Can it be? Madness is here already

Sometime later today, the final seconds will tick off college basketball’s regular season. Those postseason conference tournaments not already under way will soon begin.

Selection Sunday is only seven days away, which means it’s time to start printing up all those March Madness brackets for those urban legend office pools.

To which I incredulously ask: How can this be?

Wasn’t it just last week (actually Nov. 7) that Gardner-Webb shocked Kentucky and its new coach Billy Gillispie in Rupp Arena? Wasn’t it just yesterday (Jan. 12 to be precise) that Texas A&M, the school Gillispie left behind, was 15-1 and ranked 10th?

Yet A&M’s Aggies will enter this week’s Big 12 tournament with an 8-8 league mark following Saturday’s 72-55 home loss to Kansas, while UK reaches today’s home finale against Florida having won 10 of its last 12 games.

Clearly nothing has lasted long this season except the excellence at the top. Pick any four of the sizzling six at the top of the current Associated Press poll — North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA, Tennessee, Kansas and Duke — and your brackets (assuming such things exist) shouldn’t bust apart until the Final Four.

Then again, did you check out UCLA’s school-record 28th regular-season victory on Saturday? The Bruins had to get a 3-pointer from freshman big man Kevin Love, a questionable steal on the ensuing inbounds play and a rainbow jumper launched from behind the backboard by Josh Shipp — and all of that in roughly 12 seconds — to knock off Cal 81-80 on UCLA’s home court.

And that was after lucking one out in overtime Thursday night against Stanford. Whatever happened to dynasties — after all, the lordly Bruins, winners of an NCAA-best 11 national championships, have reached the last two Final Fours — behaving like dynasties come March?

And given that, could this finally be the year that a George Mason type not only reaches the Final Four — as the Patriots did in 2006 — but wins it? For instance, could the Butler, ranked 14th in the current AP poll, do it? Could No. 8 Xavier, despite Thursday’s loss at St. Joseph’s, reach San Antonio on the first weekend in April? Could perpetual tourney darling Gonzaga, suddenly hot, live up to its yearly hype?

Or what about 25th-ranked Davidson? The Wildcats haven’t beaten any of the sizzling six, but they lost by only four to North Carolina, by six to Duke and by 12 to UCLA after leading the Bruins by 18.

Any team that can do that should be able to hang around for more than one game in the NCAA tournament. Of course, Davidson’s toughest job may remain reaching the NCAA tournament. The SoCon has never received an at-large bid. You win your league’s automatic bid by winning your conference tournament or you try to regroup for the NIT.

But this is no ordinary year. Using the following critera for choosing the 34 at-large bids — teams from major conferences or leagues accustomed to multiple bids that have at least 10 conference wins — and you can’t find more than 30 eligible teams this morning.

Clearly, the committee may take some schools that don’t meet that criteria. Others, such as Kentucky, may be left out because of a poor nonconference mark and the fact that in UK’s case it would enter the tournament without its best post player, Patrick Patterson, who is out for the season with a stress facture in his ankle.

Just as Cincinnati was dropped from a No. 1 seed to a No. 2 when Kenyon Martin suffered a leg injury in the 2000 Conference USA tourney, the committee often evaluates the worth of a team without an injured player.

But that aside, the committee must fill 34 at-large berths. Given that, it’s hard to imagine it ignoring Davidson’s 20-0 SoCon regular-season record, regardless of whether or not the Wildcats win the SoCon tourney crown.

All of this is what makes this week arguably as exciting as the first week of the NCAA tournament, since this is the week to worry over who’s in and who’s out and who should shout the loudest about being left out.

Which brings us to our University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs. Elon? The season, the whole season, is over because UTC couldn’t get past 13-win Elon in the Saturday night’s SoCon tourney quarterfinals? Elon? Egads!

As this week unfolds, let us all hope Tennessee isn’t counting on its six-point win over UTC in December to bolster its case for a No. 1 seed.