We'll get to the NCAA Tournament in a minute. We've got three days to talk about it, to ponder it, to come up with seemingly indestructible theories that will be blown to pieces by sundown Thursday. In the meantime, we interrupt this three-week exhibition of high-flying, board-crashing and class-skipping to ask this crucially important question:
Who on earth decided to make Stanford and Duke the co-favorites? What Columbia and Yale weren't available?
If the Cardinal and Blue Devils can indeed turn this into The Tournament That Libraries Forgot they will have to overcome a couple of things. Duke will have to overcome injuries to star Jason Williams and semi-star Carlos Boozer. And not to get too existential or anything, but Stanford will have to overcome being Stanford.
Cardinal players have picked up a reputation as the basketball equivalent of hot chocolate all over the place in the winter, disappearing in March. Last year, Stanford enjoyed its No. 1 seed in the South for all of about 14 minutes before losing to North Carolina.
The March-choker kind of reputation tends to be undeserved; Stanford has earned all those high seeds for a reason. And this is Mike Montgomery's best team yet, with his best player, Casey Jacobsen. But until the Cardinal wins a title, the reputation will remain intact.
As for Duke? Less than two weeks ago, Boozer broke his foot. It's not so such that Boozer is sure-fire NBA lottery pick; he isn't. But for most of the season, he seemed to be the only guy at Duke who understood that "the post" was not a graduate degree.
When Boozer went out, many figured the Blue Devils would follow. But Duke earned tournament-bully status by throttling North Carolina twice in the season's final eight days. The Chapel Hill diehards will forgive new UNC coach Matt Doherty for that, but probably not until he's 83 years old.
Duke is the only top team that didn't climb out of bed and fall flat on its face last week. The favorites laid so many eggs in the season's final days, hens are jealous.
Michigan State lost to Penn State. Illinois lost to Indiana. Stanford lost to Arizona. Iowa State lost to Baylor. North Carolina lost to Duke. North Carolina lost to Duke.
With all this in mind, the selection committee spent most of Sunday deciding whether to eliminate No. 1 seeds altogether and just add a few No. 17 seeds.
But the NCAA forbids that kind of change on the grounds that the NCAA forbids everything. So Michigan State and Illinois join Duke and Stanford as top seeds.
MSU has lost four times this season, and each time everybody from Tom Izzo to Tom-on-a-car-phone has wondered why on earth the Spartans aren't as good as they were last year . . . when they lost more often.
Illinois, meanwhile, is a team that either looks unbeatable or unwatchable. This is a rare team that is at its best when you don't notice its best player.
Four No. 1 seeds have never made the Final Four. It's safe to assume it won't happen this year but as soon as you assume it, it will happen.
That's why, in an effort to stay a step ahead of my fellow bracketeers, I no longer am just predicting the games. Instead, I will predict what games I'll get wrong, then cross out those picks before the tournament starts.
It won't do much for my chances in the pool, but it sure saves time.
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