AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) -All those so-called experts weren't alone.

Heck, even the coach thought his team was a lost cause.

Every NCAA bracket has at least one team that leaves 'em howling, though, and this year, that team is a scrappy group of overachievers from the Air Force Academy.

``People are going to keep saying stuff, but we know that we belong in the tournament,'' forward Jacob Burtschi said. ``We're just going to show people that we do.''

Of course, it's only fair to note that coach Jeff Bzdelik was pretty much certain the Falcons (24-6) wouldn't make it after their first-round loss to Wyoming in the Mountain West Conference tournament last week.

He said as much in the hallway at the Pepsi Center in Denver about 30 minutes after the game, and the fact that he didn't schedule a bracket-watching party on campus only served to confirm his feelings.

That made it all the more amazing when Air Force's name popped up Sunday, a 13th seed in the Washington Regional.

``I was there in front of the TV, and when I saw Air and then an F, I was running around and didn't even know where we were playing,'' Bzdelik said.

The opponent will be Illinois, on Thursday in San Diego.

Certainly, a lot of people will be watching, including the teams that got passed over - like Cincinnati, Michigan and Maryland. The outcry from the have-nots this year has been, predictably, quite loud.

``It's hard for me to understand, so it's certainly hard for me to articulate to our kids what just happened,'' Cincy coach Andy Kennedy said.

Indeed, the thought of a big power like Cincinnati being passed over for a program like Air Force does boggle the mind.

For decades, the Falcons had one of the most irrelevant basketball programs in Division I, ignored at home and unknown pretty much everywhere else. Hemmed in by rigorous academic standards and the commonsense notion that not many 7-footers grow up dreaming about becoming Air Force pilots, it has always been hard to sell top players on the Academy.

But the players who do come are smarter than most. And when they bought into the meticulous Princeton offense run by coach Joe Scott from 2000-04, things slowly started turning around.

Scott left for - where else? - Princeton in 2004 after taking Air Force to its first NCAA tournament in 42 years. His assistant, Chris Mooney, coached the 2004-05 season then bolted to Richmond.

Now, it's Bzdelik's turn. Using principles from Scott's old system and blending some new stuff he brought from his time in the NBA - including with the Denver Nuggets for two-plus seasons - he has led the Falcons back to the tournament.

To the dismay of many.

``We all know there are going to be teams left out and there are going to be discussions, and that's just part of the selection process,'' Bzdelik said. ``That's just part of sports.''

Those shocked by Air Force's inclusion - everyone from Digger to Dickie V to your cousin Denny - looked at the team's 24 wins and noted that not one came against a team with an RPI of better than 56.

They saw the Mountain West schedule - hardly a backbreaker - the fact that Air Force finished behind San Diego State in the conference and added it to a bad, first-round loss in the tournament and concluded the Falcons' bubble had burst.

But the selection committee saw something else - most notably a team that had won six straight before the Wyoming loss, that led the nation in defense (53.8 points a game) and that was trying to make its schedule tougher.

After all, it wasn't Air Force's fault that Georgia Tech, Miami and Washington, all on this year's schedule, weren't as good as advertised, or that Rutgers told the Falcons not to bother heading East to play the second part of their home-and-home contract.

``I think when they scheduled those games, they scheduled them with the thought that these were real good, nonconference tests,'' committee chairman Craig Littlepage said.

As Littlepage emphasized time and again over the past two days, the committee likes to reward teams that try to bolster their nonconference schedule.

Clearly, Air Force tried.

Then, there were intangibles that kept coming up.

``We had discussions and questions asked similar to: 'What is a really tough team to beat?' `Who is a team that a particular school might not want to play?''' Littlepage said.

The name ``Air Force'' kept coming up.

And it wasn't only the ``experts'' who were surprised.

``I wasn't planning on watching it at all,'' guard Antoine Hood said of the selection show. ``I was getting out of my car when someone called me and asked if I had heard the news and I said no. They said `You're in,' and I thought they were joking.''

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