Tournament tips

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Spring is just around the corner and for college basketball fans, Christmas takes a back seat to being the most wonderful time of the year. The NCAA Men's Basketball tournament tips off with a pool of over 60 teams all competing to win the coveted National Championship.  The tournament is the source for some water cooler trash talk and cubicle competition especially when you fill out a tournament bracket. Accurately picking teams to win and lose is surely a challenge and with upsets taking place every year, it is no wonder the tournament is rightfully dubbed maddening. To tame this athletic circus, eightWest's own associate producer Amanda Harper and Maranda: Where You Live producer, Heather Hontz put together their own formula to assist you in your pickings. Their counsel, embrace the madness and take the eightWest Bracket Challenge with us !

M - Make sure you pick at least one number 12 seed to beat a five seed. A 12 has beaten a five 22 out of the last 24 years.

A - Advance no more than two number one seeds to the Final Four. In the last 22 of 28 years, no more than two number one seeds have been in the Final Four. Only once in tournament history have all four number one seeds made it.

D - Do not pick schools named after people, unless they are Duke of Butler. There have been a total of 104 Final Four teams since 1986. Of them, 86 were schools names after a state or a city. Schools named after people tend to watch on television like the rest of us.

N - No 16 seed has ever beaten a number one seed, and only four times in tournament history has a 15 beaten a two. So advance all your number one's and two's through the first round.

E - Emotions do not belong in your bracket. Choose with your head, not your heart.

S - Six is the highest seed you should have advance to the national championship game, and that's pushing it. Only one time in 28 years has a team worse than a number 6 made it to the championship game.

S - Somewhere just past the 9 quintillion mark are the number of possibilities to fill out your bracket. That's nine with eighteen zeros. But basically, there is no wrong way to fill out your bracket, so just have fun with it!