There comes a time in every life when a choice must be made. Choose love or money. Eschew sentimentality or discard practicality. Pick either the University of Pennsylvania or Texas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Or West Virginia or Iowa in the second round.

For many with strong allegiances, it's a dilemma that pops up every year during March Madness: Do you pick your favorite school to advance beyond its likely point of elimination, or do you throw emotion overboard in pursuit of cash?

Marvin Fein, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, is a man who knows the quandary inside and out. The 67-year-old has followed college basketball for decades -- long before the days of bracketology experts and long selection show specials.

He remembers one night in the early 1960s when he and a buddy drove around the South Hills looking for a bar with an antenna big enough to pull in West Virginia television stations. It was the only way to see the Ohio State-Cincinnati national championship game, which wasn't being televised locally.

He's often had the opportunity to follow Penn, his alma mater, in the tournament, but rarely had the chance to follow them very far. In the last 25 years, the Quakers have made 11 tournament appearances -- and won exactly one game.

"I'm lucky enough to go to the school that goes to the NCAA Tournament every year," he said. "But I'm also unlucky enough to go to one that loses in the first round every year."

Still, Mr. Fein will often pick the Quakers to win their first round game. This year, they are a 15th seed, playing No. 2 seed Texas -- in Dallas. "That would be an awfully dumb pick to make," he said. "I may still make it."

Letting the heart control the brackets is a charming thought, but an utterly foolhardy one for Marty Spicer, an applications developer for Mellon Bank. A Morgantown native, he will pick against his beloved West Virginia Mountaineers -- or for his hated Duke Blue Devils -- if he thinks that's the ticket to victory.

It's a method that Mr. Spicer, 45, has followed for the more than three decades that he's filled out brackets. He also puts sentimentality aside in his other fantasy sports leagues, which have included baseball, hockey, football, NASCAR and even the Winter Olympics.

"Money outweighs loyalties, I'll be honest," he said.

Sure, he thought about picking the Mountaineers to go to the Elite Eight this year. After all, they lost to Texas by only one point when the two teams played in November.

"But Texas has gotten stronger and West Virginia has gotten weaker," he said, rationalizing the pick to himself. "I can't pick West Virginia. I gotta go for the money."

It's the kind of heartrending choice that Dan Pauletich prefers not to make. So the 36-year-old consultant has developed a system, and a rather elaborate one at that, to allow for brackets that appease multiple desires.

Every year, he does four -- no more, no less. His first is the "like-to-see" bracket, where his favorite teams get to upset and advance. Since his alma mater, Penn State, isn't in the tournament this year, he has Pitt going to the Final Four.

It's worth noting that even in the "like-to-see" bracket, the Panthers don't go all they way. "There is a point where reality takes over," he said.

He also does a "chalk" bracket, where he follows the seeds; a "knowledge" bracket, where he applies his best research; and a "knowledge backup" bracket, where he changes about six picks that were close calls in the first "knowledge" bracket.

This way, he can have Pitt going to the Final Four one one bracket sheet, but losing to Kent State in the first round in another.

In a sense, he's having it both ways. But maybe that's not so unusual in the love-or-money story lines that have spanned from Shakespeare to "Spider-Man 2."

Sometimes penniless Peter Parker ends up to be Spider-Man, or your sentimental pick ends up to be the University of Richmond Spiders, who over the past 15 years have won first-round NCAA tournament games as both a No. 15 seed and a No. 14 seed.

And sometimes, those who pick with their hearts win big. Last year's winner of $10,000 in the ESPN.com Men's Tournament Challenge was a senior at Michigan State who picked the No. 5-seeded Spartans to make the Final Four.

Even Mr. Fein's perennially overmatched Quakers made the Final Four in 1979.

A little sentiment never hurts, said Mr. Fein.

"You want to root for the teams you like, and also have them on your brackets," he said. "We're talking about basketball games that nobody has any control over."

Dunston had 14 points and Anderson added 13, sending Fordham into a second-round matchup against La Salle (18-9), the tournament's No. 3 seed.

Although their journey is not quite over, St. Joseph's seniors Chet Stachitas, Dwayne Lee and Dave Mallon can always look back on their careers and claim they were part of one of the most fascinating eras of Hawks basketball.

As freshmen and sophomores, they learned from and celebrated with perhaps the finest trio of guards in school history: Jameer Nelson, Delonte West and Tyrone Barley. They were sophomores during St. Joe's magical run to a 27-0 regular season and No. 1 ranking two years ago.

Last season, they carved their own niche when they joined Pat Carroll, one of the greatest long-range shooters in Big Five history, for a surprising run to the NIT championship game even though many predicted a hard fall after Nelson, West and Barley departed.

This season, they have refused to allow the limitations of a flawed team beat them down.

It was Senior Day on Hawk Hill today, the time when the players' families come to celebrate their achievements, when memories threaten to distract from the task at hand. But St. Joseph's easily disposed of Richmond, 70-39, in an Atlantic Ten Conference game at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse.

Their third consecutive win in the final home game of the season pulled the Hawks (13-12, 7-7 A-10) above .500 for the first time since Feb. 4. Two A-10 games remain before the conference tournament.

"It's fun and sad at the same time," said Lee, who scored 11 points. "It's sad to be going."

The Hawks started slowly, laboring to find a comfort zone against Richmond's matchup zone, which has held opponents to a league-best 57.3 points a game. But the Spiders didn't have the firepower to keep up. St. Joe's ran off 19 straight points while holding Richmond scoreless for nearly eight minutes in the second half.

Lee opened the second half with back-to-back three-point shots to kick-start a 25-4 run that buried the struggling Spiders (11-16, 4-10), who lost their eighth straight.

Stachitas also scored 11 points, sharing team-high honors with Lee. "It was a special game," he said.

"Everything the last four years went so quickly," said the 6-foot-10 Mallon, whose injury-riddled career is nearing a satisfying conclusion. He has helped tighten the Hawks' defense since he moved into the starting lineup in the middle of January. "It didn't hit me until I looked up and saw my mom crying. It's been an incredible ride."

A pair of upsets by Richmond last weekend have given Temple new life in the stretch drive for the top seed in next month's Atlantic Ten Conference women's basketball tournament at St. Joseph's.

The Owls (11-3 A-10) are tied with George Washington for second place going into the final weekend. They will host the Colonials on Friday.

If they win, the Owls will have to win at Rhode Island on Sunday and need George Washington to beat first-place Charlotte (12-2) the same day.

This scenario assumes a Charlotte victory over Rhode Island on Friday. Temple would win a tiebreaker for first with Charlotte because of a previous victory over the 49ers.

Richmond did the Owls a favor by beating Charlotte and GW last weekend.

St. Joseph's, meanwhile, is tied for fourth with Xavier and travels to Cincinnati to play the Musketeers on Friday. A win would give the Hawks the last bye for the A-10 tourney.

La Salle (in a three-way tie for seventh) will host Fordham on Friday and then travel to Massachusetts on Sunday.

The rankings. In the Associated Press poll released yesterday, Temple jumped from No. 23 to a tie for 17th with Boston College.

Temple has appeared in 23 straight polls, a record for a Big Five school. St. Joseph's, which last appeared in 1990s, has the most appearances with 57, followed by Villanova with 44.

Temple has won at least 20 games in four of coach Dawn Staley's six seasons.

A bit of notoriety. University of the Sciences senior Leah Shumoski appeared in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of the Feb. 20 Sports Illustrated.

Shumoski, who is averaging 17.4 points and 9.6 rebounds per game, is the first Division II player to record career totals of at least 1,800 points, 900 rebounds, 250 assists, 250 steals and 100 blocked shots.

Palestra party. Penn senior Jennifer Fleischer, who was named Ivy League coplayer of the week, celebrated her 22d birthday Friday by tying career highs of 25 points and 21 rebounds in the Quakers' win over Columbia. She also blocked five shots.

Top scorers. Senior Katie Crowley finished her college career Saturday as Haverford's all-time leading scorer with 1,291 points.

Bryn Mawr's Amy Johnson last week became the first junior in the team's history to score at least 1,000 points.

Shooting star. Villanova coach Harry Perretta on Liad Suez-Karni's career-high 34 points against Providence on Saturday, when she scored 25 in the second half: "It was amazing to see. Only two other players each had a field goal for us."

George Washington is known for its athleticism, from high-flying Pops Mensah-Bonsu's dunking to their speedy guards who always keep the tempo cranked. But the No. 7 Colonials can slow it down, too, and still dominate.

Maureece Rice scored 10 of his 14 points in the first half and fellow guard Carl Elliott had all 13 of his after halftime as the Colonials played at Richmond's deliberate pace and beat the Spiders 64-51 on Saturday night. The victory came 13 days after George Washington nearly ran Richmond out of Washington, winning 80-55.

And it showed how ready the Colonials are for their ever-increasing stage.

"Reece is a flat-out scorer, and me, I'm the guy that's going to distribute the ball," Elliott said. "I think we play well off each other. If he's not feeling it, I may be feeling it, and if I'm not feeling it, he may be feeling it.

"Today it was good that we were both on together."

Rice made his first six shots, and Elliott had three second-half 3-pointers.

The pair enabled the Colonials (22-1, 12-0 Atlantic 10) to withstand a 23-point night by Richmond's Jermaine Bucknor, who made 6 of 9 from 3-point territory.

"If he doesn't make those threes, the game doesn't look like the pace had any effect on us," Colonials coach Karl Hobbs said. "He was just magnificent."

The loss was the sixth in a row for Richmond (11-14, 4-7), which continues to struggle to find the outside shooting to fit first-year coach Chris Mooney's style. Besides Bucknor, the Spiders were 4-for-24 from behind the arc, or 16.5 percent.

"I think we put ourselves in a position to win and if we made a few more shots fall, I think we would have been able to do that," Mooney said.

The Colonials led 35-22 at halftime and opened their lead to as many as 16 in the second half before Bucknor made three 3s in a three-minute span, allowing Richmond to pull to 50-43 and get the crowd of 8,182 thinking something was ready to happen.

Elliott responded, scoring eight of the Colonials' points in a 10-0 run to wipe away the suspense. Two 3-pointers just 40 seconds apart ended the burst. 

The victory was George Washington's first at the Robins Center since Dec. 22, 1979 and ended a five-game losing streak here, the last four as Atlantic 10 rivals.

It also showed Mooney how good the Colonials can be.

"One thing they don't get enough credit for is the way they pass the ball," he said. "I think everybody sees how fast they are and how athletic they are and they underestimate how skillful they are."

Mensah-Bonsu added 10 points and nine rebounds and Danilo Pinnock had 12 points and five assists for George Washington, which shot 52 percent overall.

Oumar Sylla added 12 points for the Spiders, who shot just 37.5 percent and were outrebounded 35-25. George Washington also outscored Richmond 36-14 in the paint.

The Colonials led 20-17 when Mensah-Bonsu sparked a 14-3 run with a huge fast break dunk in the first half. Five other players scored in the burst, and Pinnock finished it with another dunk, giving George Washington a 34-20 lead 1:13 before halftime.