You may be tempted to call this the "girl method" of making a bracket, but it's 2017 dammit! Ladies can love basketball and dudes can be completely clueless and both are OK! If you (like myself) find yourself in the clueless category, you probably breathed a sigh of relief having successfully gotten through the regular season without getting involved in anything basketball related. (Except for going out on game day of course!) But now it's March and even we are being pulled into the madness. (LOL sorry, I had to. I hate myself too, don't worry.) So here is my personal guide to making a bracket and hopefully some cold hard cash.

1. Research

Ok, this is the most boring, but likely most effective, strategy. Your first stop should of course be the NCAA website to read up on stats and rankings. Hit up the Google and read some articles or blogs where sports pros rant about their opinions (possibly steal said predictions and use their info to back up your guess. Not that I support plagiarism... but you'll sound very informed). Go through the Barstool Sports Twitter feed and click on more than the hot girls you wish you looked like (or dated!) or the funny videos of drunk stupid people doing drunk stupid things. Maybe even tune in to some "Mike & Mike," and be sure to call and tell your dad you did this, he'll be so proud.

2. Ask a friend.

While you're on the phone with your dad, why not ask him his opinion? Beware that this will most definitely lead to him giving you a complex, lecture-hall-worthy lesson on all of the teams, March Madness and basketball in general. Yes, you're correct in thinking just researching it yourself would be less painful, but it doesn't earn you favorite kid points so is it really the better option? You could also ask any friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, cousin, sibling or neighbor who qualifies as #SportySpice to fill you in.

3. Rank according to colors

This one is the tried-and-true method for those of us sports-challenged individuals. Just find a list of all the teams in the tournament with their corresponding colors and decide who's your favorite! This also works for uniforms, it's like a fashion showdown for every game!

4. Rank according to mascot

This strategy is very similar to ranking according to colors, except you use the furry creatures that represent the team and hype up the crowd. The methods used to rank mascots vary on personal preference. You can pick best mascot outfit, who would win in a fight, which one is your favorite animal, the possibilities are endless!

5. Rank according to attractiveness of the players

Ah yes, finally my favorite method. This will obviously require extensive stalking of each teams entire roster on social media, but it's all in the name of the research! And it's not as easy as you'd think! What if a team only has one standout babe and the other team is all moderately attractive but no one earth-shattering? What do you do then?? It hurts my brain just thinking of such things...