ESPN writes about the NCAA tournament!

This should be a good laugh! ESPN, which probably only carries the volleyball final four because they lost a bet, is writing about OUR national championship? Harrumph. I'm ready to snark all over this thing.

The article is titled "5 Burning Questions on the NCAA women's volleyball tournament," and I'm guessing one of them is "How can we get rid of these matches and show more of the College Softball World Series?" even though Jennie Finch graduated like 11 years ago.

1. What was the biggest surprise of the bracket?

Let me guess: that there are 64 schools that have women's volleyball? Heh, heh-heh, snark-snark-snark, etc., etc.

Without question, the biggest surprise in the entire bracket was the level of respect given to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Huh...that's, well that's actually a pretty reasonable answer, the ACC having apparently offered free tuition to the committee's first-born in exchange for five teams in the tourney. But I'm sure question #2 will be LLLAMME.

2. Which region is the most competitive?

OK, I get it: the questions don't stink. But surely the author won't be able to answer question #4 accurately, "Which first-round matches are the most intriguing?"

Football fans would love to see Cincinnati and Ohio State square off, but they'll have to settle with Friday's volleyball match.

Well yeah, I suppose that's intriguing...

Tulane squares off with LSU for the third time this season, the second in Baton Rouge.

OK, that's, that's too bad...

Two programs that have won multiple national championships will tangle when UCLA (won NCAA titles in 1984, 1990 and 1991) plays host to Long Beach State (won NCAA titles in 1989, 1993 and 1998) on Friday at Pauley Pavilion.

(sigh)

Man. Who wrote this? Here I am, with perfectly good intentions of snarking away on what I anticipate will be ESPN's lame attempt to cover volleyball, and I'm faced with a (gulp), a good article with good arguments and knowledge. WHO IS THIS AUTHOR, THIS "DAVE REED"?!

Dave Reed, now in his 11th year at Colorado College, is the primary contact for CC’s 15 Division III programs.

A-HA...a ringer. Colorado College has a rich volleyball background, and sports info dudes are notorious for having lots of, you know...sports info. Let's read more of his bio:

Reed left Notre Dame in 1996 to join USA TODAY.com, where he served as a content editor/stringer manager for three years. He was part of an 11-member team that specialized in the coverage of collegiate athletics, with an emphasis on basketball, football, ice hockey and volleyball.

OK, that explains it. They had to get an outsider to do it. 'Cause you know Erik Kuselias couldn't have done this. On to the final question:

5. Which unseeded team could pull off the biggest upset?

Lots of different ways to go here. I'm actually interested in reading what Dave Reed, University of Dayton Class of '91, has to say:

Dayton will be looking to complete the trifecta against Illinois and advance to the second round of the tournament if both teams can win their first-round matches Thursday.

Dude. Busted.