Leading the way right now are Brock Welch and Travis Bonnett who picked all 16 games yesterday. Congrats to them for the time being.

After how smoothly things went yesterday with 15 of the 16 games played going to the top seeded teams, one would have to assume that today will be total chaos. That’s just the way the tournament works people, one day you’re bragging to your friends about only missing a single game on the first day and the next day, you’re staring at your bracket dumbfounded as your three of your elite eight picks evaporate in a flurry of upsets.

Good luck today and may God be with your brackets.

Duke deserved to lose tonight but didn’t. Belmont needed to close coming down the stretch to put away the second seeded Blue Devils but couldn’t. The Bears should go back to Nashville with their heads up because the team that eeked out a victory tonight against them in Washington won’t be far behind.

In the next round, Duke will play Sean Miller’s Xavier Musketeers, one of the best defensive teams in the tournament which will be a problem for the Blue Devils because, as you may have noticed tonight, they have a decided lack of a consistent offensive when the three ball isn’t falling.

Duke’s not a good team and was, in no way, deserving of their seed. They won’t be with us long.

I thought as we begin the tourney, I’d look ahead a little bit and give my Final Four picks. I feel certain that when the Facebook Bottom Line Bracket Challenge ends I will not be opining about my own wisdom but rather someone else’s as my bracket is likely to hit any number of roadside bombs along the way to April 5. I’m unflappable, however, in my confidence in my Final Four picks.

East Regional: North Carolina

Midwest Regional: Kansas

South Regional: Texas

West Regional: UCLA

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Tip #1 - Forget about the site. I’ve heard people talk a thousand times about where the regional is played and at the end of the day, it matters very little. The arenas where tournament games are played doesn’t closely resemble anything that could be considered a homecourt advantage so tread carefully before picking #10 South Alabama over #7 Butler just because the game is being played in Birmingham, a five hour drive up I-65 from Mobile.

Tip #2 - Forget about Cinderella. The number one biggest mistake that people make when filling out brackets is trying to pick the upset. It’s a fool’s errand. This season will be more difficult than most when it comes to picking games because of the parody that has plagued most of the team’s in college basketball all season long. I usually try to limit myself to two or three first-round upsets every bracket because 9 times out of 10 the upsets you pick and the upsets that the talking heads call for never come to fruition. You’d rather be surprised when Austin Peay upends Texas than busting your bracket when the Longhorns win the South Regional.

Tip #3 - Avoid conversations with friends and family about your bracket. Don’t let your best friend talk you into that “can’t miss” Cornell upset. Picking a good bracket is like taking the SATs, it’s always best to trust your first instincts. Until tip-off Thursday afternoon, avoid conversations about your bracket like the plague unless it’s with a clueless co-worker or your girlfriend who’s picking her bracket based on mascots, team colors and cool names.

BRACKET ETIQUETTE - One sheet to rule them all. Making a bracket’s about making tough decisions and ones you don’t feel particularly confident in. No one’s going to be impressed that you picked UMBC over Georgetown on your 16th sheet.

1. North Carolina - Far and away the best team in college basketball. With Tyler Hansbrough, the hardest working man in college basketball, and Ty Lawson coming back from injury, Roy Williams has got to feel pretty good about his squad going into March.

2. Kansas - Don’t sleep on the Jayhawks. While I question whether or not Bill Self can get it done in the postseason as Kansas head coach (KU has lost in the first round two of the last three years), this is a pretty great, balanced team. Led by All Big-12 first teamers Brandon Rush and Darrell Arthur, Kansas comes into the tournament as an under-the-radar powerhouse. A run through the Big 12 tourney could be a sign of things to come for this team.

3. Memphis - Perhaps one of the most talented teams of the elite teams in the tournament but certainly the most untested. After running through all of the teams in Conference USA, March Madness will certainly serve as an interesting test for John Calipari’s Tigers. No shortage of talent and athleticism, Memphis doesn’t do the little things well that traditionally help teams win close games in the tournament

4. UCLA - The luckiest team in college basketball. If not for two ATROCIOUS calls, UCLA would be a three seed going into March but you can’t argue that UCLA is a pretty good, if not undisciplined, unfocused, team. UCLA is still kind of a mystery to most people. Will they be the team that came back from a double-digit deficit against Stanford or will they be the team that should have lost to NIT reject Cal at home? Time will tell.

My only two losses were:

VCU 79, Duke 77

Easily the best finish of the day and was also my first loss of the day.  As much as I would have liked to run the day 16-for-16, seeing Duke head out of the tournament in the first round was totally worth it. Pitt struggled with Wright State last night but I don’t think that the Panthers will have any trouble disposing of the Rams. I don’t see this year’s Colonial  champs as a repeat of George Mason.

Michigan State 61, Marquette 49

(I think I like this picture so much because it looks like Tom Crean is singing) Plainly, Marquette just didn’t show up. You’ve got to give some credit to Tom Izzo. This is obviously one of Izzo’s least talented teams in recent memory but he has this kids believing in the system and playing great defense. They held Marquette to just 31% percent from the field and judging by the way North Carolina let Eastern Kentucky back into the game in the second half last night, the second round showdown between Roy Williams and Tom Izzo becomes a whole lot more interesting.

My answer is that we hopefully won’t have one. I firmly believe that upsets.. like the one’s we saw last year’s are bad for fans and bad for the tournament. A couple of upsets into the first weekend makes for exciting games and chatter about shattered brackets but who wants to see a sweet 16 match-up between Ohio St. and Albany? Not this guy.

People who fancy themselves as college basketball fans like to try to pick upsets. It’s the challenge of the bracket and frankly it’s the reason people like it so much. The chance to pick an upset that no one saw coming is the reason why people are Oral Roberts to beat Washington St.

But that being said, here’s a couple of my upset specials before the games tip-off.

As much as I hate the Crybaby, Bruce Weber has his team playing good basketball at the right time of year. When you match the Illini with the wildly inconsistent Hokies of Virginia Tech, I think it’s completely plausible that the 12-seed Illini bump off 5th seed Virginia Tech.

The only 10-seed that I have beating a 7. I think this team, between Thaddeus Young and Javaris Crittenton has the potential to run a team out of the gym. UNLV is a tough defensive team but I think the Yellow Jackets have seen a tougher schedule and are frankly better than the  Runnin’ Rebs. Had the Paul Hewitt’s team played in the Mountain West, who fielded just two teams in the tournaments, their record would have been significantly higher. This team could be dangerous and a very tough out for Wisconsin in the second round.

With March Madness tipping off Thursday (sorry play-in game participants).. everyone in your office or class becomes Andy Katz or Digger Phelps. But I guess that’s what makes this event great, right?

After looking at the brackets, there are certainly some interesting match-up possibilities. Of course, those matchups could be completely torched by upsets (i.e. last year) but here’s a couple as my bracket predicts.

Midwest Regional: Oregon/Wisconsin - Drinking the Pac-10 Kool-Aid is something I vowed never to do again but I’m awfully impressed by this Oregon team. The chance to see the Ducks, who handled any and all comers in the Pac-10 tournament, square off against the Badgers (see: POY-candidate Alando Tucker) is a game I’d pay to see. Oregon/Florida - Every one of the Worldwide Leader’s talking heads are picking the Gators to return to the Final Four but I’m not sold. The SEC fielded an unspeakably weak field this year and I’m not sure the Gators have what it takes to beat Arizona, Maryland and Oregon but this game could potentially be a classic. Taj Porter, Aaron Brooks and Bryce Taylor vs. Joke-kim, Brewer and Horford.

West Regional: Of the four regionals (go Hoosiers) this is probably the weakest and least exciting (go Hoosiers). The only potentially exciting matchup would be the elite 8 showdown between Kansas and UCLA. Though I have Kansas in the Final Four, I think they’re the most enigmatic. Bill Self’s resumé in Lawrence has been far from excellent and but I think the Jayhawks will have a relatively easy time disposing of everyone in their half of the bracket. The possible Pitt/UCLA storyline has people excited but I think Saturday night Pitt showed that if they don’t get good looks from the perimeter and Aaron Gray is defended well in the post, they’re easily beatable.

East regional: Hands-down the most exciting bracket in the tournament. Anyone of these match-ups will be worth watching: Texas/USC, Texas/UNC, BC/Georgetown, Washington St./Georgetown, Georgetown/UNC. If this weekend proved anything, it was that Georgetown is the real deal. The low-post combination of Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert might be the best in the country. I’m picking Georgetown to emerge from this impressive pack but I wouldn’t be at all surprised I were wrong.

South regional: O-H-I-O. That’s really all you need to say about this bracket. Memphis is the hottest team in the country, Texas A&M and Acie Law could be a tough out but the Buckeyes will be Georgia-bound when it’s all said and done. This is the bracket with the least amount of intriguing potential match-ups. Ohio State’s biggest challenge will be its own youth and inexperience and even though they’re awfully young — they’re awfully good.

My final four picks:

Considered by many to be a number 1 seed going into the start of conference tournaments, UCLA squandered what credibility they had with a bad loss to Cal last night in the Pac-10 quarterfinals.

I’m certainly guilty of East Coast bias. The Pac-10, both football and basketball, are on way too late for me and I watch the league on probably a dozen occasions in both sports each other. (NCAA tournament and bowl games notwithstanding).

About halfway through January, the buzz started. The Pac-10 is, top to bottom, the best league in college basketball. It was tough to argue with that. UCLA was a powerhouse once more. Washington State was the surprise of the year. Aaron Brooks had Oregon looking really tough and Arizona was a sleeping giant.

With UCLA’s loss to a Cal team that is not even NIT-bound, you have to assume that the league took a serious hit in the eyes of the basketball watching public and, more importantly, the NCAA’s selection committee.

The only way that UCLA gets a number one seed is if Wisconsin, Ohio State, Kansas or UNC fall early in their conference tournaments — and I don’t see that happening.

Based on last night’s performance, or lack thereof (Aaron Afflalo), you’d almost have to believe that the best team in the Pac-10 is Oregon, who manhandled a pretty decent Arizona team.

The Pac-10 is like the sexy girl at the bar that you walk up to only to find out that she’s from Staten Island and has the accent to prove it.