For many of us, Summer means little to our fansmanship. As much as we try to appreciate America’s great past-time, Baseball is too slow and monotonous. We are seeking more than just an old timers’ game; more than five dollar English Leather cologne.

It is supposed to be the fun-time of the year. Many of us get time off of work to visit the world, sit on the beach, party with friends. Most importantly for us bachelors (and non-bachelors if we’re honest) the quadruple B’s are out in full force–blond, bronzed, bikini’d, bodies.

Head out to Avila Beach or Pismo for an hour and you will have plenty of memories by the time you’re done eye-surfing the summatime candy.

But hold on. Just hold up a bit. We don’t want to be creepers now do we? When you took the career job or said I DO, life took a turn for the better. Life was no longer a never-ending scene from Baywatch, and you are no longer David Hasselhoff and his abundantly woodsy chest.

Promiscuity is a bad bad word now, it will cause you to pull a groin or pat on tiger balm morning, mid-day, and night. It is not meant for us mature ones, but for the spry youngsters with a libido the size of Roseanne.

This my friends is no fun, I know. Yesterday I nearly pulled a hamstring on the stationary elliptical. I was trying to both watch ESPN and fake-run at the same time. Sounds easy enough, but nearing thirty, nothing has become easy. The “honey yes, honey of course, honey I will,” sorts of answers, are all that are easy. My life is a tedium glass house, I say no and the world comes crumbling down.

Summatime…

Remember playing ball nine to five on the blacktop with a few friends? It’s seventy five, a clear ardent blue coats the horizon, and the dead day just slumped on your shoulders with not a thing to do. Each one of your pretended for an eight hour period you were MJ, Scottie Pippen, Penny, Shaq, Larry Johnson, Zo, Grant Hill, or Hakeem.

Those were the days. Now, as a tax-paying citizen you’ve grown to resent the group I listed above. As you collect your unemployment from your poor paying teaching gig, your rose colored glasses including your young affair with believing in the impossible have slapped the basement of your life and crumbled into a million little pieces.

Summatime…

Relax, at some point all of us end up washed up. If an epic duo like Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff could never produce anything more than their one-hit album, then trust me, you and I will be forced to scan, fax, make copies, and staple for a living.

But what Summatime foreshadows are feelings of freedom. Despite our limited free time and fading memories of running the black top with skinned knees and soda pop, we all have a place within us that can go there.

Who would of thunk watching men’s professional tennis could excite me like Pam Anderson’s bobbing twins used to? Now as an unemployed man I have the ability to depressingly relive the glory days and bring back the first loves of season: sports, sports, and more sports.

Yes, sports.

Currently, A-Rod is stepping closer and closer to Barry’s all-time home run mark, Tiger is trying to return to form and assume his rightful place as golf’s all-time greatest, and the best living tennis player is still playing at an extremely high level in Roger Federer. Not to mention on Sunday, Jeff Gordon won his 84th NASCAR race, ranking fourth all-time on the list and assuming at forty one, he may go down alongside Richard Petty as the greatest driver in World history.

All this and it’s Summatime. Some things to keep an eye this Summer as you either bum it or find the time in your hectic life to Tivo something. Keep an eye on the Boston Red Sox, who after starting the season 1-9, currrently own the second best record in Baseball and are on pace to be just the ninth team in league history to eclipse 1,000 runs scored in a season.

Watch A-Rod continue his climb to home run greatness, as he sits just thirty four shy of the great Willie Mays mark of 660 at fourth all-time.

The NBA draft on June 23rd is always an intriguing experience. For NBA fans, this not only can shape your future (think Boston in 07′ with the trades of both KG and Ray Ray), but offers a glimpse in the leagues future. This year the popular names are the tweeners, Jimmer Fredette of BYU and Kemba Walker of Uconn, both highly talented but not sure lottery choices as of now.

Normally the draft would be all fun and games. That is if there was not a looming NBA lockout. According to NBA analyst Charles Barkley, the owners are at a “point where they are going to try and break these players unions down.”

Like the NBA’s situation, the NFL lockout has to be the most intriguing situation for sports fans. Most of us wait the two dead  Summer months: June and July, for August when football training camps report and news regarding trades begin to swirl. As of now, both sides remain at a stall and the idea of living without football for many not only kills their Summer, but does away with Sunday beer drinking hoots around the tube. Now Church is the only sad option.

June gloom is definitely upon us. A marshmallow cloud bank over the Pacific does it justice. Not only are we concerned about our lack of freedoms living as grown adults but we also may have to live without two of our favorites next year. In order to keep the faith, now would be a good time watch Baywatch re-runs or finally take up those dance lessons.

The dream hunk–dressed to the hilt, finely parted black hair, baritone voice of thunder, humbly admits to his misfortunate situation. Goes door to door seeking the owner of the sparkling slipper, only to be administering it to lying, cheating, ugly step sisters, with about as much of a soul as a worn out Wal Mart loafer.

The right fit, is the wrong fit. A girl from the other side of the tracks has no baring of love on a man of his stature, wealth. She is a surf working with the pigs, stitching with the rotund rats, and quietly going about her life with a solve of a mother Theresa.

But she’s got one hell of a game. Her dance moves were supreme. Eyes made of crystalline marbles emanated beauty. Hair mimicked the golden threads of Heaven. Forget the ugly-by-nature bull Heineken. Girl is made for this.

Victory, abnormal.

There are only so many of these types in today’s NBA. A league where the shoe never fits, and the ugly step sister with a bad case of me-first-gimme-gimmes, rises to the upper echelon of star power.

Which is exactly why Uconn’s guard Kemba Walker will not only be a top fifteen draft pick in this years draft, but ultimately, hoist enough jumpers to shine at the pro level.

According to yahoo sports, Junior Husky Kemba Walker, will announce he is entering the 2011 NBA draft.  A season in which the guard averaged 24pts, and led his team to both the Big East title, and the National Championship, Walker is assumed ready for the NBA.

And he is. Why?

He can’t shoot.

Can’t defend.

And hates to give up the basketball.

I don’t mean to be Mr. Negativo. Because in actuality I am not. I am saying the guy seems fit to have a solid NBA career. A league where players like Brandon Jennings can toss up double- teamed- jump- shots at a higher rate than a college team combined, satiates the hunger from this  breed of NBA players.

Kemba is no princess. No, dude is an ugly step sister forcing that fat foot into a slipper of success.

What has been spit out the other side? Only the greatest sum of seeds to reach the Final Four. Ever. Before this year, the highest total sum of overall seeds to reach the Final Four was 22 (2000). This season the total is a miraculous and unprecedented 26.

The highest seed remaining in this year’s Final Four are the star-fueled Connecticut Huskies. Kemba Walker is unquestionably the one name still residing that singularly holds the most on his shoulders. His average of 26.8 points, 6.8 assists and only 2.5 turnovers per game in the tournament have been beyond instrumental in Connecticut advancing to its fourth Final Four since 1999 and its third in the past eight seasons.

The Huskies face off against the Kentucky Wildcats in one of the two national semi-final contests. These two teams have a combined total seed of seven. This would conventionally be somewhat of a laughable and unpredicted national semi-final in any other year.

The other semi-final then couldn’t have a total seed of more than three or four right? Try 19. Nineteen.

Considering this, the Connecticut versus Kentucky battle matches the two new favorites to win it all, and could very well be the de-facto national final. Then again, the unpredictable has been the outstanding theme in this year’s tournament, which will make what will be the ‘David versus Goliath’ national final all that much more intriguing.

Last year’s Cinderella, the Butler Bulldogs, return to the now charted waters of the Final Four, yet still are sporting an unlikely 8-seed. They are ironically matched up against this year’s Cinderella, the 11th-seeded VCU Rams.

The only other two occasions an 11th-seeded team reached the Final Four were in 2006, when George Mason University pulled off the feat, and in 1986 when the LSU Tigers achieved the improbable. The fact that this 11-seed anomaly has now occurred twice in the past five years, when it has only happened once before in past decades, speaks to the overall parody being seen in today’s college game.

When asked before their game versus Kansas on Sunday, VCU coach Shaka Smart remarked, “It’s kind of like the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber,”’ setting up a popular line from the gap-toothed dunce played by Jim Carrey. “‘So you’re saying we’ve got a chance?”’

The two most recent 11th-seeded schools to reach the Final Four both hail from the unheralded Colonial Athletic Association. And just as George Mason toppled championship favorite Connecticut to reach the Final Four in 2006, VCU knocked off the last 1-seed standing this season, Kansas.

What may be most unfathomable about VCU reaching the Final Four, is that all the pundits made the selection committee their own personal dartboard on Selection Sunday when VCU was chosen to the field of 68. They spewed ad nauseam over this injustice. For all the shots Eugene Smith, the head of the selection committee took, he must be smiling and snickering now.

Go ahead and eat your crow ‘Dukie-V’ and Jay Bilas. I’m standing table-side with a long, white napkin folded over my forearm, holding a bottle of hot sauce in front of your faces. The ‘yapping catch-phrase clown’ and the ‘smug know-it-all’ ended up with mouths full of excrement in the end, which also puts a smile on my face and leads me to snicker, as well as it should everyone else paying attention.

Shots conceived in hindsight aside, what is ultimately taken from all of this? Talent and the number of ‘recruiting stars’ only goes so far. The team concept: a belief in a system as well as an overall process, now reigns. Take notes coaches and scouts.  Why pursue the hype of the ‘one-and-done’ NBA lottery pick when you can recruit solid pieces that will grow over years in your hardwood garden.

I think it’s safe to say that standard deviation in college basketball is now being tested, which is an exciting occurrence. What has been discovered is that college basketball offers something unique from what the professional game presents. The underdog can actually win in this post-season.  Regularly. Basketball purists should revel in this current status of the amateur circuit.

Despite what unfolds from the madness, one March keynote seems to annually endure – regardless of seed or stature, champions who have earned their place will always remain and will ultimately have their shot to win it all.

In the first game of the night, the 3rd-seeded University of Connecticut Huskies took on the 2nd-seeded San Diego State Aztecs. As the lesser-seeded, and yet more experienced Huskies built an early lead into the second half, the Aztecs then came around and benefitted from having a home crowd. The present tide of the fansmanship willed them back into the game. The Aztecs had their late run, but in the end, the star-power shined too bright for San Diego State to remove themselves from its shadow.

Husky guard Kemba Walker finished the contest with 36 points – 22 of which came in the second half. Down the stretch, he was the Connecticut offense. Walker is the consummate college guard, a 6′ 1″, 180 lb flash of a scorer. All of his collegiate accolades aside, one has to believe a star like Walker has aspirations for the next level. When considering this, the first thing that comes to mind is that NBA point guards need handles, and Derrick Rose, Walker is not. They need to recognize something outside themselves, and it is imperative that they be ‘world-class’ at distributing the ball to others in optimum scoring situations. Walker may lack somewhat in this regard. He can come off screens and shoot with the best of them in the college game, but at his size and overall skill-set, he is realistically no more than a poor-man’s Jimmer Fredette.

This pro-level judgment shouldn’t be the encompassing and long-term opinion of Walker, as the skills of game management and getting everyone on your team involved can ultimately be developed at the next level. Kemba is a talent that can come into his own if given the space and patience to fit into a pro system and find his niche. Regardless of the future, Walker showed he can put a team on his back and carry them to the next playoff checkpoint. We’ll see on Saturday if the checkpoint after that can be achieved.

In the second game of the night, the “whole enchilada from La Mirada,” and the biggest single force remaining in the NCAA tournament, Arizona’s Derrick Williams, showed why he is projected as a top 5 NBA draft pick. Standing 6′ 8″ and weighing 241 pounds, he literally does everything a true forward is expected to do, and does it exceptionally well for a 19-year-old. He has the rebounding hustle of Charles Barkley in his prime. He can finish around the rim with the tip-in-dunk-skills of Blake Griffin. He can hit the 20-foot jumper consistently like David West. He can step outside the 3-point line like Dirk Nowitzki. He can take you off the dribble freakishly for his size like Michael Beasley. NBA general managers who are looking to have a high lottery draft-slot should be drooling over this kid.

On Thursday night versus Duke in the Sweet 16, Williams drained a 40-foot 3-pointer with two hands in his face and legs walking under him from Duke’s 6′ 11″ Ryan Kelly as time was expiring in the first half. This shot brought the Wildcats to within six of Duke, and I believe was essential in creating the second half avalanche Arizona put on the Blue Devils en route to victory. Williams basically carried his team in the second half, finishing with a career-high 32 points, as well as pulling down 13 rebounds. He showed off a display or rim attacking, acrobatic “and-1’s,” as well as cross-over dribbles that morphed into pull-up jumpers on the perimeter. The way this young man can finish around the rim, with either hand, while he negotiates contact, is more that just simply remarkable. He is the All-American forward that can do it all.

The end-result of all that Thursday’s excitement had to offer pits Kemba Walker’s Connecticut Huskies against Derrick Willaims’ Arizona Wildcats in the elite 8, the final game of this year’s NCAA West bracket. Williams’ high school is ten minutes away from where the game will be held. One thing is for sure, the crowd will be pro-Wildcat and pro-Pac-10. Will that be enough to spring a 5-seed upset over the 3-seed?

A Final Four bid is on the line. The star versus star match-up tips off at 4:05pm for us here on the West coast. The impending rain should more than keep you indoors and glued to the TV. You won’t want to miss it, because star-power will win the day again and it won’t disappoint.