Columbus, Ohio — (A mostly Women's Final Four related edition of) Idle Thoughts, while waiting for the national championship game, eventual warmer weather and for all the stat geeks to explain "launch angle" to us cattle:

• Dr. Idle, Dr. I to his close friends, would like to begin today's discourse with a moment of silence for fallen state trooper Kevin Miller, who died Thursday when his police car crashed into the back of a tractor trailer on Interstate 84.

We have a lot of fun here in the toy department, watch basketball deep into the night, critique the Yanks and Sox and do all those sports kind of things.

But then we remember real life.

RIP, Trooper Miller.

Now for the moment of silence ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

• Hard to believe that Dr. I knew Carly Thibault way back at East Lyme Middle.

Carly is all grown up now, an assistant coach at Mississippi State.

Dr. I sat with Carly on Friday night as she scouted the UConn game at Nationwide Arena.

Turns out Paul Anka was right.

Good morning yesterday ... you wake up and time has slipped away.

• Yes, Dr. I was rooting for Mississippi State in the championship game.

Not just because of Thibault.

But because MSU isn't Notre Dame.

So as MSU coach Vic Schaefer likes to say: "Praise the Lord and go Dawgs."

• The more Dr. I travels the more he realizes what insufferable, impatient, impolite twits we are in the northeast.

The people of Columbus — and it would appear the Midwest in general — are friendly, helpful and do things like say hi and ask about your day.

We're too busy, apparently.

• A salute to the athlete most closely associated with today: former Yankee Dan Pasqua.

(Pasqua is how you say "Easter" in Italian).

• Has Dr. I mentioned yet how much he loathes the NCAA?

Dr. I counted 37 NCAA logos on the backdrop behind the podium at the Albany Regional last week and seven more logos on the microphones.

Yet the NCAA had some lackey maneuver the drink cups on the podium so the cameras would show the NCAA logos there, too.

Shameless.

• Heard this one at the game the other night:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get as far away from Notre Dame as possible.

Heh, heh, heh.

• Maybe the ECC can help the UConn women.

Someone call Geno and explain this whole "opt out" thing.

Then next year, UConn can skip playing Tulsa, Tulane and East Carolina and replace them with better games.

• The Hartford/New Haven market drew a 16.7 rating for the UConn-Notre Dame game, the highest in the country and more than UConn-Mississippi State last year.

So it appeared the angst over late start time was more useful rhetorically than practically.

• Idea for our corner of the world:

A piano bar.

No, really.

Dr. I went to one here in Columbus the other night and sang off key well into the night.

Lots of fun.

So what do you think?

• Belated congrats to UConn baseball coach Jim Penders on his 500th win last week.

Dr. I will ignore the fact that it came against the gutty, gritty BC Eagles.

• UConn women's thought:

They didn't win the national championship this year and didn't last year because there's no true dominant offensive player here.

Remember: This program, essentially, went from Diana to Tina to Maya to Stewie.

Plenty of good players here now, just no great ones, at least comparatively speaking.

Geno's words after Friday's game:

"One or two players really make the difference at this time of the year," he said. "I made this comment before that, when your team gets to the Final Four, it's not your talent, and it's not your team that's going to beat the other team. Generally, when you look back, there's one or two players that just make unbelievable plays and just dominate the game."

• Would ECC girls' basketball coaches have voted Gabby Williams all-state?

• Happy Easter from Dr. I.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro