I’m a little disappointed about White Plains’ boys losing in Poughkeepsie Wednesday night for a few reasons: One, I like Spencer Mayfield and think he’s one of the best coaches we’ve ever had around here; Two, the Tigers always bring a great crowd to the County Center and they’d be a great match for New Rochelle in the semis; Three, because the most exciting player in the area is Rashad James, a senior who flast-out flies and dunks better than anybody I can remember.

Be that as it may, a few thoughts heading into Championship Week:

I think the AA semi between New Ro and Poughkeepsie is a must-see. And Scarsdale-Mount Vernon, while I’m not sure if it will be a game or not, just reminds me of the old Jack Kaminer/Butch Graves/John Revelli team that took the air out of the ball and beat the state-powerhouse Knights once upon a time.

Mount Vernon’s good, really good, as usual. I think they miss Michael Coburn a lot, but the Knights are still odds-on favorites.

I saw Briarcliff the other night, and man was that team impressive against a Lincoln Hall team that disintegrated in the third quarter. Joe Lombardi is a stud, and he has a pretty good cast around him. The Bears are defending B champs, and they played a tough schedule—The Slam Dunk, a late regular-season game at Stepinac—and it’ll be interesting to see if anybody can knock them off. Haven’t seen No. 1 seed North Salem (19-1) yet.

Peekskill-Panas in the A semi is a backyard burner—think Lakeland-Peekskill in the A final last year. Port Chester’s been to the final four five years in a row. Don’t know if this is the year the Rams break through.

On the girls side, could this finally be the year Mount Vernon wins a section title, its first since 1983? Do you know that the MV boys and girls have won the Section 1 championship in the same year only once before. One of the best parts of a Mount Vernon game is Michelle Moore singing the National Anthem—her parents both have their jerseys hanging in MV’s gym (Patrice Wallace-Moore, the current coach, and former NBAer Lowes Moore, an assistant coach).

I’m kind of surprised White Plains beat Ursuline, but probably shouldn’t be. The three-time defending champs, minus most of the firepower from their last three teams, still have the will of a champ. And still have Angelei Aguirre, arguably the best player in the section.

We’ll have more as we go on.

I’m headed to Mount Vernon this afternoon, where boys basketball coach Bob Cimmino shoots for his 300th career victory AND his 14th consecutive trip to the Section 1 final four, at County Center next week.

The Knights play Suffern—a team they faced in the AA final in 2006—at home, where they haven’t lost since being knocked off by Stepinac in 1998. The number is 95 consecutive home wins going into today’s game.

The 300 mark isn’t so magical in high school basketball, not on its own. Jack Curran has the state record with more than 800, and two Section 1 coaches—John Volpe, who is still active, and Mike Del Val—have each topped 500 wins. Peekskill’s Hall of Fame coach Lou Panzanaro got his 483rd win Tuesday night.

But it’s doubtful that anybody in Section 1 history, and very few in the state, have won 300 games in their first 14 seasons! That’s 21.4 wins per year! And it’s not like Cimmino loads up on cupcakes. Mount Vernon plays its league schedule and the Yonkers teams during the regular season, but its non-league schedule is packed with national and New York City powers, all of them on the road. Then comes state tournament games, which include some very difficult competition. A few years ago, Mount Vernon bounced Niagara Falls, with current Syracuse star Paul Harris, and beat NYC’s Lincoln with NBAer Sebastian Telfair, for example.

Cimmino’s record stands at 299-54, with eight Section 1 gold balls, four state championships and three Federation titles.

With all the garbage surrounding baseball, I’m having a tough time getting into whether Carlos Delgado will have a bounce-back year, or whether Kei Igawa can make the Yankees’ staff.

So I’m switching the mind over to two things this week: High school basketball, with the tournament heading to the County Center next week; and the World Golf Match-Play championship on the PGA Tour. If you like golf, and if you can get the time off during the week (The Golf Channel, I would guess, will show replays in the evenings) don’t miss this.

There is nothing quite like the match-play event. After the four majors and the Ryder or President’s Cups, this is arguably the best tournament of the year. It certainly blows away the contrived and over-hyped FedEx Cup playoffs.

But don’t wait for the weekend. Unlike all the other tournaments, this one starts out with the best stuff and gradually slows down—a little bit like the NCAA tournament, in which the best days are always the first-round games.

So 64 players, every one of them that matters, will be in the field—Tiger, Phil, Ernie, Vijay, all of them—and they will all have a legitimate shot at getting knocked out of the tournament on Wednesday! Don’t be shocked. It will happen to one or more of them, and don’t get swayed into this idea that those would be hge upsets. In match play, funny things happen, and players are on pretty equal footing for an 18-hole (0r fewer) match. That’s why Tiger has ONLY one this thing twice, and Mickelson has never even had a sniff of it.

It’s great, intense stuff. Try to catch some of it.

Last week we had a column about a softball benefit in the rain, cold and mud, benefitting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Here is staff photographer Mike Roy’s video of the event.

I wrote a column for The Journal News and LoHud.com today on Ray Rice preparing for the NFL combine in Indianapolis this week. You can read it here.

Rice figured his time in the 40 will be a big question at the combine, so he did what he does with everything he does—he worked hard, then even harder, to fix it. This kid is all about meeting challenges.

Anyway, he went to the Parisi School in Fair Lawn, N.J. and learned sprinting technique—his football running style is all raw, although you’d have to say pretty effective. He also shed eight pounds and got his body fat down from 14.5 percent to eight percent. Incredibly, he’s more fit now than he was when he ran for 280 yards in his final college football game for Rutgers.

The column also debates how important a good 40 time actually is to a great running back, or whether people with stop watches put too much emphasis on time and not enough on a football player’s productivity and other intangibles.

The Yankees came out of their salary arbitration case with Chien-Ming Wang victorious, and then they did something stupid. They released a statement, from Randy Levine. Why? No idea. Just a bad, bad idea. It sounds like gloating, and I don’t think that’s a good way to treat your ace.

Here is the statement from Levine issued by the Yankees:

STATEMENT FROM RANDY LEVINE NEW YORK YANKEES PRESIDENT  

RE: CHIEN-MING WANG ARBITRATION RULING  

“We are gratified and happy to have prevailed in this arbitration hearing. It is important to recognize and thank our entire team for their hard work throughout this process, including Brian Cashman, Jean Afterman and Mike Fishman from the Yankees, Rich Rabin, Ken Shaitelman and Kelly Brown from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, and Rob Manfred, Dan Halem and Paul Mifsud from the Commissioner’s Office.  

“It has been nearly eight years since this organization has gone to arbitration, and we do not pursue this process lightly. The Yankees only go to arbitration when we think the player and agent’s demand is over the proper market.  

“We want to congratulate Mr. Wang and his representatives on their efforts. They did a credible job. It should be noted that the $4 million figure which we submitted is the highest arbitration award ever for a first-time arbitration-eligible starting pitcher. Therefore, this should not be viewed as ‘a loss’ for Chien-Ming Wang. He is a valuable member of our team and we felt that we had reflected this in our filing number.�  

I promise, some day we will talk about sports unrelated to steroids, HGH and such. One day soon we hope to start, right here, some baseball lists, for example: Greatest moments in Yankee Stadium history (before they take a wrecking ball to the old shrine).

For now, unfortunately, it’s all-roids all the time. Did you see the typo that had reports out last night that Barry Bonds tested positive after he broke the home run record? Apparently, the date was wrong, and the test was actually flunked pre-record, pre-Balco. It was an old positive test, already in the Balco records. But that’s the type of hysteria that’s running rampant now.

Then there’s the speculation that our outgoing President would pardon fellow Texan/Conservative (and dad’s buddy) Roger Clemens if he were indicted for perjury. I have to admit, that thought crossed my mind. But if W pardons Clemens before he is indicted (and/or convicted) wouldn’t that make him look guilty? And if Rocket is pardoned after being convicted, well, what good is that? I mean, nobody wants to see Clemens in jail, right? Once they find the truth about whether or not he used steroids and HGH, public opinion and his reputation are all that really matters, and no pardon, even by the almighty W, will change that.

I am still not sure what to make of the Clemens-McNamee fiasco yesterday. The widely-spread theory is that Clemens lost, big-time in some cases. I think he lost, too. I think the Pettitte deposition really put a hurt on him.

But I still don’t think it was proven, or that there is nearly enough proof to nail him in a court of law.

The fed’s investigation, which is sure to follow—if it hasn’t already begun—will be interesting. I don’t know what will suffice as proof. There will not be a positive test, McNamee’s collection of used syringes, needles and gauze pads will probably be thrown out, and McNamee’s character will continue to be attacked.

Can they nail him on circumstantial evidence and third-party (Pettitte) testimony? Certainly, none of the many questions surrounding Clemens’ version of the truth were answered in Clemens’ favor yesterday.

What do you think? Do they have the goods on him?

Here’s a link “to the depositions”:http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1743 from the Congressional Commitee on Oversight and Reform’s Web site.

I borrowed the link from Pete “The Man” Abraham.

We learned that some Congressmen are without shame, that they take sides, that they would rather you know their opinion than get actual answers.

We learned that either Roger Clemens is absolutely telling the truth, or he is absolutely certain that it can never be proven he’s lying. (Although we already knew that).

We learned that lying before Congress isn’t necessarily perjury.

We learned that this is not the end of this, that there remains Clemens’ lawsuit against McNamee, that there remains a probable federal investigation, and there remains the possibility of a criminal trial and/or perjury charges.

We learned that all of this—the five hours we invested, the incredible cost, etc.—could have been avoided, and we would be no better or worse off than we are now, with no better idea, really, of whether Clemens used drugs or not.