If you don't already have an ESPN account, you can register free, just as you would with Yahoo or The New York Times. If this is a new concept to you, you're probably too dumb to win the pool anyway.

Also, this is a pool for the women's tournament. (Kidding, of course.)

I'll mail out prizes out to the top three finishers. The prizes will vary on who actually wins and what that person's favorite teams or interests are. Of this you can be sure: the prizes will be cheap. Put it this way: if I say the winner will get a Corvette, you'd better have a hobby knife and some glue handy.

Ruminations on the sports weekend:

• Last year, Maryland finished its regular season at 16-11, including 7-9 in the ACC. But they won the ACC tournament and, in a period of three days, went from a dud to a shocking 4-seed. So winning a major conference obviously means a lot. This year, Syracuse wins what many believe is the deepest conference's tournament, finishes 27-6 and gets the same 4-seed? I don't think it's a crime that Syracuse didn't get higher, but when you compare it to the gift Maryland got last year or the fact that UConn got a 2 for finishing second in the Big East's regular season and bowing out in the tournament semis ... to Syracuse? C'mon, man.

• Duke finished third in the ACC, but won the tournament: No. 1 seed. Syracuse finishes third in the Big East, but won the tournament: No. 4 seed.

• I don't know whose ass hurts more right now, Louisville or Boston College, but they both got raped by a lead pipe with those 4-seeds.

• Saw some announcers picking the 'Cuse to make it to St. Louis. Jay Bilas, Steve Lavin, and I think Seth Davis and Clark Kellogg did as well. I didn't hear anyone pick Washington to make the Final Four, and I think just about everyone has an Illinois-North Carolina final, no?

• Wasn't it last year when everyone loved Kentucky and Duke and people cried when it was set up that they'd meet in the Final Four but not in the championship game? And then neither even made it to the Final Four? Anyway, kinda reminds me of how everyone is on Illinois and Carolina. Not that they don't deserve the praise, but you know the media likes to bandwagon.

• I keep thinking the steroid mess is baseball is one like one big chain of standing dominoes, and Jose Canseco just tripped the first one.

Today's Sports Links:

• Odds of Each Tourney Team Advancing to Each Round — A cool statistical analysis of which teams are ripe for the Sweet 16 and so on. For example, Illinois is said to have an 85% chance of reaching the second weekend, whereas fellow No. 1 seed Washington has only a 57% chance. Syracuse is said to have a 34% chance, while Michigan State has a 50% chance in the same bracket. I'd disagree with that big difference, for sure.

• Tufts University Offers Class on "The Analysis of Baseball: Statistics and Sabermetrics" — Oh, to be a college student these days. Why couldn't I have been around for Playstation 2, low-rise jeans, downloadable term papers and required reading lists that included Moneyball? I'm gonna have to pull a Thornton Melon in like 20 years.

• Flash Cartoon: Vitale Goes Ape Shit Over March Madness — Ever seen Dookie V. call a game with a farm-tool lodged in his head after a topless midget hits him in the balls with a sledgehammer? I have.

• Media Uses Incorrect RPI Data All Season — SI.com uncovers the error just before Creighton got a No. 1 seed in the Austin bracket. BTW, is there anyone who likes the naming of the regions by city rather than the traditional East, West, Southeast, Southwest way?

• How to Win Your Office Pool — Some new ideas in this new-common article you find every Monday after the brackets come out.

• The What If? 2004-05 All-American Team — How the three All-America Teams would have looked like if guys like Carmelo Anthony and Emeka Okafor had stuck around. Of if Lebron James and Amare Stoudamire had gone to college. And that's the way it would have been in the 1980s, when college basketball was actually interesting, when you could actually name players from good teams, because they'd been there long enough. Remember Mullin vs. Ewing for four years? That was college hoops. Not rent-a-player like we have now.