First things first... all is not lost. There's still a very good chance that you could win your pool, even if you had Georgetown or Pittsburgh or Connecticut rolling towards the Final Four. The thing about huge upsets is that they tend to make a real mess of everyone's brackets more or less equally. Buck up, little camper. You can still do this.

That said, let's see what we've learned so far:

Biggest Surprise: For me, it's got to be Davidson beating Georgetown. I really thought the Hoyas were one of the few teams with enough balance to make a deep run into this tournament -- just goes to show, there's nothing better in basketball than a shooter on a hot streak.

As an aside, a reader called me on the carpet for poking fun at Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg for turning down Stephen Curry, who wanted to play for the Hokies. In fairness, Curry was several inches shorter and several pounds lighter coming out of high school, and Virginia Tech didn't have a scholarship to offer at the time. But I'll continue to mock coach Greenberg for another few weeks, until the memory of his "anyone who thinks this team doesn't belong in the NCAA Tournament should have his head examined" monologue fades, or is replaced by another coach saying something else worthy of public ridicule.

I won't call Duke a surprise -- I actually expected West Virginia to win that one. And Connecticut gets a pass from appearing on this list because of the injury to A.J. Price in the first half.

Most Impressive Player: Curry -- who right now is averaging 35 points for this tournament and 33.3 in his NCAA Tournament career. But I'd give a close second to Villanova's Scottie Reynolds.

Most Impressive Team: North Carolina is the obvious choice, having posted two 100-point games in the opening two rounds -- the first time that's been done in 18 years. But since that's such a chalky selection, let's give the title to Louisville. The Cardinals have been nearly as dominant, and they haven't had the advantage of playing home games. (More on that in a bit.)

Most Impressive Coach: I love the way Michigan State's Tom Izzo used a deep rotation and frequent substitutions to make the thin air in the Denver regional to his advantage... but not as much as I loved the way Washington State's Tony Bennett got his team to shut down Notre Dame on the perimeter and on the inside simultaneously.

Best Trend: Parity. With the exception of North Carolina, Louisville and Kansas, all the big teams have been challenged. It's nice to see such competitive games in the first and second rounds.

Worst Trend: Neutral Sites that aren't neutral. I have no particular objection to giving top seeds a geographic advantage. They've earned it. But I take exception when lower seeds wind up with a de facto home court advantage due to the way the games are distributed. There's no way seventh-ranked Butler should have been sent to Birmingham to play South Alabama. Sending USC (6) to play Kansas State (11) in Omaha seemed a bit unfair as well... Omaha is under 200 miles from Manhattan, Kansas -- and over 1500 from USC. But the biggest advantage probably went to Davidson, who played close to home in Raleigh, while higher-seeded Gonzaga had to travel cross-country.

And I don't love the fact that UNC will be playing their second-round games in Charlotte after playing the first round in Raleigh. Seems to me they should have to cross state lines at least once in order to reach the Final Four. Memo to the site selection committee -- college basketball is played outside of the Tar Heel state.

20/20 Hindsight: Picking Pittsburgh to advance to the Final Four looks particularly foolish given a) the fact that they play just seven guys most of the time and b) they were sent to Denver. Mental note: when handicapping next year's brackets -- remember that thin air and thin rotations do not mix.

Easiest Road to the Final Four: Even though Carolina has home cookin' to their advantage, all the upsets in the West bracket make UCLA the team with the easiest path to San Antonio. The two, four and five seeds in the Bruins' bracket (Duke, Connecticut and Drake) are all gone -- UCLA will face (12) Western Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen and, if they advance, the winner of the (3) Xavier/(7) West Virginia game.

Toughest Road to the Final Four: The only bracket where the seeding held was the East: the two (Tennessee) three (Louisville) and four (Washington State) seeds are standing in Carolina's way -- and the Cardinals and Cougars have been two of the more impressive teams in the tournament to date.

Memphis' bracket is no picnic either, with a rugby scrum of a game against Michigan State in the Sweet Sixteen followed by a matchup with the Stanford/Texas winner.

If I was filling out my bracket today... I'd be sorely tempted to pick the Kansas Jayhawks to win this thing. The Jayhawks have tougher matchups than UCLA in the Sweet Sixteen -- Wisconsin, in particular, is no joke -- but the Bruins haven't been particularly impressive thus far, whereas Xavier and West Virginia are both playing very well.

More on the NCAA Tournament:

• First Round Recaps
• Second Round Recaps
• March Madness Photo Gallery
• 2009 Final Four Ticket Application