Rendell: Super time for March Madness

A few Eagles fans have mentioned to me that our amazing Super Bowl victory has caused them to be fixated on next season, and many of them have said, "Isn't it great that voluntary workouts start soon?" Well sure, I am as interested as anybody to see who the Eagles are going to cut, who they are going to keep, and, of course, who they are going to draft. All of this has me excited too but as much as I have identified with being a football fan and a big Birds booster, I love all sports.

Although there won't be much real news in football to discuss for a while, spring training games have started in baseball and the Phillies' young talent has us all dreaming a little bit. Is it possible lightning can strike twice in the same year? Probably not, but the kids will be fun to watch.

And although it's true that we're the best football fans in America, Philadelphia is also the best college basketball town in the US of A. If you're a college basketball fan, this is an absolutely fabulous time of year because March Madness is about to dawn!

Around this time last year, I had to pick a date to have a procedure done and my doctor said I would have to stay home for four days following it. Ah ha, I thought! I had never had the opportunity to watch every game in the first four days of March Madness. I often watched many of the games, but work prevented me from watching all of them. So, post-procedure, I hunkered down with my dog Royal and an assortment of healthy food stuffs like pizza, cheesesteaks, hoagies and ice cream and watched every single game in the first and second rounds – NIRVANA!!

As good as last year's March Madness was, this year's promises to be even more mad, and therefore better. The reason is simple. It is almost impossible to pick a favorite to win the championship. If you look at the current top 10 in the Associated Press poll, I believe that only Cincinnati (10) and Xavier (3) don't have a chance to win six games and capture the title. I could envision any of the other eight – Virginia (1), Michigan State (2), Villanova (4), Duke (5), Kansas (6), Gonzaga (7), Purdue (8), North Carolina (9) – winning it all. At the same time though, I'd be hard-pressed to pick one or two that I thought would be most likely to prevail because it has been such an up and down year.