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

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jeff Schultz said it best on his blog yesterday when he wrote:

“When Hall gets his money, it will sooth his ego for a time. The problem is, he’s a great player on a good team but a divisive player on a bad team. He will alienate teammates and drive his coach and owner crazy (although in the Raiders’ case, he probably can’t do Al Davis any further harm). It is unfortunate that the Falcons have to say goodbye to their best player. The problem is, Hall’s not a leader. He is immature, egomaniacal and petulant. The ego part isn’t unusual for a great cornerback. But the other aspects of his personality make him a bad fit for the Falcons, Raiders or any bad or rebuilding team.”

My problem with DeAngelo Hall has always been that he think he’s a much better player than he actually is. He is as flashy, attention-starved, and loud as Deion Sanders with about half the talent. It’s hard to argue that the Falcons are better off without a player of Hall’s ability but as they try to rebuild this franchise, they just might be.

WARM UP THE BUS 

There are no shortage of easy targets this week and Amanda Overmyer and Ramiele Malubay could easily be the ones picked off this week but I think the shine’s off the apple with Michael Johns. Two sub-par to mediocre performances in consecutive weeks have the Aussie in serious danger of going home in the forseeable future. His urgency to explain that he chose “A Day in the Life” last night because it was the favorite song of a dead friend smacked of desperation.

http://apps.facebook.com/cbssports/groups/group/104883

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.

WARM UP THE BUS 

I don’t know which was more depressing and boring, Ramiele’s  day job as a soy sauce slinger (borrowing a phrase from the unspeakably lame David Cook) or her rendition of “In My Life.” Two weeks in a row the pint-sized Malubay has been accused of holding back by the judges and if she phones it in next week, she will soon find herself filling little cups of soy sauce again.

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.

New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi is peeved at Tampa Bay Devil Rays reserve second baseman Elliot Johnson for running over Yankees catcher Fransisco Cervelli in a spring training game yesterday, breaking the 22-year-old’s wrist in the process.

Quoting New York Newsday:

“I think it’s uncalled for,” a visibly angry Girardi, a former catcher, said minutes after Elliot Johnson knocked Cervelli out of the Rays’ 4-1 exhibition win at Legends Field. “It’s spring training. You’re going to get people hurt. That’s what we got. We got Cervelli hurt. I’m all for playing hard, but I don’t think it’s the time when you run over a catcher.”

You know what I say to Girardi and a lesser extent to Cervelli (who had no problem with the play when asked by reporters)? Tough. If you don’t want to play the game within the spectrum of the rules, don’t field a team.

Every year guys come into spring training and NFL training camps fighting for a spot on a roster and will do whatever it takes to make the team. If that means going 100 percent during a 75 percent drill against an all-pro tackle or going headlong into a catcher at a play at home plate. The 24-year-old Johnson was giving it his all and trying to make that roster and make a living. If Girardi doesn’t like it, I suggest he find another line of work.

That being said, I do think that some of Girardi’s outrage was posturing. Appearing angrier than he was to stick up for his guy but my guess is, after seeing Girardi play for a good chunk of his career, that if Elliot Johnson was his guy, he would have gotten a pat on the rear for giving it everything he he had.

This likely isn’t the end of this story and Elliot Johnson will likely have one coming between his shoulder blades the next time these two teams play but with all the press this kid got today, I think that sting of that fastball between his numbers will have been well worth it. Welcome to the bigs.