THE MADNESS HAS BEGUN

South Carolina lost! Is there any justice? Dartboard is now distraught, as well as in trouble all the way to the Elite Eight. At least a wonderful March tradition is well underway. It is ironic that in college Dartboard can watch less of the college basketball tournament than it did back in A.P. biology, cheering on the college as it finished its lunch.

The NCAA Tournament is always an exercise in creative futility, a time to pay attention to the sports page for a day and then feel ready to donate a few dollars to the more sports-savvy (and lucky) among us. Since our teams have lost, Dartboard can feel free to tell you the secret of its guaranteed non-success: picking teams based on the same criteria used to choose which university to attend. If Dartboard applied there, it was picked to go far. Schools that rejected us were chosen to lose in the first round.

Alas, there are actual basketball games to be played in this tournament, and their outcome will determine the winners. That's all right, though; Dartboard has Prairie View and Radford--just like Radcliffe, right?--to console us.