The University of Connecticut’s athletics department decided that it was time for a change when it came to the school’s worn out sports logo that had been in use since the Paleolithic Era known as 2002. And new logos are always great news, because they mean new merchandise and more money, as us sucker fans just slap the plastic down on the counter and shout, “GIVE ME NEW SH*T, A-HOLES!” at the local bookstore so we can look cool beans when the new season begins.

As for UCONN’s new look, it’s that mean-looking husky above, with that look that says, “Hey, take our sports seriously or else!” Don’t take my word for it, either. Listen to UCONN’s Big Daddy Swagger himself, Geno Auriemma, who is hot off of winning his 8th NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.

Head women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma says he is eager to see the new look on his student-athletes.

“This logo is everything that a Husky is supposed to be – powerful, aggressive, determined,” he says. “It is looking right through you and saying ‘Do not mess with me.’ This is a streamlined, fighting dog, and I cannot wait for it to be on our uniforms and court.” (Via UCONN Today)

Adding, “It has zip, zorp and zazz!”

But while looking at the evolution of UCONN’s logo, I couldn’t help but notice something very interesting.

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Diana Inch is a 44-year old high school librarian and girls soccer coach in Oregon. She is also the only person out of 3 million entrants in the Yahoo! Tourney Pick ‘Em to correctly predict the Final Four teams. She also correctly predicted Connecticut and Butler in the Championship game, and sure enough she had the Huskies winning the title. So how did this seemingly extraordinary sports genius make her predictions? By using her favorite numbers and picking dogs and cats, of course.

Inch’s formula included her favorite numbers and team mascots. She titled her entry Di’s 711 XV Cats & Dogs. In the first round she picked the No. 7 and 11 seeds in almost every round. In ensuing rounds she picked according to team mascots, leaning to those with cats or dogs.

“I have watched the games on my computer,” Inch said. “I’m as surprised as anyone that I got the Final Four.” (Via the Albany Democrat-Herald)

Why are you surprised, Diana? This is how it always happens. You should try fantasy football next year and draft your team based on which player has the cutest ass.

Unfortunately for Diana, though, her luck has brought her no instant wealth, and just some bragging rights. Even before UConn won the (incredibly boring) championship game last night, Diana was in 781st place in the Yahoo! competition, 13 wins behind the first place entrant, so she won’t see any of the $5,000 top prize. But with that cushy high school librarian/soccer coach salary, she hardly needs it.

Oh wait, that’s a reference to The Wizard Of Oz and not Cinderella. But since 8-seed Butler is still in the tournament, I feel like we need a new theme. The “brick” analogy might be appropos, as VCU went cold from their field before falling to the Bulldogs, 70-62.

Virginia Commonwealth, one of the last teams awarded an at-large berth in this year’s NCAA tournament, came up just short of an unprecedented national title game appearance. The 12-seed Rams lost to Butler in the national semifinal Saturday, ending one of the more surprising runs in recent tournament history.

“Some of our shots didn’t fall. Open shots, shots we’d been making,” [point guard Joey] Rodriguez said. “I think if you go back and look at the tape, you’ll see some of them were in and outs. Almost felt like it wasn’t supposed to happen or something.”

–Y! Sports.

VCU would have been the first school to emerge from a play-in game to the national title; while Butler, the Indianapolis school with an enrollment of less than 4,000, finds itself back in the national title game after losing its best player from last year.

Butler will face UConn in the championship; the Huskies ran the table in the Big East tournament to secure an automatic bid in the field of 68. UConn held to Kentucky to 33 percent shooting but only edged out a 56-55 win.

Oh, and I guess Maya Moore is out of the women’s tournament, whoever that is.

"Let's name jspearlman the ambassador to Libya."

ESPN reported last night that just two of the 5.9 million submitted Tournament Challenge brackets predicted the Final Four correctly. That’s roughly two more than I would have ever imagined picking Butler and Virginia Commonwealth to make the Final Four, but nevertheless I tip my cap to those two evil geniuses. After all, it takes real balls to put an 8- and 11-seed in your bracket’s Final Four, especially on the same side.

One of the two perfect Final Four entrants, “jspearlman”, is in first place, while the other isn’t even close (6,343rd place). But the man currently on top of the World Wide Leader’s $10,000 mountain isn’t in the clear just yet. He chose VCU to win it all, but the entrant only 50 points behind him, “dawgpound513”, still has 3 Final Four teams alive and Kentucky winning it all. And the person in third place has 3 teams remaining and UConn winning it all. And none of us really care that much because we lost weeks ago.

How about your “celebrities”, ESPN?

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Everyone is raving about how great a March we’ve seen from UConn guard Kemba Walker; he played the entire game and scored 36 points in last night’s win against San Diego State. But this–taking a dive against a San Diego State player who shoulder-checked him during a timeout–is inexcusable, and the hairless freak in stripes that called a technical on the Aztecs directly altered the flow of the game. SDSU was pulling away when UConn called this timeout. Kemba made both free throws, and the Aztecs–the victims of a junk whistle–backed off defensively and let the Huskies back in it.

Even with Kemba throwing both of his arms in the air and falling to the ground, this is not a foul, even if it is “dead ball contact.” It’s ridiculous that these GD refs are indulging idiots that get brushed on the shoulder and flail like they’re having an epileptic seizure. That’s it. I quit sports forever.

Robert G. Burton has demanded that the University of Connecticut return a $3 million donation that he made to the Huskies athletics department in 2004 because he feels that the athletic director was not inclusive enough in the process of hiring a new football coach. Burton, who has donated more than $7 million to the school and had the football stadium named for his family, wrote a letter to athletic director Jeff Hathaway expressing his displeasure in not being a part of the coaching search. It is unknown if the letter was written in comic sans.

“For someone who has given over $7,000,000 to the football program/university, I do not feel as though these requests were asking for too much,” Burton wrote. “Your lack of response on either of these requests tells me you do not respect my point of view or value my opinion.”

“I am fed up with you as a manager because you did not let the hiring process take place in an open manner,” Burton wrote. “You and your committee of three talked to some coaches and made a critical decision about who you were going to hire without input from knowledgeable people who care about the program.” (Via Hartford Courant)

The letter also cites Burton’s experience as a football player and he proclaims to be the perfect deciding force in selecting a coach because he knows “more football coaches than the majority of Athletic Directors in America.” According to additional sources, he is threatening to move scholarships from UConn to Syracuse and “totally TP the girls’ dorms, bro.”

The athletic department and university issued a brief statement explaining that Burton was consulted throughout the entire hiring process, as were other donors, adding: “Tough titties, crybaby.”