Breaking it down: Round by round, and the winner is?

Ordinarily, the rule when filling out brackets is that the First Four games in Dayton, Ohio, should be ignored because those teams are all incapable of winning a game when the “real” tournament starts Thursday. Oops.

Welcome to 2018, where two of the last three teams picked for this tournament not only will win their opening round games — but will then go on to win more games later in the week, and therefore should be showing up on billions of the gazillions of brackets that will be filled out in the coming days by people who will try to line their pockets by winning all those $5 and $10 bills that co-workers happily deposited into the office NCAA Tournament pool.

You need to know about St. Bonaventure and Syracuse.

Many people did not think they merited spots in this field. They are wrong. The Bonnies are seriously underseeded and should not be going to Dayton. The Orange — not to make this argument too scientific — lost a bunch of games to a bunch of teams that are really good.

A year ago in this space, we told you that North Carolina would win the national championship, so clearly the information contained here is guaranteed to help you win your pool.

So ... the picks. SOUTH First-round winners: Virginia, Kansas State, Kentucky, Arizona, Miami, Tennessee, Texas, Cincinnati. Nary an upset to be found, with the exception of Texas over Nevada and Kansas State over Creighton.

Second round: Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Cincinnati. Mild upset with Kentucky over Arizona.

Regional semifinals: Virginia over Kentucky, Tennessee over

Cincinnati. Regional final: Virginia over Tennessee. EAST

First round: Villanova, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wichita State, St. Bonaventure (yes, saying the Bonnies will beat UCLA and then Florida), Texas Tech, Butler, Purdue.

Second round: Villanova (in a very scary game), West Virginia, St. Bonaventure, Purdue.

Regional semifinals: Villanova over West Virginia, Purdue over St. Bonaventure.

Regional f inal: Villanova over Purdue. MIDWEST

First round: Kansas, N.C. State, New Mexico State, Charleston, Syracuse (winning a play-in game first, then topping TCU), Michigan State, Oklahoma, Duke.

Second round: Kansas, New Mexico State, Michigan State, Duke. Regional semifinals: Kansas

over New Mexico State, Duke over Michigan State.

Regional final: Duke over Kansas. WEST

First round: Xavier, Missouri, South Dakota State, Gonzaga, San Diego State, Michigan, Providence, North Carolina. Yes, this means the 10, 11 and 12 seeds all advance.

Second round: Xavier, Gonzaga, Michigan, North Carolina. Top four seeds, restoring order.

Regional semifinals: Gonzaga over Xavier, North Carolina over Michigan.

Regional final: North Carolina over Gonzaga, in a rematch of the 2017 title game. FINAL FOUR

Three ACC teams and a Big East team.

Virginia will beat North Carolina; Villanova will beat Duke.

V for Victory. V for Villanova. Coach Jay Wright will get his second national championship in three seasons.

Elsa, Getty Images Jalen Brunson, left, of Villanova and the Wildcats’ bench celebrate his basket during the second half Saturday against Providence in the Big East championship game in New York.