ONE WAY TO PICK THE BRACKET

For most of us, March means only one thing.  Sure, to me it means my birthday and St. Patrick's Day and of course the beginning of spring.  But for man, it's time to fill out your NCAA tournament bracket.

Everyone has a method to their madness.  Their own scientific theories about how to make the right pick, likely based on their belief that they know more about every team and which team is hot and which team has the best players.

Some go with the favorite, others like to pick the upset.  But for me, I like to look at it from a different angel.  Not studying statistics and box scores and seeing who's hot or which power-conference team will fall.

I like to picture what would happen if the mascots battled for 40 minutes, rather than the players. It's something that was brought up by Bobby Jezyk, a brilliant student assistant in our sports information office at Cal Poly in the late '90's and stuck with me every since.

The college sports landscape features some of the best mascot names in existence (well, maybe not quite as good as some minor league hockey or baseball teams, but close).  The Jumbos, Banana Slugs, Anteaters, Lord Jeffs, are some pretty good ones.

But what would happen if these mascots met in the NCAA tournament? Who would come out on top.

Sorry, but Owls (Temple), Volunteer (Tennessee), Terrapin a.k.a turtle (Maryland), Cardinal (Louisville), Saint (Siena), Gael (St. Mary's), Colonial (Robert Morris), Golden Eagle (Marquette), Spider (Richmond) you're not getting past the first round. Sorry Jayhawk (Kansas).  Not in this tourney.

Schools with colors, Orange (Syracuse), Big Red (Cornell), Mean Green (North Texas), you're out too.  Same with you Golden Gopher (Minnesota).

As with the actual tournament year in and year out, it gets tougher with each round.

A Musketeer (Xavier), Gaucho (UCSB), Rebel (UNLV), Aggie (Utah State, Texas A&M), Cowboy (Okie State), Miner (UTEP), fine and dandy, but don't plan on staying too long.

So now that we've separated some of the pretenders, who would be some of the favorites to advance?

Wildcats (Kentucky, K-State, Villanova), Grizzly (Montana), Tigers (Missouri), and  Panthers (Northern Iowa) are pretty fierce, but I wouldn't put high odds on their success.

So who ... or what ... would be my Final Four?  Let's cut to the chase.

To me, nothing would be more entertaining than seeing a Blue Devil (Duke), Demon Deacon (Wake Forest), and while I would give some consideration for a Mountaineer (West Virginia) - ever see a Mascot carry a musket down 7th avenue in New York? -  I would like to think that a Spartan (Michigan State) would come out on top - perhaps in overtime.  My fourth, the Fighting Irish (Notre Dame).  By all accounts, you don't want to mess with one Fighting Irishman - but by all indications, it would appear you would be taking on more than one short-tempered angry fellow from The Old Country.  Good luck with that.

But in the end, I think a final would have pit a Blue Devil against a Demon Deacon.  What would top a Blue Devil.  Maybe a Red Storm, but St. John's didn't get invited.

Who do you think comes out on top?

Might be a tough one to officiate.

MIDNIGHT IN THE MARCH OF MADNESS

(AP Photo Elise Amendola)

I guess there is a reason for why it is called March Madness.  Based on just the opening day, I don't know where to begin.

Perhaps starting with the obvious: the Big East took a big blow today with three of four teams in action packing their bags and heading home. The next time they lace 'em up will be in October when "Midnight Madness" begins.  Well, midnight, in a way, sort of struck for Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame and if not for a missed free thrown, Villanova's bus would have been heading back to Philadelphia.

But the Wildcats pulled it out, just as good teams do when they have the opening and made some key shots in the overtime period and withstood a very, very strong effort by Robert Morris to advance to the next round.

Washington over Marquette was not as big as a surprise as the Huskies were the conference champs of the Pac-10, a conference that took some abuse nationally for poor teams this year.  But sometimes the "experts" have little facts seeing how most of the West Coast games are on after the midnight hour and mostly on regional television.

But Old Dominion over Notre Dame?  Ohio, not to be mistaken with Ohio State, downing Georgetown by putting up the most points against a Hoya team in the NCAA tournament in 70 GAMES !


Now I for one am a big fan of the Big East, and absolutely love the conference championship at Madison Square Garden. But has the tournament taken too much out of the sails of this behemoth of a conference?  Are teams tired of beating each other up and end up starting slow, playing down to their opponents?

Maybe.

But I don't want to take anything away from the Ohio's and Old Dominion's of the world. They played great, made the big shots, played tough defense, and deserved to win.  They wanted it more.

Call it an upset if you will.  I think most will call it Madness.