The revelation came to John Swofford over the morning corn flakes, when the ACC commissioner would review the new college basketball rankings with his breakfast.

After a few weeks, he was no longer sure what he was reading.

"Sometime over the course of the year, you'd look at the standings and wonder how applicable they are," Swofford said. "There were so many good teams and the season was too unpredictable."

This from a man who digests rankings for a living. But there is the mantra as America takes pencil to NCAA bracket this week. That's not vertigo. That is equality. Evidence says this, the tournament that ends April 2 at the Georgia Dome, will be the most competitive, least calculable ever. And if that leaves the office pool in a lather, imagine the coaches.

Asked beforehand what seeding preference he thought his team deserved, Tony Bennett, coach of the surprising Washington State Cougars said, "There's so much parity in college basketball, whether you're a 3 or a 4 or whatever, I don't know how significant that is. I'm not really sure anymore."

Neither was The Associated Press poll. Forty-nine teams wound up ranked at some point in the AP Top 25, a record total (and the most since 48 schools made the list in 1954-55).

In sum, five different schools were ranked No. 1 (Florida, UCLA, Ohio State, Wisconsin and North Carolina). And while five is not a record, only once in the past 11 years has that number been higher (six in 2003-04). Last season, there were only two teams ranked No. 1 all year. The season before that, three.

There have been historic rises: Butler crashing the top 10; Winthrop making its top 25 debut. There have been dramatic tailspins: Clemson starting 17-0 and then going 4-10; Connecticut, an Elite Eight entrant a year ago, finishing 12th in the Big East the next.

As one fell, another like Creighton, Oregon and Air Force rose in its place. The NCAA selection committee didn't just have trouble filling out the field. As committee chairman Gary Walters said last week, "I would also say there appears to be less clarity this year among the top of the field."

Selections get tougher

Didn't quite agree with the committee's handiwork on Selection Sunday? That train was loading last week. But it is undeniable Walters found "less clarity" because that is today's Division I landscape. And there will be less and less clarity in the years to come.

"You've got three or five or six elite teams, but the next hundred, you can throw them all in a sack and then draw them out one by one and you'd be OK," said Bill Frieder, coach turned analyst. "Once you get to this point in the season, they're all the same."

Perhaps it was the rise of the Gonzaga Zags that demonstrated to contemporary university administrators that good basketball is not the exclusive domain of those conferences that start with "Big." Between the proliferation of conference television contracts and ticket revenues to be had from a hot program, the mid-majors have become an undeniable force, and the big schools don't know how to take it.

For all the criticism the NCAA took for including four members of the Missouri Valley Conference in last year's field (same number as the ACC), the advancement of Wichita State and Bradley to the Sweet 16 verified they belonged. George Mason's march to the Final Four gave the traditionalists the final kick in the pants. The portal to March has been forced open.

"I think the administrations at the [MVC] schools have said, 'Hey, we're going to have to work at this if we're going to compete,' " said Drake coach Tom Davis, whose long career has been spent in the Big Ten, Pac-10, ACC and Big East. "In some leagues, you'll see schools don't take it so seriously. Some have other sports that kind of dominate their thinking.

"You don't see that in the Valley."

Talent more widely spread

But it has taken more than institutional will. At the foundation, it has taken rule changes. The scholarship limit, for instance, cutting back from 15 to 13 in 1993, sent an overflow of perhaps 200 freshmen to "second-tier" programs, which have thrived.

In states like Wisconsin and Texas, where summer basketball programs were once non-existent, a new emphasis on the high school game has brought on a wave of improved talent. Plus, with three or four games televised every weeknight, the recruit has found he doesn't have to go to North Carolina to get noticed.

"Hey, there are guys who don't like L.A," said Mike Gminski, the 1979 ACC player of the year at Duke. "There are guys who like smaller towns. Because there are so many games on TV now, that really helps those small-town schools."

But the greatest equalizer remains the NBA, even after this season's new rule regulating that U.S. high school players must wait a year after graduating before entering the draft. Programs signing the elite stars may see immediate benefits at the sacrifice of continuity. March teaches every year that a team stocked with fourth-year players has a certain something that a passel of McDonald's All-American underclassmen does not.

"This has been an evolution of a dozen years or so," CBS analyst Billy Packer said. "You're seeing so many people with an opportunity to win because you no longer have the dominant junior or senior at those prime programs. You might see someone like [North Carolina's Brandan] Wright or someone like [Ohio State's Greg] Oden or a guy like [Texas' Kevin] Durant.

"But they're freshmen. Those guys used to be seniors."

The Pac-10, which just completed its most competitive season ever, lists 43 underclassmen among its starters. San Diego State, which did not make the NCAA field, quietly upset ranked opponents BYU, Air Force and UNLV over the final weeks, and got only a pat on the back.

Should the Drexel Dragons get a crack at the Big East? The Winthrop Eagles against the SEC? And where is Creighton again?

"I'll tell you one thing," Packer said. "It's made it a lot of fun to watch."