This month, millions of basketball fans are following the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which will determine its four regional champs between tomorrow and Sunday. Let's hope these college hoops fans aren't using their tournament brackets to bone up for a geography exam, because there is some true oddball geography at play.

The match-ups for the sweet sixteen this year have Washington State in the running to be regional champ for the East, and the possibility of Michigan State facing off against Stanford to be tops in the South.  Coastal UCLA is the only school with the geographic bona fides for the Western title, but two of the region's out of place contenders do at least have "West" in their names -- West Virginia and Western Kentucky.

I started to worry that the selection committee's GPS was caught up in the madness, but a little digging on the NCAA website and an email or two showed there is indeed a method. Back in 1980, the NCAA officially put the goal of competitive balance ahead of geographic accuracy. They didn't completely ditch the atlas, though, maintaining a secondary goal of keeping teams "in their areas of natural interest." 

Clearly, that doesn't always happen. "It's impossible to put every team close to home," admits NCAA spokesman David Worlock. "But the effort is made."  The most surefire way to ensure a home region advantage: Be the best.  The University of North Carolina was the number one overall seed this year and was first to be placed in the group that will play in Charlotte, just down the road from Chapel Hill.

-Brad Scriber

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