The Big Three: 2.26

Monday's Water Cooler Stories:

1) Ohio State 49- Wisconsin 48: 1 vs. 2, or 2 vs. 1, depending on where your poll love lay (that just sounds awkward). Wisconsin are one of the few teams around who actually play like their namesake- Badgers aren't necessarily pretty (at least those striped pants on the mascot aren't), but they're tough and will bite the crap out of you. As Buckeyes surely would, if they had mouths. It was a typical Big 10 slugfest, with less offense than your average middle school contest and enough physicality inside to make Ultimate Fighting promoters smile. In the end, Wisconsin couldn't handle Mike Conley Jr., who made some critical buckets late (including the game winner with four seconds remaining) to give the Buckeyes the Big 10 title. All well and good, but more importantly, how does this change your March Madness pool selections? We still have Siena in our Final Four so nothing changes there, but everyone involved in yesterday's game still gets swank seeds, according to Joe Lunardi.

2) Pistons 95- Bulls 93: Big Ben was booed bountifully (forced alliteration alert!) by the Detroit faithful in his return to the Palace. Considering all the guy did was leave his blood, heart, and hair on the court every night for six seasons in red, white, and blue before accepting a contract offer that prompted a "What the f(*@?" jaw drop from Joe Dumars, it seemed kind of harsh. In the end it was Chris Webber who proved you need not be able to move laterally to be effective in the NBA, dropping a season-high 21 points on the Bulls. Ben Gordon's potential game winning three from the corner hit the far iron, and that was it. Given that the Pistons still look like a team content to do what is required on any given day and no more, it's hard to tell how close the Bulls are to challenging the East's top team. And only really good one, for that matter.

3) Barry Can't Cooperate: Barry Bonds says- or at least his lawyers do- that he can't cooperate with the Mitchell steroid investigation because of possible perjury charges that might pop up. So he can't tell the truth about all the drugs he didn't do? Maybe if he had a TV show to explain all this...