Honoring The Elite Eight

Although my brackets were left in shambles fairly early in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, I'm still set up to have a fairly good overall point total -- all of my projected Final Four teams are still alive, and I correctly picked five of the Elite Eight teams.

The "Elite Eight" is an interesting moniker; while it represents all the teams that make the Regional Finals, the group itself exists for only about 20 hours, from the end of the last Sweet Sixteen game until the first of the eight teams loses the next night. Despite the short-lived nature of the grouping, it really is a mark of success in college basketball for any team -- even a #1 seed -- to get to this group. That all four #1 seeds made it this year is pretty impressive, especially seeing how quickly the #2 seeds fell.

I'm sticking with my picks for the Final Four (Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA, and Texas). I think it'll be a fantasic next 9 days of basketball...