I am pulling for North Carolina. What team are you pulling for?

I love college basketball. I love to hear the squeaking of the tennis shoes on the court, the fast pacedness of the game but most of all I like seeing the underdogs pull a big upset.

For those who don't know this Thursday at 11:00am will begin The Road to the Final Four. I will be watching 32 games from Thursday to Sunday. I love this time of year.

When my children were little as soon as the teams were picked to play, I would get us all a blank US map. We would look up all the colleges and universities and plot them on a map. It was fun to see what states had the most school in and even the location of some schools.

You are thinking" Why did they have to look them up on a map?" Do you know where IUPUI is or Gonzaga?

After we did this activity I felt better about watching all the games because it was then educational. I remember when Valparaiso was in the tourney and we watched the press conference after their game. The coach looked right at the camera ( at my children and me) and said" Who watching this even knows where Valparasio is " We did. Indiana.

Most years Andrew would make an ENORMOUS bracket for the teams. He would write the teams in their proper spots as they won. He continued this in college. One year in the dorm he made a bracket the length of 10 foot wall. Another time he down loaded the emblem of each school and as the teams won, one got to move their emblem forward. Once when Andrew was about 10 he went to visit a friend during The Games. He came home disappointed because he could not find their brachet anywhere. I did have to sit him down and tell him that we are a unique sort of family.

We have since 1996 picked teams. Most folks will pick their brackets all the way to the end. We don't. We pick round by round. We do it for bragging rights. Now Andrew and John and my brother John pick by whose hot now or who is hurt or winning percentages. My brother Charles and Kaitlin don't. Kaitlin picks by color of the teams and if she likes their mascot. Charles, one year picked all the teams, from the ones that were pared together, that had a name that came first in the alphabet. Kaitlin and Charles do as well as my sons and brother John. The lesson here is Don't Bet On Sports.

Kaitlin is asking for us to do our maps this year. We may do it tomorrow.

Please say Xavier like Zavier not X-Zavier. One does not say X-Zylophone it is just xylophone. Thank you. This is a little pet-peeve of mine.

If you want to impress those around you, you can ask " So what 12 do you think will beat a 5 this year?" (this is usually an upset you can count on) or "How bout those Zags?" That is slang for Gonzaga which is located in Washington State and IUPUI ( which didn't make the tourney this year) is Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis. Who knew?

Some of the regional games are even being played in LR this year. Carl asked if I wanted to go and I said that I'd rather watch lots of games at one time rather that just one at a time.

The final game this year in on my birthday. A wonderful gift indeed.