Your Daily Bracket! Championship Week Returns...So Does The Jerome

As we stated yesterday, today begins our favorite two month stretch of the year. You've got The Masters, the beginning of baseball season, the NCAA Tournament and the most underrated two weeks of sport: Conference Tournaments.

Over the next two weeks, teams will see goals realized and dreams dashed as league post-season play begins around the country, starting with Big South, Horizon and Ohio Valley tournament play tonight. And don't forget, one team already has a NCAA berth wrapped up: The Big Red of Cornell.

And as we did last year -- and for many years before -- we are entrants in "The Jerome," a group of college basketball junkies who care as much about the Atlantic Sun Tournament as what happens next week when the big boys play. Comprised mostly of sportswriters, the genesis of The Jerome is explained best by New York Times sportswriter Pete Thamel and Yahoo! columnist Dan Wetzel.

The rules are simple and no money or prizes are involved except for bragging rights for an entire year. You pick every conference champion and before you criticize some of our picks below, understand the rules. Five points for the winner. Two for the runner-up. Bonus points if the team you picked is the No. 3 seed or lower and isn't playing on their home floor. So making educated risks is all part of the fun.

And for the record, we finished in the middle of the pack of 50 last year as Dustin Dow won the crown last year.

On to our first group of selections:

America East: Albany

Atlantic Sun: Belmont

Big Sky: Portland State

Big South: High Point

Colonial: George Mason

Horizon: Butler

MAAC: Loyola (Md.) -- Home of Notre Dame transfer Omari Isreal

Missouri Valley: Southern Illinois

Northeast: Robert Morris

Ohio Valley: Austin Peay

Patriot: American

Southern: Davidson

Summit: Oral Roberts

Sun Belt: Western Kentucky

West Coast: Gonzaga

As for today's brackets, Notre Dame remains a No. 4 seed in the Bracket Project matrix. Brian Costello of the New York Post has the Irish as a No. 4 in the East, playing Summit champ Oral Roberts in the first round in Denver before a potential second-round matchup against Purdue. Patrick Stevens at the Washington Times also has Notre Dame as a No. 4 seed, this time in the South. The first round matchup in Tampa would also be against Oral Roberts, with potential second-round games against either Indiana or Maryland.

Also, coming later this week: Our vote for Player of the Year, our All-Americans and our All-District team (we vote on all things as a member of the USBWA).

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette