I have North Carolina, though I admit it crossed my mind to pick a huge upset run by the Bearcats of Cincinnati, just to stay in line with my NL Central shocker.

Even though the Heels fired my extreeeemly distant cousin Matt as coach a couple of years ago, Chapel Hill is still the center of the basketball universe.

As a University of Maryland student, this season hasn’t exactly gone the way it should have. You would think sweeping Duke would have put us in over NORTHERN IOWA, whose key wins were over the powerhouses known as Iowa State and Southern Illinois (Not to mention the fact that they lost to Evansville, Drake, and SMS). Luckily for my brackets, I do not feel inclined to have the Terps going all the way this year, which should help my score.

All I can say is that I'm syked that UDub got a #1 seed and I can't wait to see Nate the Great tear up the tournament! That guy is a player!!

Since I am an Niagara University Alumni with a B.B.A., a M.B.A. and a M.S. from there and also serve as a Senior Lecturer at the university, I cannot pull for anyone except Niagara. Ok, ok, I know they are a 14 seed, but it has been THIRTY-FIVE YEARS since they have been to the dance.

Was it called the dance back then?

Sophoric, I am equally as angry, as a Notre Dame grad, about ND being snubbed. I think we were the 1st and 2nd teams left out. UConn, BC, 'Nova, WV are on our good win list, and the hardest Big East schedule out there. Northern Iowa...what a joke, huh?

Anyway, I'm definitely in for this Yahoo pool, as I run one myself and always fill out as many entries as I can possibly get my hands on. One of these days I'm gonna have a close-to-perfect bracket...

I'm ashamed to admit I had to copy and paste "schoeneweis".

As a loyal Wahoo, I cannot root for either the Tar Holes or Puke. Coach K has been campaigning for my Hoos to keep our lousy coach, which is mighty self-serving on his part. "Gillan is a good coach. The fact that his teams can't play defense or rebound is just a coincidence. Really."

well folks....you can all rest easy about competition from me,

I just picked Utah to win it all

I'm ashamed to admit I had to copy and paste "schoeneweis".

Yeah, me too. It's the second "e" that does me in.

For the tourney, I'd like to see Wake Forest make a run, but in the end I couldn't bet against the Tarheels

I have to admit that the "Schoeneweis" thing was part of a cunning plan to drill the right spelling in everybody's head. :) It took me two months to learn how to spell it, so I figure I'll spread the pain around... :)

It shouldn't be that hard to learn... if you know a little elementary german.

schoene is the non-umlauted version of schöne- which means beautiful.

weis i think means white.

schoeneweis- white and beautiful. A very intimidating name indeed.

I'd just like to point out that the standings after day one have a very familiar feel to them -- I'm on top and everyone else is down below.

So long, suckers!