I failed to fill out a bracket this year. Too much pressure, I suppose.

For some reason, I didn't feel comfortable making any predictions in this year's men's NCAA bracket.

It's been a few days now, and we've all had a chance to recover from the bedlam that was the first two rounds of the tournament.

And the general consensus is this: After all the number crunching is done, after every message board in the country has been hit up, and all your NCAA scouts have been fired, this truth still remains: We really don't know as much about college basketball as we thought we did prior to last Thursday.

But I'll let you in on a little secret: neither do the six and seven-figure salary analysts on ESPN, either.

See Andy Katz.

So don't get discouraged. Sure, the guy down the hall who picked Bucknell and Vermont in the first round doesn't seem as strange as his picks, anymore. But without these picks materializing, the tournament wouldn't be what it has meant to so many people through the years.

And for the preservation and purity of the sport, I hope it stays this way.

But here's what bothers me. There was much pre-tournament talk about expanding the 65-team tournament so schools with higher RPI's and tougher strengths-of schedule could still compete. So the likes of Notre Dame, Maryland and Indiana -- teams that didn't receive invitations to the tournament -- would still be able to dance.

One of the coaches in favor of expanding the field was Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, who just won his first national title two years ago. But after Vermont eliminated his team in the first round, I wonder if Boeheim still feels that way.

I've heard many people say most mid-major schools don't belong in the tournament. That they're only selected because they were the champions of their mediocre leagues and simply put, they're just taking up space. Many question the validity of these teams being allowed to compete at all.

Be careful when playing with history.

Nowadays, it's next to absurd to think a double-digit seed could win a National championship. But wouldn't it be great to see it happen?

Tell me it wasn't fun to watch Syracuse and Vermont on Saturday, even if you did pick the Orange in your pool.

Tell me it wasn't fun to see a guy with no name on the back of his jersey launch an ill-advised 3-pointer in overtime in the face of arguably the most clutch shooter the college game knows by the name of "McNamara."

And tell me you knew who Jim Sorrentine was before the tournament started. I didn't.

With his three national titles, the last feeling like light years ago, tell me you knew it had been 11 years since a Bobby Knight-coached team made a Sweet Sixteen. And if you're like me, didn't think that grinch who stole the fun from the game had enough coaching left in him to get back there.

Even though a 16 seed has never knocked off a No. 1, tell me you weren't interested to see if Delaware State could really beat Duke. Delaware State?

Or just tell me you could live without the inspiring stories that come with the territory each year at March Madness.

Take Greg Jackson for instance, head coach of Delaware State, whose wife Janice died in his arms of a stroke four years ago. And his son, Greg Jr., who'll have a rare cord-blood transplant surgery this June. This tournament is a venue for stories like this to be told heard.

And if college basketball is thinking about ending this, it should think again.

But maybe it's easy to scratch our heads when upsets occur.

When we think about it, though, it isn't hard to figure out why at all.

The lower seeds already enter the dance with a chip on their shoulders. For one, outside of college basketball analysts and reporters, few people know about these teams. Therefore they have no choice but to earn our respect. And to make matters worst, they get the bottom of the talent pool in terms of players. Because the best college basketball players aren't playing in college anymore. They're playing in the NBA.

So in a year when the word "upset" has taken on a new meaning, I'll take West Virginia to win it all. How bout you?

Chances are the Mountaineers won't be crowned as champion, but if they do, no one should be surprised anymore.

Now you'll excuse me while I go fill out the rest of someone's flawless bracket.