Everything We Thought About College Hoops Was Wrong

March 28, 2006 — -- Now that everyone's bracket has been folded, spindled and Masonically mutilated, it's time for a moment of reckoning. After two of the most stunning, suspenseful and spellbinding weeks in the history of the sport, this is what we have learned:

Everything we believed to be true about this college basketball season has been rendered false.

Up is down. Down is up. The earth is flat. The sun rises in the west. The smartest Patriots coach is not Bill Belichick, it's Jim Larranaga. And America's team is George Mason.

Tell me you expected that before this sublime samba began.

Here's how wrong we've been:

All season, we believed the Big East to be the best conference in the land, deserving of its record eight bids and two No. 1 seeds.

Update: The Big East is out of the tournament.

We believed the Big Ten to be the second-best conference in the land, deserving of its six bids and three top-four seeds.

Update: The Big Ten might as well have been the MAC, failing to advance a single team to the Sweet 16.

We believed the Southeastern Conference to be significantly damaged by all of the players who left early for the 2005 NBA draft, dooming the league to a sixth straight season without a Final Four representative and continued SEC-ond-tier status.

Update: The SEC has two teams in the Final Four, with the possibility of having the title game to itself.

We believed the Pacific-10 to be a hideously bad league this year.

Update: UCLA is in the Final Four. Washington and Arizona acquitted themselves well.

We believed college basketball to be a guard's game now more than ever, with the evacuation of most top big men to the NBA before they put down roots on campus.

Update: Sell that notion to Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Jai Lewis, Will Thomas, Glen "Big Baby" Davis, Tyrus Thomas and Ryan Hollins. They were your heroes from the regionals, and none of them plays in the backcourt. (ESPN.com hereby invites 310-pound Big Baby and 275-pound-at-least Lewis to St. Elmo Steak House in downtown Indy for an eat-off. We'll pick up the tab, unless it runs into five figures.)