The month of March signifies the arrival of many things: warmer temperatures, the horrible smell of blooming pear trees and Mardi Gras; but on tobacco road, it signifies a path on which 65 teams embark to achieve greatness — the road to the Final Four. Before the tournament starts, many students formulate their best guesses as to who will advance and who will go home empty-handed.

“Bracketball” has encompassed the nation, spawning from online sports and news Web sites, the workplace and even dorm halls.

Web sites have revolutionized the way NCAA tournament pools are being offered.

Instead of writing every participant’s picks on a sheet of paper and manually tallying wins, losses and delegating points, a Web site will now do all the work — whether it’s Yahoo.com, ESPN.com or CBS.Sportsline.com.

College students involved in Facebook.com are experiencing a new way to compete in March via the inaugural installment of the “Men’s Basketball Tournament Contest” brought to the masses by Fox News.

The bracket system used on Facebook allows students to compare their picks and point totals to other students not just from their own college, but also from schools all around the country.

According to Facebook, there are 582,518 participants nationwide taking part in the new challenge.

The Web site is also offering a grand prize to the contestant who tallies the most points by the tournament’s completion.

“The grand prize consists of one Panasonic Model TC-26LX60 26-inch Flat Panel LCD Television with an approximate retail value of $1,099,” states Facebook.com.

Krutin Desai, a sophomore in mechanical engineering, and Ankeet Patel, a freshman in mechanical engineering, are tied for the number-one spot at N.C. State out of 4,143 contestants.

Desai explained that he is participating in Facebook pools because there is no better way to have fun and get excited about March Madness.

“Why join any other game or competition to win and have fun in the process? There is nothing like a little friendly competition amongst students to get everyone pumped,” he said.

He also said Facebook has done a good job of making the brackets easy to understand and fill out and the Web site staff does a good job of keeping everything updated promptly.

“The Facebook.com pools are completely online and you can check your points virtually anywhere. The bracket setup was actually very simple and pretty much flawless. That so-called ‘intern’ that is entering scores and updating ranks on the Web site is actually pretty fast, and I think I’d like to shake his hand,” Desai said.

Desai’s competition, Patel, agreed that using Facebook for NCAA brackets is the way to go.

“I have not joined any other pool but this pool is easier than the ones I have seen before because it’s automated and there isn’t very much manual labor,” he said. “You also get to see how you are doing within your school.”

Desai also added that the ultimate benefit of competing on Facebook is the harsh competition between friends.

“The heckling and trash-talking is by far the best thing about the Facebook.com pool,” he said. “For me personally, it’s the look on their faces when they see my points ranking — it is priceless.”

Hot on the heels of Patel and Desai is Sara Dixon, freshman in chemistry, with 95 points — one point less than the two tied for first.

She said she joined a Facebook pool because she was invited by a friend to participate, but she looks at the challenge as more of an opportunity to have fun than to compete.

The highly scientific and complex methods students use for making their picks on Facebook are intricate and perplexing.

“I just guessed,” Dixon said. “I suppose I just got lucky.”

On a serious note, Patel resorted to the use of math in formulating his picks using a random number system.

“I used a random number generator from zero to 30 to pick what team won what game,” he said.

Patel’s system worked as follows: If the number he generated was from zero to 15, he would pick the team listed at the top of the match-up and if the number was from zero to 30, he chose the bottom team listed for each respective match-up. He also added that none of his guesses were based on rankings.

Desai used the most strategic method of the top three competitors at NCSU by basing his picks on the point system.

Facebook uses an “underdog” reward system, where more points are given for the correct prediction of upsets based on tournament seedings.

“Rarely does the final game end up with two ridiculously high-ranked teams,” Desai said. “Especially on the Facebook pool, where the underdog scoring is used, going for the lower-ranked teams pays up big time if they win.”

“I don’t recommend going for the teams with the prettier mascot,” he added.

Patel pointed to the irony of having his entirely random bracket ranked at the top.

“My bracket is 100 percent random and somehow it’s number one — who knew?” he said.

Although Desai, Patel and Dixon are at the top of NCSU’s pool, their current point totals pale in comparison to the national leader John Cadotte, an undecided freshman at Tennessee University.

He is ranked number one out of the 582,518 students participating nationwide.

“The whole thing is real weird. I don’t watch basketball very often. In fact, I’ve only seen one game this season,” Cadotte said. “The reason I made a bracket at all was because of my roommate. He started a pool on Facebook.com with a few of our friends and invited me to join.”

Modestly, Cadotte said, “I hate to even acknowledge that I am number one. I know it won’t last,” but he was quick to admit that he has been having some fun.

“I’ve received a lot of messages on Facebook.com. A few of them were hate mail, which I think are hilarious and I look forward to each one,” he said.

Perhaps it is possible that the effort of gathering information about teams and tournament match-ups from the likes of Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps is slightly futile.

“I have never filled out a basketball bracket in my life,” Cadotte said.