Greg Cote: U.S.-Cuba in Miami, Cinderella teasing again in NCAAs & more in newest Hot Button Top 10

GREG COTE’S HOT BUTTON TOP 10 (MARCH 19): WHAT IN SPORTS HAS GRABBED US LATELY: Our every-Sunday Hot Button Top 10 feature had been blog-only but with our blog recently retired it moved, re-imagined, to online-only. HB10 means what’s on our minds, locally and nationally, but from a Miami perspective and accentuating stuff that’s major, offbeat, damnable, funny or worth needling as the sports week just past pivots to the week ahead. (Or think of it as 10 lil’ mini columns.) Welcome to the ninth edition of the new HB10:

1. WBC: U.S.-Cuba in Miami tonight in World Baseball Classic: Mets’ star closer Edwin Diaz lifted Puerto Rico past powerhouse Dominican Republic then crumpled with a season-ending knee injury suffered in the postgame celebration. It cast a pall over the World Baseball Classic -- but a temporary one. Players love the WBC and take pride in participating. Tuesday’s championship game at Marlins Park will pit the two semifinal winners: Cuba vs. United States tonight and Japan vs. Mexico on Monday. Trae Turner’s grand slam lifted the U.S. past Venezuela 9-7 last night, and the Americans facing Cuba in the heart of Little Havana guarantees politically charged drama and protests by Miami’s massive Cuban exile population.

2. NCAA TOURNAMENT: Will you join me at a Brackets Anonymous meeting?: “Hi, I’m Greg. And I am a March Madness agnostic.” (“HULL-O, GREG!”) America has filled out brackets and entered office pools -- the time of year when I and others feel ostracized because we follow college basketball’s NCAA Tournament casually while others do so zealously, as if it were the greatest thing in the history of sports. Honestly, I prefer World Cup soccer as tournaments go, and rather like the building drama of a best-of-7 playoff series to the one-and-done stuff. Besides...

3. NCAA TOURNAMENT 2.0: Cinderella and the upset fallacy: Are the huge upsets really upsets ... or just crappy seeding by the seeders? We are getting them again, for sure. The first few days of the men’s tourney have been wild. No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson shocking No. 1 Purdue was only the second 16/1 win in history. No. 15 Princeton stunning 2-Arizona was only the 11th 15/2 upset. No. 13 Furman beat 4-Virginia, too. And 8-Arkansas beat No. 1 Kansas on Saturday. Princeton alone (still alive) left only 0.065% of ESPN brackets perfect as the odds of predicting an exact bracket are one in to nine quintillion. Cream rises, though. We see it every year. No seed lower than No. 8 has ever won it all (Villanova in 1985). Even if you consider a No. 8 seed a Cinderella, the glass slipper has fit only once in history, and that was almost 40 years ago. Will a glass slipper climb the ladder to cut nets this time? Don’t bet on it.

4. NCAA TOURNAMENT 3.0: Miami’s men and women both advance to face Indiana: UM men opened with a 63-56 win over Drake and face an even second-rounder vs. Indiana tonight. Hurricanes women rallied from 17 down to top Oklahoma State 62-61 and face a tougher next game vs. No. 1 seed Indiana -- in Indiana -- on Monday. FAU also won its opener and plays Cinderella Sunday as a 15-point fave over Fairleigh-Dickinson, the 16-seed that stunned No. 1 Purdue.

5. NFL: Is Aaron Rodgers betrothing to Jets an odd marriage?: While Lamar Jackson twists in the wind, superstar free-agent QB and noted anti-vaxxer Mr. Rodgers said he “intends” to play for the Woody Johnson-owned N.Y. Jets in 2023. Podium to Pablo Torre (and congrats, Pablo, on the move from ESPN to Meadowlark): “I love that Aaron Rodgers, the biggest critic of Big Pharma in professional sports, came out of the darkness and realized that he wants to work for the billionaire heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune.” Touche’, Torre.

6. DOLPHINS: Please welcome Miami to Super Bowl contenders club: Trading for elite corner Jalen Ramsey from Rams in a steal of a deal secured Fins’ place among faves to win the AFC and get to the Super-B. Odds don’t reflect it yet; bettors are stuck on the Chiefs/Bills/Bengals troika and will love Rodgers-to-Jets way too much. But watch the Vegas number come around. The one caveat is the one big one: QB Tua Tagovailoa dodging his concussions past.

7. NBA: Ja Morant deserves help he’s getting, not mockery: As most parents of young-adult males can attest, maturity does not always come by age 23. And so Memphis’ young star live-streamed himself at a strip club waving a gun -- his third incident already calling his judgment into serious question. (As does an unearthed 10-year-old Instagram account of his). He is away from the Grizzlies in therapy and suspended eight games by the NBA. Many are mocking him (the Ja Warrant nickname). Others wish him well. But oh how empathy and understanding for misbehaving athletes is a finite thing!

8. NBA: Jordan looks to sell owners’ stake in Charlotte: G.O.A.T. as a player but closer to an actual goat as owner, Michael Jordan is in advanced talks to sell the majority share of the Charlotte Hornets that he has held, unsuccessfully, since 2010. It would leave the NBA without a Black controlling owner, but Charlotte with a needed change. In his 13 years as majority owner the team has only three winning seasons and two playoff spots both ending in first-round ousters.

9. POLITICS: Tough week for White House in the hoops arena: President Joe Biden picked No. 2 seed Arizona to win it all on his NCAA tourney bracket ... hours before ‘Zona was quickly eliminated by 15th-seed Princeton. Ouch. In other news, VP Kamala Harris attended her alma mater Howard’s game vs. Kansas. Went well other than Howard getting blown out and Harris getting booed by the crowd in Des Moines. (In other political sports news, anti-vaxxer Novak Djokovic failed to get an exemption and can’t play in the Miami Open.)

10. DUMBASS FANS: Are we now making a T-shirt joke of murder?: Two male fans at the men’s Southeastern Conference hoops tournament in Nashville wore Alabama shirts that read, ‘Killin’ our way through the SEC in ‘23’ -- seemingly a reference to former Tide player Darius Miles charged with the shooting death of Jamea Harris. The conscience-challenged men got combative when a reporter from AL.com inquired about the shirt’s meaning and message. Whatever happened to simple, plain civility? Where’d it go?

Other stuff from me this past week: World Baseball Classic in Miami the right place, and time, to celebrate diversity / Rodgers-to-Jets gives AFC historic QB galaxy / Ramsey helps makes Dolphins Super Bowl contenders right now / And my latest podcast: