I'm one of those people who adhere to a strict famine-and-feast diet on Thanksgiving Day. I'll starve myself throughout the day, trying to not let the aromas floating in from the kitchen drive me insane, just so I can gorge myself like a crazed animal when 4 p.m. rolls around. From an informal poll of friends and family, it seems like this is a pretty common tactic. I'm ashamed to admit that I had to eat an apple to hold myself over at noon, but otherwise I held firm. And the feast was glorious. I didn't stop eating until midnight, when my wife hit me with a pan and knocked me into a deep, 18-hour slumber.

The whole Thanksgiving situation is a lot like the first two weeks of college basketball. The morning starvation is the offseason, when you want to avoid lesser temptations like recruiting updates or NCAA investigations or Tony Parker's eight-month press conference. Sometimes you need to check in on those things just to hold off the hunger, like with my apple. And then, when the season finally arrives, it's a delicious cornucopia of tournaments, amazing matchups, surprising players, and crazy upsets. I can't stop watching. I can't, and I won't! I've now binged on college basketball for two straight weeks, and from the depraved den of hoops gluttony, I bring you my 25 November epiphanies.

In exactly seven weeks, the 2012 NCAA tournament will begin in Dayton, Ohio.

1. That is sooner than you think.*

2. It's only true if you count this newfangled "first four" as the start of the tournament.**

3. Wow! Seven weeks!***

*Unless you have a pretty firm grasp on how long a week is. Then it's exactly as long as you think. But if you think seven weeks is like four months, get ready for a big surprise, brother.

**Nonsense. The first round is nonsense and we all know it. Here's a great use of the word "nonsense" in Internet cartoon form: nonsense.

***That's sooner than you think!

What this means is that we should start speculating about which teams will take the four 1-seeds. If we wait much longer, we'll be totally unprepared to speculate when the time comes, and then they'll have to cancel the whole tournament.

So let's count down some contenders, followed by the current top dogs in the 1-seed hunt.