Nice to see Governor Walker at the UW basketball game today.

Not that we were there. Meade took that shot from the TV. Walker's in blue not red, apparently in support of Marquette.

"I am not a huge fan of abortion, but we both had sports careers, plus we could not financially handle a baby."

Said Udonis Haslem, who is now a professional basketball player (for the Miami Heat). At the time, he was a senior in college, training for the N.B.A. draft.  We're told he had "struggled with supporting Kedonis, the son he had in high school, who is now 14 and who lives with his mother." (That link goes to Life News, a Pro-Life site, and it's decrying this NYT wedding story for "celebrating" an abortion.)

Haslem's fiancee, Faith Rein said:

"Udonis appreciated that I was willing to have an abortion.... I found him caring, supportive, nurturing and all over me to be sure I was O.K. I saw another side of him during that difficult time and fell deeply in love. He had a big heart and was the whole package."

We've had some heated discussions on this blog in the last couple of months about the problem of the purported lack of equality arising from the woman's right to have an abortion and the man's inability to extricate himself from financial responsibility for the child he doesn't want and lacks the option to abort.

In that light, let's look at Udonis Haslem. Perhaps he wanted little Kedonis, perhaps he would have aborted him. In any case, his high school liaison did not abort, Kedonis was born, and Udonis has paid child support. Later, it happens again. A woman becomes pregnant with his child. Let's call him Xdonis. Udonis cannot force Faith to have an abortion. You can cry with outrage over the man's lack of equality here, but it's the woman's body — as I said in last summer's arguments over men's reproductive rights — and she gets to decide whether to submit her body to the forces of nature that have found purchase within. 

But Haslem reads the playing field and applies his skills to the situation at hand. You fight for your rights with the law you have, not the law you might want or wish to have at a later time. A man who would like to exercise the right to choose to abort must exercise his powers of persuasion upon the mind of the woman. She controls the womb inside her body, her mind must make a decision. He may not act upon the womb. He must act upon the mind.

What did Udonis Haslem say to Faith Rein? We can only infer from her report of how it felt to her: He appreciated her willingness to have an abortion. Men who want to exercise a right to choose, operating with the law we have, can dilate and extract some ideas. Don't say: I want you to have an abortion. Admire her mind (that mind that will make the decision). Aren't willing women beautiful? Pro-life people speak of willingness to bear the child. There's a corresponding willingness to have an abortion. A baby seems much more lovely than an abortion, so it's tricky. We don't know exactly how Haslem made Rein feel that way. But I infer that he adored her beautiful mind.

She "found him caring, supportive, nurturing and all over me to be sure I was O.K." It's all about her. Men who want a right to choose, take note! Don't make it about you, even if that's what you're really thinking. It is about her, because she will make the decision. Don't talk about the baby and how much trouble it will be for you. Stay away from the womb. That's her domain. Don't look down there. Her mind is up here. Care for her, support her, nurture her, and be all over her. Make sure she is okay.

I saw another side of him during that difficult time and fell deeply in love. He had a big heart and was the whole package. What would it take to make her feel like that? You're all about love and caring. And she has the abortion!

"Sometimes they score 1. Sometimes they score 3. And they never explain!"

From rhhardin in yesterday's café: "Armstrong and Getty's sports report on the NBA finals game 1 mp3, by their guy who never watches sports."

"Why not raise the rim, to restore basketball to its proper form?"

"I am a purist at heart for this game, and it galls me to see the players today lack the proper fundamentals in passing, cutting, shooting, setting screens and, above all, proper spacing."

But consider this:

One of the unique aspects of the game, as created by Naismith, was the height of the baskets: when peach baskets were nailed to the railing of the running track at the Springfield, Mass., Teachers College one day in 1891, they were hung at 10 feet -- because that was how high the railing was. There was no more thought given to it than that.

Which way does that cut? You could say the baskets should be raised, because the original height was just happenstance, and nothing profound. Or you could say they should not be changed, because they were never calibrated to the height of the players in the first place.

"Hancock was the only player who immediately ran toward Ware after he crumpled, and he knelt beside his teammate and began praying with him..."

"... patting Ware’s chest over and over. He knew Ware was scared, he would say later, and he did not want his teammate to be alone."

"At least my bracket's not busted."

One of "the most gruesome plays in televised sports history... did not occur on a football field, where we have come to expect the carnage of violent collisions."

It happened in basketball, and there wasn't even any touching.

[Kevin Ware] simply landed awkwardly... snapping the tibia and fibula of his right leg. One broken bone stuck through the skin of Ware’s lower leg.

“It’s a torsional injury,” said Craig H. Bennett, head orthopedic surgeon for the Maryland Terrapins, who has seen only one similar injury in the past decade. “It’s a rotational injury, and all the stress gets concentrated on one area.”

Normally, he said, knee or ankle ligaments would absorb the stress of Ware’s twisting leap, tearing if the forces were too great, or doing their job and sending him back to the game. But Ware landed in just the wrong way, Bennett believes. The result was an injury that is likely to be remembered for as long as the NCAA tournament is played.

AND: Speaking of painful basketball... "Took Obama 15 Tries To Sink A Basket On White House Court Monday."

Saturday Cinema Verité...

... in 3 scenes.

"I don't know why you guys ask me, I'm just here to bring diversity to this set, give kind of the white man's perspective."

Doug Gottlieb on CBS before Marquette-Miami game last night.

Later in the evening, having noticed the criticisms on Twitter, his co-commentator Charles Barkley said:

"I know this has nothing to do with the game. I wanna say something about Doug Gottlieb. He made a joke earlier tonight. All those people on Twitter who are going crazy, which I would never ever do, listen me Kenny, Greg Anthony, and Greg Gumbel didn’t take that personally so all you people at home who've got no life who are talking bad about Doug Gottlieb get a life. It's no big deal."

Big deal or not, Gottlieb apologized — "It was not a smart thing to say and I apologize" — which I take it is kind of the white man's perspective.

Meade watches the NCAA tournament, but I do not.

I don't like it. And I do watch baseball and football. Not as much as he does, but enough to prove that I'm not averse to all spectator sports. But I do not like basketball. Meade tells me he guarantees that if I were to take a little time to learn a few things about what's going on in basketball that I could enjoy it.

He compares it to his learning to like "Survivor." At first, he spurned it. A fake endurance contest. Why, he's done real endurance races — 24-hour mountain bike races. What's this voting people off an island? But — motivated to share time with me — he learned some details — the strategy, the edit — and it became interesting. If I would learn a few things about basketball, I wouldn't just be putting up with it. I would actually enjoy it, as he now enjoys "Survivor."

"Did you ever notice how the women on 'Survivor' are all wearing bikinis?" I ask. The whole implied argument is painfully obvious. Basketball players in their slinky, baggy tank tops and immense, swishy skirt-pants.

But maybe women don't care so much about what a man looks like. It's the functionality of the body. The performance. This is Meade's theory.

I resist the theory. There's performance on "Survivor" too, I say. But would you enjoy "Survivor" if the women were all wearing big baggy T-shirts and big loose pants?

We compare football, which women are especially fond of watching. The big shoulders, the tight pants (bulge-enhancingly light-colored and shiny). There's something to see. That's a spectator sport. The men look like men. Basketball players are dressed like very unattractive women or horribly oversized children.

"And they're always falling on the floor, and then Dad comes over and gives them a time out," I say. "It's completely not sexy."

How many corrections on that NYT article about the Florida Gulf Coast vs. Georgetown game?

"An earlier version of this article included several errors."

Georgetown’s record is 25-7, not 25-6. Florida Gulf Coast’s record in the Atlantic Sun was 13-5, not 17-1. Florida Gulf Coast became the seventh No. 15 seed to beat a No. 2 seed, not the sixth. Georgetown has now failed to advance past the Round of 16 in the past six years under Coach John Thompson III, not the past seven. Florida Gulf Coast forward Eddie Murray was incorrectly referred to as Eddie Murphy. Florida Gulf Coast was misidentified in some instances as Gulf Coast College.

"Some instances" must be at least 3, so at least 7 errors. Approximately 1 error per 100 words. That's got to be some kind of record.

Eddie Murray was incorrectly referred to as Eddie Murphy. Man, that's embarrassing.

Rough for Georgetown too. LOL.

Badgers...

... is there hope?

UPDATE: Condolences to all.

"Why is one of the greatest all-time NBA scorers working as a crossing guard?"

"I just do it. I have a routine. I exercise, I go to work, I go home. I have a spring break next week. I have a summer off, just like when I was a basketball player.... I just didn’t want to sit around the house all day."

"College basketball 'brutal to watch,' needs a major overhaul as scoring dips to historic lows."

"There is little running the court, or soaring through the air, or crisscrossing through the lane, all the things that make this such a beautiful game."

"Our game is brutal to watch right now," said Jay Bilas, an analyst for ESPN.... "It’s organized fouling... The referees feel like they can’t call it all, and they don’t call it all. The result is we’re having wrestling matches instead of basketball games. It doesn’t take long, if you’re really watching, to see what’s happening and say, 'Oh my god, this is awful.'

"These games are ridiculous.... the amount of contact that’s allowed — the hand-checking, the arm bars, the dead-on pushing, the body checks on the shooter, the contact after the shot is released. Guys are getting knocked down and it’s not called."

Whenever I try to watch basketball, what I can't stand is the way the game is constantly stopped for fouls. Bilas is saying to stop it more frequently? Is the question whether the players are getting brutalized or whether people don't want to watch anymore? Or is Bilas saying the players getting brutalized is a problem if that's why people aren't watching anymore?

"I know we've got a bunch of mean guys in that locker room that won't quit and are tough and gritty."

"I'll hoop with these guys anywhere in the country. I don't care if it is on blacktop. I don't care if it's snowing. I'll play with any of these guys because they're mean and they want to win. And they know how to win."

"The Lakers have just pooped their big-boy pants..."