The angst of the day after having done a review and completed your Bracket is detailed precisely here:

You take a look at that bracket you so confidently filled out yesterday -- and suddenly you wonder what you were thinking.

• Picking UNC to NOT win its region? (Most folks -- including the bookies -- have them winning not just the South, but the whole thing.)

• Picking UCLA to upset Villanova? (In Philadelphia?! When they might not even get out of the 1st round vs. VCU?!)

• Picking Duke to lose in the opening weekend? (Yes, picking that same result the past two years has been entirely successful, but this year's team is much better than the past two versions. Oh, and they are playing the opening weekend in North Carolina.

• Picking 5 Big East teams to the Elite Eight, 3 to the Final Four, 2 to the championship game and the Big East winning the title? (There is appreciating how good the Big East was this year, and then there is putting my entire bracket on the line for the league.)

• Picking no 1st-round upsets beyond "non-upset" 12s, 10s and 9s, even though we all know that 11-seeds and even a 13-seed are likely to upend the bracket.

These are just the kind of picks that have me shaking my head the day after they don't happen, muttering "Well OBVIOUSLY, idiot!"

You have two choices: Stick to your picks and hope for the best -- or wuss out and embrace conventional thinking.

I like the former. Each year, it is the ultimate moment of rationalizing what is otherwise an exercise in crazy.

UNC - paper tigers?
In the case of my bracket, UNC is a prime example, I look at them being nearly everyone's favourites and then see I've got them losing to Gonzaga in the Regionals in one and losing to Syracuse in the Regionals in another.

Arizona: conventional wisdom likes them as a darkhorse because they are "athletic", have "nothing to lose" and are facing Utah in the first round. The answer? Hedge the bets and pick one of them in one and the other in the other. Who really knows whether or not Utah are good enough?

AccuScore predicts Pitt over Louisville in the final and the top seeds doing well.

The NYTIMES picks a bracket based upon fouling and comes up with a Final Four of Xavier, Oklahoma, Wake Forest and UConn.

Anyway, I'll come up with a hybrid bracket as follows, which I won't change, I figure fuck it, in the narrow games I'll pick who I'd rather see win:

MIDWESTLouisville (yes, Wake Forest, WVA, but no at the end of the day)
WEST: Memphis (everyone's got flaws but not everybody has a chip on their shoulders.
EAST: Pitt (anybody but Duke in otherwise the weakest group as far as I'm concerned)
SOUTH:Syracuse (yeah, UNC is the darling but like Duke, I simply can't root for them. Syracuse had a good run in the Big East and frankly, this is the team I want to root for. Oklahoma has faded, Gonzaga is another I would say has a shot.

Finals: Pitt over Louisville

my NYT bracket

my sporting news bracket