by Hannah Scissons
the Carillon

We're down to the Sweet Sixteen already, but I'll bet there are very few fans who managed to predict the extent to which the madness would go.

For those for whom "Sweet Sixteen" or "Elite Eight" or "Final Four" means nothing, in this month of all months, I'm talking about March Madness, a.k.a. the only time many Canadians could give a rat's ass about NCAA basketball.

For those who are regular readers of Eyes on Sport, you no doubt have noticed my name rarely, if ever, graces the sports pages. That's because I am a sports-ignoramus.

But along with thousands of other luckless hacks, when March comes along I throw my picks in the office pool and nervously chew my fingernails from mid-March to the beginning of April while U.S. college basketball teams battle it out on CBS (go Duke).

Of course, I shouldn't count on doing very well when my picks are based on such things as Monopoly streets (Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina) or The Wizard of Oz (Kansas) or Saskatchewan towns (Creighton) or neat-sounding names (Gonzaga).

Other years I've based my picks on the team names, which are a lot more fun. Who wouldn't want the Badgers to beat the Wildcats? Or the Blue Devils to squash the Gators? (Go Duke.) And what kind of monster wouldn't want the Indiana Hoosiers to win? Don't you remember that great film with Gene Hackman?

Seriously, though, last weekend was a killer so far as March Madness goes. Eight of the top twelve teams (seeded first, second, and third in the four regions) went down March 18 and 19.

That does a lot to shake a lay(wo)man's faith in this aptly-named madness.

Who would have thought that tenth-seed Seton Hall would make it past second-seed Temple in the East? The same thing happened in the West, where Gonzaga beat out St. John's. I should have known the name would carry them far.

A couple of the biggest upsets were in the West and South, where the number one seeds both bowed out to the eighth-rnaked teams. Thanks a lot Arizona and Stanford, you really let me down. I should have gone with my gut feeling that Stanford doesn't belong in number one because they're just a bunch of nerds, and gone with the familiar North Carolina.

Checking out the results on the web while games were in progress on the weekend, I breathed a sigh of relief when my chosen-champion managed the win over Kansas. Sorry fellow Dorothy lovers, you couldn't really think they'd beat Duke? It's such a regal name.

Real NCAA fans, even real any-sports fans, must be covering their mouths trying to stifle the gag at how I follow March Madness. Dorothy? Regal? Hoosiers? Monopoly? What's she on? She's putting feminism back decades! What about the players, the team records, the injury lists, the wild cards?

Well, the joke is on you, if you've managed to read this far. I'll bet my method of picking winners worked as well as yours (not too great this year, admittedly). That's why it's called March Madness.