Here are my tournament thoughts broken into four regions.

PREDICTION REGION

1. A mandatory attendance class will suddenly seem a lot less mandatory if there is a game on.

2. Iowa will survive longer than all Big Ten teams not named Illinois.

3. Rich McBride will play a bigger role than most think in the success or failure of the Illini.

4. Ditto Nick Smith.

5. This is not the year a mid-major reaches a Final Four.

6. You will not win your pool.

7. Boston College will be the first 4-seed to bow out.

8. Glenbrook North H.S. junior Jon Scheyer will lead the Illini deep into the tourney one day.

9. Roy Williams will have to wait another year for his first title.

10. There will be at least one orange team in the Final Four.

11. If Gerry McNamara stays hot, Syracuse could be looking at two in three years.

12. Jessica Simpson will pick her winners by jersey colors … and do better than me.

13. At the end of the tourney, CBS will show a cool video montage lamed up by the choice of music.

14. Bruce Weber will spend less than five minutes in his chair during the tourney.

15. Rick Neuheisel will skip this year’s office pool.

16. If the Illini win it all, Dee Brown’s mouth guard will become the most famous accessory since Curt Schilling’s bloody sock.

QUESTION REGION

1. Didn’t I just read a poem by Fairleigh Dickinson?

2. If the Chicago region is so weak, why does it contain three teams (Illinois, ‘Zona and OK St.) that people were talking about as No. 1 seeds until the last day of their conference tournaments?

3. Do people love March Madness for the basketball or the gambling?

4. Is ESPN.com writer/Illini house guest Jim Caple’s pen name Christopher Robin?

5. How am I going to sneak a portable TV into my cousin’s wedding on Saturday to watch the Illini in the second round?

6. Better Huskies – Washington or UCONN?

7. MTV, will you pimp my bracket?

8. Scarier MSU – Michigan State or Mississippi State?

9. How many brackets do you have to fill out to qualify as having an unhealthy obsession?

10. Can Duke make a Final Four run with a bench that’s shallower than the kiddie pool?

11. Got any extra tickets?

12. Is there a potential Elite Eight game more intriguing than North Carolina-Kansas?

13. Am I weird for not hating J.J. Redick?

14. Will steam shoot out of Bobby Knight’s ears if Texas Tech loses to UCLA?

15. Would more people be picking Washington if it was a 2-seed?

16. Tougher task – creating a successful bracket or solving the Da Vinci code?

STATEMENT REGION

1. Right now, there’s no phrase more powerful than “Printable Bracket.”

2. If a 10 beats a 7, it is not an upset.

3. Bob Bowlsby will never convince me that Louisville deserved a No. 4 seed.

4. I would pay to be in the locker room at halftime to see what the heck coaches of 16-seeds say to their players after the 1-seeds take their lunch money in the first half.

5. I’d pay just as much to see what the coaches of the 1-seeds say to their players.

6. The only way Illinois will silence every last critic is to emerge from an otherwise all-ACC Final Four with the national championship.

7. The Illini super trio of guards shot 57 percent from the free throw line over their last five games.

8. “Weirdest Nickname” award goes to the Gaels of St. Mary’s whose mascot, which stands nearly 10-feet tall, is called “Gael Force One.”

9. Billy Packer belongs in a room with white, padded walls.

10. Seth Davis belongs in the next room over.

11. It’s possible that the same teams could end up in the Final Four this year as last.

12. It’s kinda weird that the only team Illinois lost to isn’t even in the tournament.

13. The play-in game does not count as a tournament win.

14. The World Cup is the only sporting event better than the NCAA tourney.

15. Georgia Tech-Louisville is as good as it gets it the second round.

16. I’m not a Bracketologist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

MY SWEET 16 REGION

1. Illinois

2. Wisconsin-Milwaukee

3. Arizona

4. Oklahoma State

5. Washington

6. Louisville

7. Gonzaga

8. Wake Forest

9. North Carolina

10. Florida

11. Kansas

12. UCONN

13. Duke

14. Syracuse

15. Utah

16. Iowa