So, by now, you're probably spending valuable time at work scouring the experts opinions and reading up on the field of 64 for the NCAA tourney. All of this information can help you win your office pool, or one of the many national contests - or will it? The truth is, picking the tournament is literally a crapshoot. I once won an office pool when I let my (then two year old) daughter make all my picks for me. I had her point or say the team she thought would win. Turns out she did better than dear old dad who studied and listened and thought he knew what he was doing. Mike Decourcy, Joe Lunardi or any of the other "bracketologists" just simply don't know what will happen. It's easy to make your picks according to "chalk." This year, especially, just picking the best seeded team might be the best way to win the prize. I personally never take all the #1 seeds, but this year, those #1s look pretty impressive. Hard to see who might knock them off. But you know someone will. Who's it going to be? This year I'm going to be in three pools (down from year's past). One I'm taking all the top seeds (i.e. picking the favorites to hold chalk). Another, I'm going unorthodox and taking only odd seeded teams to win, and modifying that to take into account that 1 is also an odd number. In the "oddball" bracket I'm going with Clemson, Louisville, Memphis and UCLA in the Final Four. Truly an oddball selection. And my third bracket I'm calling my main sheet. This is the one that I'm putting hunches to work. It will have upsets. It will have at least one #1 seed going down. My Final Four on that sheet looks like this: N. Carolina, G'Town, Texas, UCLA. I like these picks a lot and will feel quite proud if this is how it plays out. I feel the strongest about UCLA. Their road to the Final Four is pretty easy. I like the Texas pick too. Georgetown is battle-tested and well-coached. UNC could be the team everyone is picking, but that means they could be the surprise team that gets upset. I don't see it. They're just too good.

Please don't take my word on anything. One of my favorite web sites simulated the tourney field 10,000 times and breaks down their results. They're probably as good as anyone, but note, they missed the George Mason miracle Final Four run completely with their SIM engine not having George Mason getting to the final four once in 10,000, so it just goes to show, you might be better off having a baby pick, or your dog or doing one potato two potato. Either way, let's get ready for some March Madness.