Once a year the calendar strikes March and for just about every sports fan that means one thing: March Madness.

With March Madness comes the bracket – a normal piece of paper that can cause extreme triumph and extreme devastation, and for most it provides utter heartbreak. And for most wannabe  ‘bracketologists,’ the main question is how predict the perfect bracket.

The answer is simple – you don’t. As a huge fan of March Madness and filling a bracket, I have learned the hard way that with filling out a bracket comes frustration.

Year after year I have used all my knowledge about the college basketball hoping that it would result in a beautiful bracket and it has never worked.

This year, after my bracket was ruined during the second round of games, I came to the conclusion that no matter how much you know about college basketball, none of it matter when it comes to March Madness.

You can throw all your knowledge out the window because in the end it is a complete guessing game.

Most people that actually do well are the people that really don’t know much about college basketball (no offense). They will typically fill their bracket out based on which mascot would win a fight or which team color they prefer.

In the years to come I will most likely fill out two brackets. One of them I will predict the winners based on my knowledge and the other I will choose based on some odd reasoning.

If you are in the same situation as me here are several of ways you could go about filling in your bracket in the future: colors of the team, mascots, the older university wins, location, blindly pointing or drawing from a hat and the more unique mascot wins.

Although these might not work out either, just remember that filling out a perfect bracket is unheard of so why stress over a bracket when you can fill it out in a goofy, new way.