Via the invaluable Zagsblog -- and thanks to Mr. Justice Joe of Sully's Court for hipping us to the joint since, left on its own, This Blog likely would have dismissed it at first glance as a Mark Few pornzine -- we discover that Misunderstood Coach Cal is making friends all over the country again. This Blog finds it hard to believe that this all came from resentful Nets fans who remember MCC's poxy tenure in the Meadowlands (where he was the last man to get anyone to sympathize with Jayson Williams), or that everybody at practice was a member of the NCAA's enforcement staff, or that the crowd at the arena yesterday was composed entirely of "Mexican idiots," but anything's possible.

You know who coached badly? Dave Rose of BYU, that's who, and he did so by doing something that has driven This Blog bonkers for a couple of years. When did two fouls become Foul Trouble? It used to be that three fouls put you there. This Blog swears that they all go to coaches clinics in the offseason and think this stuff up, and then they all do it automatically all the next season, like Laurence Harvey jumping into the lake in The Manchurian Candidate. Of course, there are times when you should do it. If your star is, say, a freshman center, and he picks up two silly ones quickly, you sit him down because he doesn't yet have the maturity completely to stay out of trouble under the basket. OK, but making this a hard-and-fast rule is simply trading your frontal lobes for a quart of potato salad. Last night, BYU's point guard Jackson Emery started the game on fire. Then, he got whistled for his second foul, and Rose sat him for the last 11 minutes of the first half. So, counting halftime, Emery was idle for nearly a half-hour before Rose put him back in the game. Emery was never the same and was useless down the stretch. This was preposterous. Emery was a veteran point-guard. Veteran point-guards can play with two fouls. Hell, they can play with four fouls. Rose cost his team its floor leader because he looked at the fouls and began to hear Digger Phelps second-guessing him in his head.

You know who can coach? Butler's Brad Stevens, that's who. Given the German operas provided to us on the sidelines by most of his veteran peers, there hasn't been a calmer bench presence in college basketball than Stevens since John Wooden rose from the UCLA bench for the last time back in 1975. Must be a Hoosier thing.

As for tonight, much depends on whether or not VCU has come back to earth yet. It's been a few days. And, of course, alma mammy replays the 1977 championship game and This Blog continues to have faith in Coach K. O. Stradivarius and his lads. Can they get the young Tar Heels to play like knuckleheads?