Welcome to the Madness

 This is what you call in sick for, what you eat wings and drink beer at straight-up noon for, what you fill out a bracket for and then say, "Aw, hell, I knew the Tar Heels were a buncha mids this year. Why'd I pick 'em?"

Welcome to the Madness, boys and girls. Welcome to -- maybe, possibly -- the two best days of the year.

That would be the Thursday and Friday that kick off the NCAA Tournament, also known as the Burn Your Bracket Zone. This is because sometime on one of those days, and frequently on both, some trust-fund baby seed goes down to some wannabe from the sticks.

Usually, it's a 12-seed taking out a 5-seed. Because 12-over-5 has become one of those immutable March Madness laws of nature, like the Big Ten, SEC and ACC always getting eleventy-hundred teams in the show, even if occasionally some of them are Northwestern or Mississippi State.

At any rate, 12-over-5 is a tournament talisman, and, hey, guess what? We didn't go two hours until it happened yesterday.

Come on down, you High Point (N.C.) Panthers!

Who sent big-deal Wisconsin to the sidelines in the first slate of games, 83-82, a more-than-usual shocker mainly because Wisconsin came to March on something of a roll. Won five of their last six games, the Badgers did, finally losing to top-seeded (and NCAA Tournament 1-seed) Michigan by a measly three points.

But High Point, the proud champions of the Big South Conference, sent Wisky back to Madison on a late layup. Boom!

No other 12-over-5s happened on Thursday, but a couple of 11s-over-6s did, and that's almost as good. Texas took down BYU, and -- perhaps more notably -- plucky Virginia Commonwealth upset the aforementioned North Carolina Tar Heels. Came from 19 points down to win in overtime, 82-78, and hooray for the, um, Commonwealthers.

(No, that's not VCU's nickname. Its nickname is the Rams. Clip and save for your next round of sports bar trivia.)

Other than that ...

Wait, what?

Oh, man, I almost forgot!

How 'bout those mighty 16th-seeded Siena Saints, everyone?

Who, OK, wound up losing to overall top seed Duke, but only by six, 71-65. Before that, the fightin' Saints scared the pedigree out of the Blue Devils, leading by 11 at halftime and by 13 early in the second half. They continued to lead until just 4:25 remained, when Isaiah Evans drove hard to the iron and laid it in to finally put Duke in front.

Ah, well. On to today.

See ya at noon. Wings and beer on me.