The NCAA and the Color of Money

So, how's your bracket?  It was one of the more entertaining first weekends of the NCAAM BBall tourney, in my opinion, but it just wouldn't be March Madness if one of my Final Four picks wasn't out before 5 PM on the first day (Louisville in this case).  Despite that, I actually have a pretty good bracket this year so far (90th percentile on ESPN.com), but with both Louisville and Pitt out, I probably have a slow, painful fall to the bottom to look forward to.  Thank goodness it's illegal to spend money on March Madness brackets - if I wanted to donate $X to my friends, I would just give them it to them straight.  Anyways, with the NCAA basketball tournaments (men's and women's - Title IX is our friend) beginning over the weekend, I thought it would be a great time to muse on the role of money in collegiate athletics.