March Madness is once again upon us, with the top 65 collegiate men's basketball teams competing in the tournament. It used to be 64 teams until this year or last year. I'm not sure why they added the 65th team, which has to play the 64th team in a one-game pre-tournament elimination game. A lot of teams get into the tournament on automatic bids, which come by winning a conference tournament or championship. The rest are chosen by a committee.

The Pacific 10 Conference sent 5 teams to the tournament: Stanford (28-2), Cal (20-10), UCLA (21-8), USC (21-9), and Arizona (23-7), tied for fifth most among the 31 conferences. Two rounds are played each weekend and one weekend has already been played, so there are only 16 teams left, the so-called "Sweet 16". Cal lost its first game and is out of the tournament, but the other four Pac-10 teams are still in it, tops for any conference.

It'll be interesting to see if Stanford, the number 1 team in the nation going into the tournament, will win it all. Arizona, number 7 in the nation, had a disappointing season as they were expected to be number 1 or 2 by the end of the season. UCLA, at number 17, was the only other ranked Pac-10 team (only the top 25 teams, out of like 200, are ranked by some sort of poll). Naturally, the top 25 teams get to go, even if they don't get an automatic bid. USC and Cal were picked to go, each getting to the magical 20-win record that gives a school a good chance to be selected. Thirteen teams in the tournament came in with less than 20 wins, seven of them as automatic bids.

On to the NBA, where Sacramento Kings (44-21) are still doing well. As of the end of today they are tied with the LA Lakers (45-22) at the top of the Pacific Division. The whole of the Western Conference is very strong this year, with six teams at over 40 wins compared to only two in the Eastern Conference (though two other teams are at 40 wins). Sacramento is tied for the number 3 seed in the conference, the top four seeds having home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

NBA playoff seeding has a slight glitch. The division winners get the top two seeds in the conference, regardless of record. The other six seeds go to the best teams remaining, regardless of division. Although it's mathematically possible for only one team from a division to make it into the playoffs, I've always seen at least two teams from a division go in. With 17 games left, Sacramento is only two games behind San Antonio (47-20) for the top spot in the conference, and only a game and a half ahead of Dallas (43-23), the current fifth seed. It's a very close grouping this year.

No matter what, this will have been the best Kings season since they've moved to Sacramento. I do hope they get home field advantage in the first round and advance past the first round, which they haven't managed to do the last two years. Being the pessimistic sort, I was expecting the Kings to collapse before now, as they had done in the last couple of seasons. Last season they started out well but then faded. This year they haven't faded, which is great. A lot of people aren't interested in sports, but in a city that has very little else going for it, the success of the Kings is something to be proud about.