I am not a professional sports handicapper, nor do I play one on television.

I am, however, a pretty decent sports viewer, especially college basketball, which led me to Las Vegas for the second weekend of the NCAA men's basketball tourney. And, let's be honest, you don't come to Vegas just to merely watch the games. You have to get in on some sweet, sweet action to make the games more interesting.

So there I was after a round of golf Thursday afternoon, studying the betting sheets for the tournament with Steve Czaban, OnMilwaukee.com's national sports columnist and 102.9 The Hog's resident sports guy, trying to figure out how to bring the sportsbook at Mandalay Bay to its knees.

I had seen all these teams play during the first weekend of the tournament and thought I had a pretty good handle and what was going to happen. So for the opening games my betting ticket looked like this:

West Virginia minus-1 against Xavier
Washington State plus-9 against North Carolina

West Virginia looked like a team that was ready to make a nice run after dispatching Duke the first weekend and, while I didn't think Washington State would beat North Carolina, I thought its defense would hold the Tar Heels in check and make it a relatively close game.

Well the Moutaineers squandered a late lead and lost in overtime, 79-75, and North Carolina blew the doors off Washington State 68-47. So there I am, 0-2 but undeterred. I know I can make a comeback during the evening session. So after studying the betting sheets, talking with the fellas in our group and introducing some scientific "betting juice" to my body, a.k.a. multiple beers, I was ready for the evening session:

Western Kentucky plus-7 in the first half against UCLA

UCLA minus-12 overall against Western Kentucky

Tennessee plus-2.5 against Memphis

Clearly, these selections would bring me back and put me in the black for the day.

UCLA has started slowly of late, but should pull away in the second half and win easily and our beloved Bruce Pearl had the Volunteers at the No. 1 perch in the entire country just a few short weeks ago. Well, UCLA started fast and led the Hilltoppers, 41-20, at halftime, but former Marquette assistant Darin Horn's club fought back valiantly in the second half and covered, losing 88-78. Tennessee was totally outclassed and outcoached and was crushed, 79-60.

Ouch.

If you're keeping score at home, that makes me 0-for-5 and Czaban by now has affectionately given me the nickname of "Owen" at this point. But Friday would be a new day and my beloved Badgers are playing. Recovery would be in my future:

Stanford minus-2 against Texas

Michigan State plus-5 against Memphis

Not one of those games was even remotely close in my favor. The Badgers lost by 17, Texas had little problem beating Stanford by 20 and Memphis cruised past the Spartans.

Double whammy -- winless in eight trips to the window and totally demoralized, I cut my losses, and planned to sit out the remainder of the trip. However, one last chance led me back to the window Sunday morning because, as Czaban said, 'You can't end the losing if you don't bet.' So, I decided to take the Texas money line against Memphis.

What happened?

A blowout -- Memphis by 17 -- leaving me with a Blutarski-esque winning percentage of 0.0.

0-for-9.

But Vegas better start sleeping with one eye open, because Czabe and I will be back for next year's tourney and nothing will stop me from cleaning up.

You can bet on it.