Thumbs up

        1. Madness, March. It really is the best. It'd be fun even without first-round victories by the local faves — Cincinnati, Xavier, Kentucky, Notre Dame and Indiana.

        2. Bob Knight. Hey, sure the ol' bully can get under your skin, and maybe he had a little trouble in the first round. But the job he has done turning Texas Tech around is nothing short of amazing. And besides, that ESPN movie about him was so dreadful you should root for him out of principle.

        3. The Reds. They're not really winning, but they've not played their best players much. And Boone still looks to be pretty wacky. And nobody suffered a season-ending injury. Well, shoot, it's baseball.

        4. The UC women's basketball team. Good for them. A trip to the NCAAs again is cool. Now let's just hope Laurie Pirtle doesn't start wearing any of the UC-issued Huggins suits.

        5. Tiger Woods. Would you have flipped over to the Bay Hill Classic for even a moment this weekend if he hadn't been tearing up that course?

        Thumbs down

        1. NCAA bracket racket. Thank goodness the games finally started. All teams do is complain about their seeding. Then, when they get a good seed, they complain about the site. Then the fans complain their team hasn't gotten any respect. Enough already.

        2. Washington, D.C. Nice move by the nation's capital's wrestling and boxing commission to grant Mike Tyson a boxing license. My word. Maybe D.C. can follow this up with the next edition of Fox's celebrity boxing!

        3. Ruben Rivera. Good job losing an $800,000 gig because you stole Derek Jeter's glove and sold it. Well, look at the bright side. Maybe now everyone will forget what a colossal bust you were as a baseball player.

        4. CBS. How can they justify paying David Letterman $31 million a year? What do they think he is, a 50-homer hitting shortstop?

        5. Free agency. A free agent is player who can sign with any team without compensation. You ever heard of that, Bengals? You ought to try it. Other teams rave about it. Seriously. They say you can even make your team better.

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