You should have listened to your mom

Anyone who's ever entered an NCAA March Madness pool has almost certainly witnessed the painfully obnoxious scenario in which, out of dumb luck, some idiot manages to outguess everyone and lead the pool for the first two or three rounds.

It often comes in the form of someone's girlfriend who correctly picks the final four based on team colors alone, or a person's grandmother who predicted Bradley to make it to the Sweet 16 because her precious live-in 32 year old grandson shares the same name with the university.

Usually, it's frustrating and nothing more, as things tend to even out as the championship game nears. The Cinderella teams, whose miraculous wins in the first two rounds put your little sister in first place while you and your meticulously chosen bracket hover in 53rd, rarely make it past the Sweet 16, let alone the Elite eight.

But this year is different. For the first time since 1980, not a single number one seed remains. George Mason, an 11th seed for whom the clock refuses to strike midnight, is the lowest seed, along with LSU in 1986, to ever make the Final Four — the next-lowest seed was Penn as a nine-seed in 1979.

George Mason's achievements have been discussed constantly since its upset win over one-seeded Connecticut on Sunday. Clearly, experts like Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps never predicted such a run, but a few did in ESPN's bracket challenge.

Those who did now find themselves near the top of the standings in the three million person pool, leaving those with more rational selections quite jaded. Here's a sample dialogue from an ESPN.com message board:

"Dude, did anyone pick George Mason to go this far?"

"Yes, for the last time, several people did."

"I bet they're all drug addicts"

"Are you retarded?"

"Seriously, they must be crackheads."

"Yep, you're retarded."

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Out of the three million entrees, only four correctly predicted the Final Four. One of them is Nebraska native Russell Pleasant, who now sits atop the leader board with a solid chance of winning the $10,000 grand prize.

How did he possibly have enough insight to pick George Mason to go the Final Four? What was his brilliant rationale, what was his secret?

"Well, I got them confused with George Washington," he admitted to ESPN.

Apparently, Pleasant had watched the Colonials of George Washington earlier in the season and liked what he saw. But when it came time to fill in the bracket, he blanked on which George team it was. He went with the Mason version and has watched as his ignorant mistake turned into a brilliant move.

In total, 1,854 participants chose George Mason to go to the Final Four, with 284 of them predicting they'll win the whole thing.

Russell, for the record, is not one of them. He has Florida as National Champions.

With George Mason in, and all of the one-seeds out, many others find their brackets in shambles. This, however, was true long before the Final Four was decided.

Even after just the first two rounds of ESPN's challenge, there was not a single person who had a perfect bracket. In fact, only 12 people out of three million had correctly predicted 15 of the remaining 16.

Interestingly, while very few managed to do exceedingly well, 533 individuals found themselves in the remarkably pathetic situation in which all 16 of their remaining teams had already been eliminated.

In the 11 years that ESPN has been doing the bracket challenge, nearly 30 million brackets have been filled and not a single one has proved to be perfect all the way through. Last year's winner predicted 55 out of 64.

Statistics predict this. While there's always a chance of choosing a perfect bracket, the odds of doing so are somewhere along the lines of one in two trillion. But those odds won't keep anyone from filling out their bracket when next March rolls around.