By Andrew Krumme

With the Big Dance on the horizon and the fact that we will not be coming out with an issue next week due to Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis’ favorite time of the year, I thought I would give everyone a little advice on how to pick the winning bracket.

Before I go on, I must preface this by saying for as long as I can remember, I have never won an NCAA March Madness pool. With that being said, I will be taking a different approach from past years when I relied on my unquestioned expertise (yeah right, I don’t know anything) to pick my winners.

Now many of you have probably watched countless hours of basketball this year and think you know what you’re doing but you don’t. And neither does “Bracket Guy” who you overhear in the SAC going over why he has this team in the Final Four and this squad bowing out early.

You read and listen to analysts say, “Good guard play is what wins in March,” or “You have got to like all the experience on that team,” but lets all be honest with each other. You have about as much of an idea who is going to score that unthinkable trip to the Sweet Sixteen as all the liberals out there who think they know what they are talking about in every general category of discussion.

So stop thinking James Madison University is going to the Elite Eight. And I most certainly do not want to catch the tail end of a conversation about why Ohio State University is going to take home the crown this year. So let’s try something new, huh?

The first thing I am going to do, and urge all of you to do as well, is go ahead and put your favorite team into at least the Final Four. So that means my Xavier Musketeers will be penciled into the finals before I even begin to debate my first round upsets. I figure my bracket is going to be so screwed by that Friday night that I might as well have my favorite team in there to root for.

Second, after filling all the number one and two seeds in for a first round win, go find yourself a nickel and start flipping. That’s right, go ahead and just flick that thing in the air until you have all your Sweet Sixteen teams. I know, when you look down and see Winthrop University playing Oakland University it is not going to look right. But hey, I guarantee you have a better chance with good ole’ Thomas Jefferson calling the shots.

Third, to figure out who is moving on, take the number of letters in the team’s mascot, divide by 13, add by the number of broken bones you have had in your life, multiply by pi (3.14159 for you idiots who do not know) and square that number with the average home attendance for that year. Whichever team has the lower result moves on to the Elite Eight.

Fourth… well if your still reading, I guess you are like me and are to the point that no matter how much basketball you watch and how great you think you know all these teams, you simply cannot pick a bracket just like me!

So good luck and enjoy the finest time of the year.