By Bob Markus

Call me a Luddite. I'm not sure that is really the word to use, but I kind of prefer it to "stupid." A Luddite is a person who hates modern machinery, would rather travel in a horse drawn carriage than in a gas guzzling automobile, would rather wash his clothes in a nearby creek than in a spin dry washing machine, would prefer to beat the dirt out of his carpet to using a vacuum cleaner. That's not me. I appreciate modern conveniences even if I did, until quite recently, use my dishwasher only as an air-drying rack. It's just that, somewhere in the last 20 years, modern technology passed me by. I owned a microwave for about five years and never used it until my kids finally took pity on me and showed me how. Even now the only thing I can use it for is to reheat something. I was among the last persons to own a CD player or a DVD and I almost never use either one. I have a cell phone, but don't know how to use it, except to make an outgoing call. I don't even know the number. But of all the modern gadgets, the one that baffles me the most is the computer. I hate my computer and it hates me. Two weeks ago I was composing my blog and was nearly finished when I apparently hit some extraneous key that instantly narrowed my screen to the size of a Band-aid. Fortunately I had prior experience in writing on a small screen. As a sports writer for the Chicago Tribune I learned how to write on a first generation computer--the Teleram. This was a bulky portable machine that weighed about as much as a bowling ball and had a screen that would accommodate perhaps 150 words. Then you had to transmit the screen to the office computer by using a modem, a set of rubber couplers into which you would place your telephone before hitting the send button. The rate of failure to launch was higher than a Sherpa's base camp--and that was under benign conditions. Let there be any noise above a whisper anywhere within 20 yards of your machine and the chances the copy would actually reach your newspaper were miniscule. Among the more dreaded assignments in those days was a Purdue basketball game. Not that the Boilermakers weren't both competetive and accommodating. But the press box for basketball was in the midle of the Purdue cheering section and the only way you had a chance of filing during a game was to hope the opposition went on a crowd-silencing run.

I finally managed to finish my blog and post it, even in its reduced size, but I knew right then that my computer and I were at war. Some of you may have noticed that last week I did not post a blog. I intended to and actually got three paragraphs into it when suddenly the computer let me have it with both barrels. Not only did the incredible shrinking screen manifest itself again, but the cursed cursor froze. No matter what I tried I couldn't unfreeze it. Even two days later the computer was as useless as a Republican alderman in a Chicago city council meeting.

But there really is a silver lining in every cloud. My recalcitrant computer ended up doing me a huge favor. The blog I had started writing concerned the NCAA basketball tournament. More specifically it was my own private selection show in which I revealed who was going to win the national championship. And the winner is. . . .drum roll please. . . . . . .Villanova. This, in part, is what I wrote: "Pay attention now. Trust me. The national final will be a replay of the 1985 classic title game between Villanova and Georgetown, with the same result. Except this time when they cut down the nets the Wildcats will do so as the favorite." How did I come to this conclusion? Beats me. I guess my rationale went something like this: Georgetown and Villanova were both contenders in the Big East, generally acknowledged to be the strongest conference in the land. Georgetown had finished strong, reaching the Big East tournament finals. Villanova had not. But there have been teams that staggered into the tournament and won it and teams that seemingly had momentum going in and lost in the first round (See DePaul circa 1980s.]

Huey Long used to have a saying: Every man a king. This is the time of year when the corollary becomes appropriate: Every man a college basketball expert. There was a time when I considered myself among that number. I was The Tribune's national college sports writer at the time and travelled across the country, seeing most of the top-rated teams in person, catching the rest on television. I hobnobbed with Jimmy V and Dicky V and Coach K and I figured I knew all there was to know about college hoops. Wrong. I might have been able to tell a two-three zone from a man-to-man defense, but, as Bob Knight would gladly tell you, my basketball knowledge didn't go much beyond that. One year I picked Knight's Indiana Hoosiers and Jim Boeheim's Syracuse Orangemen as the most over-rated high seeds in the NCAA tournament and predicted both would exit stage left before the first act was over. That was the year those two teams ended up playing in the national championship game. I should have waited a year. The next year the Hoosiers did exit early, losing, if memory serves, to Richmond in the first round.

I had the advantage in those years of being able t0 pick the brains of some of basketball's brightest minds. Like Denny Crum, the Louisville coach who told me that guard play was the key to winning an NCAA tournament. That would be pretty useful information, if only one were able to determine which team has the best guard combination. Like Dick Vitale with his Diaper Dandies and P.T. Players. Trouble is, just about every player Vitale saw was in one of those categories. The point is, I had advantages the ordinary fan filling out his tournament brackets didn't have, but still some barmaid from Pensacola who picked the winners based on how many times her dog barked when she recited the team names would always outdo me. The second point is that if I couldn't pick the winners when I presumably knew what I was talking about why should you pay any attention to me now when I haven't watched a single game from start to finish? I don't even own a dog. But I do know where I can borrow one.

So, thanks to my balky computer I've been given a rare second chance. Nobody has to know that the two teams I picked to play for the title never made it out of the first week-end. It'll be our little secret. I'm just going to start over and pick the winner from the 16 teams still playing. First, the Final Four. In the South Regional it will be Duke over St. Mary's in the final. I know that Cinderella is supposed to go home once the Sweet 16 begins, but I like St. Mary's to pull one more upset, beating Baylor. But Duke, which should end Purdue's valiant run, will be too strong for the Gaols. The best game of the tournament could be the East Regional Final with Kentucky playing West Virginia. Although the Wildcats are very young I remember well the Fab Five Michigan Wolverines. I didn't cover the Final Four that year, but I did cover one of Michigan's early round games. Michigan not only had an all-freshman lineup, but a freshman coach, Steve Fisher, who had been an assistant to Bill Frieder during the regular season. Frieder had volunteered to stay and coach the Wolverines during the tournament after accepting the head coaching job at Arizona State. I asked Bo Schembechler why he hadn't taken Frieder up on his offer and Bo spat out: "Because I want a Michigan man coaching Michigan." Fisher coached the Wolverines to the national championship. Kentucky will have some trouble against underrated Cornell, but the Wildcats' athleticism will prevail in the end. I also like Kentucky over West Virginia, which shouldn't have too much trouble with Washington in the regional semi-finals.

I originally picked Kansas State to reach the Final Four from the West regional and since they are still alive, prudence dictates that I stay with the Wildcats. But Syracuse has looked so good in the first two rounds that I'm jumping on the band wagon. In the Midwest I'm taking a big leap of faith and picking Northern Iowa, which caught a break when its next opponent, Michigan State, lost its point guard in the victory over Maryland. In the final I'll take Northern Iowa over Ohio State, which will have its hands full with Tennessee in the semi-final. So there's your Final Four--Northern Iowa, Syracuse, Kentucky and Duke--three No. 1 seeds and a No.9. If I had to pick a winner to emerge from that group I'd probably go with Syracuse. I like the Orangemen's chances. And my second chances.