Toreros!

Noun, plural of to-re-ro.

Spanish, from Late Latin taurārius, from Latin taurus.

1. A bullfighter, esp. a matador.

2. A matador or one of the supporting team during a bull fight.

3. The University of San Diego men's basketball team, my brother's alma mater and champions of the West Coast Conference (aka the Catholic League + Pepperdine), who just knocked off Connecticut, one of the beasts of the Big East, on a last-second shot in overtime of an opening round game of the NCAA Tournament.

Madness indeed!

To the Hoop!

Thursday brings the tip-off to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, the annual 64-team hoops playoff otherwise known as The Big Dance, or March Madness.

So, pull up a chair, turn on the TV or log on to the Internet, close your office doors (if you have them) to better dodge the bosses, and watch the drama unfold.

C'mon, y'all, they're playing bas-ket-ball, as Kurtis Blow used to say.

This year, I have North Carolina beating Wisconsin on one side of the Final Four draw, with UCLA taking revenge on Texas on the other side, only to lose to the Tar Heels in the championship game.

My bracketology history is woeful, given that I generally never pick the right early-round upsets nor am I much good at predicting which highly seeded team will embarrass themselves by going out in round two.

Last year went largely according to pre-tournament seeding form ... hence my miraculously winning my college pals' pool and finishing in the top three of two others to cash out for some nice ancillary take-home pay.

Repeating that performance this year is basically a pipedream, but if dreams came true, oh, wouldn't that be nice.

Weekend of Upsets

There was no full moon, nor was it April Fool's Day, so it must have been the onset of daylight savings time in the U.S. that caused this weekend's trip into Bizarro-land.

To wit--

* In English soccer, current Premiership titleholders Manchester United were unceremoniously bounced out of the season-long FA (Football Association) Cup tournament on Saturday by Portsmouth, which won for the first time in 51 years at United's home ground, Old Trafford.

* Continuing on that side of the pond, English second-division club Barnsley -- which plays in the English Championship division, which is roughly the equivalent of Triple-A compared to Major League Baseball -- continued its amazing run of knocking off the big boys in the FA Cup. Barnsley followed up their shocking road defeat of Premier League stalwarts Liverpool at Anfield by claiming another Premier League scalp in defeating London giants Chelsea.

* Back in the U.S., the seventh-ranked Stanford men's basketball team lost by 13 points to the University of Southern California at the Galen Center in downtown Los Angeles.

* Across town, the UCLA Bruins narrowly escaped an epic upset of their own, rallying from four down with 20 seconds left to beat the California Bears in a thrilling -- and highly controversial -- ending.

* USC's wildly hyped freshman guard O.J. Mayo and UCLA frosh phenom Kevin Love both hinted that they might not leave school after one year, after all. My guess is they're both gone, but stay tuned.

* Setting the chutzpah bar pretty high, Hillary Clinton, currently running second in the race to become the Democratic party's nominee for president, found it appropriate to offer Barack Obama -- current leader of the popular vote, current leader in elected delegates and current leader in primary/caucus states won -- the number two spot (Vice President) on the Democratic ticket in November. Obama declined. Never let it be said that Hillary doesn't have balls, but the entitlement act is wearing thin.

* Actor Jason Statham has been in some good movies ("Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," "Snatch," "The Transporter" and "The Italian Job," among others), but he's also been the only watchable thing in some real dogs, such as "Cellular," "Crank," "London" and others. His latest film, "The Bank Job," looked like another one of the misfires, but to my sheer delight, it was a crackling heist/gangster saga in the vein of "Sexy Beast" and "Layer Cake," coupled with the intrigue of the best spy movies. In the happy upset of the weekend, I fookin' luv'd it.

All of these unlikely events couldn't top today's head-scratchers, though.

* New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, the highly successful former prosecutor who rode to the statehouse after a career spent rooting out corruption, crushing organized crime and breaking up prostitution rings, is about to find the shoe on the other foot. Today, The New York Times broke the news that Spitzer was caught on a federal wiretap arranging for a hooker to visit him at a Washington, D.C. hotel last month while he was in the nation's capital for business. Nice.

* In more wholesome news, the men's hoops team at my brother's alma mater -- the University of San Diego -- won the West Coast Conference tournament championship on their home floor tonight, beating the number 22-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs and earning a trip to the NCAA tournament. March madness, indeed! Go Toreros!