Ah, the life of the five seed, the four seed, the three seed: you may beat all the teams that show your talent level or less, you get yourself into position to face the team somebody picked as a national champion, you practice and learn, you get to the Sweet Sixteen (as the bracket predicts), you roll out a game plan, your coach tells you just what to do-- and then you get knocked down anyway.

That's not the life of each five, four and three, every time-- but it's the story of most of their lives, this year, when the Elite Eight will consist entirely of the teams the committee expected (that is, entirely of one and two seeds). That's happened three times already, in 2003, 1987, and 1988; ideally the lack of surprises will be more than made up by the high level of play.

To get there, though, the ones and twos had to win games. New Orleans saw one real contest, and one that was over before its allotted time:

1. One of the reasons I sometimes hate watching the Tar Heels (though not so much this year as in the recent past): they're overconfident. They sometimes seem careless, or even bored, through the first half-- content, even, to fall behind-- secure in the knowledge that their out-of-the-world athleticism, their ability to play fast and create turnovers (both of which add possessions to the game), can bring them back any time in the second half, whenever Larkins, McCants and company decide to hit that "Turbo" button and turn the jets on.

That wouldn't be so annoying if the Heels were not, almost every time, right. Sylvia Hatchell's team fell behind to 18 to a Louisville squad that (hey, we told you) seemed able to keep up with them: then they stopped turning the ball over, hit "Turbo," and pulled ahead.

The Cardinals stuck around for all 40 minutes: Candice Bingham hit two late threes to keep us watching, but her team had to foul, and UNC sank just enough freebies to get the W.

As you'd expect, there were eye-popping numbers on both sides-- Larkins had a lousy game (she called it "god-awful"), but Pringle a great one. Bingham, meanwhile, had the game of her life: 17 points, 20 boards, and those two late threes, from a player who barely made an outside shot this year.

Later that day the UNC guys played the Louisville guys, with the same result: it's apparently the first time the same schools have played in the men's and the women's Dance on the same day.

2. LSU took a while to get going-- they have their slow starts, and their soft spots-- but in the end they had very little trouble defeating Oklahoma State. Andrea Riley gave her usual virtuoso performance, but no other Cowgirl scored a field goal for something like the first eighteen the first twenty-five minutes.

Riley scored 26; sharp-eyed LSU PG Erica White led her team with 18. White and Riley nearly started a fight; late in the game, Riley seemed to hit White on the head. Voepel says: ow.

LSU will face UNC tonight at the relatively early hour of 6:30pm. 7:30pm Eastern. Voepel also says the Heels are the toughest Elite Eight match LSU has seen in five years.

Erica White describes the contest of styles: "as we have to worry about how much they put out on offense, they have to worry about how much we hold people on defense. It’s going to be interesting." Sure will.