NCAA Tourney: of all the words of mice and men . . .

The Monk's picks honked -- that's what you get when The Monk was so deep into work he didn't realize until late last night that he picked four Big Tenplusone teams for the Sweet 16 -- what a fool! The Monk has an anti-Big Ten bias because that conference plays basketball like the early '90s Big East -- bang, push, clang. It's rugby with a hoop. But because the Big Tenplusone landed three Final Eight teams last year, The Monk thought he may have underrated the conference as a whole.

Here's the problem: I didn't do a conference by conference check of the Sweet 16 I put forth, therefore I didn't catch the brain flatulence inherent in picking four Big Tenplusone teams to survive the weekend. There's no way, if I had done a quantitative analysis, that I'd have had four Big Tenplusone teams in the Sweet 16.

And indeed, in the written bracket I set up for my office pool I had Iowa and OSU both out by now, WVU and G'Town both in the Sweet 16, and only Indiana and Illinois surviving the weekend from the thugsketball league (even though that didn't happen, I don't regret those picks). So much for proofreading my own s--t.

Here's what else I honked: (1) Kansas -- the first Final Four pick in about 10+ years that I've made that's whiffed in the first round; (2) UNC in the Final Eight (but so did most everyone else -- you didn't pick GMU for the Sweet 16, and if you say otherwise, you're lying); (3) Syracuse and Seton Hall (what a whiff by the Pirates). Kansas', Syracuse's and Iowa's failures led me to create a new Monkrule of tournament forecasting: do NOT pick conference tourney champions of major conferences for a deep NCAA Tourney run if those teams get less than a 2-seed. See 1992 Syracuse, 1993 Georgia Tech, 2004 Maryland. Exception to the rule: 1996 Mississippi State.

Here's what I got right: (1) Tennessee failing to survive the weekend -- I just picked the wrong vanquisher; (2) Florida actually winning through to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000; (3) UWM beating Oklahoma.

Some highs and lows of the first weekend. First the lows:

Worst performance by a #2 seed = tie between Tennessee and OSU. Tennessee barely survived Winthrop before getting ousted; OSU lost by 18 in Ohio to Georgetown after an unimpressive win over Davidson.

Worst performance by a #1 seed = UConn, which had to rally to beat Albany and then couldn't put away Kentucky in a game played at UConn's pace.

Worst first-round choke = Kansas and Iowa, tie. Iowa was a touch overseeded but should not honk to a stiff like NW State; Kansas whiffed in the first round for the second-straight year.

Worst second round honk = UNC. The 'Heels ran out to a 16-2 lead by the 15-minute mark of the first half. With 15 minutes left in the GAME, UNC trailed 32-30 -- that's 14 points in 20 minutes against the #11 seed. Honorable mention to Pitt (a #5), which lost to Bradley (a #13).

Worst first-round performance, overall: Seton Hall. So much for Louis Orr's resume, that team trailed by 16 at the half and sucked for the full 40 minutes.

As for the highlights:

Best buzzer-beater: NW State to knock off Iowa.

Best performance by a #1 seed: Memphis, which dispatched Oral Roberts and Bucknell with the ease that should be expected of a #1 seed.

Best performance by a #2 seed: Texas' second-round win over NC State. UT won a trap game (NCSU beat second-seeded UConn in the second round last year) and did so by 21 after struggling with Penn. Honorable mention: UCLA's whipping of Belmont in the first round -- the largest win by a top-2 seed in the tournament. UCLA has allowed all of 103 points in two games -- that's defense, a concept formerly foreign to the West Coast but central to Ben Howland (who came from rough-and-tumble Pitt).

Easiest waltz to the Sweet 16: West Virginia. After thwacking So. Illinois, the Mountaineers only had to face NW State. It's not often that a sixth seed faces an 11 and a 14 on its trip to the regional semis.

Best job of taking care of business: BC, which won its two games easily.

Best performance by a team outside the #1-#4 seeds: Georgetown and George Mason. The Hoyas thumped OSU in Ohio, a pseudo-road game; the Colonials beat Michigan State by 10 and shut down UNC.

As for the Sweet 16, here are the best games: (1) Villanova-BC, renewing the Big East rivalry in a battle of speed ('Nova) vs. power (BC and its big front line); (2) UCLA-Gonzaga, the battle of the West with offense ('Zags) vs. defense (UCLA, yes you read that right) -- note that UCLA coach Ben Howland ALWAYS has been good at breaking a zone with interior passing, not just outside shooting, and the 'Zags play much zone; (3) UConn-UW, a battle of the Huskies and the question of whether Washington can keep pace with UConn. Also interesting, whether LSU can batter Duke physically, and whether Florida can keep going against a difficult GTown team.