Part of the magic of the office  NCAA bracket pool is bracketology that goes on — the examining of the brackets and the predicting of where the upsets are likely to occur. At the end, a tip of the cap goes out to the one who boldly stuck with a darkhorse or two that carried them to the cash haul. Savvy players never stick with all four No. 1 seeds

This year, your office or household pool is looking like it's going to go to a first timer or the kind of person who bets a horse at the track because they like the horse's name or the jockey's silks, isn't it?

Any lay person who can understand that if you're a No.1 seed you must be pretty good and who filled out their brackets based soley on seeding has to be looking pretty good now after some early round setbacks, by virtue of the fact  that for the first time all four No. 1 seeds have reached the Final Four.

Neither my stepson Alex nor our  foreign exchange student Jihyun living with us had ever engaged in an NCAA bracket pool before and both are kicking my butt in a friendly family pool.  My only hope is that Kansas wins it all, after  both my darkhorses — Texas and Xavier — flamed out after reaching the Elite 8. Alex went with all the No. 1 seeds to make his Final Four and Jihyun went with three  - UCLA, N.C. and Memphis,  although to their credit they picked some upsets along the way, too.

Limit your upset picks to the first rounds, then go with top seeds - pretty good strategy this year.