THE REAL BRACKET-BUSTERS. Derrick Z. Jackson offers the Thought of the Day.

It must be unrealistic when your eighth-ranked men's basketball team is sitting on an 11 percent graduation rate.

He surveys a few men's college basketball teams that are not currently making grades, and a few that are.

Of the 46 schools, 31 -- a full two-thirds -- had a graduation rate of under 50 percent. Sixteen of the 31 were under 30 percent. Worse, 22 of the nation's top 46 teams -- nearly half -- have an African-American player graduation rate of under 30 percent. Nine schools -- Kentucky, Utah, Pacific, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, Nevada, Louisiana State, Wisconsin-Milwaukee (ugh, my alma mater) and Minnesota -- have a black graduation rate of zero. To be fair, Oklahoma, Pacific and UWM were over 925 for 2003-04. The NCAA will make graduation rates more current by adding successive years until it gets to a new four-year rolling report in 2006-07.

It will be amazing to see these schools scramble to avoid NCAA penalties. Of the 46 teams, only nine have a snapshot score of at least 925 and long-term graduation rates of at least 50 percent for both the team and African-American players: North Carolina, Syracuse, Michigan State, Villanova, Wisconsin, Old Dominion, Holy Cross, St. Mary's of California, and Pennsylvania.

The Heels, the Spartans, Villanova, and the Badgers. How's that for a dream Final Four? (There's probably a bracket conflict in here somewhere, but if I were on the seeding committee ...)