Now I'm not one to stop people from having a day of goofiness and fun, but is there a lamer day on the calendar than April 1st? Not only have there been terrible attempts at jokes like....Brady for Cutler and John Calipari already being fired, but Hasheem Thabeet took the lame award for the day....


Hahahaha! Get it? He's joking that he failed a drug test and can't play in the Final Four!!! Oh that's hilarious, especially given the sense of humor that the NCAA has these days. And really? Is Thabeet's nickname really "The Dream"??? That's worse than LaDanian Tomlinson stealing LT.

Hasheem Thabeet Plays the April Fool of March Madness (The Arena)

Jim Calhoun sat down with Jim Nantz, in an interview that aired at halftime of the UNC-GT game today, and addressed his feelings following his run-in with a reporter questioning his salary. While the interview basically went the way you would think (Calhoun didn't apologize), it was the reaction of Seth Davis following the piece that caught my attention. Davis stated that he thought that Calhoun should have apologized for the way he handled it, which brought out a tremendous rebuttal from Greg Gumbel. Here's the clip....

Here's a hilarious video, via College Hoops Journal, from yesterday that I wanted to share. A freelance reporter named Ken Kreyeske, decided to pester Jim Calhoun about his $1.6 million salary, and how he can justify accepting it with the state of Connecticut in debt, and this was Calhoun's response....

A quick programming note for the weekend: I am insane enough to live-blog all four playoff games this weekend, today's with company over (and they understand completely). So, make sure to join me here later this afternoon. Now, to everyone's first real exposure to Turner Gill and his miracle Buffalo Bulls squad, going up against the NCAA's leading rusher in Donald Brown and UConn.

Game: International Bowl
Teams: Buffalo Bulls (8-5) vs. Connecticut Huskies (7-5)
Location: Rogers Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Time: Noon EST
Announcers and Network: John Saunders, Jesse Palmer, and Doug Flutie, ESPN2
Favorite: UConn (-6)
S2N's Pick: Going with the Huskies; they'll go with a big dose of Donald Brown and try not to turn the ball over.

So, imagine you're the top athlete in the country in your sport, at your particular level, and you realize that you're really, really sick of the sport you excel in. You get a scholarship to a powerhouse program, and two days in, you quit and move back to a Div. I-AA school closer to home.

Sound weird? Well, that's the case of Elena Delle Donne, whom you may have heard about. She was a 6'4" guard all set to play for Geno Auriemma at UConn until she'd finally had it with basketball in general -- now, ESPN's Mark Schwarz checked in with her for a piece to air on Outside the Lines tomorrow, and she seems more than happy to be away from the path that had been set out for her. She's now playing volleyball for Delaware; this came only months after everyone was predicting that she would be the Next Big Thing to impact women's hoops on a big-time level in both the college and, eventually, the pro ranks, after Candace Parker.

The piece makes Auriemma come off like a bit of a prick, saying he can't understand how someone can play a game that they've hated since the age of 13. Well, if you have a trainer from the age of 7 like Delle Donne did, and you get real good at something, it's hard to give it up even if you loathe it. Considering the pressure put on players like Parker and Chamique Holdsclaw before her (and Holdsclaw had a breakdown) in the lower-stakes world (media-wise) of women's hoops, it's a wonder we don't hear about more cases of burnout from male athletes in the power sports of football and basketball -- kids are specializing in a sport earlier and earlier, and those with disposable income are getting all sorts of specialized training.

Then again, Delle Donne may have the luxury of being able to walk away from a basketball career that would have likely had her globe-hopping between the WNBA and a Euro team. Many of the athletes making it big in the pro and college ranks are doing it for a shot at a better financial future.

Delle Donne finds happiness at Delaware [ESPN]