If you are your average NCAA basketball fanatic, you’ve been spending the last few months boning up on all things statistical and informational getting ready for this very week.

You are in full bracket mode.

You know who the 6th man is on North Dakota State and who is the starting point guard for Morgan. You’ve spent sleepless nights wondering if North Carolina is the team to beat – and if Syracuse is really for real. You’re in a knot over how many 9 seeds will take out an 8 and is this a year of a 15 seed upset. Your working bracket sheet looks like a chicken died on it – and you’re now on such a coffee high you’re thinking of changing your name to Starbuck.

And you know what?

You have been wasting your time.

That’s because any of the following – probably all of the following actually – will kick your basketball lovin’ butt in their brackets.

And they are, in descending order of annoyance:

Number 5: A kid

Every year it seems the major money pools, like CBS’s or ESPN’s are won by 8 to 12-year-old kids. And to add insult to injury, these pre-pubescent aren’t basketball scholars or even idiot savants. They’re just frikin lucky, that’s what they are. One year ESPN’s pool was won by an 11-year-old Canadian kid. I interviewed this Stoney Creek, Ontario pre-teen after he won and his formula was based on what teams he saw play on his Canadian TV. Meaning he saw like what? Two teams? It didn’t even make sense. It’s amazing I didn’t slap him.

Number 4: Your significant other

The line, “I just liked their uniforms better” as the reason women pick one team to win over another has over the years become a familiar cutsey-wootsy standard in the world of sports. But you know what? Apparently, it works. Perhaps it’s something about the players in the bad laundry feeling a lack of self-esteem when they face a crew who are awesomely clad. Whatever it is, it’s pretty much a fact that women have the advantage over the average guy whose fashion instincts max out at plaid shirts with jeans. Women know what goes together. We don’t. We lose.

Number 3: The IT Guy

Using the word “nerd” is no longer a pejorative with the onset of such TV shows as “Chuck” and “Big Bang Theory,” and after all, the biggest nerd perhaps ever is currently the richest man on the planet. But that doesn’t make them any less annoying when they put together their brackets based on some weird mathematical mojo they invented at three in the morning between fixing the e-mail server and plotting the destruction of all their WoW buddies. Of course after you’ve lost, the coup de grace comes when they remind you again, and again, and again that they’ve never actually seen a basketball game. Then they snort snot on you in their revolting nerdy laugh. No court would convict you of murder after that I’m thinking.

Number 2: Your neighbor

It’s one thing to lose an NCAA bracket pool. It’s a whole other thing to lose it to your neighbor. Either at your house or at work, having some guy close by on a fairly regular basis lording his victorious picks over you for an entire year is like rope burn with lemon juice sprinkled on top. How does it happen? Why are stars invariably aligned against you? For that there is no answer other than it probably builds you character. That, or HUGE fences. Or epic cubicle practical joke wars.

Number 1: The Copier

The disdain felt for this person makes it difficult to even type this out. This is the person who goes online, peruses one of CBS’s talking heads brackets and jots it down win-for-frikin-win. There is no satisfaction in that. No craft. No putting them selves on the line. It’s guldurned un-American, that’s what it is, but you know what, this guy will beat you anyway – and he’ll feel good about himself when he does it. The best thing to do with this kind of guy is rip him with scorn for his lack of originality.

But make sure you do it a day or two after you’ve handed him over you money.

You’ll feel less of a douche nozzle that way.

Cheers – Gavin McDougald AKA Couch