Around here this winter, you needed a calculator to count the bad ankles. In Cincinnati, we don't limit the Madness to March. Who among you believed on Feb. 1 that Xavier - 10-9 with 10th-ranked UC up next - would be a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament?

Yeah, sure you did. Was that before or after you ripped Thad Matta's coaching, booing him for the way he worked the last few minutes of the Saint Joseph's game Jan. 17? At 10-9, XU was done. It had no inside game, Romain Sato was too comfortable loitering at the 3-point line. Lionel Chalmers dribbled too much.

The Dance (Index)

• Seeds: UK 1, UC 4, XU 7 • Daugherty: Bandwagon jumpers look silly now • Seeds are planted, now for the games • Bracket breakdown • Women: UConn passed over for a top spot Printable bracket (PDF): • Men | Women Local teams: • Cincinnati | Opp. • Xavier | Opp. • Kentucky | Opp. • Women's NIT: Miami, Xavier and UC in

If you still insist you had hope for the 10-9 Musketeers beyond an NIT cameo, you need to go to confession and cleanse your conscience.

And you, BearcatFan. Where were your Final Four boasts 11 days ago, after DePaul beat the Bearcats? After that 13-0 start, UC was 7-6. The bandwagon rocked from people piling off. At 13-0, they had depth. The press was back. The players were listening to Bob Huggins. Fans were throwing around "1992" as if a repeat were likely.

At 20-6, the press was in the dumper, the depth was overrated and people (OK, me, for one) were questioning the coach's handling of Robert Whaley.

We're all smiling this morning, though, aren't we?

Xavier rose like Lazarus. The Musketeers were finished at least twice, once at 10-9, again after they lost for a second time to Duquesne. They were done until they weren't. Now nobody wants to play them.

UC flexed its tradition, pride and defense and won Conference USA for (yawn) the eighth time in nine years. XU and UC are rolling into Friday games. You and I are rubbing our ankles. Be careful of what you think you know.

More often than not, the five-month college basketball season plays out like a miniseries. Your season will go as scheduled, but never as planned. Everything you think you know in November is wrong by February. We need March to make sense of things.

In 1984, I covered the University of Virginia. The Cavaliers finished a disappointing 17-12 regular season with a first-round loss in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. The coach, Terry Holland, was so aggravated he drafted a letter to the NIT people, informing them his team was not worthy of a bid.

The Cavs made the NCAA Tournament in spite of themselves ... and reached the Final Four. They don't call it Madness for nothing.

Xavier found its game by looking inward. UC found its stride by ditching the press-and-run and pounding people in the half court. Both teams re-invented themselves on the fly, first challenging then proving false every impression we'd created for them in December and January. A season is a lifetime.

They'll have at it again Friday. Fourth-seeded UC plays East Tennessee State, whose top scorer is 5 feet 9. When Tim Smith finds James White and Armein Kirkland in front of him, he'll call time out and request a ladder.

Xavier plays the 10th-seeded Louisville Garcias. Matta has between now and Friday to conjure a decent answer for Francisco Garcia, who has become one of the best scorers in the game but whose back is aching from having his team perched there for weeks.

The Bearcats and Musketeers are in the same region, on different sides of the bracket. They could meet in the region final, if XU beats Louisville, Mississippi State and Texas, and UC beats ETSU, Illinois and Duke. It'd be like crossing the Atlantic on a Barcalounger.

Stranger things have happened. Around here this winter, they already have.

---

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com