So through 12 games on the first day of the NCAA Tournament, I find myself with 6 wins and 6 losses on my bracket.

Wow. I’m not sure I’ve ever struggled so much. And with 4 close games going on as I type this  — although I can’t imagine Lehigh hanging with Kansas for much longer — it could wind up even worse.

Still, from a fan’s standpoint, this has been a great day of basketball. Robert Morris pushing No. 2 seed Villanova to overtime, Northern Iowa, Washington and Murray State hitting  last-second shots to pick up wins as underdogs and Florida and BYU starting the day with a double-overtime battle at the Ford Center. And don’t forget Ohio University, a week ago the ninth-place regular season finisher in the Mid-American Conference, now the slayers of Georgetown and headed to the second round.

Hopefully the best is yet to come. And maybe I’ll start to win some games.

While NCAA basketball and March Madness and filling out brackets are on the minds of everyone today, there is some serious professional basketball to talk about in Oklahoma City.
The next seven games will say a lot about the Oklahoma City Thunder’s NBA playoff hopes and their hopes of doing anything when they get there.
It’s perhaps the biggest stretch of the season — a three-game road eastern trip while their arena is used for the opening rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, followed by four games against playoff contenders from the Western Conference.
First things first. Three seemingly innocent games at Indiana, Toronto and Charlotte. Indiana is nowhere near the playoffs while the Raptors and Bobcats are fighting for spots at the tail end of the east race. Charlotte has struggled away from home but has one of the best home records in the east.
Toronto was a victim of the Thunder in Oklahoma City just a couple of weeks ago, but it played without all-star Chris Bosh, who is expected back for this Friday’s contest.
Indiana has struggled. But they’re at home, and anyone can beat anyone on a given night in the NBA.

Then comes the homestand — and it’s a doozy. In a seven-day period, the Thunder will face San Antonio, Houston, the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland. All except Houston would make the postseason if it started today, and the Rockets are nipping at the heels of the Spurs and Blazers for the final playoff spot. All are tough and battle-tested teams, and the Thunder could just as easily go 0-4 on the homestand.

Just how will they do? A 5-2 record in these seven games would be huge — maybe enough to put the Thunder right there in the race to claim the No. 4 seed in the west and homecourt advantage in a first-round playoff series.
And even marks of 4-3 or 3-4 on this stretch wouldn’t be bad. It would hold the Thunder on pace to win 50 games this year, likely landing them about No. 6 for a first-round date with either Denver or the Dallas Mavericks.

For a couple of hours Sunday, much of the world, including much of this country and nearly everyone north of us in Canada, sat riveted, watching the action unfold.
In a hockey game.
Team Canada ultimately won gold, its collection of NHL stars defeating Team USA 3-2 in a game that required more than 7 minutes of overtime. It had a little of everything for the old or new hockey fan, great goaltending, physical play and perhaps today’s greatest hockey superstar, Sidney Crosby, scoring the game-winner for the Canadians.
Hockey never has been up with the big three pro sports in America, but it was making real progress until labor problems caused a season to be lost in the last decade.
That helped ruin a TV contract with ESPN and since it’s never really been the same.
So has Sunday’s game, as well as the American win last Sunday when the countries faced off, brought the sport to a new level?
As a longtime fan of hockey I sure hope it has. There is a lot of hockey further down the cable dial, but you still can’t find it on TV like you used to, even at playoff time.
Time will tell if it makes a move or ends up being like curling, a big thing during the two weeks of the Winter Olympics but otherwise sort of forgotten.