Maryland-Davidson tips off in a few minutes, followed by Texas Tech-Boston College, then Louisville-Stanford. There are a lot of good first round matchups, but how great is it that three of them are being played in the first group of Thursday games? What a way to start!

Three tournament wishes

(1) Duke wins the national championship

Okay, scratch that. That’s just far too much to wish for at this point.

(1) I can avoid Bill Raftery games - I’ve long been a defender of Dick Vitale, but over the last couple of years he’s begun to annoy even me, a long-time supporter of his. But since Vitale doesn’t call games for CBS, Bill Raftery has surpassed Billy Packer as my least favorite CBS color guy. I watched the SEC championship game on Sunday and had to turn the sound off. I can no longer listen to this man.

(2) UNC and Florida fall - Since I predicted this in early in the season, I’d like to see that happen. I don’t want UNC to win for obvious reasons. And I feel relatively confident they will not be able to win six in a row (which would be ten in a row overall.) Florida, on the other hand, can. But, of course, I didn’t pick them to do so. Duke was the last team to repeat, and I’d like for that to continue to be true. Therefore, I hope neither of these are the last team standing.

(3) A great Final Four - Last year’s Final Four was a disappointment for me as a neutral fan. The games were not really close or exciting. Whoever makes it this year, I just hope the games are interesting, close, well-played, exciting, etc. In other words, I hope they’re worth the time to watch them. Today and tomorrow are almost always the best days of the tournament, but that’s because there are thirty-two games. The odds are much better that there will be quite a few games worth watching. You have three duds and nobody really notices. You have three duds in Atlanta, it’s a waste of time. Above all, I want to see some great games to end the season.

Have I mentioned how much I love March?

Let’s dance.