The question for Lonzo Ball now is this:

Just how memorable will his one-and-done NCAA Tournament be?

He certainly will leave UCLA after this season, moving on to the NBA/multi-millionaire portion of his basketball career.

This is Ball’s one chance to leave a lasting impression, as a freshman, on March Madness.

Could he channel John Wall, who led Kentucky to the Elite Eight in 2010?

Or follow the path blazed by Derrick Rose, who took Memphis State to the final in 2008?

Or could Lonzo carry into the NBA the title of “one-and-done best player on an NCAA champion?” — as Carmelo Anthony did in 2003, after his one season with Syracuse; or as Anthony Davis did in 2012, after his cameo with Kentucky?

After his stat-sheet-stuffing performance in UCLA’s second, Ball’s destiny would seem to require some lengthy run in this tournament — even if we recognize that the Bruins figure to be underdogs in however more games they play in this edition of the tournament.

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I didn’t plan this.

It was early on a Saturday evening and many of the regular TV options were not available, so on went the second half of West Virginia vs. Notre Dame in the NCAA basketball tournament, which I could see via ESPN GB …

And nearly eight hours later I had watched much or nearly all of seven games involving 14 teams — 13 of whom I had not seen this season — and it was 3:30 a.m. in France.

Let’s do a list on my impressions, more or less in chronological order.

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I love the Volvo Ocean Race. The idea of circling the planet in a boat that has about an inch between sailors and the world’s oceans … is compelling.

I became fully aware of the eight-month, round-the-world event, often described as the “Everest of sailing”, in 2011, ahead of the 2011-12 race, which included a boat from Abu Dhabi, Azzam.

We at The National, the Abu Dhabi newspaper, also closely covered the 2014-15 event, which Azzam won, to much domestic acclaim.

The 2017-18 race begins later this year (with no Abu Dhabi involvement), and it will be notable for several significant changes, including these two:

–It will sail “three times as many” miles in the frigid Southern Ocean than any recent Volvo race.

–It will have sailors of both genders on individual boats. Well, at least the one that announced the other day that it would sail with two women crew.

It is clear race organizers want mixed-gender crews; what is not clear is whether the new rules encouraging mostly male teams to race with women crew are helpful or insulting to female sailors.

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After leaving the U.S. for Abu Dhabi, in 2009, my interest in college basketball waned.

As I noted in blog posts from recent years, while living in the UAE, it requires work to follow the college game from the other side of the world. Too many teams, too many games, too big a time gap between the Arabian Gulf and North America …

And, I now have decided, if your favorite two or three teams (yes, you can have more than one) are doing badly …

You might be detached from the NCAA Tournament only until one or more of “your” teams are competent again.

I am finding that to be the case, certainly.

My preferred college team, UCLA, is back and my interest for March Madness has returned. From France.

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Some odd things happen in the United Arab Emirates and The National newspaper, the English-language publication based in the capital, Abu Dhabi, does a good job of recording them.

Today?

Cat-killers sentenced to three months of sweeping up at the Dubai zoo … the $10,000 hamburger in (of course) Dubai … and the cardboard faux police cruiser in Umm Al Quwain.

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If you follow college basketball, you already know who LaVar Ball is, but his latest pronouncement might stun even those who have become accustomed to his bombastic assertions.

This is about money. And it reinforces what already seemed like a father’s plan to run the careers/lives of his three sons.

He wants a $1 billion deal from any shoe company that wants to brand its stuff with the family name. For an endorsement involving all three sons.

And if not, LaVar has trademarked a name — Big Baller Brand — that apparently could serve to be built around his sons. The four of them appear to be wearing the logo in this group photo.

Here is what he told USA Today in a story that appeared yesterday:

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If you lack context, this will seem like a bizarre story.

This story in The National describes an alleged murder in Dubai that stemmed from the victim being accused of having smelly feet.

The word “disproportionate” springs to mind. If smelly feet were a capital crime, most adult males would risk assassination on a regular basis.

But the episode in Dubai makes a bit more sense to me after having spent more than six years living in the United Arab Emirates.

Consider:

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Think of it as a sort of cosmic balancing of the scales.

The fat kids who played in the line in high school are more highly prized in the NFL than the fast guys who got all the attention.

At least, when those fast guys are running backs.

The first few days of the NFL’s free-agent signing period are over, and we have learned anew that teams are far more likely to spend large amounts of money on veteran tackles and guards than for veteran running backs.

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Curiously, for the first 44 years of its history, the United Arab Emirates outsourced the making of its money. As in, printing bank notes and minting coins.

I know the UAE dirham notes well, having carried them around in my pocket for the six-plus years I lived in the country.

I had no idea, however, that the UAE’s paper money was printed in France and the United Kingdom, and its coins were minted in Canada.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I ran a country I would prefer to keep the (literal) creation of money in my own country. Would make me less nervous that a pallet or two of the larger denominations might fall off the back of a truck even before it left the country of origin.

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In the States, this would be considered odd.

Crowds at major sports events … breaking into song during a game.

Singing happens, now and then, at U.S. stadiums. But it usually is scheduled and involves two songs — the national anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”.

In England and Wales and Scotland and Ireland … the songs at soccer matches are spontaneous, generally primitive and often obscene.

And my theory is … Britons are inveterate singers, and since they no longer go to church, where they can sing to their hearts’ content while sitting among peers, they now sing at their modern-day cathedrals — soccer stadiums.

I have been thinking about this for years, and it came to the forefront the other day when Manchester City fans sang a song set to the tune of Tom Jones’s famous murder ballad, Delilah.

And it goes like this:

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