Everyone needs a good party buddy. Someone they can rely on to get them through tough times and bring some laughs along the way.

During March Madness, that buddy is even more crucial.

Filling out your bracket is like surfing for ladies at a huge party — so many options, so much hope, so much opportunity (… and you’re drunk). Oh yeah, and nobody knows what they’re doing.

Everybody has their March Madness picks. For a brief moment, everyone feels like a genius and that their picks cannot be outdone. The arguments go on and on until someone’s feelings get hurt and someone is proven wrong.

But if you have the right wingman, a player that can lead your championship pick to victory, then everything is money.

For me, my buddy turned out to be Dan Grunfield — one sorry-ass wingman — and the bench player for Stanford that could have led my team to glory, making me a bracket genius.

Grunfield: A solid, boring man.

If Dan were a state he would be Delaware. If he were a TV show he’d be “The View.” I mean the poor sap reminds me more of a chess or crew team member than he does a basketball stud.

Do yourself a favor and look this guy’s face up on the internet. He’s the kind of guy you can just look at and start feeling like an big-time athlete. Yet he is always reliable — the kind of guy who would help you put chairs away after an ice cream social.

But sometimes you find out who your true friends really are. Danny-boy let me down.

Grunfield’s game-tying 3-point attempt fell short against Alabama in the second round of the NCAA tournament — failing to take care of me at the big party and sending me home early.

Suddenly I started wondering why I was hanging out with the guy anyway. I mean how did he make the team in the first place?

Stanford coach: “Well, we didn’t really recruit Dan, he just sort of showed up. We knew his Dad had some NBA ties so we couldn’t really ask him to leave. Plus, you try saying no to that face. He asked if he could have some warm-ups, we said yes. He asked if he could play a little off the bench, we said yes. So when he asked us if he could take the biggest shot of the year it was like ‘why not,’ ya know?”

OK, maybe it’s not just Grunfield’s fault. Maybe it’s just Stanford as a whole.

I mean, if March Madness is the party, then Stanford is your group of friends who always want to leave the party early. Stanford is fun to hang out with during the week and at small get-togethers, but maybe I should start calling up Duke or even Syracuse … those guys know how to party. (I guess this probably makes Sac State the loser who was never even invited to the party.)

With all the upsets this March, you could say the cops came and broke this party up early… like 11:30 early. Stanford, Kentucky, Gonzaga, Mississippi State — all gone. And that’s just through the second round.

You start glancing through the leaderboard of your Internet tournament pool and the biggest idiots are on top of the standings. You know, the guys who had the most trouble just figuring out how to set up their ESPN username to join the pool in the first place.

Lucky for everyone else they also have Xavier over Nevada in the finals.

At least I no longer have to worry about waking up at the butt-crack of noon to start catching up on these first round games.

After that four-day rush where two No. 1 seeds fell, we are down to 16 teams who all have a chance to claim a championship.

Picking the rest of the field is pretty simple:

Atlanta Region: Duke is playing at their best right now. They’ll roll over Texas, who will be worn out after struggling to beat Xavier in the Elite Eight.

St. Louis Region: Nevada will continue their run with a win over Georgia Tech. But Kansas, by getting the most unfair, undeserving placement in the tournament, will make it to the Final Four for the third-straight year without having to beat a seed higher than No. 9 UAB.

East Rutherford Region:Oklahoma State moves past Pittsburgh, while St. Joe’s knocks off Wake Forest. The Cowboys take out the third No. 1 seed and advance.

Phoenix Region: UConn should have no problem moving past Vanderbilt, while Syracuse is the next team upset by Alabama (they beat the best in Stanford, so they must be the best). Alabama’s luck runs out against Uconn.

Final Four:With a No. 1 in Duke, two No. 2’s in Oklahoma State and UConn, and a No. 4 in Kansas, the tournament finally starts acting serious. The easy choice is Duke and Oklahoma State in the finals, and from there you have to choose the Dukies. I hate it, but Duke came out of this crapshoot as National Champs.

Trust me, I’m never wrong.

Contact Jimmy Spencer at [email protected]