1.) Tonight’s Duke/Ohio State game pits two of the most impressive teams I have seen all season. Duke has looked great playing a very tough schedule (Belmont, Michigan State, Michigan, Tennessee, and Kansas). Ohio State has looked great, um, playing Florida? The Buckeyes’ schedule has not been very daunting, but they’ve handled it very well (see: UConn losing to Central Florida as an example of the opposite).

If you read my season preview, you’ll know that I picked both of these teams to reach the Final Four, with the Buckeyes winning it all. Trust me, neither team has done anything to indicate that I was crazy in these predictions.

The matchup to watch tonight doesn’t involve Ohio State’s star Jared Sullinger, or either of Duke’s Plumlee brothers. No, I’ll be watching the best defensive guard in the country, Ohio State’s Aaron Craft, and the most heralded freshman in the nation, Duke’s Austin Rivers. This is where I think the game will be won by Ohio State. Expect Craft to swarm Rivers, who has been susceptible to the turnover early on (and susceptible to bad shots). I think Craft finishes the game with 5 steals. And Ohio State comes away with a 9 point victory. And if you, for whatever reason, can’t get to the game tonight (9:30 pm/ESPN), don’t fret. I think you’ll have a chance to see the rematch in early April. I will not be waiting until April.

2.) I often find myself enraged by inconsequential things. Anyone who knows me well, or sits near me at work, knows this. On Saturday, I gave the finger to a man who honked at a stoplight because the woman in front of me didn’t start moving quickly enough once the light turned green. The man, a taxi driver, made a point to pull up next to me and roll his window down, staring angrily at me at the next stoplight. I didn’t say a word. But I did think to myself, “This guy could just shoot Amanda and me right now.” Of course, the satisfaction I felt was completely outweighed by the danger I put myself and my live-in life partner in. But I know that my irrational anger will never change. It’s part of the fabric that makes me who I am.

Today, I want to give the finger to a number of pundits, both real and wannabe (like me!). This has nothing to do with traffic lights. Instead, it focuses on the BCS National Championship. You’ll recall that a few weeks ago, LSU and Alabama played a tightly contested game in Tuscaloosa that Louisiana State University won 9-6 in overtime.

I enjoyed this game very much. I do not care for the game that Big XII fans call “football,” where teams line up 5 wide receivers and have a quarterback throw to one of them, followed by everyone running to the new line of scrimmage, and repeating. Over and over. For 4 hours. Never once stopping to think, “Hey, maybe we should try to slow the other team down.” That’s not football. I mean, it’s football. But Red Grange rolls over in his grave when he watches Baylor play Oklahoma State.

This coming Saturday, the Big XII’s two best teams will square off in Stillwater, Oklahoma. And if the host Cowboys of Oklahoma State win, the town criers will gather and scream and beg. Their cause? Not wanting to watch a football game.

You see, LSU is undefeated and, barring a highly unlikely blowout loss to Georgia on Saturday, will assuredly find itself in the BCS Championship in January. The other spot is up for grabs. Most people believe it comes down to Alabama (1 loss, to LSU) and Oklahoma State (1 loss, to something called Iowa State).

Not wanting to see a rematch of a game you did not enjoy is not a proper measuring stick for determining the second best team in the country. Schedules are. Alabama wiped a very good Arkansas team off the field (as did LSU). Alabama barely lost to the best college defense I’ve seen in over a decade (LSU). Alabama beat a good Penn State team (B.S. “Before Sandusky) on the road. Alabama beat a then ranked Florida team, rather easily, on the road. Oklahoma State lost to Iowa State, who (with one game to play) find themselves 6-5. They barely beat Texas A&M and nearly lost to Kansas State. They also blew out teams like Kansas, Arizona, and Louisiana-Lafayette (who are a combined 14-22 on the season).

The thing that separates Oklahoma State and Alabama above all else though is this: 27.3 vs. 8.8. Those numbers are the average points allowed by each team’s defense, per game. Guess which one is Alabama.

The town criers will shout too about Oklahoma State’s wonder of an offense. And it is very impressive. They really did a great job of scoring a lot of points this season. They averaged 49.8 points per game. Alabama, of course, must have put up some pretty paltry numbers though, because they only scored 6 points against LSU. Yes, the Crimson Tide only averaged a pedestrian 36 points per game.

A great injustice will be done to the University of Alabama if a group of rogue voters decide on Saturday night (presuming an Oklahoma State win, which I don’t think will happen anyway) that they want to be the directors of programming for ESPN. The right to vote in polls does not include the right to choose what games you want to watch. I’d love to see Houston play LSU. I know that’s unrealistic. I also know that Alabama is better than Houston. In a 1-off game, the Cougars could beat LSU or Alabama. If they played 100 times, though, they’d lose about 99 them. I feel similarly about Oklahoma State’s chances. Especially when you consider that their exact offense is derived from the one that Houston runs. And Houston has the better quarterback.

I’ll be rooting for either of two scenarios when the final BCS standings are released Sunday night: 1.) Oklahoma State would have lost and LSU would have won or 2.) The people who think they get to choose what games they want to see decide to vote the truly deserving team #2 overall and just leave their TVs off on January 9th. There will be plenty of other people watching a real football game that night.