Midnight Madness begets the Tip-Off Classics begets the NIT, and tropical tourneys begets conference play begets March Madness, or rather "Arch Madness," due to the Final Four finish in St. Louis.

And there it is: The biggest cliche you will hear all season, and consequently a "must-have" for your college-hoops vocabulary.

To maintain your place on the cool side of all that is trendy (and passé) in college hoops, study up on these two dozen other hot-button issues:

WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT: COLLEGE HOOPS 2004-05
Category	Hot	Not Hot
Super-fan	Ashley Judd (as always)	Red Sox players
Hair	Yes	No
Tobacco Road stud	Marvin Williams (UNC)	J.J. Redick (Duke)
Retro jersey	Retro is out	Fennis Dembo
REAL top NBA prospect	Chris Taft (Pitt)	Chris Paul (Wake)
Most talent in New York	Hakim Warrick (Syracuse)	Any New York Knick
Cinderella	Northwestern	UAB
Bandwagon	Wake Forest	St. Joe's
Sleeper	Providence	Xavier
Needs more pub	Joey Graham (Okla St.)	Wayne Simien (Kansas)
Player of the Year hotbed	Tobacco Road	SEC
Mighty mite	Nate Robinson (Washington)	Jameer Nelson (St. Joe's)
Matt Brust Hasn't-He-Been-In-College-Forever? Award	David Lee (Florida)	Chris Duhon (Finally!)
Freshman	Jordan Farmar (UCLA)	Dwight Howard (Orlando)
On-court style statement	High socks	Sweatbands
Skill to show NBA scouts	Distribution	Defense
Power Conference	ACC	Pac-10
Sleeper State	Florida State	Oklahoma State
Scandal Watch	Local car dealers	Quin Snyder (Mizzou)
RPI factor	Strength of schedule	Opponent's rep
Hot new coach	Trent Johnson (Stanford)	Lon Kruger (UNLV)
Key to deep Tourney run	Frontcourt depth	Go-to scorer
Pound-for-pound (or gender-for-gender) best college player in country	Seimone Augustus (LSU-W)	Chris Paul
Un-cliched Final Four	Louisville, Providence, N.C. St, Illinois	Kansas, Wake, UNC, Syracuse

Dan Shanoff is a columnist for Page 2. His "Daily Quickie" commentary appears every weekday morning on Page 2 and he hosts SportsNation's "Morning Quickie" from 9-10 a.m. ET, Monday-Friday.