March madness that matters (to me)

Congratulations to the University of Iowa men's basketball team (occasionally known as "My Hawkeyes), who received one of the 64 bids to the NCAA Tournament yesterday. I and my fellow Hawkeye fans had wore our fingernails down to the nub (Okay, full disclosure: I've been worrying about a lot of other $#!t), wondering whether or not their 21-11 season record would look attractive enough to the tournament selection committee, but two wins in the Big Ten tournament against Purdue and Michigan State over the weekend apparently did the trick. (I wish I could play you the "Goddammit, Iowa beat MSU!" voice-mail message my pal Eric left for me while I was en route to Charleston - hilarious!)

So part of my St. Patrick's Day will now be spent in front of TV, watching Iowa play the University of Cincinnati in Indianapolis, IN. As I type this, I don't know what time the game will be played. (Again, full disclosure: I might've been going to a bar to watch college basketball under a St. Patty's Day buzz - I'm getting too old for drunken stupors - anyway. I just wouldn't have cared as much about what was going on.)

The most relieved guy in the room? Probably Iowa's head basketball coach Steve Alford, who surely saved his job by getting his team into the tournament.

Also, two other Iowa universities - Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa - were also invited to the NCAA tournament. Hey, they play good hoops in cornfield country.

Finally, it would be a horrible snub if I neglected to mention two other blogs where you can get a lot more information about college basketball than I can give. First, there's Yoni Cohen's site, which is amazingly comprehensive. I don't know how he has time to cover everything he does. (Yoni was also the first guy to put me on his blogroll - hell, he was the dude who told me what a blogroll was - which is something I'll always be grateful for.) Also, for a more Iowa-centric view, check out Hawkeye Hoops.