Basketball, Busted Brackets, and Butler

I have only been on this earth for 26 years, but that had to have been the best Men's NCAA Tournament I've ever witnessed!

First of all I'm a HUGE college basketball fan and I'm an even bigger fan when it comes time for March Madness.

It was an interesting year for the game, yes we had those dominate teams like Kansas, Syracuse, and Duke but what we should have all been thinking is "Really are any of these teams as good as the media says they are?"

Like many of you, I thought my bracket would be solid this year, I mean how could you go wrong with Kansas and Syracuse as two of the teams in the final four, and more so how could you go wrong with Kansas in the Championship game.

DEAD WRONG, that's how wrong most of us were!

The first round of the tourney was full of good upsets, you had Cornell, Old Dominion, St. Mary's, Murray State, and UNI...out of those five I only had St. Mary's and Cornell moving on, my bracket after day one, good but not close to being great.

Round 2...who knew?

Kansas went down to UNI by two...all I remember thinking during the game is "Oh no there goes my bracket!"

St. Mary's, a team that made the Zags look weak in the WCC title game, was the other big upset in round two when they beat Villanova convincingly, another one bites the dust.

After that I decided two things, one-I'm no longer even checking my standings in the bracket pools and two-this is a d**n good tourney!

We all know the story lines from there on out...Cornell the Cinderella finally lost it's slipper, Kentucky's youth proved to be a weakness, and Butler (I didn't even know where they were located) was paving a path to the Championship game and making history all at once.

As much as I dislike Duke (along with the rest of the country), I still knew putting them in the Championship game was the smart thing to do, and sure enough they beat WV (my other Final Four team), to advance into the title game.

But who thought Butler would really make it all the way...I sure didn't, but I'm glad they did.

That was a match up that was so unlikely but so intriguing...and even though Duke came out with the win, in my opinion Butler didn't lose much.

They've gained the respect of the nation and they've now become the new "America's Team."