What a beautiful weekend.

After spending part of last weekend complaining about our beloved Husker baseball team and their inability to win more games, they turned around this weekend and pull a sweep. It’s nice to see that all my bitching paid off. Ha!

Not only did they get the sweep but Nebraska pitchers only gave up a total of four runs over three games, the defense committed only one error, and the previously stale offense pounded out 22 runs and 29 hits.

I made the mistake of confusing baseball with football, again. We have this attitude as Husker fans that comes from football where a team needs to win every game. This isn’t true for other sports especially for the two other Nebraska sports I would consider “flagship” sports – men’s basketball and baseball. I’m using the term “flagship” here in terms of popularity, not in terms of success because that doesn’t apply to men’s basketball.

The baseball team should be in fine shape if they continued to improve throughout the season. They have not yet hit the conference season and unlike football they have a tournament to play at the end of the season to determine whether they can make the College World Series and then whether they can become champions. This is not the case in football and we need to always keep this in mind otherwise we become too crotchety and negative – that grouchy old guy that nobody wants to be around.

We’ll see if the baseball team can keep it up and I reserve the right to become all screechy again should they lose more than I want them to, obviously forgetting the short sermon I just preached on why all sports are not football.

NCAA Tourney

Villanova is gone. Duke is gone. It would have been nice had Gonzaga loss to Northwestern as well but that was not to be, partially thanks to bad officiating. Still, there are a lot of brackets busted and I’m sure a lot of you not weeping over Duke busting out of the tournament.

Sweet 16 teams by conference: Big Ten 3, Big 12 3, SEC 3, Big East 2, Pac-12 3, West Coast 1, ACC 1

There is a lot of talk this season about the Big Ten being down as a conference while the ACC was the greatest conference in the history of all time. Look where we are now – of nine ACC teams to make the attorney, only one, North Carolina, has made the Sweet 16. Does this negate the earlier talk about conferences?

I don’t think so. It certainly leaves the ACC open to ridicule, but there’s that thing I mentioned earlier about sports that have tournaments in the beautiful thing about tournaments is it isn’t about the conference, but about the teams that are getting hot and playing better at the end of the season.

Still, Duke lost. Notre Dame went 4 – 8. All seems right with the world.

About Toughness

In case you missed it, Dave Feit made this salient point about (OWH) writing on twitter this weekend.

Dave is right about toughness being a vague concept that’s a pretty easy target to write about. I think it’s especially easier when you get older because you get this attitude that everything is easier for the younger generation, which it is – I had to walk to school uphill both ways when I was a kid. It’s a true story. Kids these days…

It’s rather funny that we get pieces about football needing to get tougher from an old guy. We get a basketball piece about toughness and how the football team can learn from it. Creighton wasn’t mentally tough and lost in the NCAA tourney because of it.

I need to put a revolving ToDo/Reminder on my calendar to pop up with “Write About Toughness”, say, every three months. I’ll be sure to write a more detailed explanation about why I’m not lying when I walked to school uphill both ways, and, no, I wasn’t taking the wrong route.

I have plenty of material. I can talk about how nobody ever wore seat belts, how we had guns before we had organized sports, Hell, all I have to do is to pick up one of those “share if you remember this” posts on Facebook and make a column about that. That sounds pretty easy, and I can be pretty lazy, and it’s a long off-season.

Thanks Dave!

Huskers Sweep Utes in Hawaii - Huskers.com - Nebraska Athletics Official Web Site

The Nebraska beach volleyball team swept Utah, 5-0, in its lone match at Queen's Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii on Sunday.

Huskers Complete Sweep of New Mexico State - Huskers.com - Nebraska Athletics Official Web Site

The Nebraska softball team completed a three-game sweep of two-time defending Western Athletic Conference champion New Mexico State with a 4-1 victory on Sunday at Bowlin Stadium.

NEWS

Illinois Basketball hires Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood as new head coach - The Champaign Room

Underwood’s resume includes a 109-27 overall record and four NCAA Tournaments

This is.. well, shocking, honestly. I’m guessing most Oklahoma State fans were taken completely unaware.

Business As Usual: Wisconsin Badgers Advance to the Sweet 16 - Off Tackle Empire

That’s six of the last seven years now

March Madness 2017: Reactions to Wisconsin’s win over No. 1 overall seed Villanova - Bucky's 5th Quarter

Ohhh, how sweet it is to be moving on.

Gregg Marshall's wife is profoundly lit for Wichita State at the NCAA tournament - SBNation.com

According to Drew, he was asked to no longer tweet about Lynn because it was “it made her upset.”

Here are 8 deliciously sad Duke faces for your enjoyment - SBNation.com

Enjoy this, America.

North Carolina was extremely lucky to survive vs. Arkansas in the NCAA tournament - SBNation.com

The Heels got massive breaks at the end, and they shot so poorly that it almost didn’t matter.

Duke’s preseason No. 1 juggernaut turned into Coach K’s greatest bust ever - SBNation.com

Duke was supposed to be a superteam. Instead, the Blue Devils are out in round two against South Carolina.

Breaking: Penn State Wrestling Clinches the National Title - Black Shoe Diaries

The Nittany Lions continue to be the standard bearer on the college scene

Penn State Wrestling closes out NCAA Tournament in style - Black Shoe Diaries

Five wrestlers at five consecutive weights take home five national titles

Strongly refuted report claims Indiana has offered 7-year, $31-million contract to UCLA’s Steve Alford - The Crimson Quarry

It seems odd Indiana would move this quickly, but Jordan Schultz of Huffington Post is reporting Indiana has extended an offer to Alford. Jeff Rabjohns of Peegs.com is directly refuting the story.

Dwight Clark diagnosed with ALS

We have some unfortunate news from the San Francisco 49ers family. Former wide receiver Dwight Clark announced on Sunday that he has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

Purdue Baseball Sweeps Santa Clara - Hammer and Rails

Mark Wasikowski has Purdue baseball off to its best start in five years.

Ohio State-Xavier 2017 final score: Buckeye baseball swept by Xavier - Land-Grant Holy Land

The Buckeyes lost both games of a doubleheader in walk-off fashion as the Musketeers swept the series.

I need you to look at Mike Gundy displaying a pissed-off rattlesnake - SBNation.com

Coach has nabbed himself a rascal!

Does it get any more Oklahoma than this?

You realize how timeless this photo is? This could have been taken between, oh, 1935 and this past weekend, and given the right tint, you’d probably never know the difference.

Then There’s This

Pat from the Cobcast tries really hard to fit in...