It’s once again the time of year where the madness runs rampant: The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Every year, collegiate teams from across the nation chase down the 64 available spots in the competition and then go chase the National title. It’s not only a big deal for college basketball players and coaches, but it’s also for spectators as well. Fans often through in some green over the tournament’s games.
Senior Logan Klink said, “I think that betting on your bracket makes things all the more interesting. When you actually have something invested in the tournament, it becomes a lot more fun than playing for bragging rights. In years past, I’ve entered in pools up to $10 per person per entry. This year, I’m sticking with $5 pools. That’s mostly because I didn’t do too well in the $10 brackets as of recent. I also think this year is a little bit more interesting because of having some of the first round tournament games being held in Milwaukee. I’m actually going to some of these games this weekend so that’s definitely something to look forward to.”
The teams playing in Milwaukee this year are Iowa State, Nevada, Purdue, Vermont, Minnesota, Middle Tennessee, Butler, and Winthrop. The first four teams mentioned played on Thursday, March 16th at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. On Saturday, March 18th, the last four teams mentioned above square off in the Bradley Center. Tickets can be bought on stubhub.com or vividseats.com from prices ranging from $50-$120 respectively.
Competition and betting can be rather fierce.

“Yes there’s the money component involved, but you also just want to do better than most, if not all, of your friends just so you can have that leverage above them throughout the tournament. If one of your picks for the Final Four gets outed in the first or second round, that’s always detrimental. For instance, last year my friend Mason Durst had the Michigan State Trojans winning the championship but then they lost in the first round. After that happened, we rubbed it in his face and still do to this day. It’s stuff like that that make the tournament a lot of fun,” said senior Max Dambeck.

Students are not the only ones with bets on the line for the tournament. In Arrowhead teacher Chris Martin’s Functions and Advanced Math and Stats classes, he has developed a competition where students can earn extra credit points by getting more correct picks on their brackets than his.

“Last year I picked the Final Four correctly and had a majority of the games leading up right. I’ve had some really bad and some really good years, so even if you don’t know anything about college basketball, you could still end up beating me. It is March Madness after all,” says Martin.

It’s almost guaranteed that every year a new person who has never put money on the line before joins a pool. This is the case with senior Riley Smeaton.

Smeaton says, “It’s pretty stressful. Even though I only put in $5, just that small amount of cash makes the victories feel twice as good and the defeats twice as bad. I’ve won in years past in bracket competitions when there was. I money on the line, but I didn’t check scores and fret over it nearly as much as I already have on day one this year. Also, since pretty much everyone spent those couple of weeks leading up to the tournament talking about basketball non stop, I was very prone to listening in on other people’s consensus when making my bracket picks. I already don’t think I’m going to win because I have four games wrong already, there’s still a possibility I could at least finish in the middle of the pack.”