Watchng the fall of the Texas Longhorns basketball team has been a gut-wrenching experience to the point where I was actively avoiding paying attention to that team. After the football team played it's heart out after losing Colt McCoy in the first series of the national championship game (http://tinyurl.com/ylblpk3), the Texas basketball team folded into a joke less than a week after getting ranked the #1 team in the country.

So what did I do?

I looked in my own backyard.

The UTEP Miners are on an incredible run this season, winning 16 of their last 17 games. The only loss came in the conference championship game. That loss, somehow, nearly cost them a spot in the NCAA tournament. The Miners are 26-6 and, until Texas A&M closed the regular season on a nice run, played like the best team in the state of Texas in February and March.

They're good and dominant in a conference like Conference USA because they're built like a big program in a power conference. They're two bigs are NBA-caliber, the three other starters can handle the ball and create their own shots, despite their point guard's size, he's a pass-first guy, and their bench players can knock down threes... and create their own shots.

And their head coach, Tony Barbee, learned his trade under John Calipari. He preaches defense, encourages quick shots by guys who had a hot hand, and can have his team outrun and outshoot opponents on the scoreboard or grind out a victory where neither team scores more than 60.

The team underachieved last year and struggled to gel as a group when this season started, but they really hit their stride when conference play started, esepcially Randy Culpepper.

Pay attention on Thursday afternoon to the short guy on UTEP's team. This little guy can light up an arena. I've seen him do it countless times this season. He can bring a home crowd to it's feet on a breakaway before he even leaves his feet for a dunk. And he's capable of catching fire from beyond the arc, as he had the two highest conference point totals this season: 39 and 45. I was at the 45-point game. It could have and SHOULD have been over 50, but I think the moment got to him.

And now they're in the NCAA tournament. They're a 12-seed and a popular 12-5 upset going into play starting on Thursday. I'm here in San Jose, California with the team. They look loose and ready, not carrying around the pressure of continuing a win streak or maintaining a national ranking. Now, a win just means that they get to play one more game... that's it.

Now just indulge me for a second...

I haven't had a day off in more than a week. That includes a 13-hour Saturday following a morning UTEP conference championship game and a night New Mexico State conference championship game. Both won. There are two teams in my media market in the tournament.

After working a full day on Tuesday that ended around 11:00 pm, I flew out of El Paso at 6:15 this morning after getting 90 minutes of sleep, arrived in San Francisco, drove straight to the HP Pavilion in San Jose, covered the press day, shot introductions and sign-offs that ran Wednesday on NBC AND CBS back in El Paso, edited the footage, sat and waited at the computer for the files to load to the station website to make sure nothing went wrong, I haven't eaten anything since about 7:00 am and haven't gotten a wink of sleep except for the uncomfortable eyes-wide-shut naps I got on the planes, which never counts....

And I'm in heaven. I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THIS TOURNAMENT START TOMORROW MORNING!

Last season I got one final four team right and they got to the championship game... I sadly should have seen their demise coming, but underestimated my sense of history and how it repeats itself.

Here's my Final Four this year: Kansas, Duke, Xavier, West Virginia.

Big upsets I'm calling: (15) North Texas over (2) Kansas State in the first round, UTEP reaches the Sweet 16, Xavier, and Notre Dame reaches the Elite Eight with wins over Baylor and Richmond.

For some reason, I like Duke more this year than others. I don't agree that the ACC had a down year. I just think that Duke and Maryland made it look that way. There are a lot of Duke haters out there, almost like they came out of hibernation because they heard the Blue Devils were a #1 seed again. All the anti-Duke talk convinces me that this is their year.

Duke over Kansas in the national championship game.

One of the smartest calls in Super Bowl history was one that failed on paper, but it was gutsy and showed that the New Orleans Saints would not settle for anything against the Colts and it set the tone for the rest of the game. Sean Payton pulled out all the stops on Sunday, and that's why the Saints are being celebrated as champs.

Everyone is talking about the onside kick that New Orleans recovered to start the 2nd half, but what set the tone happened with less than two minutes left in the 1st half.

The Saints could have kicked a field goal to cut Indy's seven point lead down to four... But that would mean that New Orleans would have to kick off back to the Colts giving Peyton Manning a chance to go likely less than 80 yards to score one more time.

What happens if the Saints kick the field goal? If you've watched the Colts this season, the most likely scenario is Manning driving the field for a touchdown after getting the kickoff. If the Saints kick the field goal, they net an increaase in their halftime deficit. A touchdown means that, at worst, they be right back to a seven point deficit again.

But what some people still don't realize is that going for it was a win-win situation. Sure, if the Colts get the stop, their defense celebrates for a little bit, but the offense now has to go 99 yards for a score with the clock working against them.

And that's what happened. Though the Saints got stuffed, the Colts immediately went three-and-out and punted back to the Saints, who eventually got their field goal and had a chance at a touchdown. Essentially, the Saints found a way to get their field goal PLUS drain time off the clock so Manning couldn't get one more score before the break.

It also sent a message to the team. He was letting them know that they weren't going to settle. They were playing to win. He let his offense know that he had confidence in them and let his defense know that he trusted them to make a stop.

That 4th down call set the tone for the rest of the game. After the way he coached the end of the 1st half, trusting his team to take the game and win it, there was no doubt that everyone would be on the same page when he called the surprise onside kick.

Inspired and fired up, the Saints recovered and drove for a touchdown and their first lead of the game. They scored on every offensive possession of the 2nd half and the defense allowed just seven points, forced a missed field goal, and ran back an interception for a touchdown. They kept Peyton Manning from taking control of the game, gave the offense great field position, and put the game away.

So when people keep talking about the first onside kick before the 4th quarter in Super Bowl history, remember that it couldn't have happened without the risks that the Saints took at the end of the 1st half. And that's why the Saints are Super Bowl champs.

Some more Super Bowl thoughts:

Aside from his one interception, Peyton Manning looked masterful in this game. Through most of the game, he was connecting on passes with what seemed like impossible precision. A win with a performance like that would have certainly cemented his case for being the greatest of all time. Sadly, what everyone will remember from this game will be his interception returned for a touchdown that sealed the victory for New Orleans.

I remember how I felt when Texas won the national championship back in 2006. The only place I would've rather been that night was 6th street in Austin for the celebration. I think even the most hard core Saints fans would have rather been on Bourbon Street the night of their championship victory. With all of the things that have happened to the city and to the franchise the past four years, the city really deserved America's backing and I'm sure there are even some Colts fans out there that are smiling about this one. Manning will be back. The Colts will continue their success. But this was destiny.

The days of the Super Bowl dud seem to be long gone. The last seven Super Bowls have been a one-possession game at some point in the 4th quarter. That's a streak unmatched in the history of the game. Only the Tampa Bay Buccanneers and Baltimore Ravens have won the big game by large margins that had the game in hand by the final quarter in the last 10 years.

I don't care what people say. I loved the halftime show. I've been a Who fan since I was in high school and it's the best personal payoff of a Super Bowl halftime show since Aerosmith performed with NSYNC back in 2001 (I'm not a hard core fan of U2, Tom Petty or Bruce). I got chills hearing "Let's get together before we get much older."

I saw the halftime show at a bar. An older lady saw me singing along and came up to me and said, "you're too young to know the words to these songs." I'll probably never get to see The Who in concert. For all we know this could have been their last hurrah.

As the song goes: "I can't pretend there's any meaning hidden in the things I'm saying. But I'm in tune"