How is your bracket doing? It's early, but I'm 3-0 so far. HBG is waaaaay too much into the bracket thing. She can't even enjoy a game if it might mess up her bracket a bit. She's only put five together. Yeah, five. "I just wanted to have five!"

She's got one for the Yahoo group, three for ESPN and Inside Carolina, and one personal one. Personal one? That's the one she carries around in her pocket. Why it's different from the other ones, I'll never know.

Any upsets catch you off guard? Miss out on some early ones? Let me know.

J.J. poetry courtesy of Crazy Little Thing Call Blog. And a tribute to Walt Whitman, to boot.

Wait, can I say 'Madness,' or is that copyrighted? You know how advertisers have to say 'Come watch the Big Game,' when they're talking about the Super Bowl!

Anyway, it all starts in just over two hours. We've got 15 folks signed up for the bracket challenge at Yahoo, but there's still time to get your picks in. Just hop on over to http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/men/. The ID is 55042 and password 'roysboys.'

Let's just get this out of the way: The Heels got hosed. Both men and women.

First, the men. The Tar Heels won five of their last six games and finished #10 in the country, and earned a 3 seed in Dayton. That wouldn't be so bad if there weren't tournament games being played in Greensboro.  It wouldn't be so bad if Tennessee, the team that earned the #2 seed (in Greensboro), hadn't lost four of their last six and finished #18 in the country.

I'm not saying it happened, but Taylor Zarzour on Triangle Sports Talk said on the radio that he had a friend on the tournament selection committee, and the friend said someone from Duke (not Mike Krzyzewski) called the committee and lobbied for North Carolina not to be in Greensboro. I realize that's a heavy accusation, but Taylor's got too much to lose to say that on the radio in this area.

Check out what Adam Lucas had to say.

And how do the UNC women, who finished #1 in the country and supposedly have the #1 overall seed, wind up playing in Nashville, where they could potentially meet VANDERBILT ON THEIR HOME FLOOR in the second round of the tournament? Where are the Duke women, who the Tar Heels beat twice this year, and did not have to face in the ACC championship? In Richmond. How does that make sense? Meanwhile, the Heels get the region with Tennesee and Rutgers. Great. Way to go, ladies. Win, and get rewarded with this. Last year, the ladies played in the sweet 16 on Arizona State's home floor. As a #1 seed.

This pod system is terrible.

Really, though, the field is set, and nothing is going to change it. Although I will rally the call for an independent investigation of the seeding process or, better yet, an independent commission to do the seeding. Sometimes I think these athletic directors leave it all up to a computer.

Sports Illustrated on Campus is featuring a What If? Tournament. That's as in, what if no players left college early or skipped it altogether to go to the NBA? One of the top seeds is a North Carolina team featuring Dwight Howard, J.R. Smith, Marvin Williams, Rashad, Ray and Sean. Sick. Check it out.

Also, if you're in the New York area today, you can go see Rasheed Wallace on Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith on me. The show tapes at 3 p.m. Call Jackea Chan at 646-708-7149 or email Jackea.X.Chan.-ND@espn.com.


I've noticed some new people are checking out the blog. That's great! Please, add a comment or two, or email me if you want to write an article of your own. Or just drop me a line to let me know you like it, or what you'd like to see.

I'll leave you with this: Our friend J-Mac met the president this week, and someone asked him what he thought of the tournament.

    Jason has his sights on March Madness. He predicts the University of Connecticut will take it all because the team is more athletic than Duke, a team he said has a penchant for choking. His favorite college player is Gerry McNamara, known as G-Mac, who led Syracuse to an amazing run in the Big East tournament.

"As you can tell, he's very involved in basketball," his mother said.

We can all agree on some things.