Jeff Lund

You gotta have faith.

You can accomplish anything you put your mind do.

Yeah. Blah blah blah.

We've heard all of this before. The old cliches about doing your best and coming out on top or being a winner when you really lose.

However, nothing glorifies such sayings like the NCAA Tournament.

Only one team will end the season as the champ, and the other 64 teams will go home thinking about a missed shot or how close they came.

Over the course of four days, the seasons of 49 teams ended.

Some favorites are gone. Some still remain. There are still plenty of underdogs to root for.

Teams like Southern Illinois rode determination and desire to the third round. Others like Kansas and Maryland relied on a powerful approach to bust into the Regional Semifinals.

As of right now, 16 teams are still eyeing a trip to Atlanta for the Final Four and a chance to raise the national championship trophy.

As for myself, my aspirations of cashing in my bracket for the loot that my friends and I tossed into our pool is about as far-fetched as the University of Alaska Anchorage being selected as an at-large bid to the tourney next year.

I am sitting in second-to-last place, just ahead of someone who not only picked Florida Atlantic to beat Alabama in the first round but decided the winners by the school he thought had the prettier uniform colors.

Every year there are Cinderellas. The trick is knowing which ones to pick.

Having Missouri make it to the Sweet 16 was a pretty safe bet, considering the quality of the team and coaching staff.

I would, however, like to know what possessed me to pick Central Connecticut State going to the third round. It sounded good at the time. At least CCS had the nation's longest winning streak headed into the Big Dance.

I guess I got a little caught up in looking for bracket-busters and chose the wrong one.

Actually, now that I look at it, there is more than one. Yeah, I have more crossed-out team names on my bracket than the UConn women's team has wins.

Speaking of the Huskies, I was so bored during the days between the Pac-10 tournament and the NCAA first round, I entered my picks into the ESPN Women's NCAA Basketball Challenge. It should come as no surprise that I am not leading that group either. But I am slightly ahead of a friend who picked Norfolk State to go to the Final Four. That's a good thing, I guess.

As much as it will pain me to watch someone else gather up my $10 along with the bills of the other guys in the pool, when the madness is over, I must say it is worth it - not worth the stress of trying to figure out who will win, but one day, I know my day will come.

I just gotta have faith.