Filling out brackets to pick the winners of the NCAA tournament is a rite of March.

With the men’s Final Four ready to tip off on Saturday, it is time for those bracket prognosticators to look back on how their pre-tournament picks fared.

One who has less red to distinguish wrong picks than the average office pool entrant is Aaron Birkland, senior in finance.

While favorites including Duke, Cincinnati and Connecticut have fallen, Birkland has continued to make the right picks. Going into the Final Four, he ranks first out of more than 900,000 players in the ESPN Men’s Tournament Challenge on espn.com.

The contestant that wins the contest earns a prize of $10,000, and if things go right, the prize will be Birkland’s.

“I’ve been pretty lucky,” he said. “Usually in the past, I don’t really fare to well in this type of thing.”

Birkland does not really have a secret to his method of picking the game winners.

“I’m in the pep band, so I had a few clues on the Big 12 teams like Missouri,” Birkland said. “Usually I go with my gut.”

Being able to pick Indiana to reach the Final Four has separated him from other players. Only 0.34 percent of those 900,000 that entered predicted the Hoosiers to make it as far as they have.

“I didn’t want to pick all the number-one seeds,” Birkland said about his choice of Indiana over top-seeded Duke. “I thought with Duke winning last year their time might be up.”

Of the Elite Eight, Birkland chose seven of the correct teams, only missing Kent State.

“Kent State beating Alabama hurt me,” he said. “It was the only Elite Eight team I didn’t have.”

In the Final Four, Birkland has Oklahoma beating Indiana and Maryland defeating Kansas. In the championship game, he has the Terrapins downing the Sooners 80-76.

Oklahoma and Maryland will have an extra fan Saturday and the Terrapins will have an additional supporter in the championship game, if they make it that far.

“If those three win, I’ll be $10,000 richer,” Birkland said.