It breaks our hearts whenever a big-name writerer—someone like Bill Simmons, or Chris Jones, or Jason Whitlock—doesn't get the temporal recognition from an elite sliver of elite opinion that he (and it's always he) demands. These men DESERVE their awards. They DESERVE to be showered in garlands and sprayed with Korbel …

Awards make journalists crazy. All the time. Without fail.

ESPN sent out a memo today reminding everyone that employees' personal Twitter feeds are to be used "to serve ESPN sanctioned efforts." They're not to be used as a way to settle scores with critics and colleagues. Writes ESPN VP Laurie Orlando:

Here's ESPN's counterprogramming from Day 1 of the tournament: A live feed from Bill Simmons's house. Jalen Rose has a bat over his shoulder, there's a tux and Simmons is wearing a T-shirt for a fictional band. There's lots of talk about gambling. Watch it here.

Ryan Glasspiegel runs through sportswriting's reaction to the sad death of the Boston Phoenix, where Charles P. Pierce and Bill Simmons both got their careers started (and where the infamous George Kimball served as a writer and editor for many years). The Phoenix folded yesterday after a 46-year run.

Bill Walton's on-air behavior has been consistently weird this college basketball season, and that didn't change tonight as broadcasting's biggest Grateful Dead fan launched into numerous questionable tangents during ESPNU's Pac-12 tournament coverage of Washington-Oregon from Las Vegas.

Apparently Bill Simmons is not beyond reproach.

It's been a while, but Bill Simmons has finally weighed in on something ESPN. Naturally, it's about the show that sucks up the most oxygen in Bristol, First Take.

Julia Alvidrez, Gawker Media's operations manager, is an unabashed fan of Bill Simmons and everything Grantland. She is also an occasional reader of Deadspin. Every week, she recaps Simmons's podcast, The B.S. Report, for us. This is her final recap.