Today's line: Viva Las college hoops!

Playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, it turns out, is just like gambling in Vegas.

Play long enough, and the house wins.

Mark Wangrin of the San Antonio Express-News compiled his "SAT" — Seeding Achievement Test — by taking the 10 active coaches with the most NCAA appearances and weighting their games with plus-minus values. Only two (UConn's Jim Calhoun and Maryland's Gary Williams) came out ahead, with Duke's Mike Krzyzewski breaking even.

Coaches received zero points for beating a lower-seeded team, one point for beating a higher-seeded team or winning a Final Four game, and minus-one point for losing to a lower-seeded team, with additional minus points tacked on for each subsequent round in which they would have been favored.

The final tally: Calhoun +4, Williams +3, Krzyzewski 0, Tubby Smith -1, Bob Knight -3, Jim Boeheim -3, Roy Williams -6, Rick Barnes -6, Bob Huggins -8, Lute Olson -9.

Or to put it another way: NCAA tournament +29.

Paging Adam Morrison

Sidney Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins' teen wunderkind, isn't making any guarantees about growing the NHL's traditional playoff beard.

"I made an attempt in junior," he told the Ottawa Sun, "but ended up with a moustache."

His name is ...

The San Antonio Express-News took the name of the New York shock jock who drew a two-week suspension for his on-air racial slurs of Rutgers women's basketball players, and out came this anagram for Don Imus: "So in mud."

Pass the oranges

Suns guard Steve Nash, the NBA's reigning two-time MVP, was asked if being a white player made him feel like a minority.

"It's a black man's game. The numbers support that view," Nash told Playboy magazine. "The question is: What does it mean to me?

Nothing. The ball is orange."

Talking the talk

• Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on reports that golfer Greg Norman is dating former tennis champ Chris Evert: "It's sort of like Tiger Woods and Roger Federer being best friends, but with kissing."

• Golfer Tim "Lumpy" Herron, to Golf Digest, dreaming of his final meal: "A sausage pizza and an Oreo-cookie milkshake. That would be the last thing I taste."

• New Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie, to the Lexington Herald-Leader, when asked if he was worried about Wildcats fans second-guessing him: "They didn't tell you? I was married before."

• Times reader Bill Littlejohn, when asked about the Frozen Four: "You mean the NCAA hockey championships or the Mariners' ill-fated series in Cleveland?"

Caught off guard?

All-Pro guard Steve Hutchinson has recorded an automated phone message urging the team's season-ticket holders to renew their seats, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

Just sign on the dotted line, right there under the poison-pill provision.

Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com