OJ's bronco hangs from the ceiling like the Spirit of St. Louis.

A week or so ago, you may remember, I wrote a post about the auction for Bobby Petrino's crash-damaged motorcycle. The majority of the post was an outline of my idea to turn the crumpled-up love machine into a profit center by selling photo opportunities for fans to pose on the bike.

At the end of the post, I wrote the following:

This needs to happen. And once the "posing on the bike" novelty has worn off, we can move the bike to the Hall of Shame that I plan on opening someday. Yes, someday I envision there being a building where artifacts from the sports world that symbolize scandal, scumbaggery and soul-crushing defeat are all gathered and are able to be viewed museum-style. The place would crush, trust me.

But the Hall of Shame, that's another idea for another post.

Well, this is that post.

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Make up for that Mega Millions loss.

In Friday's post, it turns out I went a painful 0-2 on my Final Four semifinal selections, with Kentucky missing by half a point against Louisville (in a game where, in ultra-shady fashion, Louisville folded up their tents down eight with 30 seconds to go), and Ohio State choking away a double-digit lead in the second half against Kansas.

If you subscribe to the theory that "the trend is your friend," then skip the rest of this post and pay no attention to the man typing these words. If you subscribe to the theory that balance can be restored and that I am "due," then onward, degenerate soldier!

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Get your wrestling analysis right here.

When I was a kid, there were only a small handful of sporting events to which you set your calendar/watch, events that owned certain weekends or weeks of the calendar year. They were the biggies: Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals.

But with the advent of a million different television channels, a 24/7 news cycle and pay-per-view, the land rush for shaping our viewing habits via occupation of the open dates on the year-round calendar has been fast and furious in the last decade.

Hence, the first weekend of April(ish) has morphed into a three-day extravaganza that sees the men's basketball Final Four sandwiched around WWE's own Super Bowl, Wrestlemania.

This might be my favorite weekend of the year.

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That's one more than Rick Pitino

The casual fan likes March Madness because, unquestionably more than any other major sports postseason, the odds are at least only stacked manageably against the Davids (as opposed to football and series-based postseasons like baseball and in the NBA). In short, when there's no personal interest, people tend to like to see underdogs win.

The result of fans getting their way in early rounds is oftentimes the bracket in subsequent rounds will be littered with games of David vs David, and the realization that the "little guy" has a finite shelf life comes too late.

This season has actually played out nicely as we have a mere smattering of double-digit seeded teams (Xavier, NC State, Ohio), but more importantly every Sweet 16 matchup involves a team seeded one, two, or three in its region.

In other words, the odds for a clunker Final Four like we got last year in Houston are very low. And that's a good thing. So for you degenerates out there, let's preview the next two nights, shall we?

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What if they played a basketball tournament and no one cared?

The College Insider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) is just another of college basketball's postseason alphabet tournaments -- see also the NIT and the CBI. But the Rice Owls are playing in the CIT, and it's the first time the team's made a men's postseason basketball tournament since 2005.

It's just a shame that none of the so-called Rice fan base seems to give a damn. Then again, seeing what the turnout was like for basketball most of this season, it appears that Rice fans don't really seem to give a damn about basketball at all.

The Owls defeated the Drake Bulldogs 74-68 at Tudor Fieldhouse on Saturday to improve their season record to 19-15 and to advance to the semifinals against Oakland, in Oakland, Michigan, tomorrow night. The Owls led for most of the game, shutting down the Drake offense and holding the Bulldogs to a 38.9-shooting percentage. But only 731 Rice supporters cared enough to actually attend the game.

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It's bracket time.

Last year, the Final Four made its way to Houston and in a turn of events entirely emblematic of the type of sports year Houston sustained in 2011, we wound up with arguably the most underwhelming collection of four teams ever assembled at college basketball's marquee event.

The highest seeded team was Connecticut (a 3 seed out West) and they were joined by Kentucky (a 4 seed), Butler (an 8 seed) and VCU (an 11 seed!). Unless you were a UConn fan (which I happen to be), it was probably one big popcorn fart of a weekend, and if it taught us anything, it's that picking games on your March Madness bracket has now essentially become a series of educated coin tosses.

Therefore, on the cusp of the due date/time for most brackets (early games tip at 11 a.m. tomorrow), I am not going to share with you my entire bracket. A page full of barely 50-50 propositions handed over is overkill and kind of useless. The Final Four is a culmination of these coin-flipper propositions, but where your chances of winning the office pool can be increased by a percentage point or two is in finding those lower seeded teams (the Butlers, the VCUs) that might squeeze an extra round or two (or five!) out of their run above expectations.

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Doing that American thing.

President Obama took UK Prime Minister David Cameron to a play-in game for March Madness last night.

As a result, newspapers in the UK had to explain just what the hell was going on. Basketball isn't big there -- it was the first time Cameron had ever seen a game -- so results were, well, scattered.

The Guardian was not only grammatically troubled, but hoops-confused.

Papers flew between the White House to ensure the prime minister was fully versed on the art of "bracketology" - where punters predict the performance of basketball teams in competitions such as the during the "March Madness" seen by the prime minister.

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No March Madness for Houston or Rice again this year.

There might still be a month left in the season for several college basketball teams. But the alumni, students and fans of Rice and the University of Houston are either going to have to ignore March Madness, or they're going to have to find some other teams for whom to cheer.

That the Houston Cougars lost 67-62 to UTEP in overtime wasn't exactly a shock. That the Cougars led most of the game and lost also wasn't exactly a shock to the system. That the Cougars had nearly zero contribution from the bench, or from the point guards (or the guards, for that matter), also wasn't surprising.

Except for forward Alandise Harris scoring 25 points (and grabbing 12 rebounds) to break out of a funk he's been in for the latter half of the season, there was absolutely nothing about the loss to UTEP that should have surprised any regular observer of the Cougars this season.

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The Rice Owls didn't just lose a basketball game on Saturday night. They lost a home game by the score of 76-75. They lost to their crosstown rivals, the Houston Cougars (15-14, 7-9 in conference). They lost while having a one-point lead and the ball with 5.2 seconds left and the Cougars having no timeouts.

But the Owls (17-14, 8-8 in conference) lost more than just a basketball game at Tudor Fieldhouse. They lost composure at the most important time of the season. They lost composure as an atrociously officiated basketball game descended into utter chaos. An utter chaos that saw forward Arsalan Kazemi, Rice's best player, storming off the court and running after the officials when the game ended.

In retrospect, it seems that it should have been the young Cougar squad, with just one senior, that fell apart as the chaotic environment enveloped the building. Especially after they blew a 13-point lead, and especially after Jonathan Simmons missed the first of two free throws with 5.2 seconds left.

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The Daily Cougar

It's been a tough season for senior Houston shooting guard Darian Thibodeaux. The team's been a disappointment. And coming into Wednesday's home finale against the Tulane Green Wave, he'd been mired in a slump that saw him having gone six games without hitting a field goal while having missed his last 21 shots.

Things didn't get off to a good start for Thibodeaux on Wednesday, either, as he missed his first two shots. But seeing as how the Cougars were off to a great start against Tulane, getting as much as a 20-point lead in the half, Thibodeaux's offensive worries were a minor matter.

Then he hit a shot, and then another. His teammates and the fans in attendance roared their approval, lifting Thibodeaux's spirits as he had perhaps his best overall game of the season in Houston's (14-14, 6-9) 82-53 defeat of Tulane (15-14, 3-12). He finished with 12 points, seven assists and four rebounds. And as the team's designated defensive stopper, he came through once again, shutting down Tulane's Ricky Tarrant, the leading C-USA scorer during conference play.

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