Pat on the Back to...

Pardon me while I strain myself, reaching the whole way around is tough. But when you make the right pick, you hope somebody notices. So I'm giving you the link from last Friday's Fan Blog. http://thefanblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/questions-from-college-basketball-world.html Go ahead click on it and find out who picked the Wildcats, when many others were expecting UK to struggle mightily all season long in the SEC. Vanderbilt made it very interesting down the stretch, and Kentucky almost let it get away. But for me that made it a better win for the Cats.

Tubby Smith - The Gophers aren't exactly ready to challenge for the National Championship, nor the Big Ten title for that matter. But a come from behind win at State College today has the Gophers at 12-3 and 2-1 in the conference. The Nits had some big plans after starting the conference season 2-0 and Minnesota spoiled some of that today. So on a day when Kentucky got its biggest win since he resigned and the Blue Nation celebrated beating Vanderbilt, I figured we'd better show some love for Tubby.

Xavier - Not sure the Musketeers are getting enough credit. Xavier won again today and they are 14-3 at the moment. I think they are a second weekend type team and could easily upset a top seed on the first weekend. Although the way they are playing, they might be the top seed. They've got a big game a week from Thursday with Dayton, but even more importantly will be a stretch in mid-February when they play St. Joe's, at Charlotte, at Rhode Island, Duquesne and then they return the trip to Dayton to close out the five-game stretch that could determine if this group is the A-10 champion and a top seed in the tournament or simply just a bid.

Len Pasquarelli - The ESPN writer is reporting that Darren McFadden will forego his final season at Arkansas and enter the NFL draft. What a shock. Didn't his mother tell us this in July?

Jacksonville - By scoring on their first possession, the Jaguars have at least ensured that this game will still be worth watching by nine o'clock. Would have been more excitiing if they could have stopped them on that fourth down play. But you can't have everything, can you?