By Bob Markus

Language is an ever changing thing and every so often a dictionary will expand its lexicon to admit new words. Often these come about through inventions or scientific discoveries. "Radar" comes to mind for the former, "antibiotics" for the latter. Sometimes a new word will evolve from street jargon. "Jive" and "hip," in its secondary meaning of being a cool dude, are some examples.

But the new word I want to talk about today is "bracketology." Bracketology can be defined as the process of picking the winners of every game in the NCAA basketball tournament with the object of (a) proving how much one knows about college basketball and (b) picking up some hard cash. Bracketology is a spring rite that has become imbedded deep in the American soul. In offices and homes throughout the land, players have filled out their brackets and thrown five bucks into the pool, hoping to strike it rich. There is a radio station in South Florida that is offering a prize of 100 million dollars to anyone who could pick the winners of all 64 games, including the play-in game. That is mission impossible, of course. It's difficult enough to pick who's going to make it to the Final Four, without picking the winners bracket by bracket.

There are various methods of making your selections. There's the go-with-the-coach- who's-been-there-before method. This suggests that North Carolina, Duke, Michigan State and perhaps Syracuse are good bets to win it all. Denny Crum, when he was coaching at Louisville once told me that the key to winning in the NCAA tournament is guard play. That's all right if you know which teams have the best guards, but kind of useless if you can't tell Stephen Curry (Davidson's star of last year's tourney)from lamb curry. Then there's the ouija board method, where you more or less throw darts at the bracket.

You could, of course, listen to the experts or make your own reasoned choices from the evidence presented during the regular season. None of these is fool proof and all can be utilized to some extent. I have to admit that I'm not as well-informed as I used to be when I was covering college basketball for The Chicago Tribune in the mid to late 1980s. I hadn't watched a full game prior to the start of the tournament and the local newspaper is not particularly college hoops oriented. I have read enough and seen enough to know that the Big East was loaded this year, a fact that was reemphasized when the powerful conference received an unprecedented three No. 1 seeds.

I also thought I knew that the Pac 10 had a down year, which is why I picked all six of their entrants to lose in the first round. Only California did, putting me a bit behind the eight ball. In fact, sad to say, I picked only 18 winners in the opening round of 32 games and four of them were No. 1 seeds vs. No. 16s, historically a done deal. But fortunately, all of the Pac 10 first round winners--all except Arizona--reverted to form in the second round. I was able to pick the winners in 13 of the 16 second round games which leaves me in position to have eight teams advance to the Elite Eight. I also have all four of my Final Four teams alive.

The one thing I don't have is Pittsburgh, Sports Illustrated's pick to win it all. You may recall that last week I projected Pitt to be the first No. 1 seed out of the tournament, suggesting the Panthers would lose a second round matchup with Tennessee. The Vols, of course, never made it to the second round. Since I'm already on record as picking Memphis to win it all I'm going to be a little uncomfortable watching the Tigers play another set of Tigers--Missouri's. I'm a Missouri grad and I'll be somewhat torn between wanting Memphis to win for the sake of my ego, or Missouri for the sake of my heart. I'll probably go for the second option.

For the record, my Final Four is Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma and Villanova. Villanova is definitely a long shot, but the last time they got to the Final Four, in 1985, they won it all. I don't think that will happen this time, but while everyone remembers the Wildcats' heart-stopping upset of Georgetown in the Finals, who recalls the team Villanova beat to reach the finals? In fact it was Memphis State, which has since dropped the State from its name.

Personal note: I'll try to return to my regular Tuesday blog date next week.