I’d like to officially welcome Kansas into undoubted inclusion in my Final Four picks this year. Hell, I’ll probably end up with them in a final somewhere. While I’ll likely only do one bracket for money, as is the case with fantasy baseball, I’ll spend my March diving between three, four, maybe 12 sets of bracket picks. I don’t claim to have MANY friends, but it seems like the ones I do have don’t know one another. Or at least not well enough to have one monster pick ’em or fantasy league. Thus, I end up in a half dozen of them, and by the time I’m done, I think every team in the tournament wins something on one of my sheets.

But anyway, back to Kansas. After watching them lose (or rather seeing the final that they lost) to Missouri and head coach Quin “I’m destined to be the next Rick Neuheisel, or at least sell you your next fine used automobile” Snyder, I realized that Kansas probably has too many issues for them to make any serious headway in the field of 64 (and a half). That said, “bracket filling out night”, or, more appropriately, 11:42 Thursday morning, trying to figure out any way to get a legit timestamp of “before tip off of the first games” onto my picks (which may include one or more of the following: email, phone call with the winners of those first games, carrier pigeon, or smoke signals — black smoke means take the higher seed, white smoke means the lower seed, naturally) will include some kind of logical thinking like “Well, certainly Kansas can beat Hampton in the first round… Okay, second round… why in the hell did I pick UNC-Greensboro over Michigan State? Kansas takes that, too. I have Marist into the Sweet 16?!?!? Take it away, Jayhawks! Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Kansas vs. Illinois to go to the Final Four. I just think Illinois used up all its magic in the regular season, besides, the chicks at work that always win these things will take the one-loss team (well, two after they lose to Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament…), so therefore, Kansas, the team I said has no business making a Final Four, will make my Final Four.”

Including the Kansas debacle, right now, in this very space, six and three-quarters days before they announce the field, I’m giving you UNC, Duke, Kansas and UCONN/Kentucky (leaning toward Kentucky) in your Final Four. And if you’re smart, you’ll give Marist a look, too.