You don’t have to be a sports fan to follow March Madness. March is one of the most exciting times in sports. As basketball and hockey are in full swing and baseball gets rolling again, March Madness continues to shine. This annual college basketball tournament that takes place from mid-March into April captivates the nation from students and teachers in school to even in the president in past years. But why do so many people pay attention to March Madness?

March Madness provides a fun and easy competition for friends to participate in. It is also very simple to fill a bracket out on various sites such as on ESPN and CBS. Some companies offer prizes for the better your bracket is; for example, WGN is having a competition called Pat’s Picks where viewers can submit their brackets and compete against WGN sportscaster Pat Tomasulo for various prizes for turning in a better bracket than he created. Glenbard West is also sponsoring a competition with a $2.00 entry fee where you can enter to win prizes as well.

What about the bracket itself? How do you go about picking your teams? For those of you who believe in riding a one seed all the way through, that may prove to be a wise choice. There will always be upsets; almost always does a 12 seed upset a 5. Be brave: pick a Cinderella team. A Cinderella team is a team seeded lower that makes a surprise run in the tournament, for example, Syracuse last year. If you’re looking for a Cinderella team for this year, I like the odds of Xavier, a well-rounded team poised to make a run, or the Michigan Wolverines who come into the tournament as arguably the hottest team in the country.

With that being said, my final four teams include the North Carolina Tar Heels, led by veteran big man Kennedy Meeks and star guard Joel Berry III; the Kansas Jayhawks, led by guards Josh Jackson and Frank Mason III; the Duke Blue Devils, led by guards Grayson Allen and Luke Kennard; and finally the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, led by forwards Bonzie Colson and VJ Beachem.

I’m not the only student making a bracket, so I’ve asked other students what they thought. Junior Syed Ali said, “I like Gonzaga because they have a good track record.”

Junior Tristan Setterdahl disagrees as he said, “ I Like Wichita because it would be a shocking win.”

Sophomore Angie Slager thinks “Villanova will win because they won last year.”

This shows all the differing opinions just in Glenbard West. With odds of filling out a perfect bracket of 9,233,372,036,854,775,808 to 1, you may as well flip a coin for every game. But in the meantime, March Madness will continue to captivate people all over the United States.