Bracket busted

I came into this year's NCAA tournament with so much hope. I was the defending bracket pool champion at work. The Final Four played out exactly as I plotted it last year, complete with Connecticut taking the title back to Storrs.
Turns out, it was pure, dumb luck. Pure, dumb, blunt, simple, flat-out asinine luck.
There is an entire industry in Las Vegas and Atlantic City based on picking winners in sports. The public at large probably thinks professional bookmakers spend hours in little rooms, puffing away at cigars as they do complex calculations and map out intricate spreadsheets to predict winners as accurately as they can.
But do you want the truth? They don't. Not even close. They sit around, watch some sports, recognize good teams from bad teams, teams with weak schedules from teams with strong schedules, factor in injuries, and come up with the "lines."
It's no more scientific than making a turkey sandwich. Sounding like an expert on NFL Sunday prognostications is hard enough, but in the NCAAs, nobody in this land is worthy to carry Nostradamus' cloak.
Wisconsin-Milwaukee damaged a lot of brackets by getting to the sweet 16, but just as everybody, wagerers and not, are ready to jump on the UWM Cinderella bandwagon, they are tidily dispatched by Illinois Thursday night.
Same goes for Vermont, the other Cinderella candidate who knocked off Syracuse, but is now back home digging out of the remains of a New England winter.
As for me, half my Final Four is now playing Xbox until classes resume. Georgia Tech made it to the nationals last year as a fourth seed. As a 19-11 fifth seed this year, they were second-round dog meat. Oklahoma State had Final Four experience from last year as well, but Arizona hung on just long enough to send the Cowboys packing Thursday.
Once Duke, my national champion, gets knocked off, I can use my brackets to wrap leftovers.
Maybe my brackets are too predictable this year, too reliant on teams repeating their success from last year. But we all need our modus operandi when it comes plotting our would-be winners. The uncertainty, the upsets, the little schools oustering biggers schools in a race for a uniform champion is generally what professional sports doesn't have, and it is certainly what college football's bowl system can't provide.
I wouldn't change March Madness. But if first-time bracketeer wants my advice, I'd say go with your gut instincts and whatever knowledge of college hoops you have stored upstairs. Believe me, you won't be any better or worse off than the guys who pick winners for a living.
It's all luck. And a smattering of common sense. (Duke's going to carry me. I know it.)