It’s the middle of March, and therefore, we have technically entered what is called “Madness.” Like everyone else in the country, I will be filling out a bracket, not doing well, then talking about how that one team screwed me. “If only Cleveland hung on to beat Wake Forest, then beat Utah and Louisville, I’d have won the whole pool…”, or something like that.

I haven’t filled out a bracket yet, but I will. In the meantime, here are the important story lines for the 2009 NCAA tournament.

• How the hell did one conference land three one-seeds? I know that Pittsburgh, UConn and Louisville were all great teams this year, but let’s face it — Memphis got screwed.
• Arizona State is back in the tournament, scoring a six-seed (yeah, fine, I root for one team). That’s nice and all, but the feeling should have been so much better with Arizona missing the dance. But for some unknown reason, Arizona is in while more deserving teams are sitting at home.
• Speaking of which, St. Mary’s got screwed. How Arizona is in and St. Mary’s is not is baffling. If Arizona wasn’t riding a 24-year streak of getting in the tournament, there’s no way they’d be in.
• Of interest from ESPN.com:
  

  Among the last teams to make it were: Wisconsin, a 12th seed in the East; Maryland, a surprisingly high 10th seed in the Midwest; and Dayton, one of only four teams from small conferences to earn an at-large bid.

  The so-called mid-major conferences have gone from nine at-large bids in 2005 to four this year. Besides St. Mary’s, Creighton got left out, as did New Mexico, UNLV and San Diego State, all from the Mountain West.

This follows the same disturbing trend in college football, that when in doubt, give the spot to the major conference. What more do the Memphis basketball programs and Utah football programs have to do to get the respect of the guys in suits who dictate their future.

Admittedly, I’m not the basketball expert that others are. My expertise is in — well, everything else. But the dismissal of mid-majors because it is assumed that they are a lower-level quality in sports is sad. Clearly, when given the chance, they’ve shown that they are quality teams, but wins over them by each other are so quickly dismissed. That’s unfortunate, and I hope I’m wrong about this crossing over into basketball.

Tournament play kicks off on Tuesday night when Morehead State plays Alabama State for the right to get their asses kicked by Louisville. The real fun starts Thursday, though.

And I have to tell you this: The NCAA tournament is one of the sports experiences that gets completely ruined living on the West Coast. It starts too early in the morning for a weekday, and ends too early at night. It ranks right up there with NFL football starting at 10 a.m., college football at 9 a.m., and late baseball games being over by 10:30. I miss sleeping in and watching ball games into the morning hours. March Madness was better on the East Coast.

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