I'm not sure which of my five brackets on ESPN.com's tournament challenge is my "real" one. I know it's not the one where I chose winners based on whose mascot would win in a fight (that's how I got the improbable Iowa State-Montana final). I suppose it'll be whichever one is doing the best right now.

There's actually little variance between three of them, separated by 20 points. I didn't pick too many of the upsets, mostly mild ones. I think UW-Milwaukee was the one I picked most consistently, while UAB got a nod at least once. I think the only place I got Vermont was the same place I got Bucknell, the aforementioned mascot bracket.

Speaking of mascots, the second intermission of tonight's BU-UNH Hockey East semifinal featured the mascots of the four semifinal teams in a hockey game against the five mascots of the non-semifinal teams. The non-semifinal team won 2-0. Some observations:

* The UMass minuteman has an unnatural grey pallor to his skin. It's like he's got an airway obstruction or some sort of constrictive lung ailment.

* The Merrimack warrior had a skin tone very similar to his helmet and uniform. I'm assuming he's a Roman legionary stationed in Judea or something. Added entertainment value here as the logo used to represent Merrimack on the video screens was their old one, the Native American rather than the generic ancient guy.

* The Providence friar was wearing a white robe. We figure he's actually come out of the closet (or perhaps shrub) as a Druid.

* The UMass-Lowell river hawk is actually more like a man-bird superhero. It has no wings, a cape, and a very tight-fitting costume.

Everyone else's mascot looked pretty normal, except that Northeastern's husky looks a little horse-like to me in the face.

Anyway, this was the most entertaining part of the game, as BU went down 5-2 to UNH. It was a 40 minute system failure for BU, who garnered all of three shots in the first period (somehow only going down 1-0), and not reaching the 10 shot plateau until there was just over a minute left in the second period. Nothing was working on any end of the ice, and our atrocious penalty killing (7th of 9 in Hockey East) was in full force.

Not sure it'll change too much in regards to the NCAAs, as long as other tournaments hold to form. But I assume we'll be playing in our road scarlet uniforms rather than home white. That may not be a bad thing, as long as they aren't the accursed third jerseys.

Rounding out my sports viewing of late was the opening hour or so of the steroids hearing yesterday. It made for thrilling TV, as the ranking members of the committee and subcommittee made pretty much the same speech four times. The committee chair did make some passing reference to not looking forward to nosebleed seats in the coming few years, which gave a sliver of credence to Tony Kornheiser's theory that the chairman called the hearing in retaliation for MLB not putting the Expos in northern Virginia, which includes the chair's district.

I got through about half of Jim Bunning's testimony before changing the channel. I flipped back a couple of times, but only for a few minutes before returning to sanity and turning back to basketball. I didn't see any of the "star" testimony, but I don't think I missed all that much. Besides, if Bonds wasn't there to blow up at various elected officials, the hearing was never going to be that much fun, anyway.