March Madness better on web

Like many American sports fans, I'm participating in an office NCAA tournament pool. It's a rite of spring for many of us. I'm not a huge basketball fan -- hockey is my sport -- but I love looking at the brackets and trying to handicap the winner.I usually don't do much research other than read the newspaper sports section a little more thoroughly a week before tipoff. This year has been different. I've spent more time online perusing March Madness content than any year I can remember. I've used the web both to review the regular season in attempt to separate the pretenders from the contenders. Over the weekend I was online constantly, looking up tourney scores on my iTouch wireless gadget while outside evaporating 50 gallons of maple sap. Fortunately my bracket didn't evaporate as it usually does. I don't want to jinx myself, but I have 13 of 16 teams alive in the regionals (or so-called Sweet 16 round), including my Final Four teams. Even though I've been a web geek and a sports fanatic for years, I'm continually amazed by innovative NCAA tournament online content. You really don't need cable TV to enjoy the action. A high-speed Internet connection allows you to watch games on your computer. If you're like me, you may prefer to get real-time scores and then maybe watch the final two minutes of the game if it's a nail-biter. I've looked at plenty of sports web sites. For my money, Yahoo! does the best job with sports, especially the tournament. Their NCAA basketball site is superb. ESPN is pretty good too, but it's always been a bit of a slow loader in my experience. Then of course, there's the New York Times. Regular Web Guy readers know that I love the Times web site. They're doing some great stuff with the tournament. While studying the brackets, I read a Times article by Notre Dame coach Mike Brey, which provided unique insight on the tourney teams from a court-side perspective. The Times reporters are doing real-time updates using Twitter. There are also some cool interactive tourney features. My favorite was this map, which provides a geographic and historical look at which schools have enjoyed the most success in the tourney. There are probably hundreds of other sites out there that I haven't stumbled upon. What are some of your favorites?