Let the madness begin!

Actually, it started last night. For those of you not familiar with the Ides of March, it is no longer a threat to Caesar. It is, however, a very big threat to office productivity.

Expect very little to get done today and tomorrow, as folks pore over their selections in the office NCAA bracket pool.

I have always wondered exactly how much money changes hands on the men’s NCAA hoops tournament. I’m sure it is greater than the GDP of some small countries.

Of course, before folks can start filling out their pools, they have to argue the merits of the work of the selection committee.

The brackets were laid out in a TV special (isn’t every important event now catered to TV) last night.

Something very interesting popped up, especially for local hoops fans.

Call them Exhibit A and Exhibit B. Or maybe better stated Exhibit T and V.

The moaning and groaning you heard about 6:15 last night was emanating from North Broad Street. That would be the home of the Atlantic 10 champion Temple Owls.

In a word, it would appear they got hosed.

The Owls managed only a No. 5 seed. They will tangle with No. 12 seed Cornell Friday in the East bracket in Jacksonville, Fla.

Compare that with Villanova, which was quickly bounced out of the Big East Tournament, a one-and-done showing for the Wildcats. They still managed to pull down a No. 2 seed in the South bracket.

Temple won its third straight A-10 title while running off 10 straight wins to end the season. In the meantime, ‘Nova struggled after shooting out to a 20-1 mark. They lost six of their last 10 and also got the early exit from the Big East.

Oh, and one other minor point. Temple actually beat Villanova in their only meeting this year.

It boils down to this. Big East vs. A-10. Case closed. Fran Dunphy’s Temple team will never get the respect due them so long as they toil in the anonymity of the A-10. Conversely, Jay Wright’s Villanova squad will get a “break” because of the strength of their schedule in the brutal Big East.

The Big East is sending eight teams to the NCAA tournament. Only two from the A-10 had their tickets validated.

It’s a slam dunk.

Temple may not like it, but those are the facts. Is it fair? Probably not.

The Owls can go a long way toward rectifying that by winning a couple of games.

To do so they’ll have to get past someone who knows them very well.
Cornell coach Steve Donahue was an assistant with Dunphy at Penn for 10 years.

Makes for a very interesting matchup.

One which the Owls believe is something of a diss.

They’ll have to change that image on the court.