Now that the NCAA hoops tourney is behind us, and the Florida Gators have been crowned the collegiate hardwood champs for the second time in as many years, we need to address a major issue plaguing March Madness.

The issue has nothing to do with hair high-jacking American Idol, Will Ferrell on ice skates, Britney Spears’ release/breakout from the psych ward or Dick Vitale’s feelings (surely his large heart is in many little pieces) now that his favorite ACC teams are no more.

This issue is simple:

The practice of filling out multiple NCAA Tournament brackets must be outlawed.

At this time every year, once all dust has settled from the tourney, self-proclaimed “geniuses” appear, claiming to have picked the perfect bracket, but failing to mention the extremely significant detail that the selection sheet they are referring to is number 249,848th of the 300,000 they filled out.

In order to claim “genius” status and expect any credit for correctly predicting winning teams through the tournament, you can only have filled out one bracket. Not two, not ten, not one hundred, just one. If the same bracket is used for multiple contests, that is completely acceptable.

The bottom line is, some lucky person should get credit for correctly picking winners; the same credit as a person who correctly gets all of the numbers involved in a Pick-3, Pick-4 or Powerball lottery drawing.

It’s not a knock on you the selector, it’s a reality-check on the selector’s claim to fame.

I have never claimed to be a NCAA hoops genius, nor will I ever. Every year it gets tougher to keep up with players, especially with the new age-limit rule forcing many sure-fire lottery picks to wander a college campus of choice for one year before bolting to the NBA. But one thing I hold true in the midst of all the madness in March, is my selections.

This year I went with the “Rooting Team Biased” sheet. Here is a complete list of NCAA Tourney Sheet Selector types:

Rooting Team Biased Bracket
Take my bracket sheet this year, for example. As a UNC Tarheel fan, I chose them to win the entire tournament. This year’s UNC squad had a legitimate shote, so my pick was not your normal, run-of-the-mill “Rooting Team Biased” pick sheet. If you were to select, say, VCU, Butler, Texas A&M Corpus-Christi, you fall in this category. Because no sane person in their RITE MIND had any of those teams winning it all. Usually this particular selector is so confident their rooting interest will trump on-court talent, which means they are the perfect mark for a ridiculous bet where you can cash in big-time!

Been Hittin’ The Bottle Bracket
This selector had a #1 seed losing to a #16 seed. They are so detached from reality in their selection sheet it makes the normal person sick. The term “logic” is foreign to them. They claim the starts are aligned, thus preventing the sure-fire team to beat from advancing past the worst teams in the land. Most likely they drink or smoke. A lot. And we won’t go into other possible causes for their ways (paint chips, falls as a baby, oxygen flow to brain, etc.) but we will say this - their dollars in the pot are just as good as the next selector.

Hater-Hater Bracket
This selector hates Duke so they had the Bluedevils out in round 1, not just this year (because clearly a Duke upset was the Fergie single of bracket picks) but for every year they have been filling out tourney brackets for office pools starting in the early 90s. It’s cool to hate teams for whatever reason, but when you’re in a serious office pool and picking those teams you want to lose in the first round you have issues. You are a hater. Welcome to the club where you have only a one in a million shot at a winning bracket. But this person does not care, because their sheet is a statement of them fighting against “the machine.” While they do that, others will reap the benefits of not letting anger cloud their judgment, thus giving them a shot at being a winner.

Al Gore Bracket
This selector bores you to tears. You waste away your life by looking at their bracket because you need only look at the rankings and figure out their predictable selection style. No 12 over 5 upsets, ever. You’d be hard-pressed even to find a 9 over 8 pick on their sheet. You absolutely think they know nothing about college basketball parity, and would be pissed off if they win your bracket. In which case, this year, you hate this person. Damn those better-than-the-rest Gators playing like everyone knew they would! Why didn’t they lose to that #16 team as predicted by the “Been Hittin’ The Bottle Bracket” guy?