In March, even non-basketball fanatics know what is going on: having reached the end of conference games, it’s time for the madness that is the NCAA tournament. 

First, let’s look at a quick recap of where things stand based on the conference tournaments.  

The weekend of March 15 and 16 (when most champion games for conference tournaments took place) was definitely a great one–at least for me! (I have family that went to Duke.) The Duke Blue Devils and the Florida Gators became champions in their respective conferences, with Duke defeating Louisville in the ACC and Florida beating Tennessee in the SEC. As for the Big 12, the Houston Cougars walked away with the title against Arizona, the University of Michigan beat Wisconsin for the Big 10 trophy, and lastly, St. John’s won the Big East conference over Creighton. Other winners included VCU (Atlantic 10), Memphis (American Athletic), Yale (Ivy League), and Wofford (Southern Bracket).

Moving forward into the predictions for the NCAA tournament, let’s look at which teams are anticipated to make it to San Antonio for the Final Four. While not many “experts” can agree, the same few teams keep popping up for possible Final Four teams: Florida (30-4), Michigan (25-9), Duke (31-3), Auburn (28-5), Houston (30-4), and Tennessee (27-7). As you can see, these six teams have had great success this season, and four out of these six were also conference champions this year.

As of March 20, we have four teams guaranteed to move forward to the next round. The first is UNC, who despite their disappointing (to some) record overall (23-13) and in the ACC (13-7), made it into the First Four. After a lot of controversy for the Tar Heels, the team did defeat San Diego St. with a score of 95-68.  Also moving to the next round is Alabama State after a close call of 70-68 against St. Francis (PA). Two more games took place yesterday (3/19), Mt. St. Mary’s vs. American and Xavier vs. Texas. Mt. St. Mary’s has moved onto the next round along with Xavier.

For my brackets, I have one with Duke winning and one with Florida winning because I could not choose who I was rooting for more or had more faith in. As their records show, they have both had outstanding seasons, and though their records are very similar to those of the other predicted winners, my bias has led me to believe they have the best chances for winning.