The beginning of March started with most people being excited for the warm weather and break; meanwhile people are rushing to finalize their brackets. Students have multiple MacBooks open with livestreams up showing completely different games in the hope that their team advances and their banquet isn’t ruined.

68 division I teams compete as they try to not get eliminated throughout the tournament and try to make it to the sweet sixteen and then advance to the final four. March Madness is a great tournament and gives people a fun way to compete with their friends and see whose bracket is the most accurate. Millions of people create brackets researching different team’s statistics and rankings or putting their favorite team winning it all. The tournament gets people interested in college basketball, especially when people tend to focus on the NBA.

This year’s tournament truly was madness as many of the top seeds will not be playing in the sweet sixteen. Number one Virgina, Number one Xavier, Number two Cincinnati, Number three Michigan State, and Number Three Tennessee all lost their games in the first weekend and were eliminated. Creating the perfect bracket is easier said than done. According to the Washington Post “Think you can pick all the winners in the NCAA tournament? Probably not. There are more than nine quintillion different bracket combinations— that’s a nine, followed by 18 zeros. If you filled out that many paper brackets by hand and stacked on top of each other it would reach Pluto . . . and back . . . 60 times. You could trim that down to 128 billion-to-1 odds by factoring in ratings and seedings.” The biggest upset was when University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC), who was seated number sixteen defeated Virgina, who was seated number one. This was the first time in NCAA history that a sixteen defeated a one.

The Final Four included Loyola VS. Michigan and Kansas VS. Villanova. Michigan defeated Loyola 69-57, and Villanova defeated Kansas 95-79.

After the teams continue to play brackets will be busted and upsets will continue. Whether your favorite team lost first round or continued to the final four, this March Madness was definitely one like no other.