Manthrax is right, Baron. Players being cut "in the middle" of their contracts sounds more harsh than it is, I think.

The contracts are long, say seven years, so that the signing bonuses can be pro-rated over the life of the deal against the salary cap. A team signs a player to a seven-year deal, knowing full well that they're only going to use him for two or three. The player knows this too. He gets his guaranteed salary for a year or two, and his signing bonus, also guaranteed. The back years of the contract are loaded with absurdly high salaries the team has no intention of collecting, as the player knows, but he and his agent can brag about their seven-year, $100 million deal or whatever, even though most of those millions are fictional.

Does it go to far to say that the player's strike of 1987 gutted the union so thoroughly that they are now in a position similar to the MLBPA before they broke the reserve clause? Seems to me that management holds all the cards in the hiring and firing process. Read that last line closely: "unless the TEAM chose to rework his deal."

Yes, it goes too far. It's true the players union was gutted in the late '80s when the strike was broken, but the current union is strong enough that it was able to push through its proposal for the CBA extension.

It's also true that management holds all the cards and can cut a player for looking at the boss funny. The line, "Seems to me that management holds all the cards in the hiring and firing process" is funny. In what business isn't that true? But yes, management can do that, and players can't just walk away. And while players are hardly underpaid chattel, their salaries are clearly lower than they'd be in any kind of free market. At least the stars' salaries are. Of course, that's true in the NBA as well. That's the highest paying league.

But someone like Willie McGinest getting cut several years into his contract, that's just the business. It isn't a summary firing. He'll get a job with another team and sign another big contract, most of which will be fictional. Yes, it reads "unless the team chose to rework his deal," but just as often a report tells of a player who will be cut unless he agrees -- chooses -- to rework his deal.

Them's fightin' words.

Thanks for the two fixes, maize and BLUE and LOWER seed. Both fixed. Both just mental fumbles.

Dr. Garage: How the hell did Cal wrangle a 7th-seed in this thing? I know you're an alumnus, so you've got to agree that the Bears have a lot more in common with Michigan, Maryland and Cincinnati for record and ability to win than the other teams on that level.

I agree.

Cory Boone: While some major teams that make the tourney off the bubble are inconsistent, the chance they have to make deep runs and challenge the big boys is greater.

I believe my column today makes a strong argument against this point. Cautioning that I only looked at the last three years, I found that 7-and-lower seeds from big conferences are not significantly, if at all, more likely to go to the Sweet 16 than similarly seeded smaller-conference teams.

As for deep runs, in those three years, the 7-and-lower seeds that have gone to the Elite 8 are:

2003: 7 Michigan State

2004: 7 Xavier, 8 Alabama

2005: 7 West Virginia

So, 3 big-conference and one smaller conference. OK. None of them made the Final Four. We're really not talking here about the best teams being revealed.

I think people get excited about upsets because of who is falling, not because of who is winning.

I disagree. Everyone remembers Cleveland State and Valparaiso and even, from just last year, Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Who'd they beat?

(UWM beat Alabama and Boston College; Valpo beat Mississippi and Florida State; Cleveland State beat Indiana and St. Joe's.)

I did hear one funny comment about all this. some radio listener suggested that because the NCAA wants to boost ratings and attendance for the NIT it now owns, the selection committee made sure Cincy, Maryland, Michigan and Louisville were avaiable - of course it's a crazy conspiracy theory but if I'm a marketing guy for the NIT it's not a bad idea.

It's not as good an idea as I offered a few years ago to make the NIT better: Let all teams into the NCAA Tournament. Everyone but the top 64 has to play their way down to a second 64. That creates one extra game for the top 64. A play-in round for everyone. Once that round is over, so there are 64 teams left, then create the NIT field. Some of the "top 64," the current NCAA Tourney teams, would have been upset in the play-in round, and they'd be the big guns of the NIT.

http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2002/03/12/ncaa/index.html

I don't have a blind hatred for football. I just find it a little dull, that's all.

I also often find its fans to be amusing.

sansho1: I noticed that, of the six West Coast teams in the tourney, King has three of them playing one round past their seeds (UCLA, San Diego State, Pacific) and the other three (Washington, Gonzaga, Cal) playing to their seeds. Plugging this information into my Calculator, I find that King checks in with a +3, which is termed "extremely significant" West Coast bias.

I like the concept, but I question your assumptions.

First of all, I admitted that I didn't think Cal would win, so my true bias figure is +2. But: How do you know the bias is mine? Maybe I see things as they really are, and the selection committee is guilty of East Coast bias.

About updated predictions, yeah, I always do that. Before the Sweet 16 and Final Four.