T-minus three weeks.

Hello, dear readers.

I am back with a brand spanking new 2010 March Madness blog.

The more astute among you will note that it is remarkably similar to the 2009 March Madness blog (which will soon be redirecting here). I have imported the layout and content of last year's blog primarily out of laziness, but also to provide the blog with some sense of continuity, given that we now have a new name and a new URL, necessitated by (1) the Final Four's movement across the Michigan state line into my birthstate of Indiana, and (2) my incredible lack of foresight. But hey, what we lack in common sense, we make up for in topicality.

Two more confessions, while I'm at it.

First, it is not yet March, making the blog title and theme somewhat less topical than bragged about above. But let's not split hairs. The season of madness may not be upon us, but it looms on the horizon. We are three weeks from March, four weeks from the last weekend of the regular season, five weeks from Selection Sunday, and six weeks from the sweetest weekend on the sports calendar. This is the kind of party where it's fashionable to be early.

Second ... and this one is a more painful disclosure ... I have watched less than 10 full college basketball games all season. To call this a dismal record is really an insult to people who amass dismal records. This is unconscionably shameful. I could bore you with the whys and wherefores, but none of it would excuse, let alone justify, my gross neglect. All I can say is that now, on a Big Monday unlike any other in recent Big Monday history - with two mouth-watering top 10 basketball clashes on the menu, the kind of feast that makes grown men tuck bibs into their necks and dive in face-first - I am prepared to make amends.

Now. Let's get on with it.