By Jason Feller
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Web Posted: Monday, Feb. 27, 2006; 2:32 p.m. EST

Around last year at tournament time, with several locals struggling to even get into the NCAAs, my mind began to wander. I started to think back to just a few years ago when Maryland was making Final Fours and winning championships and the slightly more distant time in which Georgetown was doing the same.

Through these memories an idea was born. Utilizing the interactive online medium, why not hold a virtual tournament to crown the best local team of all time? I then researched every local school's history to find the best Metro-area teams in college basketball history.

	The backcourt of Drew Nicholas, Steve Blake and Juan Dixon carried the Terps to the NCAA title in 2002. (Peter Jones -- Reuters)

The tournament features three different brackets for the three regions that we cover: Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. As each team makes it through its bracket, eventually the Maryland, Virginia and D.C. winners will face off to determine the local champ.

The overall winner will be announced to coincide with the beginning of the NCAA tournament.

Voting starts Monday, Feb. 27, for the play-in games and ends Wednesday, March 1. First round voting begins Friday, March 3. and ends Tuesday, March 7. Second-round voting begins Thursday, March 9, and ends Sunday, March 13. Championship round voting begins March 13 and ends March 15.

In order to include several of the smaller schools that are in lower divisions or are in low-tier Division I conferences, I decided to add a play-in round, a great way to give some attention to the best lesser-known local schools before they had to face the big boys.

I'm sure there will be much debate as to whether I left off a team that deserved to make the list or included a team that didn't deserve a spot. That's part of the fun. Feel free to make your opinion known on the message board or you can e-mail your thoughts to me.

By nature, any project like this is subjective, but I did use several criteria when picking the teams:

* All of the play-in game teams won championships at a lower division -- except Virginia Commonwealth. I chose the 1983 VCU team because they were seeded No. 5 in the NCAA tournament and won their first-round game before losing a tight contest to Georgia in the second round.

* Among the other teams, all but two reached at least the regional final. This year's George Washington team has an outside chance to do so and is breaking a number of school records. The 1974 Maryland team lost to N.C. State in the ACC final in what many consider the greatest college basketball game of all time.

* The 1986 Navy team and the 1967 Virginia Tech team each reached the regional final, while both Virginia squads and the 1982 Georgetown team made the Final Four. The 2002 Maryland team and the 1984 Georgetown team stand alone as the only local teams to have won a Division I men's basketball title.

I used a variety of sources for all of the stats and information, including The Washington Post, the NCAA record books, hoyasaxa.com and numerous press guides.

I hope you enjoy the contest.