George Mason 65, UNC 60....One of the reasons Darth Marc doesn't do brackets anymore...

I'm tired of giving my money to these pools. All I end up doing is donating to someone's vacation fund or all-night bender since I never win. This year, I decided to look at each bracket and decide who was coming out of it as their final four representative.

I choose UConn, BC, UCLA and Texas as my final four picks. I had UNC, Georgetown, LSU and West Virginia as my darkhorses. It's a lot easier doing that than filling out a bracket and then pulling your hair out after Northwestern State hits a fallaway tray to beat Iowa or watching the Heels spit the bit versus George Mason.

I wish I could say that I was surprised that UNC lost. But having watched them all year, I knew that they had a bad habit of playing up or down to their competition. That's why I couldn't put them in the Final Four. As much as I hate Duke, I respect the fact that they don't lose to teams in the tourney like George Mason. You have to bring your A game to beat them.

But UNC's loss also highlights another trend. That's the emergence of mid-major teams going from the occasional spoiler (Richmond vs Syracuse, Princeton vs UCLA)to legitmate contenders. And I think the tourney committee acknowledged that trend in some of the picks and seedings.



The Major conferences are going to continue to get the best athletes, get the most at large bids and win the whole thing most of the time. But I wouldn't be surprised to see one of these mid-majors get to the Final Four or win it all in the not so distant future. When you can keep a team together for three or four years, it's always going to help your chances of advancing in the tournament....even if your competition has better athletes.

That's where the big teams are at a slight disadvantage. The blue-chip propects don't stay in school for four years anymore. And the really special players aren't going to college anymore. Yeah, Stern raised the NBA age minimum to 20. But kids who don't want to go to school are going to find ways around it. Some will probably play overseas for a couple of years before coming back.

This all means that the playing field in the NCAA will continue to level over the coming years. Which means that we could very well see a mid-major conference team win it all in the not-too-distant future.

Hell, although Mason's win was at the expense of one of my favorite teams I love the fact that Mike and MadDog have major egg on their faces. They were killing the choice of George Mason for an at-large bid over local team Hofstra. I wonder how they'll wiggle out of this one?