Florida Gulf Coast made March Madness great but hits reality in the Sweet 16.

Florida Gulf Coast University – and Butler, and George Mason and VCU before them, going all the way back to Gonzaga – is what makes March Madness so maddeningly wonderful.

That’s why people who know nothing, and care nothing, about college basketball get so wrapped up in it because everyone has a bracket for March Madness.

The unheard-of underdog gets a “bracket-busting” first round win, then wins America’s heart by winning again and making it all the way to the Sweet 16.

Headlines around the country proclaim “Cinderella’s Slipper Fits!” For the next week there are the kinds of positive stories that are so missing in these days of negative and bad news.

But more often than not, Cinderella’s slipper does not indeed fit. A lot of these overnight wonders run smack into the brick wall that is reality , for the true contenders reveal themselves in the Sweet 16.

And let’s be fair; so, too, do a lot of supposed contenders. Just ask Indiana and Michigan State this year. Kansas? Heck, the Jayhawks seem to underachieve just about every year.

A lot of times, a team like Florida Gulf Coast get a break. It wins its first-round game, then faces another opponent that also busted some brackets. In FGCU’s case, it was San Diego State knocking off Georgetown. Reaching the Sweet 16 is suddenly not as challenging and it happens every year.

You win one game, have momentum, get to face another upstart, and then win again two days later. Just look at LaSalle.

Those dreams usually end at the Sweet 16, because that’s when the best teams truly emerge. Duke over Michigan State, Syracuse confusing Indiana, Florida sending Florida Gulf Coast back to Fort Myers (as heroes, mind you, and that’s the way it should be, frankly).

Butler made it to the Final Four, but anyone who knows anything about college basketball recognizes that Butler has long had a strong program. VCU is solid, as well. The one to slip through the cracks was George Mason.

Perhaps there should be a second bracket to fill out after the Sweet 16. Then again, March Madness would not be nearly as sweet for America.

In LA, NFL fans prefer to be in a sports bar rather than a stadium.

Why don’t we just give up and punt?

Be satisfied with the transplants going to sports bars in groups to watch their hometown teams?

Just when it seemed the NFL might actually have a chance to return to Los Angeles, it threw an incomplete pass. AEG’s Philip Anschutz not only pulled the plug on a sale of the company but he booted the point man for the proposed downtown stadium, Tim Leiweke.

And with those two moves – Leiweke, in particular, who championed the cause and had worked tirelessly with the City Council, environmental groups and other – any chance of the NFL coming to L.A., has been sent to the showers.

The funny thing is, we don’t need the NFL in L.A.  There are thousands of people from places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minnesota and other cities who prefer to gather in designed bars for their teams on Sundays. It’s become part of the LA fall Sunday culture.

LA is also unique in that the weather is so good, even deep into the football season, that people are still playing beach volleyball in December.  Going for runs, surfing, even to swap meets.

Why do you think two teams left the market in the first place?

The biggest beneficiary of having football in downtown L.A., would be downtown L.A. AEG has built the highly successful Staples Center and LA Live, which for the first time gives the city a central gathering spots. While LA Live has its moments – and its events – it’s not an everyday destination, though (customers having to pay $15-20 to park for lunch is one obvious drawback).

Putting a stadium downtown would add more vitality to the area, encourage more housing and in general liven up the place even more than is happening now.

The freeways are a disaster – a shining example of CalTrans’ inability to design interchanges – so any stadium would have to include roadway improvements. And the Metro system needs to be made much more user-friendly and should be updated so  people from places like the South Bay and Long Beach don’t have to go through Watts to get to downtown.

With or without the NFL, L.A., will go on being L.A. And right now, any hope some had of having pro football had better huddle and call a Hail Mary.

John Calipari is as solid a coach as a recruiter but he keeps exposing his flaws.

Sideline Sam has never been a big fan of John Calipari. He always seems to be, in the words of the Jimmy Buffett song “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor,” one step ahead of the jailer.

It seems wherever he goes, he leaves a program on the brink of NCAA probation. Or at least intense investigation.

This mood began to soften a bit when he got to Kentucky and his outstanding recruiting and coaching came together, and he took an all-freshman team to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in 2012.

But, as an ‘ol friend is fond of saying, you can’t change the spots on a leopard. And once again, Calipari is in Sideline Sam’s doghouse.

That’s because after his star freshman player, Nerlens Noel, was lost for the year with an injury, his team was blown out by 30 points at Tennessee. Afterward, Calipari called his mostly freshman players “uncoachable.”

That statement alone should be worth a technical foul, considering Calipari is trying to live off some recruiting ego that says he can bring in a bunch of freshmen and make the Final Four every year. He can’t; he simply had all things to right last year and that philosophy is no way to build a program for long-term success. Just ask Ben Howland at UCLA.

But when some began to question Calipari’s wisdom of criticizing his just-out-of-high-school players, he left this manure in the Kentucky bluegrass:

“I’ve made some crazy statements. Whew, that was nothing, saying a guy is uncoachable because you won’t listen. … I’m like (chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben) Bernanke, the president. I make a statement and it’s like oh, my gosh, the stock market starts moving. We have to close down borders if I make a statement.”

Calipari made the comments not in a press conference or to reporters after a practice, but on his own website. That’s the way to hide from the media!

What, too many characters for Twitter?

This shows Calipari’s lack of character. He’s basically saying that it’s okay for him to criticize his players – most of whom are mere freshmen – but when he gets knocked, it’s not okay. And then he goes and hides behind social media.

The guy can certainly recruit and he’s an excellent coach on the floor. But he also shows that the coach at Kentucky is no more mature than his young players.

The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach roars down Shoreline Drive.

In a way, it’s as routine as dropping in a tap-in putt. Shagging a lazy fly ball to left.

When something is done for 39 consecutive years, it has the tendency to dull one’s senses.

On the other hand, it’s exciting. It’s a revival of something special, like the pitchers and catchers tossing baseballs for the first time when they report to spring training. Or footballs filling the air at the start of summer camp. It’s dad coming home on a Saturday afternoon with a new baseball glove and ball and taking you out in the yard to play catch.

In this case, it’s the start of construction of the race track for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Drive along Shoreline Drive in downtown Long Beach, CA, and the site of the concrete barriers with protruding fence posts, grandstands and other heavy objects hanging from the front of forklifts stirs the excitement.

You know the big event is coming soon, and the building of the track helps build the anticipation of that weekend.

It takes a full three months to build the track, with the 2013 event taking place April 19-21.It utilizes existing city streets, most prominently the palm tree-lined Shoreline Drive, which curves along the water with the Queen Mary in the background.

The helicopter shot during the IndyCar race is a true defining picture of an event in Southern California. And it shows that founder Chris Pook’s objective of establishing the Grand Prix of Monaco in the United States has been achieved.

This is the 39th year of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Its signature event is the Izod IndyCar Series. But there’s also the hugely popular Formula Drifting – featuring night Drifting for the first time – the entertaining 10-lap crashfest known as the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, the American LeMans sports cars, the muscle cars of World Challenge, plus build-up block parties on Wednesday and Thursday, free concerts on Friday and Saturday, and the Miss Grand Prix girls.

In the meantime, it’s the building of the track and the building to the event. All Long Beach businesses – bars, restaurants, the Long Beach Aquaruim – do remain open during track construction. And while Shoreline Drive,  Seaside Way and lower Pine Ave., are often reduced to a single lane in each direction, the roads also are open to regular traffic.

The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach’s website is: www.gplb.com.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:

• Long Beach Grand Prix Race History

Nick Saban runs a tight ship but there's so much talent the program discplines itself.

In a move as stunning as it was dumb, four Alabama football players have been arrested, three for robbing and beating two students and one for using one of the victim’s student card to make purchases in a vending machine (in the athletic dorm, no less).

It’s stunning because nothing like this happens at Alabama. Nick Saban runs a tight ship, but because there is so much talent on the team the program kind of disciplines itself.

So Freshman linebacker Tyler Hayes, freshman safety Eddie Williams,  redshirt freshman D.J. Pettway and redshirt freshman H-back Brent Calloway have thrown away their Alabama careers. Saban immediately suspended them indefinitely but it’s likely he will kicked them off the team and out of school.

Why would they do such a thing? To steal a student’s backpack and laptop? What’s the point?

Williams was a five-star recruit. But you know what – his spot will be taken by another five-star recruit. Just a week earlier, Saban and staff signed the #1 recruiting class. For the fourth time in five years.

There’s no room for troublemakers on this team; Saban will simply put in another talented player in their place.  This past season, two running backs, a linebacker and starting receiver were all lost to season-ending injury. Could anyone tell the Tide was missing key players during the 42-14 destruction of Notre Dame in the BCS Championship? No, Saban just put in another stud (Amari Cooper actually emerged in place of the injured receiver).

It’s this way with all successful programs. During Pete Carroll’s amazing run at USC, when he was stockpiling talent the way Saban is now at Alabama, you never heard of players getting into trouble with the law. They knew competition for playing time was fierce enough without complicating matters by making off-the-field bonehead decisions.

And if you can’t play in college, you can’t get the attention of the NFL.

Alabama won’t miss any of those players on the field. And of course, they don’t be deserve to be on the field, either. Those four players have blown it Alabama and any chance they may have had at the NFL. All because of a backpack.

Perhaps they will straighten themselves up, look in the mirror and realize their mistake. Go on to be good citizens.

But they won’t do it at Alabama. They have already fumbled away that great opportunity.

The occassional college hoops OT thriller is about the only sports highlight in Feb.

When highly-regarded sportswriter Paul Gallico of the Daily News announced he was leaving sports to write novels –  in the south of France, no less – his fellow scribes were stunned.

Why would he do such a thing, they wondered.

Gallico’s reply was simple: “February.”

That was back in the 1930s, and it remains true to this day in sports. The fact of the matter is that February was, and still is, the most boring month of all in sports.

Now you may wonder how it’s possible to call a month that has both the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl of NASCAR (the Daytona 500, Feb. 24) dull. But unless you are at them, those are one-day events. And frankly, the Super Bowl is really on the cusp of the month; it feels more like it’s in January. After all, that’s when the playoffs leading to the Super Bowl are played. February is like the back-up running back who comes in after a long drive to spell the starter and gets the 1-yard touchdown.

In February, we have nothing on a day-to-day basis that is of urgent interest. The NBA is in its two-month stretch of meaningless games, too far removed from the curiosity and fan excitement of the opening and too far from the stretch drive to the playoffs in April. If anything, February teaches us that the NBA season is way too long.

It’s difficult to wrap your arms around hockey in February unless your driveway has as much ice as an arena. This year it’s especially challenging to generate any interest for the league considering half the season was lost to a lockout. If they didn’t care about the season, why should we bother with it?

The most compelling sport being contested is college basketball. February is when teams really start to build their “tournament resume.” The RPI has put a bit of college football-type of importance in almost every game. Still, it’s hard to get overly excited when when the #1 team can lose (Indiana) and remain #1.

If you’re a sports fan, February is a great month to go on vacation. To the south of France, perhaps.

Ole Miss has positioned itself to be a new power in the powerful SEC.

The rich get even richer, but this is bordering on absurd.

The SEC is already college football’s best conference. It has won the past seven BCS National Championships – three of the last four by Alabama – but it just keeps getting better. And better.

National Signing Day proved that, or perhaps reinforced it. But it also shows that, like its teams, its building depth.

Nick Saban signed the #1 recruiting class (again) while at the same time addressing the team’s needs. Coaches don’t care about these rankings, they care about filling holes and potential holes in the future. Alabama doesn’t have many holes but Saban assured the Tide’s success well into the future.

And it’s no surprise that Will Muschamp reeled in a Top 5 class to Florida (#4, according to Rivals), Mark Richt scored ‘tween the Hedges at Georgia (#12) and of course Les Miles brought in more talent to the bayou at LSU (#6). And the ‘ol ball coach got some high-quality players at South Carolina (#16).

But look at what Kevin Sumlin is doing at Texas A&M. He successfully enticed recruits with the prospect of playing against Alabama, LSU, Florida and Georgia. With a #10 class, and of course that bar-of-soap-in-the-shower of a quarterback in Johnny Manzel, he’s fielding an instant contender. The Big Two of Alabama and LSU is suddenly The Big Three.

And in another year, it may be The Big Four. Hugh Freeze is hot at Ole Miss. The Rebels landed the #1 recruit (who is a meaty defensive linemen, by the way, not a flashy running back or receiver) and a whopping 11 four- and five-star players. Rivals ranks it #7 but some other recruiting services have it #3 right behind Alabama and Ohio State.

So add Ole Miss to the list of potential SEC powers. At least it’s got the talent, and thus the potential.

But just down the two-lane highway in Mississippi, Dan Mullen added one of the top five players in the nation and had the 25th-raned class. Even the three schools that changed coaches had monster recruiting years: Arkansas, Auburn (#8) and Tennessee (#20).

Heck, even Vanderbilt had a Top 25 class #19). For the second year in a row! Who’s the doormat anymore in the SEC? Kentucky? What about one in the SEC West?

Of course, this is great news for the other conferences. The better the SEC gets, the more games the top teams are likely to lose. The four-team playoff will actually help because it reduces the margin for error, but those SEC teams that make it to the finish will have undergone by far the toughest tests.

RB Alvin Kamara helps make Alabama the top winner on National Signing Day.

National Signing Day for college football is like Opening Day of Spring Training for baseball.

Everyone’s a winner!

But what does all this optimism mean for fall Saturdays? How does a top recruiting class translate into on-field success?

While a number of factors determine whether or not a top recruit will actually pan out – how he adjusts to college life, if he can adapt to no longer being the “big man on campus” and injuries are always issues – there are a few measures to determine the winners and, yes, losers, from National Signing Day.

Based on the following criteria, Sideline Sam declares the biggest winners in 2013 are Alabama and Ohio State, followed by Texas A&M, Florida, Ole Miss an UCLA. The biggest loser is USC. But there’s also questions about Nebraska, Texas and Oklahoma. As well as Oregon.

1.) History of Success Of The Coaches. This is the most crucial factor in turning signees into stars. Or at least productive players. After all, you’ve got to coach ‘em after you get ‘em.

And based that criteria, then Alabama and Ohio State are poised to have the most success from this year’s recruiting class.  Both Saban and Meyer have a track record of being relentless recruiters, and they also turn that talent into championships.

In this year’s recruiting class rankings, Alabama was #1 and Ohio State #2 according to Rivals.com. Put that coaching with that talent and if you’re looking for two National Championship contenders for 2014, 2015 and beyond, then start with the Tide and Buckeyes.

You also have to include at Les Miles and LSU.

The biggest loser here is USC. Lane Kiffin’s gift of gab worked well in attracting talent in the past, but recruits are beginning to see that he cannot develop that talent. They also watched Matt Barkley backpedal not just from onrushing defenders but from one of the top NFL Draft picks to a head-scratching selection. The 7-6 record has led to questions about Kiffin even being around at USC after this season and that, too, caused uncertainly among recruits.

So in just a few months USC has gone from being the #1-ranked team in the preseason (where it never should have been in the first place) and #1 in recruiting to a program in peril.

3.) Proven Head Coaches In Bigger Programs. Kevin Sumlin appears to be leading this class. He’s taken the combination of Texas A&M going to the SEC, Johnny Manzel’s Heisman Trophy and an 11-2 season to the recruiting trail and scored big in 2013. Furthermore, he seems to be able to coach his talent; keeping a wild card like Manzel playing within a system is not an easy task. The Aggies are in the rugged SEC West but could immediately make the Big 2 of Alabama and LSU the Big 3.

The picture is less clear Brian Kelly and Brady Hoke. Was this year’s BCS National Championship game a stepping stone for Notre Dame or just a combination of pure luck? Well, there was a lot of luck involved in getting there and the Irish sure showed they were still light years away from the elite teams. Kelly has shown signs of uncertainty on the sidelines so Notre Dame’s future is still a bit uncertain. Although he has concentrated on defensive linemen and linebackers, and that has certainly helped revive the Irish.

Hoke, too, is a bit of a mystery. He shot out of the gate with an 11-win season but that turned out to be a mirage. He didn’t quite know what to do with Denard Robinson – why did he allow him to keep throwing against Notre Dame is anybody’s guess – and as a result he still has to prove himself on the field. One thing is certain: The Wolverines are far better off with him than they were with Rich Rodriguez.

3.) The Potential Of Second-Year Head Coaches. The “new” guys have certainly recruited well: Will Muschamp, Jim Mora, Guz Malzahn and particularly Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss, who has stunned everyone by lading a a Top 5 class buoyed by a pair of the nation’s top recruits.

The question now is that after these coaches have brought in all this talent, will they be able to “coach ‘em up” and compete for championships. Muschamp and Mora have the most chance of success, Muschamp because his Florida Gators are in the SEC East – giving them great exposure and the potential for quality wins in the powerful SEC – and Mora because he’s in the Pac-12 with less competition. Mora, of course, coached in the NFL but he’s still new to the college scene.

Freeze and Malzahn, well, they are in the SEC West, which is getting only more difficult. Between the two of those, Freeze has the best chance to succeed quicker because he’s already been there a year (ironically, it was Malzahn who succeeded Freeze at Arkansas State) and this year’s class has such tremendous potential.

You also have to admire what Bill O’Brien has done at Penn State. He landed the nation’s #1 quarterback. In light of all that’s happened in once-Happy Valley, that’s impressive.

First-year coaches are generally in a pickle. Especially at Oregon, where Mark Helfrich takes over for Chip Kelly. The Ducks are 21st according to Rivals.com, and frankly that’s not too bad considering the first role of the new coach is to make sure the house of cards already stacked don’t collapse. But the team might, or at least falter a bit, until the new guy either proves himself or becomes a footnote in the media guide.

4.) The Fallen Programs.  You have to go down – way, down, all the way to #23 on the Rivals.com list – to find Texas. Mack Brown has had trouble winning with top recruiting classes of late; what do you think is going to happen to the Longhorns now that they are only able to bring in a class ranked in the 20s?

Nebraska fared better than Texas, coming in at #17  in the Rivals.com rankings, but the Huskers have more problems than the 17th-ranked recruiting class can solve. Especially with the talent that has gone elsewhere.

You also have to look at Oklahoma. The Sooners always start the year as a title contender but never finish as one. They ranked 15th on the Rivals.com list. That’s not bad, but it’s certainly not an elite class.

With recruiting, only time will tell, but the past does tell us in large part what will happen in the future.

By not being complacent, Nick Saban keeps Alabama on top.

While most college football coaches have been busy the past several weeks locking down their 2013 recruiting class, Alabama’s Nick Saban has been looking further into the future.

On one of the final weekends before National Signing Day, Saban and the Alabama coaches were hosting recruits on campus. Top uncommitted recruits for 2013? Nope. He had some 30 top athletes from the South in Tuscaloosa for the 2014 class. Saban was still going after a few of the elite-of-the-elite prospects for this year but regardless of who he does or doesn’t get, he’s already looking ahead to the future.

And that is why Alabama and Saban succeed each and every year. Saban is relentless in his recruiting and like he tells his team, it’s not what you did this past year that counts for the future, it’s what you do now and from this point forward. The day after winning the BCS National Championship, Saban was back working on recruiting.  (Brian Kelly by contrast, went to Europe and left Notre Dame dangling for a week by flirting with the Philadelphia Eagles.)

With 5-star linebacker Reuben Foster, the #1 recruit in the state of Alabama and one of the top in the country, committed to the Tide two days before National Signing Day, Saban will likely wind up with the #1 class in the nation. Again. For the fifth time in the past six years as rated by Rivals.com.

One of Saban’s most used quotes, when people ask him about his intensity is that “it’s human nature to want to be complacent.”

If there’s one thing Saban is not, it’s complacent.

And it’s showing on the recruiting trail and on the field for Alabama, which is why the Crimson Tide will continue to be a National Championship contender for several more seasons.

Trent Richardson signs with Alabama on National Signing Day. Photo: AP

For players and students in high school, National Signing Day is one of the most exciting days of the entire year.

For sportswriters of daily newspapers and websites who cover preps, it’s one of the longest, most dreaded days of the entire year. And the bigger the coverage area, the longer and more difficult the task.

It is, for the most part, not about going to a school and covering a star athlete’s nationally televised announcement to a major college football power.  Instead, much of the day involves spending hours on the phone, calling high schools, colleges, JUCOs and coaches, trying to be sure you have accounted for every player.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a player, or a few players, to sign with a major school, that’s easy. The Sports Information Department sends out a press release and basically does all your work for you. All you have to do is a get a few quotes from the player and his high school coach.

It’s the players signing with the lesser schools that create all the work. And they comprise the majority of signings on National Signing Day. By a wide margin.

Often the small colleges and junior colleges have no PR staff (and if they do, it’s a single person who gets assigned the duty among many other roles), and you have to contact the high school. The coaches are tough to reach so then you have to try the principal and work your way down the ladder to whomever happens to answer the phone. This is an all-day process and it must be done for every potential player at every school who might sign a scholarship.

And now, even covering the big names is challenging. With ESPN and Fox both having shows devoted to the day, and players loving to build up the drama to get a little NFL-style attention, it’s a silly game the sportswriters have to play. They have to write stories – almost daily – about where a player visited, where he’s leaning, what his mother said and, worst of all, react to Internet rumors. What someone read on someone’s Twitter account can cause panic for some fans, excitement for others. These “reports” are usually wildly inaccurate but in today’s quick-reaction world, it’s always addressed with an article.

One new trend has made things a bit easier on the writers. Several players are committing early and enrolling in school in January. Alabama, for instance, already has seven players on campus, and has had a whopping 28 enroll early since 2010. Many of those – Amari Cooper and T.J. Yeldon from last year’s class – have gone on and become stars as freshmen.

Once National Signing Day is complete, the story is finished and all the area’s signees are accounted for and included, then it’s a while before the sports rooms and prep writers have to deal with the second-most dreaded time of the year: The preseason previews!