A Sports Filled Weekend

And so it begins. The conference tournaments are over and the Big Dance, the NCAA Tournament, descends upon the land to suck up computer bandwidth and distract employees from their daytime duties as they peer furtively at teams they’ve never before cared about. Yes, March Madness in full flower.

Your four top seeds, as named by the NCAA Selection Committee, are Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Oregon. How the committee put either Virginia or Oregon on the top line above Michigan State is beyond reason, but so are a lot of other things. Like a potential second-round meeting between Kentucky and Indiana.

The fun actually begins on Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio, and how often do you hear a phrase like that? Dayton is host to the First Four, where four games will determine which of the 68-team field makes the 64-team field. Confused? I got lost in the part about fun in Dayton. There are doubleheaders on Tuesday night and Wednesday night between teams that have little chance of getting past the first weekend.

Sprinkled in the field are Florida Gulf Coast (try the grouper), Fairleigh Dickinson (fairly innocuous) and Austin Peay (Let’s Go Peay!). It’s Madness!

Now go fill out your bracket.

Auto Racing

Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards drove like Florida retirees in a supermarket parking lot down the stretch, exchanging paint but not phone numbers or insurance information. And Harvick, who might as well own Phoenix International Speedway, won the Good Sam 500 by .010 of a second. NASCAR.com determined the margin of victory to be about four inches. Harvick has won eight times at this track. … Juan Pablo Montoya won the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (Fla.) for the second straight year. It marked his 15th career IndyCar win, tying him for 31st on the all-time list with Alex Zanardi. But you knew that.

Elsewhere

The NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins will be without standout Evgeni Malkin for six to eight weeks with an upper-body injury. The Penguins beat the New York Rangers 5-3 on Sunday to bolster their bid for a wild-card playoff berth. … No. 2 Denver upset No. 1 Notre Dame 9-8 on Sunday in men’s college lacrosse. … Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Martavis Bryant is facing a one-year suspension for another violation of the league’s substance abuse policy. His agent says he is appealing that suspension.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman