Greg Cote’s Hot Button Top 10: Messi saves woman’s life, brackets on fire, MLB opens & more in new HB10

GREG COTE’S HOT BUTTON TOP 10 (MARCH 24): WHAT IN SPORTS HAS GRABBED US THIS WEEK: Our Sunday Hot Button Top 10 had been blog-only but when our blog 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 big, weird, damnable, funny or otherwise worth needling as the sports week just past pivots to the week ahead. Welcome to the 53rd edition of your Sunday sports-potpourri notes column, the new HB10:

1. MARCH MADNESS: Stunning Kentucky loss leads early bracket bloodbath on men’s side: No. 3 Kentucky’s loss out the gate to the No. 14 Oakland Golden Grizzlies from Auburn Hills, Mich. ruined tons of brackets as it put coach John Calipari’s Wildcats future in question. In ESPN’s bracket challenge 74.2 percent had Kentucky making the Sweet 16, 28.8% reaching the Final Four and 6.5% winning the national championship. After Day 1 of full competition that also saw losses by No. 4 Auburn and a pair of No. 5s, less than 1 percent of a record 22.6 million ESPN men’s brackets remained perfect. The exact number of brackets that survived Day 1 unscathed on the NCAA”s official challenge was 0.00038%. [Far fewer early surprises on the women’s side, with No. 6 Louisville the highest seed out entering Sunday.]

2. MARLINS: Opening Week! Fish launch 32nd season on Thursday: Miami made the postseason for only the fourth time last year (albeit as a wild-card quickly ousted), but a playoff repeat is not anticipated. as the new MLB season begins at home Thursday vs. Pittsburgh with Jesus Luzardo on the hill. Marlins’ World Series odds (+8000 via Draft Kings) rank 22nd of 30 clubs, with Dodgers overall favorite at +350. Fish also are fourth in the NL East, with Braves (+450) among faves, Phillies (+1400) highly touted and Mets also ranked higher. MLB.com ranked teams in nine “tiers.” Miami ranked in the seventh one, titled, “Competitive, probably.”

3. MLB: Ohtani scandal, Seoul series make for weird start to season: The distracting mess involving Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, the biggest star in baseball, hovers dark as the new season opens this Thursday. The club fired Ohtani’s longtime interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara, amid reports from the L.A. Times and ESPN on Mizuhara’s alleged ties to an illegal bookie and gambling debts over $1 million. Mizuhara told ESPN he gambled on sports other than baseball. He said Ohtani paid his gambling debts at his request, but later said Ohtani had no knowledge of the debts and had not transferred money to bookmakers. Ohtani has since asked authorities to investigate what he calls a “massive theft.” Meantime the Dodgers and Padres played two regular season games in Seoul, South Korea before returning to finish spring training. Weird.

4. HURRICANES: Katie Meier retires as UM women’s hoops coach: The Miami Hurricanes’ longest-serving and winningest basketball coach -- women or men -- retired unexpectedly after 19 seasons at age 56. Meier led her reams to 11 NCAA Tournament appearances (this should have been the 12th), five Top 25 finishes and the Elite Eight one year ago. As important, she was a terrific role model/leader who served with impeccable class. Search for her replacement is underway.

5. HEAT: Miami still struggling to lift from play-in hell into proper playoffs: Miami is 38-32 after a desultory 111-88 Friday loss to New Orleans left the Heat only 17-16 on the home wood and stuck seventh in the East -- 1 1/2 games out of the desired sixth place and 4 games from the coveted fourth as the NBA regular season dwindles. Miami’s four-game homestand continues Sunday vs. Cleveland.

6. PANTHERS: 4-game skid ties Cats’ longest of season: Florida is 45-20-5 after Saturday 4-3 OT loss at the the N.Y. Rangers -- a fourth straight L that ties the Panthers’ longest skid of this NHL season. Cats now trail Boston by two standings points entering Sunday’s game at Philly. The Panthers are back home vs. the Bruins on Tuesday in what could be a battle for the East lead.

7. TENNIS: Miami Open free of major upsets (so far) entering Sunday: No player ranked higher than the fifth-seeded woman has lost entering Sunday play in the ATP/WTA Miami Open at Hard Rock Stadium. No. 1 seeds Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek lead the charge. The highest-ranked American, No. 3 seed Coco Gauff, plays a third-round match today.

8. INTER MIAMI/WAR: Lionel Messi saves life of woman he never met: October 7, the day Hamas assaulted Israeli villages near the Gaza border, sparking the ongoing war. A home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Armed attackers confront 90-year-old grandmother Esther Cunio, demanding to know where her family is. But she speaks no Arabic. “I speak in Argentine Spanish,” she says. Intruder: “What is Argentina?” With a mix of Spanish, broken Hebrew and gestures, she conveys the sport of soccer and says, “I’m from where Messi is from.” The gunman: “Messi! I like Messi!” They left her unharmed. [Two of Cunio’s grandchildren were captured elsewhere that day and remain hostages. Her story appears in a new documentary about the Hamas rampage focusing on the Latino-Israeli community called Voice sof October 7 -- Latino Stories of Survival.]

9. RUNNING: Wait. An ultramarathon inspired by what!?: British ultrarunner Jasmin Paris became the first woman to ever finish the Barkley Marathons in the required 60 hours or less on Friday. It’s annual race covering 100 miles across Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. Sounds dangerously grueling, but whatever. Runners are nuts. But then you get to this, verbatim from a Reuters account: “The Barkley Marathons, created by Gary Cantrell and Karl Henn in 1986, was inspired by the escape of James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., who ran about 12 miles in 54½ hours from a nearby prison in 1977.” Seriously!? “Inspired” by MLK’s murderer? How about we check that one off the race calendar, ultrarunners?

10. MLB: ‘America’s Pastime’ ... but made in China: Rawlings, an official MLB supplier of baseballs, was founded in St. Louis. And that’s where the all-American connection ends. Rawlings manufacture baseballs in Puerto Rico, but it had already moved production to Haiti by the time it became the big-league ball. Currently, the baseballs being thrown and hit in MLB are produced in Costa Rica and China. God Bless America!

Other most recent stuff from me: An appreciation: Hurricanes’ Katie Meier retiring too soon after 19 years of winning & class // Marlins star Jazz Chisholm was miserable his first 3 years in Miami. But things changed // March Madness indeed and in every way: Welcome to best 3 weeks in American sports // Tua’s tough task: Free agency losses hurting Miami Dolphins as brutal AFC gets stronger // ‘Reinvented’ Florida Panthers didn’t matter for decades. Now they’re Stanley Cup favorites // Caitlin Clark starts Women’s History Month off right // Born to fail? Bronny James, Charlie Woods and the impossible footsteps of LeBron and Tiger // The Florida Man Games: A sort-of Olympics, but with dumb events and non-athletes // Previous HB 10 // And my latest podcast: