Time River Region sports world

It has been a while since I have written my column, but what a time of the year to restart the ever popular “Fun with Folse.”

It’s NCAA Tournament time baby!

I first want to thank everyone who sent in their brackets. To be honest, I did not expect a high volume of returns and was pleasantly surprised with how many brackets ended up on my desk.

Writing this column, I’m sitting in my office watching the first round (shouldn’t I be working?). Here’s hoping that my bracket is not ruined after the first round.

Congratulations are in order for the three Louisiana colleges that punched their tickets to the Big Dance. Louisiana-Lafayette is making their second consecutive trip and LSU is returning after a year’s absence.

The true Cinderalla of Louisiana’s tournament teams is the Southeastern Lions. The Lions are making their first trip in school history to the NCAA Tournament.

The selection committee was not nice to the Lions however in their first trip to the Big Dance. Southeastern traveled to Oklahoma City yesterday to take on the Cowboys of Oklahoma State. By the way, Oklahoma State was a participant in something that we like to call the Final Four last season.

So, who do I like? My Final Four is Illinois coming out of Chicago, Wake Forest coming out of Albuquerque, Connecticut coming out of Syracuse and Syracuse coming out of the Austin Regional.

I have Wake Forest defeating Illinois and Connecticut defeating Syracuse. Wake Forest will defeat Connecticut hopefully. Wake Forest is a very dangerous team. Demon Deacon point guard Chris Paul in my opinion is the best player in the country and would look really good in a New Orleans Hornets uniform next season. Keep your fingers crossed on the ladder.

So enjoy the NCAA Tournament everybody. It is without a doubt the greatest time of the year in sports. May everyone’s bracket be winners!!!

River Region dominates Top 28

Boy, was the Top 28 in Lafayette this past week an advertisement for the River Region? It seemed wherever you looked, there was another team from our area competing for a state championship in boy’s basketball.

Although Reserve Christian was the only team to come home with a state championship trophy, congratulations go out to West St. John and East St. John. The Wildcats made their first-ever trip to the Top 28 and the Rams concluded a dream season with a heartbreaking one point loss to Jeanerette in the 2A final 61-60.

I know they get a lot of attention and deservedly so, but how good were the Reserve Christian Eagles? The even scarier thing is how good are they going to be next season? National Championship talk will be thrown around in Reserve in 2005-06 and rightfully so considering the national schedule that the Eagles will undoubtedly play.