There is nothing more important to do this week than to puttogether a solid bracket for the NCAA men's basketball tournament.OK, that may be a bit of an overstatement, but if you consider theamount of time and energy spent at work this week on picking teamsand watching games (and reading this blog), you'll have to agreethere's more than a little truth to what I say.

But it's not just you and me trying to figure out whetherBucknell is the new Butler in the 6 v. 11 game in the Eastregional. Two college professors and a third gentleman using SAS analytics correctly pickedthe 37 teams that received at-large bids. (The other 31 teamsearn bid through winning conference tournaments.)

They seem to have this down pretty good as their two-year totalis 73 out of 74 in predicting the at-large bids. When you considerthat one of this year's at-large selections is Middle TennesseeState, well, kudos to those three analysts and to SAS.

But to the best of my knowledge, predicting who is going to bein the field isn't going to make us any money. Predicting whoactually wins the games is what earns you accolades and somecash.

First off, remember that no one is perfect. I've read estimatesthat the odds of correctly picking all 64 winning teams in yourbracket is as high as one in 128 billion or as low as one in 35billion. So let's just forget about perfection, shall we. (By wayof comparison, the odds of winning the Powerball lottery are 1 in175 million and that usually pays a little higher than your officepool.)

So where to turn for help? Another of our favorite softwarevendors, SAP and its so-called “geek squad” are here to help. Avisit to the SAP website gives you access to an NCAA basketballdata set and a 30-day trial of SAP Visual Intelligence.

Users are then asked to share their analysis and do a littletrash talking—what's March Madness without some trash talking,after all—via Twitter using #SAPVisi.

I'm sure there are plenty of basketball fans shaking their headsat the thought of using technology tools to correctly pick thewinning teams in a basketball tournament, but may I remind youthere were plenty of insurance executives rolling their eyes nottoo long ago when the idea of using data to predict outcomes inclaims or underwriting was first presented to them.

Predictive analytics doesn't have the “eye test” or the “gutcheck” or even the biggest hindrance to winning your NCAA pool:fandom. But since my Xavier Musketeers didn't make the tournamentthis year so my selections won't be colored by anything as silly asschool spirit. Like many a losing gambler, I'll latch on toanything at this point.