It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Brackets for the 2003 NCAA Tournament are here, and it's the only day you can drink green beer without being looked at funny - finally, March Madness.

And so on the day when everyone is just a little bit Irish, let's take a look at some guidelines for filling out a bracket the right way. And for the sake of safety and your pool money, please fill it out before you wake up with a green ring around your lips and you can't remember where you left your keys.

The first rule of brackets is to throw out the allegiances. No matter how loyal a fan you might be of a team, filling in the blanks all the way to the final game is a sure bet to be out of the running before you even start.

Sorry to say, but the unwavering and honest belief that "this is the year" is probably wrong, no matter how much you "can just feel it." I like to call this the Wolverine Rule. Oh, nevermind.

This isn't to say you can't make a pick based on a gut feeling, however. Sometimes, the most knowledgeable college basketball minds in the business are left in the dark on some picks and are left to go on instinct alone. Use a coin flip to decide a couple if you want to. Just don't flip yourself throughout the Final Four.

Rule No. 2: The "12-5" rule. Nearly every tournament, a No. 12 seed, mid-major school comes out of left field to shock the world and send a No. 5 seed packing early. Creighton did it to Florida last year, and Gonzaga has the art of the upset down to a science. Count on it.

Just don't overdo it. Think of picking the upsets like making it through a St. Patty's Day bar crawl without biting it on the curb - moderation is the key.

And since we're on the subject of bracket numerology, examine the "8-9" rule. The game pitting the 8-seed against the 9-seed is an all-out crapshoot. Flip a coin, throw a dart or put the two schools' names on the wall and see which one your dog walks to first.

Anything goes with these matchups.

Know why?

Because they're the most useless games in the tourney. The winner has the distinction of being ousted by the one seed the very next game.

And, oh, the one seeds. The bracket headache of headaches. No one has ever placed last in the pool by picking all No. 1 seeds for Final Four, but I doubt many have won either. The likelihood of all four No. 1 seeds meeting in New Orleans is so minute that I wouldn't even consider it. There are way too many good teams out there for this to happen.

Now that the numbers game is done and you're half-done with your second Killilan's, it's time to think about the random decisions you'll make. I'm talking about the random picks you'll make concerning teams you know nothing about, then when it comes through for you, you present yourself to be the next Dick Vitale.

These situations are bound to come up. So when you have absolutely no idea who to go with, do what I do: Who would win in a fight between their mascots?

Laugh now but believe me later, it works more than you'd think. There's a certain logic to it. A Wildcat vs. a Blue Jay