March Madness gives kids a chance to pick and root for favorite basketball teams

It's March Madness time again. Time for the NCAA basketball championships.

Even if you are not a hoops fan, you can get in on the tournament fun. For years, my kids have run a Family Final Four. Here's how we do it.

Take turns picking a team you think will do well in the tournament. The youngest picks first, followed by next-youngest, and so on. Once a team is picked, no one else can take that team. Keep picking teams until everyone has picked six teams.

Post the lists of six teams on the refrigerator. Every time a team on someone's list wins a game, put a check beside the team's name. The person whose teams win the most games is the champ and gets to choose his or her favorite meal for dinner after the tournament.

Playing a Family Final Four lets everyone root for their teams. Rooting makes any sport more fun. Here are some teams you may want to root for during this year's March Madness.

Local teams: Georgetown and Maryland men's teams are in, and they're good enough to make a tournament run. Maryland needs senior guard and ACC Player of the Year Greivis Vasquez to play his best. Georgetown must play better since the team has won only five of its last 10 games.

Georgetown also has a team in the women's tournament. But the Hoyas are in a tough bracket that includes Baylor and Tennessee.

Anybody but UConn: The Connecticut Huskies enter the women's tournament on a 72-game winning streak. Connecticut is so good it may run away with the championship. So root for anyone playing Connecticut to keep it close.

Cornell: The Ivy League champs had a terrific year, winning 27 games and almost beating the No. 1-ranked Kansas Jayhawks. What's cool about this team is that the players live together in a big house near school. The house better be big: Cornell's center, Jeff Foote, is 7 feet tall.

Cool names: I root for teams that have players with unusual names. Dash Harris is a guard for the Texas A&M Aggies. I'll bet he's really fast. Tweety Carter for Baylor must fly like a bird. And I wonder if Pooh Williams for Utah State has a brother named Christopher Robin or Tigger.

The most unusual name in the tournament has to be the senior guard for Siena named Just-in'love Smith.

Colors: If you have a favorite color, you can probably find a team to root for among these teams: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Cornell Big Red, Duke Blue Devils, Syracuse Orange and North Texas Mean Green. And if you like the color gold, you are in luck this year. There are the Marquette Golden Eagles, Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions, California Golden Bears and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.

Wofford: The South Carolina college is the smallest school in the men's tournament, with fewer than 1,500 students. But the reason I am rooting for Wofford is because they are called the Terriers. My dog, Matty, is a West Highland . . . terrier!

There are lots of teams to root for -- for lots of different reasons.

Fred Bowen writes the KidsPost's sports opinion column and is the author of 14 books for kids, including his latest basketball book, "Hardcourt Comeback."