April madness

Here's hoping the NCAA greedheads get what they deserve on Monday: a Butler-West Virginia men's basketball championship finale, one that would lack a marquee team to root for, like, say, Duke or Kansas or North Carolina, and send the TV ratings for one of college sports' biggest games into a nosedive.

If schadenfreude is the goal, though, it would be a tough pick in a Bulldogs-Mountaineers matchup.  The 'Dogs represent, well, the underdogs like my alma mater -- hard-working, mid-major teams that try to actually graduate their players. A Butler win would validate the perception that nice guys can finish first in a corrupt, money-grubbing system.

On the other hand, if the Mountaineer triumph, it would confirm the suspicions of cynical critics who believe that the 'Eers' Bob Hudgins represent everything that's wrong with big-time college athletics: greedy, self-absorbed coaches who exploit needy, sometimes selfish players in order to land the next million-dollar contract by colleges seeking reflected glory on the basketball court.