I guess we’ll all have to look for a new Cinderella now that George Mason is out. Last March everyone’s new-found favourite Patriots ploughed through the likes of Michigan State, North Carolina and UConn before finally falling to the eventual national champion Florida in the semifinals. This year they won’t even make it into the tournament after losing to Virginia Commonwealth in the Colonial Athletic Association championship game Monday night.

Now the big question is, who are we gonna get screwed over by this year?

Many, including me, had Michigan State and North Carolina and Connecticut last year. Of the multi-millions who had brackets in the tourney, about 10 people had George Mason going that far, and all of them had to be kookoo-for-coconuts to pick ‘em in the first place.

Now we can’t even count on putting George Mason down as a long-shot anymore. Thanks a frikin’ lot! Never mind how hard it is to get into thing, it is virtually impossible to predict how any team will do once they do, yet we all desperately try every year.

If a person knows doing something is going to be painful, yet they enthusiastically go through with it anyway, they are defined as a masochist.

That’s what we all are – masochists. March Masochists.

When the 65 teams are selected for the tournament this Sunday, we will, with smiles on our faces and furrowed brows, faithfully fill in the blanks on who will advance and who will surely lose.

The problem is, as hopeful as we are, we do know, or at least we should know, that we will almost certainly be wrong.

Why?

Because no one has ever been all the way right.

Every year we await to hear about some genius somewhere who has nailed the perfect bracket, but it never happens. That’s due to the odds being in the neighborhood of 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.

But does a number like that deter us? Nope. There are those who have been proactive. They’ve been studiously following the NCAA very closely all season long. They’ve been noting trends, relative conference strengths, match-up advantages etc. Therefore all those guys and girls should have a distinct advantage when it comes to this new science known as “bracketology.”

But they don’t. What they’ve been doing is essentially wasting their time.

…and recently, this cruel and unusual process has only gotten harder. Picking used to be a bit easier when players stayed in school for four years and the tournament was top-heavy. But it ain’t like that anymore. Now, every year there is a George Mason just waiting to smash our brackets like a Cinderella slipper.

Coming from the gaming world as we do, we depend on tangible stuff like research, insider information, and team and player tendencies. Those are the tools we use to make educated picks.

Unfortunately, at this time of year, there’s little point in any of that.

Theory and reality are two very disparate things when it comes to March.  What we are sure will happen won’t and what can’t possibly happen will. Its Bizarro World come to life.

So – how do we, who almost always base our wagering strategy on cold hard logic and detailed information, deal with this almost total absence of common sense?

We have to start thinking like everyone else.

It’s time to amend “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” to “Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and March Madness.”

Straight-up players like we have to loosen the reigns a bit this time of year. The idea that we don’t have to be all right, just mostly right takes some getting used to.

Next week I will list the tried tested and true methods many experts swear provide the best chance for creating that elusive “perfect bracket.”

Use ‘em if you want. Or you can try the system the winner of one of the bracket contests used last year when she went 55 for 63 for her picks.

Her formula was picking the teams from the States that she had visited.

Both are probably equally as valid.

Cheers – Gavin McDougald