Posted by Teddy Panos, Sun Staff

Even Vince Van Patten couldn’t put together and eight pack this impressive.

All four #1 seeds (North Carolina, Kansas, Memphis & UCLA) in the NCAA Basketball tournament are still alive...#2 Texas is playing on its home turf...the two #3’s advancing (Louisville and Xavier) were better teams than the #2’s in their brackets coming into the tournament (especially since I thought so...LOL!)...and our token Cinderella #10 Davidson was one of the mid-majors expected to do damage (hey, I had them going to the Sweet-16 and wanted to pick them over Wisconsin…just couldn’t muster up the guts to pull the trigger…stupid me!). All of which promises a great weekend of college hoops.

As for Hoops Hysteria, the standings haven’t changed much since yesterday, other than the fact the 3-way tie for third has been whittled down to a 2-way tie. John Habbe of Carlisle continues to lead the pack by a point over Lowell’s Branko K. Elaine Heighington of Dracut is holding steady in third, tied with The Blogger. Chelmsford’s Gary Favre and Brian D. of Dracut are tied for 5th, with Tewksbury’s Joe Petros in 7th.

Why did I run down the list as far as I did? Well, because Mr. Habbe, Mr. Panos and Mr. Favre are all Lowell Sun employees, and thus ineligible to win any prizes. So those of you still near the top of the pack, keep hope alive. Even if you don’t finish in the top three, you might still win something.

Now then, my Final Four has North Carolina beating Kansas and UCLA over Texas, with the Bruins the eventually national champ. Since I can’t seem to find everyone else’s brackets, I’m curious how the rest of the leaderboard has the brackets progressing. What do you folks have for a Final Four result?