In case you need to make sure you LOSE your NCAA pool, so as to keep your boss or father-in-law or girlfriend happy, Rick Reilly's weekly column on ESPN.com presents a variety of logical, clever, and subtle ways to help you out.
Reilly offers some awesome hints like the fact that a team in purple has never won the tourney (too bad, Huskies); or that the nation's scoring leader hasn't won a tourney since 1954 (too bad, VaTech), or a team with the word South has never won the tourney (too bad, South - ern Cal).
And then there was this advice, if you really want to be sure to lose:
*Bet on UCLA coach Ben Howland. You'll be happy.
*Bet against VCU coach Shaka Smart. You'll be happier.
(*If you happen to run UCLA athletics, dump Howland and hire Smart. You'll be happiest.)
That's from a premiere national sports columnist.
But Bruins Nation is just so negative...
Or, so right.