As March comes to an end, there’s one event that has captured the attention of even the most casual sports fan — the NCAA Tournament.

By now, anyone who picked traditional names to win the tournament such as Kansas or Michigan State might’ve lost interest because their chances of predicting the winner correctly was busted early.

While not bigger than the Super Bowl, the NCAA Tournament does feel like the third biggest sporting event after the NFL’s championship game and now the college football championship.

The tournament is unique in the sense of how random and unexpected its events are.

Over the past two weeks the country watched 68 teams enter the almighty bracket. Now, only four remain. Every year the pressure to predict the Cinderellas — like a No. 10 seeded Syracuse, Northern Iowa or Middle Tennessee — or decide whether to take all the higher ranked seeds builds an insurmountable amount of stress based on the joys of being right.

Every year logic and theorems in probability are tossed aside and sheer luck is used in making bracket picks.

Actually, it shouldn’t have been hard to make selections this year. There was no team that was leaps and bounds better than its competition. When looking back at how, and the amount, of the No. 1 seeds that have lost to either unranked or other top ranked teams, in addition to the amount of different teams that were ranked No. 1 during the season, it was clear that parity was the true champion this year.

There were fan favorites like Michigan State, but even the Spartans suffered a series of tough losses early in the season when its star guard/forward went out with an ankle injury.

If you took this trend, blend it with some basic tournament constants – a No. 12 seed beating a No. 5, a No. 9 seed edging by a No. 8, and the fact no No. 1 seeded team has lost to a No. 16 — then a lot of heartache and frustration could’ve been saved.

All in All, the Final Four is upon the sports world on Saturday. It features two schools from college basketball’s best conference — Syracuse and North Carolina from the Atlantic Coast Conference — a representative from the reformed Big East in Villanova and Oklahoma from the Big 12.

Saturday decides the fate of two more schools playing for the title and as expected more hearts will be broken, because that’s what happens this time of year.

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Alexander Swatson is a sports writer for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at alex.swatson@vicksburgpost.com