Say what you will about Big Time College Basketball. That it’s overrated, takes too much students’ time, that the players aren’t really students, don’t attend class, don’t graduate, whatever. One thing the NCAA basketball gods do do well though, is put on March Madness.

Without a doubt, some teams which should have gotten into the tournament, which is to say, are better than some of the teams which did get in, did not. Somehow, though, the seeders, year after year, seem to manage to produce some matchups which lead to the always exciting upset.

Teams like Hampton, Utah State, Indiana State and others become part of the legends of David and Goliath as they stun some of the top dogs in the college basketball business.

Depending on whether you identify with the top seed or the underdog, the upsets are thrilling or devastating. Either it’s the Little Engine that Could or it’s Little Miss Muffet, whose lunch was disrupted by that disrespectful little spider.

Either way, upsets and near upsets are exciting, fun to watch and fun to talk about at work … and the NCAA Division I tournament virtually guarantee a few each year.

Even after the first round, when David can’t find anymore stones for his sling and the rest of the Philistine army still stands ready … in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds being contested this weekend, there is a good chance that at least half of the available games will be nailbiters, at least for 35 or 38 minutes.

So, get your chores done, sit back and enjoy the next two weekends of major college  basketball.

Don’t forget to check out the women’s tournament as well.

One sports enterprise which is not producing excellent performance is the XFL. The Xtreme (does anyone remember there’s supposed to be an ‘e’ in the ‘ex’ prefix?) Football League has the dubious distinction last week of tying the record for the lowest Nielsen rating ever reached by a prime-time network television show. The national rating for Week Seven of the XFL on NBC was 1.6.

The Associated Press reports that the figure was well below the 2.3 rating of Game Three of the Stanley Cup finals last season. That had been the previous worst evening sports broadcast rating for any of the big three networks.

Only an ABC News special on drug policy aired on August 30, 1997 ever scored as low as the latest XFL mark.

Ratings are the percentage of television equipped homes in the U.S. which are tuned into a particular broadcast. Share refers to the percentage of TVs turned on which are tuned in.

NBC, sharing responsibility for the XFL with the World Wrestling Federation, has pretty much committed to staying with its plans to carry all 12 weeks of the inaugural season.

XFL spokesman Jeff Shapes said you can expect to see and hear more aggressive promotion of the league beginning this week, telling you why  you should watch. Shapes said the promotion will be on TV, radio and print.

XFL games also are carried on UPN and TNN and the combined ratings on those three networks is 6.4 for the first seven weeks of the season. That includes the curiosity boosted 9.5 rating the opening weekend collected. But it’s about 30 percent below what advertisers had been promised. They are getting free commercial time to compensate.

There’s a financial firm advertising campaign which suggests that the only risk is in not taking one. NBC and the WWF have done that.