It’s that time of year again when sports enthusiasts everywhere go crazy. The 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament will begin next week. Many consider March Madness the highlight of the year in the sporting world, and much of this has to do with excitement and unpredictability surrounding each matchup. It is anyone’s game once each team takes the court, and, as the Droid has recently proven, the same can be said about the world of mobile devices.

Not too long ago, the iPhone was considered to be in a class of its own when it came to pioneering mobile devices. The problem is other companies caught on — and fast.

For example, in January, iPhone devices owned 47 percent of ad requests across the AdMob network, which is nothing to turn your nose at; however, it is a fairly significant drop compared to the 55-percent share achieved in November. The Droid’s share, on the other hand, accounted for 39 percent of requests in January (up 12 percent from November).

The gap between the two seems to be closing, and the question stands: What will the iPhone do to separate itself from the Droid?

The answer, for the time being, appears to be pretty simple — sue HTC. Earlier this week, Apple surprised many by announcing that it was suing HTC for violating a total of 20 patents. It should be interesting to see what becomes of these lawsuits. Whether Apple wins or loses its lawsuits, the same questions will be posed: Exactly how far can a company go when it comes to comparability to the iPhone? Which phone features will be considered patented, and which features will be considered “fair game”?

Although mobile devices and basketball aren’t the most comparable things in the world, one fact remains the same: You can’t copy another team’s game plan. Your opponent will know what is coming and will be able to play the appropriate defense. If the Droid does manage to take over as a superior mobile device, it would be considered a major upset in the smartphone world (kind of like 15 seed over a 2 seed, which has only happened four times in 100 contests), and no one would see it coming.

The future of mobile devices and the NCAA tournament definitely have a few things in common: They’re both unpredictable, fans are passionate and steadfast about why their “team” is superior (Kansas is bound for glory once again this year; it’s a fact), and your guess is as good as mine about the future.