We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

Some truths we hold to be self-evident. First, George Mason from Seasons 1 & 2 of "24" looks oddly familiar to George Mason men's head basketball coach Jim Larranaga, whose upstart Patriots fell just short of defeating Virginia Commonwealth for the CAA title. I wonder if he ever did the YMCA dance at CTU like Coach L during Midnight Madness. Anywho, Gonzaga (West Coast) and Niagara (Metro Atlantic) also took home the automatic bids on Monday night. The second truth is that Coach K does not take responsibility for his players. EVER. Remember the Laettner stomp? Third, Billy Packer is Billy Packer, and this means he'll make an asinine statement prior to play in the NCAA tournament. Last year, it was his reaction to George Mason being in the field (we've not forgotten about Seth Davis). This year, he's a couple weeks early.

Tuesday is the least busy day of Championship Week, so I wanted to address the Duke/UNC fiasco at the close of their game on Tuesday. Bill Simmons encapsulates my thoughts on Duke and the most recent lack of responsibility shown forth by Coach K.

In his now-second most recent column which can be found at ESPN, he states: "Congrats to Coach K for questioning why Hansbrough was still in the game and inadvertently using Isiah Thomas' "he was asking for it" defense. And the Duke fans wonder why everyone hates Duke. If the roles were reversed, and this had happened to McRoberts, Coach K would have shown up for the news conference covered in McRoberts's blood, fighting back tears, urging for the offending UNC player to be suspended for the entire ACC tournament and basically looking like Jackie Kennedy in Dallas after the JFK shooting. God, I hate Duke."

(Editor's Note: The link for this article now takes you to another article, so visit ESPN.com and hope that they put it back up.)

The only thing possibly worse than watching a team's best player get his nose broken in the last 15 seconds of a decided game is watching Billy Packer tell us, the viewers - who have a good view and some who can replay at their disposal - the intent of Gerald Henderson (who just about murdered Hansbrough's face). The replays actually show that Henderson could have stopped himself from the vicious elbow when Hansbrough was stripped of the ball. Packer proceeded to deflect all attention away from Henderson and even referred to his flagrant foul and eventual ejection as a "tough break" for Duke.

It'll be a "tough break" for viewers if we have to hear his worthless drivel during the NCAA Tournament. I call on the readers of this blog and beyond to mute Packer (or at least talk over him) so that we don't have to hear him narrating during his frequent hallucations.