This past Thursday, the time of year all basketball fans look forward to finally began. The NCAA Tournament, otherwise known as March Madness, has finally begun, and basketball fans from near or far can all sit back, relax, and watch as their brackets are ruined right before their eyes. This year ESPN had a record 6.45million brackets entered, none of which are still perfect.

All season, teams battled to earn a coveted spot in the NCAA Tournament. For teams such as Kentucky and Duke, the regular season tends to be a warm up for their hopeful championship run in March, but the beauty of the tournament is it not only allows Power-5 schools (schools from the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and PAC 12). However, they also allow second tier conferences send at least 1 team to the tournament. This not only gives small schools a chance to play on the big stage, but it ultimately sets up some of the greatest upsets College Basketball will see. In years past, teams such as Davidson, VCU, Wichita State, and Florida Gulf Coast have won America’s heart by not only upsetting top seeds, but continuing to win and advancing farther and farther in the tournament. This year, some mid-major teams have already upset the “top dogs”, and busted everybody’s bracket by doing so.

On Thursday afternoon, all fans found time in their day, whether at work or at school, to pull up some games and watch in hopes of having the first ever “perfect bracket”, or just cheer on their favorite team. After the first game, basketball fans were sweating out the Notre Dame-Northeastern game. Notre Dame barely pulled out the win, but after that, the madness began. All bracket owners were beside themselves and “didn’t care anymore”, after 3 seeds Iowa State and Baylor were upset by UAB and Georgia State. The rest of the 2^nd round set history as basketball fans all over the world watched 6 games be decided by 1 point, a tournament record for the first round. The 3^rd round began on Saturday, and fans tuned in to see which Cinderella teams could continue their run to the Sweet 16. Although there are no teams higher than an 11 seed, many upsets still occurred, as NC State upset 1 seed Villanova, Wichita State upset their “big brother” Kansas, and although it is not an upset, 11 seed UCLA beat UAB to advance to the sweet 16.  The ACC was at a perfect 9-0 until Sunday afternoon when 1 seed University of Virginia was upset by Michigan State.

As many of people’s brackets are busted, fans can now pick a team and hop on their bandwagon, and hope the following rounds are as entertaining as this first weekend.