Ole Missed Again?

It was a horrible, terrible, exceptionally bad day for SEC teams with NCAA Tournament hopes. Kentucky lost. Tennessee lost. Alabama lost. But Ole Miss may have sank.

The Rebels were a 12-point favorite at Mississippi State, who had lost 13 in a row. The Bulldogs' season had been marred by suspensions and injuries, and looked to be just playing out the string - except when it came to spoiling the hopes of their hated in-state rivals.

The ragtag Bulldogs held on behind a gutty effort and a boisterous crowd, and may have finished an Ole Miss season that once looked so promising.

As of this evening, esteemed ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi had only 2 SEC teams in. Florida still has a shot at a very high seed despite the performance of their conference as a whole. And Missouri (where I was today) solidified their position with a thorough win over surging LSU.

Lunardi has Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, and Ole Miss on the outside looking in. There's still time to play their ways in, but time is running out. If they hadn't noticed the calendar has already flipped to March. And the Ole Miss campus may not be experiencing the madness...again. They'll just be plain mad.

An Athens Hit And Run

Nothing extraordinary about my 24 hours in Athens. Certainly not Georgia hoops. They lost at home to Mississippi State in the battle of the Bulldogs.

While UGA gets all the pub, Bully's just as cute. In fact Bully guards my back door at night.

Even though it was the quickest of Athens trips, I managed to hit an outstanding dinner at The Last Resort, and breakfast at Five Star.

For the Xth time in a row I avoided a speeding ticket on the backroads around Athens, but that didn't mean the trip was without adventure.

My engine was running on the echo of gasoline. I'm pretty sure the Murano has an 18 gallon tank, yet I put 19 gallons of fuel in it. There were some shaky moments on the lonely highway between Dublin and Milledgeville. But I sputtered into Friendly Gus. Now I'm only out of gas when I get home.