It’s a good thing I took the Anna Nicole Smith route and married some 90-year-old sugar mama?

Because if I didn’t have the substantial earnings to fall back on, I’d probably really be missing those five bucks I gave away with that abomination of an NCAA Tournament bracket I filled out.

Still, though, I’m not sure what’s worse?the pain that comes from recognizing the hindsight folly of putting Marquette in the Final Four, or the pain that comes from knowing what I’ll have to do this weekend to get my five bucks back.

Few things are more disheartening than taking the greatest sporting event in the world (YES?the NCAA Tournament surpasses the Super Bowl, the World Series and the marathon orgy your mom holds in her backyard every June 9) and having half its enjoyment factor obliterated before it’s even a full day old.

Don’t get me wrong, all the close games, the impossible upsets, the Cinderella stories, the SEC cheerleaders in their tight tops and short skirts are great and all, but let’s face it?at least 50 percent of the fun is the hope that you’ll get to see your ridiculous, bastardized prognostications turn into reality.

Ultimately, though, all of us tourney junkies ought to know better, because the whole thing inevitably winds up pissing you off more than that one geek in your biology class who ruined everyone’s perfectly conceived lowball curve by getting a perfect score and thereby confirming his status as the biggest no-talent ass clown that ever lived.

Where was I?

Ah yes, Bracketology?a science equaled in its confusing, confounding nature only by trying to figure out the fairer sex. And biology, I guess, if that test was any indication.

The slightest bit of success at it, and you’re sucked into an inescapable vortex of false optimism and bloated knowledge. You don’t really know what all you think you know. Except for knowing not to pick all the higher seeds, because the inherent nature of this beast automatically calls for any number of underdogs to suddenly, audaciously decide they’re better than they really are.

Of course, much like trying to anticipate the workings of a woman’s mind, that too is a trap. You can’t predict or project upsets, because they are so innately random and chaotic they weren’t meant to be forecasted.

Still, we try. I’ve been trying ever since I filled out my 11th grade history teacher’s bracket and he won our high school faculty’s pool. Not only did he not show me any gratitude whatsoever by failing to give me even a dime from all the “processing fees” he collected, but all the bad karma that should have instantaneously melted his cheap rug to his bald dome boomeranged and has been making hash of my own bracket every year since.

Imagine me getting my hopes up when Kent State beats Oklahoma State, and Missouri knocks off Miami, and that schizophrenic bunch from Kentucky actually holds court against Valparaiso.

Then imagine my disappointment when a double check of my bracket reveals I had Valpo winning. And Pepperdine. And Marquette.

Marquette all the way to the Final Four.

I guess that’s what I get for putting all my eggs in a basket carried by a second-tier cheesehead school.

But that doesn’t ease the agony at all.

Then again, I’m pretty sure my 90-year-old lovemuffin will get my mind on something else.

Eric welcomes feedback at: [email protected].