D: JJ Redick will scrub out as a pro. Witness last night's game. If he's not shooting wide open threes, he's ineffective. He got totally shut down. The best he can hope for is a career like Steve Kerr's, minus the championships. No way he should be a lottery pick. His game doesn't translate to the NBA.

I think Steve Kerr is a pretty good comparable. Don't know why you'd assume Redick won't win championships. Kerr didn't win a lot of championships because of his superior humility or something. He won because he was just the kind of guy good teams want, and can affort to have -- a shooting specialist.

I agree I wouldn't spend a lottery pick on Redick. But I think he's got a good chance at a solid NBA career as a role-player.

Michael Porcaro: I think the Steve Kerr comparison is not being fair to Kerr who at least understood is place as a role player among stars.

Who's to say Redick won't understand his place? Kerr was rather full of himself as a collegian too, you know.

Freddie deBoer:  And I have to point out, you praised Coach K in this game for leaving Williams in, and you criticized Jim Calhoun for taking Okafor out in the Final Four in 2004. But Duke lost this game and Uconn won that one. Not that that really proves anything, but I think you've got to keep an eye on the end result.

I agree. That doesn't prove anything. The end result of Calhoun's move was that UConn kicked away a huge lead. Fortunately for Calhoun, they ran out of time.

Art in Tree Town: CBS in my area (Midwest) would not cut from a Memphis-Bradley blowout to show the end of Duke-LSU

You must be in what CBS considers Bradley's home viewing area. Are you close to Peoria? CBS is really damned if they do and damned if they don't in those cases. Miss one minute of the home team's game, no matter the score, and you get howls.

I'm in St. Louis, and I'm pretty sure CBS switched to Duke-LSU, though the Bradley game was the "A" game. If it were Bradley-Illinois, though, we'd have gotten the timeout.

In previous years, I've always watched the Tournament on CBS broadcast, figuring that's the way most fans watch it, and I wanted to experience the Tournament the way most people do. This year I decided enough of that and got the package from DirecTV. Between that and the possibility of watching games live on the Web, I have to say, watching games on CBS broadcast is just no way to watch the Tournament. I'd borrow money to watch it one of the other two ways if I had to. Or I'd go to a bar.

The Eyes of Texas: Lost in all of the talk this morning about Gonzaga's choke and Coach K's brilliance is Texas coach Rick Barnes's decision not to call a timeout after Pittsnogle tied the game at 71. Throw the ball in, run down the court, and take advantage of a defense in disarray. Fantastic!

Amen!

bwunderlick: One thing not said here is the main reason Duke lost to LSU: they were outsized! They shut down JJ because they were bigger than him, like nearly every player in the NBA will be. Maybe I'm totally crazy, but I think Morrison is SO fast (and enough of a focused freak) he will at least be drafted top three....

I disagree. I thnk the difference in Duke-LSU was LSU's speed and the leaping ability of Thomas, who blocked or altered maybe a dozen shots. I also don't think Morrison's that fast, though he's clever -- the NBA plaer he reminds me most of, not because they have similar games but because this player was a similarly effective ballhandler without having great speed, is Chris Mullen -- and I'd draft him pretty high. I don't know enough about the whole draft to know how high.

jordon: Hey king, i think it was you who has proposed in the past that the final four be reseeded so that the highest seed left plays the lowest seed left and the middle two play each other.

It wasn't me. I don't feel strongly about it, but I think I like the way the seeding works now. It adds an element of randomness that I like, and also you can visualize the Tournament all the way to the end. But I wouldn't mind terribly if they re-seeded.

jajasoon: Can you add something to your list of hopeless sports causes: eliminating the incentive for breaking the rules at the end of basketball games.

That's pretty much No. 1 on my list of hopeless causes. My solution is as brilliant as it is elegant as it is unlikely to happen: Eliminate free throws.

So how can a team catch up in the end game? In the last two minutes, the 35-second shot clock becomes a 10-second shot clock. Now you've got game play, kids.

WayneBruce: In 8 points about the Elite Eight, only one point (#5) was about the West Coast bracket. And that was really a point about the Sweet Sixteen. Nothing was said about the UCLA/Memphis or the LSU/Texas game. It was barely mentioned in the first page as well. Same 'ol East Coast bias.

From a Californian living in the Midwest. East Coast of that part of the country west of the Mississippi bias is more like it, I guess.

It's really more Sunday over Saturday bias for a Monday column.  

jr: i'm not taking the time to count, but these 8 consecutive years in the postseason might be more than my white sox have done in their history.

It's only eight straight division titles. It's 11 consecutive years in the postseason. And yes, that's more appearances in the postseason than the White Sox have had in their history, which is ... eight.