The question most frequently asked around the country last week, perhaps right behind, “How are you doing?” was, “How’s your bracket?”

March Madness is a time unlike any other. People who didn’t watch basketball all season are all of the sudden experts because they have a certain 12 seed beating a five. In reality, it seems the more one knows about the college basketball scene, the worse they will do in the poll.

Then there are people like the one fine freshman whom I ran into during the first day of games who claimed, “Xavier is sick.” To which I asked, “Why?”

He simply replied, “Because they’re a three seed.”

I heeded his answer because there is some logic behind it and politely asked him how he felt about Stanford.

“Who? They’re not going anywhere,” he said.

When I asked him why not, he replied because he had not heard anything about them all season. When I told him that as a three seed they were just as “sick” as Xavier by his logic, he claimed that that small school in New Hampshire had never won anything.

This may be funny now, but this kid is probably winning his March Madness pool. Last year, the national winner of “bracketology” was a woman who picked her winners based on which mascot would win in a fight.

When people tell me that they didn’t fill out a bracket because they don’t know anything about basketball, I tell them that I am happy because they would probably be beating me handedly by now.

At the moment, I am ranked slightly over 117,000 in the world. I have 11 of the Sweet 16 teams left in the tournament. This is coming from a sports-crazed man who filled out no fewer than 15 brackets to be sure that he could get something right.

Considering that there are about 4 million people in the national pool, I’m doing fairly well.

While I was in high school, one of the teacher’s wives filled out a bracket based on what places had the best shopping. She came in second to the Korean exchange student who didn’t so much as touch a basketball for the first 16 years of his life.

One could take my roommate’s approach and claim that your bracket is in your head and still perfect. The secret is, when someone asks you who you have in the Final Four; make sure you know enough to name four teams that are still alive. If one of those teams losses, you can always say they misremember.

Oddly enough, the first time I entered a pool (when I knew the least about basketball), as a freshman in high school, I faired the best by far. I came in second place in a school of about 400, and had Indiana been able to upset Maryland in the championship game, I would have won.

Some hints to the perfect bracket:

1. Never pick Kansas or Stanford to win it all.

2. Pick at least one 12 over a 5.

3. When in doubt, go by the rankings.

4. Look up the Vegas line and pick by that. (Davidson was favored over Gonzaga in the first round according to Vegas.)

5. Pick the safe upsets, such as nine seeds over eight seeds so you won’t lose that many points.

6. If you think no matter who wins an opening game is going to lose in the second round, pick the lower seed. (Only applies if you are in a seed weighted pool.)

7. Teams who made it to their conference championship game and lost are not a good pick to go past the second round.

8. Listen to whatever Bobby Knight says and do the opposite.

9. There is an inverse relationship between the number of plays a team has on Sports Center’s Top Ten and the chance they have to win the tournament.

10. Disregard the last nine points, don’t watch any college basketball prior to the tournament, and pick your teams based on who has the coolest jersey (or your favorite colors, or the schools that are listed the highest on the 20 biggest party schools in America report, or which school has the most celebrities as alumni).

Traffic to CBS’ website is up 112% compared to years past. One could estimate that business and student productivity is down somewhere in the 112% range over the past week.

Over $4 billion is wagered on this tournament in the United States alone every year. This means that every America wagers more than $10 every year on this tournament.

Of the 4 million people entered on ESPN’s Tourney Challenge, two guessed all 16 teams correctly. My guess is that they attend either Davidson or Western Kentucky.

More Biz of Basketball articles by Bill Jordan can be found here, here and here.