The opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament is behind us, with nary a Cinderella story in sight other than the unlikely Sweet Sixteen appearance for the Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV, a feat which hasn’t taken place since 1991. Due to the excitement that this time of year traditionally entails, searches for “NCAA Bracket”, “CBS Sportsline”, “ESPN” and “March Madness” ranked highly this week for searchers looking to test their bracketology wits against each other.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Internet community hit up Google for information on the passing of actor/comedian Richard Jeni and singer/songwriter Brad Delp, who gained the most notoriety as the lead singer for classic rock band Boston.

While the deaths of these two celebrities were unfortunately confirmed, there was another reported passing last week that caught the attention of searchers – never mind the fact that the news was completely false. That’s right, the former star of A Different World and famous comedian Sinbad found himself in the news this week as an erroneous Wikipedia entry reporting his demise prompted searchers to hit up Google for more information.

Who would’ve ever thought that Sinbad would have anything in common with Terry Bradshaw?

Here’s the Google Zeigeist in its entirety for the week ending March 17, 2007: 

1. richard jeni
2. ncaa bracket
3. cbs sportsline
4. nit
5. sinbad
6. brad delp
7. Bar Refaeli
8. espn
9. march madness
10. god of war 2