THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: March 22, 2014

Busted brackets.

Regular season baseball in Australia.

This is truly March Madness.

IT NEVER fails.

A highly seeded team finds themselves out after playing for the first time against a team that most fans have to Google to see where the campus is actually located.

Oh, Mercer.

Yes, Mercer University of Macon, Ga., might have had the biggest upset of the men's NCAA tournament so far, stunning No. 3 seed Duke 78-71 on Friday in a second round game in Raleigh, N.C.

The same place that Duke played just a week ago, so the neutral site and adjusting to the depth perception wasn't a factor.

Overlooking them, maybe.

But that happens a lot more than you think in the NCAA tournament.

North Dakota State beating Oklahoma and Harvard over Cincinnati, who'd have thought that could happen.

Especially in our own backyard in Spokane.

No matter where the games are held, or the seeds, there's always at least two teams that leave those that filled out brackets scratching their heads.

And there's still another three weekends of this stuff.

Even more maddening in the NJCAA men's and women's tournaments, after the second round - there was nobody left from Region 18.

Both the Salt Lake men and Southern Idaho women, who won the Region 18 tournament, lost opening games - Salt Lake at the buzzer - and Southern Idaho after allowing 100 points.

The Salt Lake women, which had to wait for an at-large bid, won its opening round game, then lost a close game the following day.

AS MOST people slept on Friday night, the start of the Major League Baseball season started.

No, really.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks are opening the season this weekend with a two-game series in Australia, playing on cricket grounds that have been redesigned to accommodate the games.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but this doesn't seem like Opening Day, likewise with the first game on a Sunday Night that counts.

Give me those Monday morning games, starting at 10 a.m. and wrapping up that night at 10 p.m.

THERE IS only a few events that can should be considered holidays to the avid sporting fan.

The running of the Daytona 500.

Opening Day in baseball.

The Super Bowl.

And the opening weekend of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

It could be the only time fans watch during the year.

Madness - but it's worth getting a little crazy about.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.