Alrighty, then: Matt Doherty is your AP Coach of the Year (really?), and Shane Battier is your AP Player of the Year (duh), and that's that. Now let's move on. Because in the big picture, this day wasn't about awards. No, no, not at all. This day was about the Rotato.

Not familiar with the Rotato? Let me help you out: You're having one of those terrible, sleepless nights, flipping through the channels, desperate for something and/or anything to catch your fancy -- maybe a Facts of Life re-run on Nick at Nite, or Miami Vice over at TNN, whatever. And then the miracle happens: somewhere in the never-never-land of infomercials and test patterns, you stumble upon The Shopping Network. And on The Shopping Network at this very moment, they have for you at a very, very special price for a very, very limited time a breakthrough space-age contraption that will peel your vegetables (potatoes, carrots ... why, you can even try a zucchini, if you're so bold) with nary a turn of your hand. You can't live without it. This is the Rotato. Only $19.99. Order now!

Of course, you don't order the darn thing, because it looks like a piece of junk, and your hand-held vegetable peeler that your mom used and her mom used and her mom used -- that old thing works just fine. But you know who did order this thing, who took a long look at his life and came to the conclusion that there was a void on his kitchen counter that only the Rotato could fill? You know who it was? The king of kings, the scholar-athlete of scholar-athletes, the undeniably brilliant and, until this discovery, totally flawless ... Shane Battier.

And the thing is, it's not just the Rotato. Shane's ordered the Eurosealer and a rotisserie chicken spit, and though he never actually admitted this one, it probably goes without saying: the George Foreman Grill. It turns out, according to the emcee of this award ceremony, that King Battier has a problem, an addiction, a fixation with the cheap, tawdry home appliances offered up on those 24-hour shopping networks and late-night infomercials. And so he orders them. All of them.

Give Shane credit for confronting and dealing with this nasty demon, in front of the media throng purportedly here to cover the AP award deal. Man, it couldn't have been easy. These dudes were relentless.

Media hack #1: How does it feel, to win yet another award like this?
Shane: It's been a great season, and I'm really proud how ...
Media hack #2: Tell us about the Rotato!

Five seconds later ...

Media Hack #44: How you keep focused on the game at hand with all these awards?
Shane: This is what I came to Duke for, to win a national championship...
Media Hack #87: Where'd you get the Rotato?!

And so on, and so on, and I have this unsettling feeling that since nothing new has been written about Shane Battier in over 18 months, this Rotato scandal has some serious legs. Hey, at least we don't have to hear about what a great leader he is anymore. A great leader, in my opinion, would never buy a Rotato.

Scott Burton is covering the Final Four for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at scott.burton@espnmag.com.