This. Is. Madness.

It’s that time of the year again. March. And that means one thing, and one thing only. March Madness. And let me tell you, the madness has begun.  The remaining conference tournaments are finishing up today, and even as I type this Penn State and Ohio State are battling it out to decide who will take home the title for the Big Ten. Unfortunately for me, my team, Illinois, was knocked out by Michigan early in the Big Ten Tournament, which means they are now a bubble team on determining whether or not they will get into the NCAA Tournament, or “The Big Dance.”

For those of you who may not follow basketball, this is the biggest tournament of the year, a single elimination, 65-team showdown to find the nation’s best collegiate team.  Predictions are already going crazy as experts, your friends, and your friends who think they’re experts try to guess who will make the tourney and at what seed. The official “Selection Show” is tonight after all of the conference tournaments are finished. The Selection Committee determines whom plays in the tournament based on their regular season record and how strong of a schedule they played.  Teams who faced better opponents may get in over a team with a better record against worse opponents.

Winners of the conference tournaments gain an automatic bid into the national tournament, ensuring that there is at least one team from every conference in the country in the end tournament. This may be the only way for teams in “weaker” conferences to make the cut into the tournament.  The Ivy League, for example, often times only has one team in the tournament, while the conferences known for their basketball prowess such as the Big East, ACC, or Big Ten may have five to ten teams. 

Last year, Cornell won the Ivy League tournament and ended making an amazing run in the national tournament making it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen. It is always an awesome feeling to root for the underdogs, and as they were seeded 12^th they played good teams who were ranked much higher. This just shows that you never know who will make a run, which makes filling out a bracket even more fun and challenging. As soon as the Selection Show is over I will start filling out brackets with my predictions and you should do the same!