite to win this year's NCAA basketball tournament if you didn't already know that. The Wildcats have dominated most of their opponents this year and they're undefeated going into the tournament.

I would like to see the University of Wisconsin Badgers win it all just because everyone else in my pool has picked Kentucky to win. Wisconsin has been a very successful program in its own right for the last few years and it would be great to see the underdog take the title. The Badger's Frank Kaminsky is the real deal.

The NCAA is thinking about changing the current shot clock rule from 35 to 30 seconds next year and I'm all for that change. It would increase scoring and bring more excitement to the college game. I am not in favor of going all the way down to 24 seconds like the NBA. It is important for college sports to be different from the professional leagues to keep it unique.

With all the crazy options out there for TV viewing, I'm guessing that pretty much everyone will have enough channels to watch all of the first round tournament games. My eyes are tired already and its only the round of 64, which followed the First Four, really!

I could go on and on with the March Madness hype, but let's look at baseball just a bit. It's only three weeks until baseball's opening day! Mother Nature needs to get her act together! The spring-training games are getting more serious. If you follow the pre-season at all, you will now see the starting pitchers going for more than half of a game now.

This is also when the teams start cutting people left and right from their rosters. It will be interesting for the Phillies, who will round out their starting rotation from an untested group now that Cliff Lee is most likely out for the season. I'm also curious to see who will make the team as bench players. For now, get back to watching an overload of basketball.