Most wonderful time of the year!

I think any true sports fan feels the month of March is mabe the most wonderful time of the year, especially living in the midwest. There's buzz everywhere sports wise. High School basketball championships, college basketball conference tournaments, spring training baseball, and the best sports tournament in the country, the NCAA tournament. Also, finally the cold winter is coming to an end. Perhaps the only month in the year that can top the month of March is October.

Now onto the NCAA tournament. Check back in Tuesday March 18th for my detailed way of filling out your brackets. I'm not going to spew the same old crap (like don't choose 4 #1 seeds for the final four, etc.). Instead I'll be taking a look at some of the more obscure parts of filling out a bracket, like how major conference teams who reach their tournament finals do in the NCAA tourney, how many double digit seeds reach the Sweet 16, and just how many seeded upsets you should choose in the first round, among others.

As it stands, I'm a huge supporter of mid-major teams, and feel a mid-major (a term I hate to use) that finishes the season 24-7, for example, should be in over a major conference team that finishes 20-11, if all RPI type #'s come out equal. I get sick and tired of teams like Syracuse, Maryland, NC State, etc just doing enough to get in, while teams like Utah St., Missouri St., VCU, do more than enough to get in, but get passed over. We've heard for years the selection committee does not take conference affiliation into consideration when filling out the official bracket. We'll see this year if that is true, and I love it. The West Coast Conference deserves 3 bids (Gonzaga, St. Mary's, San Diego), MVC deserves 2 (Drake, Illinois St.), Sun Belt deserves 2 bids (Western Kentucky, South Alabama), A-10 deserves at least 2 bids (Xavier, and who ever makes the finals), and should Kent St lose in the MAC tourney, that conference should get two bids. It's a big year for the selection committee to live up to it's words, and give due recognition for the mid-major teams who work the entire season to build an impressive resume, only to lose a tough game in the conference tourney, instead of allowing a pass to a major school who won just enough games.

Anyways, my winner of the Big 12 tourney is Texas. My upset special is Tex A&M making all the way to the conference finals, which means beating Iowa St., K-State, and KU. This gets A&M into the NCAA tourney.