Madder than usual

 Well, Colgate is in. So we got that goin' for us.

Drexel is in, Winthrop is in, the Hawks of Hartford are in for the first time ever. Duke, Kentucky and Louisville are all out, for the first time since 1965. And if Indiana will not be playing in Assembly Hall this week, Kelvin Sampson will be, returning to the scene of the crime with his Houston Cougars.

Vegas has it 5-3 he gets struck by lightning the minute he steps on the floor. Or maybe one of those five rotting NCAA banners falls on him and smothers him, the Ghosts of IU Past getting their revenge on the man who blew up the program.

Yes, it will be that weird this week, in a Madder-than-usual March Madness. All the games will be played in Indiana, which is entirely appropriate but hardly the norm. There'll be games on two courts in Lucas Oil Stadium, and in Assembly Hall, and in Mackey Arena in West Lafayette. The old arena at the fairgrounds, where Mel Daniels used to do battle with Zelmo Beaty back in the day, will play host to some games. Hinkle Fieldhouse will. Banker's Life will.

Personally, the Blob wishes they'd have farmed out a few games to some more sites, just to give people a taste of how deep is Indiana's basketball weave. Play some games in Chrysler Fieldhouse in New Castle, for instance. Re-open the Wigwam in Anderson. Send Bob Huggins and West Virginia to the Hickory gym over in Knightstown, or Patrick Ewing and Georgetown.

Look, guys! It's Norman Dale! And isn't that Ollie with him?

Weird upon weird.

This does not mean the Blob won't roll out its people's choice again, as it does yearly. You never want to plunk down hard green on anything the Blob predicts about the Madness, so if it says it likes Illinois and Ohio State and thinks Gonzaga is not going to be the upset bait some people think, you want to flee screaming from all those notions. But a heartwarming Cinderella?

Well, listen up: Hartford's your pick.

Not only, as noted, is this the Hawks' first NCAA Tournament ever, they've got some cool history to them. Dionne Warwick is a Hartford grad. So is the late Jack Swigert, the pilot on Apollo 13. So are Jeff Bagwell, Hall of Fame baseball player, and Vin Baker, Hartford's most notable basketball alum.

It's not all that old a school -- only been around since 1957 -- but 48 states and 43 countries are represented among its 6,792 students, so it's as cosmopolitan a campus as any. Plus it has a pretty righteous mascot, Howie the Hawk.

The Hawks, as a 16-seed, drew Baylor in the first round, so they're probably gone in an eyeblink. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't root for them. The whole deal with the first weekend of Da Tournament, after all, is rooting for teams that have no chance. Because sometimes they do.

So why not Hartford? I mean, weirder things have happened.

Especially this year.