There are not many days left until March Madness begins. This is a grand time of the year when much smack talk is exchanged between co-workers, friends and family members.

Every person who fills out a bracket will be telling anyone who will listen who will win the Big Dance. It is a fun-filled month full of guessing and crying.

For me it is usually mostly crying because I always seem to pick the wrong sleeper teams and last year my fiancé beat me by picking all the No. 1 seeded teams to make the Final Four.

I felt very confident at the beginning of the tournament when I saw she had done that because that had never happened before. But of course the one year I decide to throw in my bracket with a loved one it happens that way.

My dad makes fun of me every year around this time because of how addicted I get to watching the tournament. This year may be different if the Troy Trojans can pull off a win in the Sun Belt Tournament.

A win in the tournament would give them an automatic bid into the tournament and a chance to bring home a national championship to Troy.

Of course, who knows if this will happen or not, but I am sure the university and the city of Troy would be ecstatic if that happened.

But this year’s tournament should be an interesting one because all you hear about on ESPN this year is about how the No. 1 team in the country just went down again. It is kind of the same thing you heard all football season and it proves that parity is alive across college athletics.

In the past March Madness has always been the defining tournament to produce a Cinderella story. This year may return the tournament to its normal status of knocking out at least one of the top teams in the four regions before the Final Four.

All I know is it will be a fun time to be had by all. If I can get a bracket going in The Messenger office I am sure one of the members of the fairer sex would take home the pride of a win. In my experience, unless you have a bracketologist in the group a female will pull down the title.

I think this is true because the women of this world are smarter than the men and they realize that there is no need to overanalyze your picks. They just make them and live with it. I wish I could do that. But no matter what, it should be a fun month of basketball madness.

Matt Nascone is the sports editor for The Messenger. He can be reached at 670-6315 or online at matt.nascone@troymessenger.com.