Dating and March Madness are unarguably similar. On any given day, there’s a chance you could take down someone ranked much higher than you. And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty and excitement of being single. You never know what new man the next bar will bring. Thus, hope springs eternal.

Though similarities abound, there are also numerous ways in which March Madness, or rather basketball, is very different from the dating game. Now, in honor of this phenomenon that has started to grip the nation, let us point out the ways in which basketball and dating are two very different sports.

1. Sure, in basketball, everyone knows that you always want to be the number one pick. The same goes for dating. But unlike in basketball, being the number one player is not admirable.

2. Basketball is a numbers game with the odds typically stacked against you. In the NCAA tournament, overcoming those odds makes you the Cinderella story. Even though the Cinderella story is exciting, it’s elusive and rare and we don’t usually get that “perfect” fairytale ending in life.

3. The NCAA bracket is competitive. But most of us don’t own a male harem and can’t easily start with 68 teams. Reserve hubris for the next game of scrabble and just pick a few good ones and focus on them. It’s all about quality, not quantity.

4. In basketball, a rebound is a good thing. From a young age, we’re taught to always go for the ball, block out during free throws and rebound. These same rules definitely don’t apply to dating. In fact, in the world of dating, there’s nothing worse than being the rebound.

5. In basketball, you can avoid a technical foul by keeping your hands above your waist. But in dating, going below the waist is considered scoring.

6. In the NCAA tournament, the seed position rewards teams for success during the regular season. The best teams are rewarded with higher seeds in the tournament. On the flip side, each date is a new and fresh start. Your historical record does not dictate your future.

7. The NCAA tournament presents few match-ups that result in an outcome different from what was expected. With dating? Someone almost always gets upset.

8. In dating, your friends are usually rooting for you and hope things work out. March Madness is the exact opposite. There’s always a large group of people betting against you and hoping you won’t make it to the third round.

9. During March Madness, games are played on a neutral court. When dating, at the end of the night, someone always has home court advantage and the other is always playing an away game.

Regardless of the differences, and whether you agree or disagree, one obvious truth is that the NCAA tournament provides a great opportunity to meet lots of new men and get in the game! So you’re not a March Madness connoisseur? Don’t be fooled by all the jerseys and brackets filled with tiny college names. Following is real easy: throw on a cute casual frock, pick a bar with lot’s of TV’s, and enjoy. Every so often, something exciting will happen. You’ll know because everyone will either start clapping or booing. Just remember that the only things that matter in basketball are baskets and the running clock. Everything else is just dumb statistics and seriously tall men with large hands and matching tank tops. Sure, not everybody is a March Madness fan, but it sure is easy to pretend. Especially because it involves one thing we all love and miss: college.

So join in this synchronized frenzy – after all, it’s the chaos, the last-second, buzzer-beating surprises, the euphoria of winning, that makes us play another day. Sometimes we win, and other times we lose. We might have players on the bench or a full roster at our disposal. And every now and then, someone on the injured list decides they’re ready to play again. All we can do is research the stats, make our predictions and prepare for the unexpected. At the end of the whole phenomenon, the tried and true, consistent fact of the matter, is that it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Which is all the more reason to grab that uniform and get in the game.

The most important take-away? Here’s the most crucial difference between March Madness and dating: basketball players are usually considered too old to play after college but none of us are ever too old to date!