Bob Sneller: Fill out your brackets

March Madness is upon us once again, and the sound of dribbled basketballs joins the voice of the turtle across the land as spring arrives.

Have you ever talked to a turtle?

ME: Hey, Slowpoke, who's going to be in the Final Four?

TURTLE: Old Man, do you see this shell? I'm just a turtle, for cryin' out loud! Basketball was never my thing. Too fast.

(The Good Wife just informed me that Solomon meant turtle DOVE. Oh. You never get too old to learn.)

Our annual Family Bracket Racket Contest will begin. I won the last Family Bowl Weevil Contest (by one game) against stiff competition from very astute sons-in-law from Oregon and Colorado. In that contest, The Good Wife and our oldest daughter brought up the rear, so to speak. Is it still OK to use that old expression? You never know, these days, what's politically correct and what isn't.

I'm going with North Carolina to win it all, but if I KNEW what was going to happen, I'd buy a new lawnmower and get rid of my old scythe and my sickle as well.

I do know for certain that a lot of wacky things will happen before the champion is crowned.

That's why it's called March Madness.

Last week, in the conference tournament, a team that went 4-12 in the league rose up and won the tournament to get an NCAA dance card. Georgia won four big upsets in three days while storms howled outside the arena in Atlanta.

GEORGIA COACH: Damn the tornadoes! Full speed ahead!

I am not a big fan of Memphis because of their weak schedule and lousy free throw shooting. But they do have confidence after a 33-1 season.

As for UCLA, I like what Saul Bellows wrote: "In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California."

I am a native Kansan, but every year it seems like the Jayhawks enter as one of the big favorites and then don't do squawk. Maybe if I don't pick them, they'll win. Texas is my sleeper this year.

At any rate, it's going to be exciting and fun!

Speaking of basketball, which I often do, did you notice that over the weekend the Minnesota Lynx of the Women's National Basketball Association signed a player named Ashley Awkward?

At the first team meeting, will the coach ask, "Which one of you is Awkward?" And will four players hold up their hands?

How come college basketball zooms from the conference tournaments right into the Big NCAA national championship tourney, but college football takes a month off between the end of the conference playoffs and the 387 bowl games?

Some contend that it's because football is a lot rougher than basketball and players need longer to heal.

Huh? Have you seen college basketball lately? Players are increasingly taking the ball to the basket and the "blocking or charging" foul has become so hard to call that often referees just ignore it and "let them play." Bodies are strewn about the court like, well, football.

Not only that, but football players get to rest on either offense or defense.

I realize that this column is saturated with basketball, but what would you expect from an old basketball coach this time of year?

I do recognize that some of you regular readers are not wild about sports, so I will try to write about something else next Thursday.

That way, you will know I haven't forgotten either one of you.

Thanks for reading.

Neosho Daily News