I realize I said last week I was not all that excited about the start of the NCAA basketball tournament and nothing has changed. However, that has never stopped me from filling out my own bracket. And because I want everyone in the world to be able to marvel at just how much (or little) I know about college hoops, I will once again reveal you my picks for this year’s field. (As in years past, please note these picks are for entertainment purposes only. Don’t go losing your house or your kids’ college fund because you think I’ve given you some inside information.)

Obviously it would take me forever to run down the whole bracket so I figured I’d just jump right to the elite eight. In the midwest I’ve got Kansas and Georgetown, Syracuse and Kansas St. in the west, Wisconsin and West Virginia in the east and Texas A&M and Baylor in the south. My final four is made up of Kansas, Kansas State, Wisconsin and A&M. Finally I have Kansas beating A&M for the national title.

I’m guessing a lot of you are rolling your eyes right about now, but I sincerely believe A&M has a legitimate shot to get that far. In my opinion Kansas has the best team in the country and twice the Aggies have given the Jayhawks all they could handle only to fade at the end of those games. Thus I am left to surmise that if A&M can almost beat Kansas they probably can beat anyone else. We’ll see how that theory plays out.

You also notice my bracket is very heavily Big 12. I even have Texas beating Kentucky and reaching the sweet 16. I don’t have one Big 12 team going out in the first round although I do have Oklahoma State and Missouri losing in the second. I’m not sure what this says about me or the state of the college hoops game. Probably that I am far too influenced by my surroundings.

Speaking of great basketball, I was watching “Magic & Bird: A courtship of rivals” on HBO as I was writing this week’s column. While talking about the first time the Celtics beat the Lakers in the NBA finals, former Laker Michael Cooper said he and Magic Johnson sat in the showers weeping for 45 minutes after they lost game seven of the finals. It made me wonder if guys still do that.

Maybe it’s because I’m older but I really don’t feel like today’s athletes take the winning and losing as personally as guys did back in the day. It seems to me they are way too rich to care that much. They are far more concerned about getting the biggest check possible.

One more thing that became apparent from the program – for a long time Magic and Bird really didn’t like each other. Bird especially really seemed to hate Magic (and pretty much everyone else he played against).

If you get a chance check out the show. It gives you the feeling there has never been two men who loved the game of basketball more than Magic and Bird. And it certainly will provide you with something to watch if you are looking to take a break from March Madness.