We need to get a couple of things straight before this goes any further.

No. 1 — I don’t care about your bracket.

No. 2 — Please don’t care about mine.

It’s the time of year when most people should be worried about getting their taxes in on time, but instead, all you hear is “how’z yerr brackiiiit?” The only thing worse than listening to someone tell you how they had all the #12 seeds winning in the first round is to have to listen to someone explain how they broke 80 with a hole-by-hole, shot-by-shot breakdown.

If I told you that I won a bracket pool a few years ago because I had Cornell and St. Mary’s making it to the Sweet 16, would you think I’m some kind of genius? And would you remember it 15 seconds later? Of course not. So why subject everyone else to it?

If you told me, “Hey, if I win the bracket pool, I’m splitting it with you just because you took the time to listen to me drone on and on and on,” then I am all about it. In the meantime, I’ll pull for you and you can pull for me, but let’s don’t enter into a bracket relationship. It’s not going to end well.

This while thing is a total crap shoot. Some guy from the America East Conference knocks down an off-balanced 3-pointer at the buzzer and that ruins everything. I will say this: Too many people spend time worrying about who didn’t get in the tournament and those who snuck in. Those teams aren’t going to win this thing anyway, so stop crying about it.

Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas don’t have any way of knowing how this is all going to play out any more than Dick & Jane. (If you are under 50, ignore that reference. But we might need to file that away for a future DW column.)

Here’s my only semi-advice if you’ve watched any amount of college basketball: How “good” is a team’s “best?” When they play as well as they can play, who can they beat, based on the games played this year? Michigan State can beat anybody. Arizona can beat anybody.

Sure, they can lose to anybody, but that’s not the point. Teams are going to have to play their best to win this thing and if you want to be around for awhile, you might take that into account.

Otherwise, flip a coin.