March Madness Is Everywhere

The 2011 NCAA Tournament begins tonight with two first round "don't call us play-in" games on truTV. The channel is just one of several networks in the CBS family that will carry live tournament action. For the first time, every game will be shown live -- that is 67 games on either CBS, TBS, TNT or truTV.

What's truTV you ask? Well, it is the network carrying Wisconsin's first game on Thursday. For Direct TV viewers, truTV is channel 246. Madison-based fans can get Direct TV to follow all your favorite sports teams. Direct TV had TruTV in HD all along, whereas Charter just recently added it to its lineup (and then added it in HD also).

With so many games being televised, your remote control may go haywire over the next couple of days. CBS Sports has you covered with a bracket detailing the game times and networks for each game.

WIAA State Hoops Underway

Wisconsin boys basketball tournament action tipped off tonight with a handful of opening round games. The Division 1 UW-Whitewater sectional is loaded, featuring tops schools from Milwaukee (Riverside, King, Marquette) and Madison (Memorial, East, Sun Prairie).

For the record, I did not like the move to five divisions at all. Being a championship-level basketball program is not an inalienable right. There's no question that cutting the Division 1 state finalist field down from eight teams to four is a net decrease in the quality of the games played at the Kohl Center each year. That deprives college basketball fans like myself the pleasure of watching more of the very talented players that the state of Wisconsin is producing more of each year. And the same private schools will still dominate Division 3, so that's kind of funny. (I'll admit, Division 2 could be interesting ... we'll see.)

Milwaukee Vincent and Janesville Craig playing opening round games?! A lot has changed since I was a youngster. At least both of those teams won tonight.

http://wiaawi.org/results/basketballboys/2011/d1bracket.pdf