March Madness is an NCAA basketball tournament hosting 68 teams from across the United States. The NCAA tournament concludes the college basketball season.

This year, the tournament’s first games were held on March 14th, 2017.  

The teams are first separated by regions, then they are seeded 1-22. The regions are West, Midwest, South, and East. Many students such as sophomore Molly Leyden, filled out brackets predicting who will win March Madness. Some students enter brackets and play for money while others play for bragging rights. According to USA Today, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket is 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

“My family and I fill out brackets and the winner gets to pick out where we go for a fancy dinner. Even though it’s not a huge prize, my family and I get really competitive and it’s fun rooting for teams other than the Badgers. I don’t know much about basketball, but it’s still really exciting to see the team you picked win,” says Leyden.

According to sophomore Taylor Tomich, DECA classes are selling brackets for $1 to students who want to be involved in an online league. To get involved, students can give their money to a DECA member, fill out their name and email on a sheet of paper, and fill out a bracket online. To find a DECA member a student can visit the school store or any DECA classes. The deadline to complete was Monday, March 13th. This helps students get involved with March Madness while raising money for children affected by muscular dystrophy. According to Tomich, the money raised will be used to send to kids to a summer camp where they can experience activities that they might not be able to do everyday.

“I think that every student at Arrowhead should purchase a bracket for MDA or at least donate a dollar because it’s just such an amazing cause. Arrowhead students are blessed with so many amazing opportunities and to just give it back and for such a small price is is just unbelievable. I think what would really need to be stressed is that yeah that’s only a dollar but one dollar from over two thousand kids we have at our school is so much money that can really be life changing for a kid. I really encourage people to buy a bracket or at least donate,” says Tomich.

According to the NCAA website, over 70 million brackets are filled out each year and roughly 40 million Americans take place in predicting the outcome of the NCAA March Madness tournament. The final championship game is to be determined.

“I think that March Madness brackets are such a fun way to just get involved with your friends and just have a common point of interest with other people. I think that everyone should really take charge and just try and fill out at least one bracket this year because they’ve been a fun thing to do with a bunch of my friends and I think that’s just being a part of something like that which is just so fun,” says Tomich.