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04/02/2007: "It's Monday ... It's Morning ... It's The Sports Rant!"

So much sports, so little time ...

- Florida and Ohio State meet tonight for the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball title tonight in Atlanta. Sound familiar? It should - it was less than three months ago that those same two schools met in the BCS Title Game to decide the football championship. It used to be that if your school had an athletic budget, you'd try to become a football powerhouse. If you didn't - or you just couldn't get over the hurdle on football - you tried to dominate basketball. USC, Penn State, Notre Dame - those were football schools, while UCLA, Duke and Kentucky ruled the hardcourt. The tide's turning, though, as evidenced by tonight's game and the decision of the #1 high school recruit O. J. Mayo opting to attend media-friendly USC rather than a traditional roundball school. All you have to do is drive up the 110 past the brand new Galen Center to see that USC - like Florida and Ohio State - is no longer willing to dominate just football. Could be bad news for the smaller schools, or good news for the pro leagues who'll see these multi-sport behemoths as a training ground for media-savvy new players.

- Congrats to Morgan Pressel, who survived the carnage to win the Dinah Shore ... er, Nabisco Championship out in the desert. A lot of folks tend to criticize the LPGA girls for their golf skills - or lack thereof - but it was their decision-making and nerves that gobbled up leader after leader. Lorena Ochoa takes a 7 on a par-3 Saturday to fall out of the lead; Se-Ri Pak blows a Sunday lead on the back nine for the first time in her career; Suzann Petterson loses a 4-stroke lead over the final 4 holes - it was like watching a bad slasher flick. All the while, Pressel - who became the youngest woman to win an LPGA major championship - waited in the clubhouse, having carded a 69 earlier. At the time, she was three strokes off the lead, but in the end she was the one who got to take the swim in the lake. Pretty amazing drama, if not stellar golf.

- The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, the spit of the tobacco - yes, it's Opening Day in Major League Baseball. Technically the first game was last night, as the Mets pounded the Cardinals in a rematch of last year's NL Championship, but today the rest of the teams get to come out and play. As a Marlins fan, there is seldom much to be excited about at the beginning of the season, and this one's no exception. Sure, our crop of rookies played out their asses last year and nearly got the Wild Card, but now comes the Sophomore Slump. Add to that another new manager and several key players starting the season on the disabled list, and it's hard to be happy. But it's a new season and everyone starts out with a blank record, so play ball!

UPDATE: Break up the Marlins - they won their opener 9-2 at Washington. Miguel Cabrera and Dan Uggla (!) each put homers in the upper deck, and the D-Train looked like an early rendition of the Cy Young Winner we want him to be. 1 down, 161 to go ...