• Whether or not UCLA's men's basketball team wins its 12th national championship this year, it has a strong, extra incentive for doing so. The next UCLA team in any sport, men's or women's, to win a championship will bring the school a record 100th NCAA title. And since the men's basketball team has long been thought of as UCLA's marquee sport, even though the men's volleyball team has more championships (19), the Bruins figure cutting down the nets in Atlanta on April 2 would be the perfect ending. They lost in the final last year to Florida and have been rather erratic since spending six weeks earlier this season ranked No. 1. Still, Coach Ben Howland is a preparation fanatic, watching 15 to 20 hours of video a week, and should have UCLA schooled on what to expect against any opponent, including the University of Pittsburgh, which is next up.

• I've come to the conclusion that the hardest pass to make in basketball is from out of bounds, along the sideline, after a timeout. The defenders all have an opportunity to strategically position themselves, the passer has little room to operate and is often confronted with a long-armed defender, and there are precious seconds in which to inbound the ball.

• CBS lead basketball analyst Billy Packer has become an institution of the men's college game. He's scheduled to work the Final Four for the 25th straight year, but I'd argue that it's time for a change. Not that Packer does a poor job, because he doesn't. He knows the game backwards and forwards, makes his points clearly and succinctly, and works well with play-by-play man Jim Nantz. Still, I'm ready for a change, and would be happy to see Len Elmore, another regular tournament analyst, get the nod this year, just for his different insights.

• And speaking of basketball analysts, I'd rank ESPN's Doris Burke among the best in the business. She's very versatile, too, and does well as a commentator, sideline interviewer, or studio analyst, working both men's and women's games.

• At this point in the development of women's college basketball, a 64-team tournament may be a stretch in terms of across-the-board quality. Nine first-round games were decided by 30 or more points, including one by 57 points and another by 49.

• For all us underdog rooters, there hasn't been enough madness this March. The lowest-seeded team still alive is UNLV, but my heart's with the Butler Bulldogs. And if not them, let it be Southern Illinois or Vanderbilt.

• I realize that organizers of the women's NCAA tournament would like their event to stand apart from the men's as much as possible, but playing games on Monday and Tuesday nights before reaching the Final Four doesn't seem like a formula for success.

• Wouldn't it be something if Florida and Ohio State met for the national championship, just as they did in football Jan. 8 in the BCS Championship Game? It could happen. In case you forgot, underdog Florida crushed the Buckeyes in Arizona, 41-14.

• Give All-America freshman Kevin Durant credit for trying to help the University of Texas win a first-ever basketball championship, even if the Longhorns bit the dust against Southern Cal in the second round. After all, in playing his high school ball in Suitland, Md., he was right under the noses of all those powerful ACC teams that have won national championships in recent years – Duke, Maryland, and North Carolina. Durant appears a cinch to turn pro, since he's a coveted pro prospect, but who knows, maybe he'll surprise all the experts again.

• Since basketball uses a shot clock, shouldn't the men's game also have an official timekeeper to determine if a team gets the ball over mid-court in the allotted 10 seconds? Referees have plenty else to watch for. They shouldn't be burdened with counting the seconds. Somebody at the scorer's table, with a clock of some kind, should be able to handle this duty.

• Among the 48 games played in the first two rounds of the men's tournament, four went to overtime, including one to double overtime, yet none was decided by just a single point.

• I confess to being confused in watching Texas A&M-CC play in the men's NCAA basketball tournament. What were those CC initials for? Surely not "Community College." I'd never heard of Texas A&M at Corpus Christi. Some of these branch campuses are beginning to feel their oats in basketball, and I suspect that a satellite campus will end up in the Final Four before too long.

• Some excitable college basketball coaches are bad about standing on the court while the game is in progress. Shouldn't they be warned, then given a technical foul if they persist?

• If the University of North Carolina men's basketball team wins the NCAA championship, which is a very real possibility, it would be significant for two reasons. First, it seems a certainty that no other team would have ever won two championships in the space of three years with no carryover starters. And second, Roy Williams would become only the third head coach in history to win twice at his alma mater. The only coaches who've ever done that were Indiana's Branch McCracken in 1940 and 1953 and Cincinnati's Ed Jucker in 1961 and 1962.

• I'd like to know when and how basketball free-throw shooters got into the habit of hand-tapping with their teammates in the lane after the first of two foul shots. It seems to defy the conventional wisdom that would say shooters should maintain their focus on the basket. As for another oft-seen habit, that in which players wipe the soles of their sneakers with their hands, well, I think we can attribute that routine to Larry Bird.

• From watching NCAA basketball tournament action, it's safe to conclude that the three-point shot and shot clock have done more to enhance fan enjoyment than any other two rule changes – in any sport. In combination, the rules keep the door open for teams to quickly erase what once were insurmountable late-game deficits.

Lanky seven-footer Dikembe Mutombo of the Houston Rockets never looked taller than when he stood up in the V.I.P. gallery during the recent State of the Union address. After being introduced by President Bush for his philanthropic efforts, Mutombo rose to receive a standing ovation next to first lady Laura Bush and Dr. Nancy Ho, a VIP guest and research scientist. At 7 ft. 2 in. tall, he towered above these women as he graciously acknowledged the crowd.

Mutombo has spent nearly 20 years playing basketball in America, first at Georgetown University, where he attended on a USAID scholarship to become a doctor, and later in the NBA. Although a US citizen today, he also has remained true to his native Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he's building the central African nation's first new hospital in 40 years.  Seeing Mutombo, the NBA's elder statesman, reminded me of a couple of other African centers, now retired, who've led interesting lives after basketball.

Hakeem Olajuwon of Nigeria and Manute Bol of Sudan came to the US at nearly the same time, in the early 1980s, but from the beginning Mr. Olajuwon flashed far more promise as a complete player. He led the University of Houston's famous "Phi Slamma Jamma" team to the 1983 national championship game, where they lost on a flukish rebound/basket to North Carolina State.

As a professional who played all but 61 games of an 18-year career with the Houston Rockets, "Hakeem the Dream" developed into the NBA's Most Valuable Player in 1994 while leading the team to back-to-back titles in 1994 and 1995. During the 1993-94 season, he became the only player in NBA history to be named MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and MVP of the NBA Finals. Since retiring in 2002, Olajuwon has developed the midas touch, buying and selling commercial real estate in Houston. A devout Muslim, he maintains homes in both Houston and Amman, Jordan, and has a daughter who plays basketball for the University of Oklahoma.

Mr. Bol, who played collegiately at the University of Bridgeport, became a journeyman pro known for two things: being one of the tallest (and thinnest) NBA players in history at 7 ft. 7 in., and for blocking shots. He was too spindly to be much of an offensive threat, but his arms, which seem to stretch into tomorrow, helped him set a league record for most blocked shots per minute (.176).

Bol has reportedly given $3.5 million to Sudanese refugees, and made many visits to their camps.  Once Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman had to intervene on his behalf to gain his return to the US from the Sudanese government, which frowns upon his support of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, an opposition group seeking democratic reforms. Sadly, Bol has struggled personally in various ways, including physically recovering from car crash in which the driver of the cab he was riding in was killed in Connecticut, his adopted state. To some degree, he's subjected himself to certain athletic indignities in order to fund his causes, including publicity-stunt appearances as a horse jockey and minor-league hockey player.

The journeys of these three Africans since coming to America and the NBA have been, in some ways, a study in contrasts. What binds them together, at least in the hoops world, is their shot-blocking. Earlier this month Mutombo, a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, moved ahead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the league's second most prolific shot-swatter, behind only Olajuwon.

Touching other bases

Whenever the media hordes descend on the Super Bowl, you're guaranteed to get some pretty loopy questions. Sports Illustrated's website, SI.com, has teed up a list of its 20 most inane questions asked by reporters during Super Bowl week. Here are two of my personal favorites:

Question to Denver quarterback John Elway at Super Bowl XXXIII: "Are you going to be listening to Stevie Wonder's performance at halftime?"

Question to St. Louis defensive lineman Jay Williams at Super Bowl XXXIV: "Is Ram a noun or a verb?"

• I imagine the Bears will soon be rewarding Coach Lovie Smith handsomely for guiding Chicago to the Super Bowl, but in the meantime, wouldn't you think the Bears would be embarrassed about his lowest-in-the-league salary? Well, they aren't, and club president Ted Phillips gives a reasonably sound explanation of why not. When they signed Smith four years ago, he received a market-value contract for coaches who had never before been NFL head coaches. "He received a fair deal and he'll receive a fair deal again," Phillips said. Smith's current contract, by the way, is for $1.35 million a year.

• Serena Williams amazes me, not just by winning the Australian Open as an unseeded player rebounding from inactivity in 2006, when she played only four tournaments, but by how she plays without letting large earrings distract her. I'd think they'd drive her nuts. Williams was probably just happy to get back on the court, and out of the Florida courtroom, where she spent weeks late last year defending herself in a lawsuit brought by a disgruntled promoter. The suit accused her and sister, Venus, of backing out of a 2001 "Battle of the Sexes" match supposedly arranged by their father. The sisters said their dad was not their manager and didn't represent them. The judge found Mr. Williams of fraudulently representing himself in the deal and the sisters of negligence, but no damages were levied. Serena, it should be noted, gave no indications at a pre-Open event in Tasmania that she was anywhere near championship form. She lost to Austrian Sybille Bammer, but the loss rekindled her motivation and caused her to shift her training into high gear.

• I think it's fair to say that Roger Federer is tennis's answer to Tiger Woods. As Woods was extending his PGA Tour winning streak to seven straight tournaments with his victory at the Buick Invitational, Federer was racing through the Australian Open without losing a single set. The last man to do that at a Grand Slam tournament was Bjorn Borg at the 1980 French Open.

• There must be a story behind how Brian Urlacher, the all-world linebacker of the Chicago Bears, wound up playing college ball at the University of New Mexico, a decidedly off-beat choice. And it wasn't simply that Urlacher blossomed in the pros, since he was a first-team college All-America selection his senior year. To see the powerfully built middle linebacker today (6' 4", 258 lbs.), it's hard to imagine that among his playing assignments with the Lobos, Urlacher played wide receiver and returned kickoffs and punts.

• If you can name last season's National League batting champion, you qualify either as a baseball know-it-all or a serious fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, or possibly both. Freddy Sanchez began the 2006 season as a utility infielder but ended it as a fixture in the Pittsburgh lineup in only his second full big-league season, in which he hit a league-leading .344. Now if the Pirates can only overachieve as much as Sanchez. Pittsburgh has had 14 straight losing seasons, just two shy of the major-league record.

• Brown University's women's hockey coach may have the perfect name for the digital age: Digit Murphy. She also happens to be quite a team builder. Earlier this season, she recorded her 293rd career victory, moving her ahead of Yale's John Marchetti as the all-time NCAA wins leader among Division I women's hockey coaches. Murphy has taken four Brown teams to the national championships and produced players for the Olympic teams of the US, Canada, and Japan.

• George Halas, the player-coach-owner of the original Chicago Bears, played 12 games with the New York Yankees in 1919. A year later, Babe Ruth was the Yankee rightfielder.

• By the way, Virgina McCaskey, Halas's daughter, accepted the George Halas Trophy when the Bears won this season's NFC championship game, and she will be in Miami Sunday for the Super Bowl just as she was in 1932, when she saw Chicago win the precursor of the NFL Championship Game, played indoors at Chicago Stadium due to extremely cold weather. This season she only missed one game, in Minnesota, to attend her grandson's confirmation. "I wanted to make sure that Conner understood that confirmation was more important than a football game," she said.

• One of the last of the great NHL goalies to play virtually all of his career without a mask died the other day in Beloeil, Quebec. Gump Worsley, who got his nickname from the cartoon character Andy Gump, once said that the only worse job in sports than patrolling the pipes was "being the javelin catcher on a track team."

• Do you realize it's been 35 years since freshman football and basketball players first became eligible to play on varsity teams? Before that, they had to spend a year on freshman squads.

• Did you know that before Joe DiMaggio ever recorded his 56-game hitting streak with the Yankees he hit safely in 61 straight games as a minor-league rookie playing for the San Francisco Seals in 1933?

• I did a double take when I saw that the Miami Dolphins hired Cam Cameron as their new head coach. Could this be the same Cam Cameron who spent five years guiding Indiana University's lackluster football program from 1997 to 2001? Yes, that's the guy. Since leaving the latter job, Cameron has gone on to make a name for himself as the San Diego Chargers' offensive coordinator.

• American figure skating officials made an inspired decision in rewarding this year's national championships to Spokane, Wash., where record-setting crowds turned out a year after the Olympics, normally an off year for public interest. Kimmie Meissner, the reigning world champion, managed to fill in her resume by winning her first US crown, but it was far from her best effort.

• Here's a little-known fact: More pro football games have been played in Chicago's Wrigley Field than in any other American stadium, this according to www.stadiumsofnfl.com. The Bears moved there in 1921 from Decatur, Ill., and continued to play in the baseball park for almost five decades before taking up residence at Soldier Field.

Readers hardly accept every word inscribed in this space as the sports gospel, so their comments are always welcome, especially ones as insightful as those from Helen Wheelock of Woodside, N.Y. Helen wrote in about a "We're Just Fans" blog that carried the headline "WNBA reaches double digits, but where are the women coaches?"

Ms. Wheelock calls herself a fan of and writer about women's basketball. As such, she applauded the coverage of the women's game, which she contributes greatly to by maintaining Women's Basketball Online ("the most comprehensive women's basketball site on the net").

Still, she wished I'd dug deeper into why only three of this season's 14 WNBA head coaches are women. She said that I'd touched on a "very complicated and rich issue." I invited her to elaborate, and here's her response:

In 1997, seven of the eight teams participating in the WNBA's inaugural season had women head coaches, and all of the coaches were drawn from the women's college basketball coaching ranks. But you didn't have the elite of the elite – the Pat Summitts, Marsha Sharps, or Jody Conradts – applying for jobs. No surprise, really. Why on earth would they leave the security and stability of their successful fiefdoms for the uncertainty of a pro league?

Even a decade later that question lingers. And as the merry-go-round that is the WNBA head coach position (for both men and women) continues, it is a reflection of the new frontier that is coaching women's professional basketball.

Elite college coaches can get a hefty, long-term contract with snazzy perks (Kristy Curry, formerly of Purdue, will earn a base salary of $425,000 as Sharp's successor at Texas Tech). The budget-conscious WNBA can't come close to matching that. While winning is important to a school, the concept of "building a program for the future" is understood. Like its brother organization, the NBA, there's little patience for that in the WNBA.

College teams travel across the country in first-class seats, while coaches have all but year-round access to their athletes. In the WNBA, it's economy class all the way, and a coach is lucky to see all his or her players for the entire two-week preseason camps. The WNBA squeezes 34 games into three months, while the college coach guides teams though a 30-game regular seaon spread over five months. Conference championships and the NCAA provide opportunities for success, as opposed to the WNBA, where the 14-team league can make every game a "must win" situtation.

A college team might survive a player's injury, but at the pro level, an injury can have seismic implications. Equally unsettling, a pro coach can find her once-promising lineup decimated because a player decides to stay in Europe to earn more money.

Add in all the differences between coaching the college athlete vs. the pro athlete and it becomes clearer why, even though opportunities exist for female coaches in the WNBA, those most suited to the job might be reluctant to step forward.

That being said, the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport did give the WNBA top marks in its annual racial and gender diversity report card. Equally significant? The 14 female WNBA assistant coaches who are displaying a commitment to working at the pro level.

The pool of professional female coaches is expanding – too slowly for many tastes – but, as they say, good things come to those who wait. The WNBA doesn't yet have the money or status of the NBA. But, to be fair, the NBA has a 40-year head start.

– Helen Wheelock

Helen Wheelock's website can be found at http://womensbasketballonline.com.