C.J. Mahaney and Sam Storms argue over the best college basketball player of all time. Theological implications aside, what about Wilt Chamberlain?

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Asher is a tough cookie, built like Sherron Collins, but he has a compassionate side as well. He donned this outfit when the smoking wreckage of Missouri's basketball season was finally extinguished by the Big 12 Tournament, as a kind of sympathetic gesture. And then he went right to work mucking out his diaper pail, which was his chore for the afternoon.

Apparel donated snidely by R. Sherman.

And sincerely, we really are sorry for the way MU's season ended. Very, very sorry. Let's observe a moment of silence for the Tigers...

[ ]

And now, popcorn.

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Ariel (AJ) Vanderhorst is a married twenty-something living in Kansas City while finishing a Masters degree. He enjoys playing hoops and hitting on his wife and wishes he could write like C.S. Lewis.

He would also like to drop the third person voice now, if you don’t mind.

I created this site in 5 minutes in a public library a few years ago, when a friend emailed me a link to his new blog and I decided all the cool kids were doing it. Once I’d created BitterSweetLife, a new question confronted me: Now what?

The answer: Improvise.

And that’s why you can hit up this blog whenever you’re in the mood for NCAA hoops talk, cultural (A&E) buzz, photos, book reviews, personal anecdotes, and (making it possible), coffee news—all mashed together. Eclecticism has become a way of life.

Admittedly, I’ve made it up as I’ve gone along, but this blog has helped me meet some great people, hone my writing abilities, and promote my advertising copywriting business. It’s been a fun ride and the wheels are still rolling.

[My thoughts can also be found at arieljvan.com, where I blog--with more focus--about theology and church planting.]

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Aidan has started running around laughing and hitting people--that would be me and Lindsay--on the butt and saying "I did a 'pank!"

Clearly a case of Terrible Twoness, right? Wrong. If only it were that simple.

You see, Aidan's been following the NCAA hoops action pretty closely, including the huddles and sideline conversations with the prerequisite butt slapping, and this makes these incidents very ethically murky. Is Aidan defying us, or just emulating the Basketball Big Boys?

My mind-reading abilities only extend to very witty repartee that Aidan communicates to me telepathically to be passed on to his mother, so I really can't tell what's going on in his little noggin. Clearly, this is a crisis. A crisis brought on by the advent of March Madness. So an unavoidable one.

But still, we're so perplexed that we've taken to flipping a coin after every 'pank and acting according to the wisdom of the dime. Heads, we let Aidan's escapade go as part of the basketball lifestyle. Tails, we spank his. Seems to be working fine so far, although flipping that coin five or six times a minute really breaks up our day.

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Fifth entry from the top.

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Read the Shocking Expose

This would be the equivalent to March Madness tabloid news--if it wasn't substantiated with solid fact! University Daily Kansan writer Asher Fusco points out that a number of teams around the country and in the Big 12 are seriously lacking in experience. And proves that it doesn't matter.

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Add C.J. Mahaney to the short list of men who understand the relationship between holiness and hoops: The Madness Finally Arrives. It doesn't hurt that Mahaney looks slightly like ex-KU player Jeff Boschee.

More seriously: I've heard C.J. Mahaney talk, read his writing, and very much appreciate his wisdom, humor, and stubborn, persistent focus on Jesus Christ.

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I just read an interview with Eugene Peterson (thanks to Jared Wilson) that reminds me why Peterson is one of my favorite contemporary voices. He talks about "spirituality" and the American church, and I found a slice that is pertinent to a lot of recent discussion and some of the buzz that surrounded Pagan Christianity? Check it:

[interviewer:] Since the Reformation, though, we've championed the idea that the church can be reformed.

[Peterson:] Hasn't happened. I'm for always reforming, but to think that we can get a church that's reformed is just silliness.

I think the besetting sin of pastors, maybe especially evangelical pastors, is impatience. We have a goal. We have a mission. We're going to save the world. We're going to evangelize everybody, and we're going to do all this good stuff and fill our churches. This is wonderful. All the goals are right. But this is slow, slow work, this soul work, this bringing people into a life of obedience and love and joy before God.

And we get impatient and start taking shortcuts and use any means available. We talk about benefits. We manipulate people. We bully them. We use language that is just incredibly impersonal -- bullying language, manipulative language.

Read the whole thing.

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A week or so ago, a couple people mentioned the idea of a "book club" for this blog. How would that work? I'm not exactly sure. Basic idea: Anyone interested grabs a copy of the slated book, we start reading at approx. the same time, and commit to x number of interlinked posts about it on our respective blogs? Or: I could open a discussion thread here, on a given book, where readers could leave their opinions in the comments? Either would be fine with me...let me know if you have a better idea.

Probably the more basic question is whether there are enough interested people to sustain a good discussion. So maybe I can test the waters here by floating a few books with club potential (friendly, dress well, good sense of rhythm...). If any of these titles catch your eye, or you'd be willing to talk about a book I don't mention, speak up.

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Animated by rapidly rising levels of March adrenalin, I can't help but post my picks for the Big 12 Basketball Tournament (start tomorrow). Anyone who wants to print off a bracket for refrigerator use can find one here.

First Round (Thursday)
OKLAHOMA STATE beats Texas Tech
BAYLOR beats Colorado
NEBRASKA beats Missouri
TEXAS A&M beats Iowa State

Second Round (Friday)
OKLAHOMA STATE beats Texas (just when the 'Horns are thinking they own OK-State, they'll get drygulched--ok, maybe wishful thinking, but the Cowboys played UT tight last time )
BAYLOR beats Oklahoma (there's really not much separating these two teams)
KANSAS beats Nebraska
TEXAS A&M beats Kansas State (A&M needs a win to cement their NCAA position)

Semifinals (Saturday)
BAYLOR beats Oklahoma State (if Baylor combines three-point shooting with a strong game from Kevin Rogers, they have the firepower to advance to the final)
KANSAS beats Texas A&M (visualize a repeat of the game at A&M, but with a wider margin of victory)

Final (Sunday)
KANSAS beats Baylor (but it'll stay close for most of the first half)

Clearly, I'm going out on a limb here by keeping Texas out of the final. I'm putting it all on the line. So what are your picks? Leave them in the comments if you want to play...

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