I have covered 18 Final Fours, which means I know how to fill out an NCAA bracket, right?

Wrong. Never have I picked all the Final Four teams correctly.

Never have I won an office pool. Never has my first-round upset special pulled off the upset. Never has my sleeper team awakened.

I can pontificate in print about college hoops all day. I just can't predict it. I have come to believe that when that bracket is in front of you on the kitchen table, when you're putting pencil to paper, the less you know about these teams, the better.

True story: I once worked with a 70-year-old woman in Cincinnati who didn't know a half-court trap from a mousetrap. She came to me, office-pool bracket in hand, and asked me to tell her the mascots of all the teams.

She proceeded to pick every game, all the way through, by pitting the mascots against each other and picking which one would win in a fight. If it was the Tigers against the Terriers, she would pick the Tigers.

She won the pool. . . . .

• Look closely at the 4-13 games. Three of the past four seasons, a 13 has beaten a 4. In 2001, two 13s won. So pick a 13, but make sure it's from a decent conference. Our pick this year is Louisiana-Lafayette beating Louisville. The Sun Belt is better than people around the nation think and if you saw the Ragin' Cajuns wave goodbye to the University of Denver in the second half last week, you know these guys can play. Might not happen, but Louisiana-Lafayette is the best of the four No. 13s.

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By Randy Holtz
Rocky Mountain News

holtzr@RockyMountainNews.com
303- 892-5439