WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR....PREGAME

BITS OF TID

--The key to Rutgers success during the tourney? They left the network at home. The Scarlet Knights are going without cell phones for the entire tourney.

--The Scarlet Knights lead the nation in scoring defense (47.0 ppg); North Carolina leads the nation in scoring offense (84.6 ppg).

--North Carolina and LSU played in last year's semis. Tennessee was here two years ago (losing to Michigan State in the semis) and Rutgers' last visit was in 2000 in Philadelphia.

--The difference between men's and women's basketball? The top two college players in the men's game (there may be some debate), Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, are both freshmen and both expected to go pro in June's NBA draft. The top two college players in the women's game, Tennessee's Paker and LSU's Fowles, are both juniors (ues, . Both will most likely return for their senior seasons and, as Lady Vol coach Pat Summitt explains, with good reason: "I think Candace, right now, is on the biggest stage in women's basketball," says Summitt. "And she understands that."
Besides, in women's hoops, a scholarship year isn't much difference in pay than a WNBA salary.

--ESPN picks for the championship: Doris Burke likes North Carolina while both Stacey Dales and Kara Lawson like Tennessee. I'm still going with the ASU Sun Devils.

GREAT WHITE MOMENT

They probably are not showing the intro of the starting line-ups on TV, but after each starter is mentioned, four giant flames shoot out of these guitars placed around the scoreboard. The temp rises about 20 degrees inside for a moment as the flames shoot at least 15 feet.

With the guitars and the flames and the large crowd in an enclosed space, it's eerily reminiscent of that night in Rhode Island at The Station.

UPDATE: At 15:04 of the first half, Rutgers leads 12-2. The scoreboard here at the Quicken Arena has a feature that I've never seen before. It's an innovation to assist the mathematically challenged. It reads simply "THE DIFF" and right now has "-10". So if you cannot subtract 2 from 12, the folks in Cleveland are happy to do it for you.

My man Matt Waxman, seated to my left, pointed that out to me. Matt wonders, and with good reason, why the minus sign? "It should just be ten," he says. "They're still working the kinks out."