It's that time of year again, starting tonight. That's when the 64 teams you have grown to love over the last five days finally move somewhere in those brackets you've been staring blurry-eyed at. It's called March Madness and for good reason.

In addition to having impressive alliteration, it changes nearly everyone around you into stark raving mad college basketball geniuses. Even the people who don't like sports seem to come out of the woodwork like cockroaches in a cheap Cancun hotel with their expert picks.

People often change geographical alliances during the tournament. Say for example, you have picked Alabama-Birmingham to win it all. Perhaps you didn't even know where UAB was located before this, perhaps you thought the team was actually UAE (United Arab Emirates) and always wondered why a team from the Middle East played in Conference USA. Now, however, you know the exact mileage between Marquette and its campus, the names of all the players and the favorite snack food of their towel boy. (It's quiche).

Personal health and integrity are just two things that go by the wayside when it comes to ensuring your team's way through the tournament. Although your only previous interest in the entirety of the Louisville basketball program may have been where Rick Pitino purchases his hair gel (such impressive shine and hold!), if you picked the Cardinals to win it all, they are everything to you. In fact, you may not even like people from Kentucky, or people in general, but now they are your best friends.

Even if the players from Louisville had come to Milwaukee and ran over your family pet, dissed your mother and dated your sister, you would still consider them to be great friends because they have the chance to win $20 for you in your pool.

Just even talking about the tournament is like speaking in another language. I heard one conversation go something like this: "Washington would have been a strong No. 2 seed and a weak No. 3 seed." Would this person have preferred Washington to be the 2.5 seed? It doesn't matter though, math doesn't count when it comes to March Madness.

I asked a guy in one of my classes as he was filling out his bracket how he felt about the Wisconsin-Milwaukee vs. Alabama match-up. Without so much as a thought or bat of the eye he stated, "Alabama will destroy them."

I am pretty sure if I asked him what class we were in or where his life was going he would have furrowed his brow and contemplated before mumbling something incoherent. But Alabama will certainly beat the Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Up next week: NIT bracket madness and the narcolepsy it involuntarily produces.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Mar. 17 2005.