Hlas column: Best bracket-filling advice is not to listen to anyone else's advice

For Iowans, this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament is like watching the Iditarod or Tour de France or “Celebrity Apprentice.”

There isn't a contestant from Iowa. Sure, there's are individuals here and there like Harrison Barnes of North Carolina and Jordan Printy of Indiana State. But no team. Nada.

Two of the first-round games (Morehead State-Louisville and Penn State-Temple) pit teams from the same state. Five NCAA clubs are from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Indiana and Ohio have four each. Iowa? Zippo.

The drought is nothing new for Iowa and Iowa State, but at least we had Drake and Northern Iowa to bail out the state the last three years. So I guess we just root for whomever we picked in our tournament brackets. Which means I have no use for the Boston University Terriers or Wofford Terriers.

The Connecticut Huskies are a different matter.

Without a team to cover this week, I've been more aware of the relentless bombardment of tournament analysis, reasons why Team A has a clear path to the Final Four while Team B is plagued with a first-round banana peel, statistical proof on why it's better to be an 11th-seed than an 8th-seed. Zzzzzz.

People have spent the last few days trying to convince us 13th-seed Belmont beating 4th-seed Wisconsin wouldn't be an upset. Belmont is on a roll, having defeated Kennesaw State, Mercer and North Florida in its conference tourney.

Hey, I'm not bad-mouthing Belmont. It's surely an excellent team, and Wisconsin probably must play well to beat those Bruins. But does history count for nothing?

Wisconsin has been to nine previous NCAA tournaments under Bo Ryan and has lost in the first-round just once, when it was a No. 9 seed in 2006. The Badgers won their first-round game two years ago when they were a 12th-seed.

So a program that has a Big Ten record of 107-43 under Ryan will lose a first-round game to Belmont because ... a lot of people are looking for a cute upset pick?

(Now watch it happen.)

But you can take this history stuff too far. I keep hearing Michigan State has an easy path to the Sweet 16, maybe even the Elite Eight or Final Four.

If the 10th-seed Spartans beat UCLA in the first round, they can bounce second-seed Florida next, and off go the Spartans to another big NCAA run like almost every other year.

Uh, hold the phone. This is the same team that Penn State handled, 61-48, in a Big Ten semifinal. It's the same team that went 9-9 in the Big Ten, that lost by 20 points to Iowa on the road and by 20 to Purdue at home, that got pushed to overtime at home by last-place Indiana. It's the same team that has lost 14 times.

But it has “Michigan State” on its jerseys, so it should tear the tournament asunder, again? That team must have really improved since it scratched out a win over Iowa a week ago today in Indianapolis.

My pick to win it all is Duke, of course. Just because me picking the Blue Devils is the only sure way to prevent them from winning again. You're welcome.