Today’s show talks about women’s basketball, coaches who can’t get fired for performance quite possibly doing so for getting in an argument at a game for which they aren’t even a coach (as Nick says, Rutgers basketball coach Fred Hill may as well have taken a bucket of money, lit it on fire and thrown it at the Pittsburgh baseball team), the magic of Lionel Messi — and if he’s reached that level of transcendent sports icon, even in America — and David Shuster getting suspended, and maybe canned from MSNBC for filming a pilot with CNN.

So basically, it’s a show of topics we really know nothing about. Well, except the Rutgers stuff. And, I suppose, the women’s basketball stuff. And the soccer, a little. And even the TV and PR angles.

Hey, not so bad. Thanks for listening.

First, Nick and I talk about the National Championship game and I sound like, gasp, an NBA fan. People are talking about how great the game was, but does close automatically equal great? There was very little scoring at the end of the game – one point scored in the last 54 seconds and no baskets for the national champion in more than two and a half minutes to end it – but it was hard-fought and tenacious. Does that, alone, make the game as great as people are writing today?

Also, we apologize to Duke. They deserve the title. And we rip to shreds One Shining Moment and whoever at CBS thought it was okay to put FIVE different shots of Jennifer Hudson. Chris Littmann has a better breakdown than I could do.

TIGER TALK:

Shane Bacon and I talk about the Tiger Woods press conference. For video clips, and my take, check out here. For Shane’s take on the presser – other than our conversation – read him at Devil Ball Golf.

We also take some time to preview the Masters. Is Anthony Kim the guy? Is another young gun? How about a guy like Steve Stricker? Or maybe a guy named….Phil….something.

Can Mickelson compete after having a rough start to the season? And will he go into his presser this week and remind everyone that his wife and mother had cancer and it’s not all about Tiger’s big swinging…putter?

To read his preview, click here. (Lots of plugs today).

BASEBALL:

Opening Day. We can breathe again, as baseball is back. Nick and I talk about the winners and losers. Hey, look, a plug. Read my take here.

Thanks for listening.

McNabb trade, Opening Day (a National Halladay in these parts), National Championship game with Duke and Butler and other important things.

Oh, and at some point my wife calls and I think she’s in labor. Thanks for listening.

Next, Nick and I talk about the Santonio Holmes situation in the context of trying to figure out how the media is supposed to talk about the Santonio Holmes situation. Can’t anyone sue anyone for anything? If Nick and I file a lawsuit against Donovan McNabb for pain and suffering, it’ll be news. But is it fair? And our kneejerk reaction is always to assume the worst of the athletes, yet sometimes when there is smoke it’s just smoke, not fire. People can’t have an opinion on this, right? It’s more just ‘um…here’s news that may or may  not be true.’ The lawsuit, in this case, is the news. The accusations, in Ben Roethlisberger’s case, is the news. But only a few people know what actually happened. So are we covering the news, or covering the news that there’s news?

You know who can fix this?  Holmes. Not Santonio Holmes. Mike Holmes. That dude can fix anything. We need to get a show called Holmes on Holmes, where Holmes spends each episode giving us his opinion of what’s wrong with Holmes.

Political Safari:

Barack Obama is playing hoops with Clark Kellogg and Harry Smith of CBS. Nick and I discuss if this is a good move for the POTUS — acting like a real guy — of if there will be too much “The nation is in crisis” backlash. Also, what about CBS? It’s fine to put on the morning show, which has a political bent, but are they concerned that people will get upset, as Nick points out, with their church (basketball) being infiltrated by their state? Could people get upset that the President is on during the NCAA pregame show? The short answer: no. It’s cool. But there are a lot of people out there who hate…the country…the President…everything.

The 700 Level:

Enrico from The700Level.com joins the show to talk about his move to Comcast. Yes, he gets free cable. He also has the unlimited resources of one of the biggest sports platforms in the city, so how does he expect his site, his job and his life to change? Will he still be able to hang out in the bleacher, or are the writers now going to be in the press box? Perhaps a balance of both?

We also discuss how, if at all, this changes the site as the voice of the fan. They aren’t an independent fan site anymore, so does the scope of the site have to change? Can he still be a fan…and get paid for it? Pretty good gig if you can get it.

HOUSEKEEPING:

Baby pool. Seriously, this could be any day. We talk a little bit about Archer. And Nick applauds the Nets for winning and not being as bad as some Sixers team in the 70s that we’re oddly proud of. Oh, and Usain Bolt is crazy fast. Leave your thoughts in the comments. Thanks as always for listening.

• Why do we, and by we I mean I, hate Duke so much? There’s more in there than just them being white guys. Not much more, but more.

• We talk about why nobody picked Michigan State to go to the Final Four, yet everyone is talking about Izzo’s 6 of the last 12 Final Fours. Why didn’t we think of that three weeks ago? Someone, I think Whitlock, said that Izzo is the best basketball coach in the country at any level. Is that fair? Is it true? Or is he a great TOURNAMENT coach?

• We talk about Tennessee shooting too soon on their last possession in that game, and as Chris Littmann tweeted today, we disagree on the idea of ever shooting too soon when your team is losing. He thinks you take the lead as quickly as you can. I think, with a team like MSU doing the same thing to Maryland last week, you milk the clock and either win or lose with the ball in your hands. I would have called timeout and ran the play to leave less time on the clock.

• I’m rooting for West Virginia. The team, not the state. I mean no ill will to those who live there. I bet I like a bunch of people from there. But let’s not turn a bunch of NYC area kids winning a few games into some grand statement about the people from that state. I’m looking at you, Dan Wetzel’s Yahoo column.

• Butler is a great story, but will there be THAT MUCH of a home-court advantage for them? Sure it’s at home, but don’t people root for the underdog everywhere? Will there be that many more fans rooting for them in the stands in Indy as there would be in New Orleans? Will Hoosier fans be so quick to jump on the Butler Bandwagon when their team is in shambles?

Inside the Press Box:

We discuss two notes from Press Coverage this week. The story on Mike Penner in the LA Times, and the PFT story about Tim Tebow’s autograph session and the role the Palm Beach Post played in sponsoring and covering it.

Housekeeping:

Babypool!

Pleased to have Gary Thorne, venerable broadcaster and the voice of MLB2K10 on the show. We talk a bit about the game and the process by which he records all those sounds. I never knew they do it in a booth with no visual aids. They are basically calling an imaginary baseball game? Wait not just one game…like 70 hours of imaginary games.

We talk about the fact that Thorne isn’t given a script – that he’s hired for the way he calls the game as much as his voice – and how different the game is when there’s nothing to cross-talk about. Isn’t the cross talk what makes baseball announcing so much fun?

We discuss actual baseball as well, as I ask Thorne about the differences between calling national games and local games for the Orioles. And being in Baltimore, does he find his audience is much more dedicated, and therefore baseball savvy, than a larger audience of bandwagon jumpers may be in, say, Philadelphia or Boston? Thorne does agree that it’s important to know the audience, but not to talk over them and get to inside baseball.

Speaking of that, we do discuss the balance of stats and sabermetrics in a broadcast with the “Joe Morgan” types of announcers. Thorne’s wife has a company that trains former players to become broadcasters, so we discuss the importance “having been there” with “the numbers indicate”. What is the balance? And could it be that TV and radio – due to the audience and the time constraints of the game going on in front of you – lend themselves more to “experience” as expertise while the number crunchers can have more focus in print and other non in-game mediums?

We talk a lot about the idea of Floating Realignment, and if it’s a viable idea for change. In fact, is any change needed? Thorne does bring up the concept of buying a championship, which you can make the case that only a handful of teams can afford to do. Of course for every Yankees (or Red Sox of Phillies) there is a Dodgers or a Cubs, who can get to the playoffs, but can’t win anything – a concept to which Thorne rightly brings up the point that getting to the playoffs has been far too marginalized in baseball. It’s still a really big deal.

Last, we talk about hockey. Well, hockey and baseball and which Thorne likes to announce more and which he thinks he is more known for. The short answer: it’s like asking him which kid he loves more.

SPECULATION STATION:

Nick and I do our level best to not turn this segment into another Week in SAS, but rather discuss the Donovan McNabb trade rumors and how amazingly open the Eagles have been with the media. So strange and out of character for them.

PRINT’S NOT DEAD:

Or, according to this NY Times story, yes it is. We equate the struggle with advertising and media to the network and cable TV paradigm. Are they similar?

HOUSEKEEPING:

A huge housekeeping segment, including THE START OF THE PHILADELPHIA UNION TONIGHT ON ESPN2. Yes, exciting.

We also discuss March Madness, Tiger Woods’ plan to talk to the media which turns into a big of a rant by me on the way the media has handled this situation (shock, I know). Also, the Jets on Hard Knocks, the lady who tried to offer sex for tickets going to the jury(!?!) and Nick’s extended recap of his trip to Florida, which included his brother getting in an argument with Greg Luzinski over the cut-off man.

Oh, and the hard sell is on for our Baby Pool. Please sign up now. Money to winner and to charity.

Jon and I run down the weekend’s games – a full compliment of storylines so deep that we didn’t even get to the Maryland-MSU game that may have been the best (and worst for some in my family) of the weekend.

We do talk a great deal about Cornell and try to figure out exactly why we didn’t pick them over Temple. We also look forward to the announcing crews for the Regionals. For more on that, and a look back at this weekend’s job – and how Gus Johnson  had the most boring games of anyone – read Press Coverage today at TSB.

SPECULATION STATION:

Tiger Woods did two interviews yesterday. We said we’d talk for five minutes about this and it goes about 14 and change. And I know I said at the start of the segment that I have Tiger fatigue and then spend those 14 and change talking about the topic, but it’s not so much about Tiger as it is about the media covering Tiger. Why would CBS not do the interview, even if it was only limited to five minutes? And why are media people applauding that decision. From an outsider (me) and an insider (Tannenwald) in the media world, we have a pretty frank debate about whether or not putting a shot clock on the interview is fair to a reporter, and if that would be a deal breaker for some.

For a question-by-question breakdown of Tom Rinaldi’s and Kelly Tilghman’s interviews, head over to TSB for Press Coverage. It’s pretty interesting to read them together.

HOUSEKEEPING:

Tannenwald also runs the soccer blog over at Philly.com, so we discuss the resolution to the MLS labor situation. Good that it’s over, and with Jon going to Seattle for the first game — involving our own Philadelphia Union — it’s good that a deal has been agreed upon.

We also briefly touch on the hospitalization of Vin Scully. It’s great that he’s already back to work. Nick should be back tomorrow. Thanks to Jon for filling in and thanks to you for listening. Again, I’M SORRY FOR THINKING THE BIG EAST WAS ANY GOOD.

Thanks and enjoy the games. We’ll be back on Monday.

So, indulge me in year two of Zoe Picking Brackets. And here’s a link to her entire bracket.

This is not that interview, and it turned into one of my favorite shows in a long time. If you’re listening CLICK THIS LINK TO FOLLOW ALONG. It’s heady number crunching and it helps to have a something to look at. But honestly, I’m convinced this system could work.

Paul mentions that they have a book on every single player in college basketball, and use that to create team profiles. The team profiles are used to run 50,000 tournaments to determine the probability of how far each team will go. It’s rather incredible.

We run through the chances of too many teams to just list one or two here (ahem Villanova), so please listen if you want your bracket to do well. Or if you’re a stat geek.

Following the interview, Nick and I somehow turn it into a Sabermetric vs. the eye test with Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, responding to a comment on TSB from my Pujols-Howard post. Plus, we talk about Tiger Woods return and if the news warranted wall-to-wall coverage when the story really came out last week that it was likely his return would come at Augusta. Has the situation become overcovered? It did for me when I turned on ATH and Bill Plaschke said Tiger is being selfish for coming back at The Masters. That’s when he put on the leather jacket and waterskis for all of sports media and I turned my brain off.

Thanks for listening. JOIN OUR BRACKET POOL. Zoe’s picks will be posted later today. And congrats to the guys at The 700 Level.