He makes this must-see tee to green

With all due respect to football, if the next month isn't the most spectacular time of year in sports, you'd be hard pressed to find better.

The NCAA conference tournaments have wrapped, Selection Sunday was all the rage, and billions in office productivity will be lost this week as brackets are completed and computers tested for video efficiency.

The White Sox and Cubs are entering the final fortnight of spring training, which means we can at least smell the good weather, if we can't actually feel it yet, and Opening Day is within sight.

The NHL and NBA playoffs are in the offing, battles for the final playoff spots are ferocious, and the postseason looms large, despite Chicago's view as spectator again.

In the NFL, the Bears … well, there's a rumor the Bears are still in business, all evidence to the contrary.

Nevertheless, with all that was going on over the weekend, the most brilliant athletic feat again belonged to the single greatest performer on the planet today, and very likely the best who ever lived.

If his incredible winning streak wasn't enough, Tiger Woods found a way to make his Michael Jordan impersonation appear even more realistic:

He hit the game-winner with no time on the clock, even when everyone in the joint knew it was coming, with pressure mere mortals could never possibly understand.

It has been the one facet missing from his game because, frankly, he's been pounding the competition so unmercifully since last August that a buzzer-beater hasn't been necessary.

In fact, the last time he birdied 18 to win, before Sunday's 24-foot slam-dunk to finish the Arnold Palmer Invitational, was in 2001, also at The Arnie, when he knocked out Phil Mickelson with a nearly identical putt.

It was a dream come true for NBC, which saw its final-round ratings jump 68 percent from 2007, which shows you not only what it means to have Tiger in the final pairing but also having him compete with, rather than merely trounce, the competition.

Still, you get the feeling that the casual golf fan is waiting for the majors to get caught up in what's happening, and that's a colossal mistake.

You didn't wait for Jordan to play in the NBA Finals to watch him do something spectacular, and you need not wait on Tiger.

There is no possible perspective in which to put his current level of play, but when the hypercritical Johnny Miller admits Tiger does at least one thing every week that he has never seen before, you know it's off the charts.

So just as you watched every game Jordan played for fear of missing something, you should never skip a chance to watch even a single Tiger Woods round for the very same reason.

Yes, we've implored you before, but Woods is finding new ways to thrill at an even faster pace, with an even better winning percentage, and he's not even playing his best golf yet.

He's won seven straight tourneys, true, but he hasn't returned to the consistency with which he was hitting the ball when he passed through town and chewed up the BMW last September.

He says he found something with a session on the range Sunday morning, then hit a couple of shots Sunday that he called his best of the year.

Perhaps it means he's on the verge of finding his swing with a little more than three weeks to go before the Masters.

But you'd be wise not to wait that long to tune in.

The streak

Not only is Woods looking for his eighth straight victory this week, but he also has won three in a row at the WGC-CA Championship, and he has won the last three times he's played at Doral.

Generally speaking

While Bobby Knight has been predictably vanilla on ESPN, it was nice to hear him agree with what we've been saying for years about expanding the NCAA Tournament to 128 teams.

Better yet, why not go to 256? It's only two more games. In fact, you can include all 340 teams by starting early in the week, adding byes for most teams, and you can still be at 64 by Thursday, if necessary.

If you want to it to be a true national championship, complete with truly amazing Cinderella runs, why not give even the littlest of the little guys a shot?

Hoop themes

Bill Simmons of ESPN.com: "The NFL has considerably more thugs, MLB has a steroids scandal … and somehow, the NBA is still perceived as the league with an image problem? For God's sake, if the NBA can't put that tag to rest this year, of all years, then it's never happening, and we'll have to accept there are deeper issues at work here.''

Bracket busted

One of David Letterman's Top Ten Signs Your College Basketball Team Is Not Going To Make The Tournament:

"Team let shot clock expire because they enjoy the buzz.''

Busted bracket

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: "It's sort of like spending your last few hours on death row and waiting to hear the warden's footsteps coming down the hall. Let's face it, for a program like (Florida), the NIT is not a reward; it is a sentence."

And finally …

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: "The Giants' '08 slogan is 'All out, all season.' But that's misleading. I think some of the guys will be out, like, half the season."

brozner@dailyherald.com