March Madness is officially upon us. The biggest tournament in all of college hoops began on Tuesday, March 13, and ends on Monday, April 2. In between those dates, 67 games will be played with 68 teams participating in the tournament total.

The four top seeded teams in the tourney are Virginia, Xavier, Villanova, and Kansas. Virginia holds the top seed in the south region, Xavier in the west region, Villanova in the east, and Kansas the midwest. Unfortunately, no local teams such as Wisconsin or Marquette will be participating in the madness this year.

Senior Alexander Waterstraat is confident that Villanova will make it farther in the tourney than all other top seeded team.

“Villanova will make it the farthest,” Waterstraat said. “They have experience in the tourney, play very good defense, and shoot the lights out of the ball.”

It’s very rare for top seeded teams to win the tournament or even make it to the final four. The 2017 National Championship game featured two top seeds in North Carolina and Gonzaga. 2015 also featured two top seeds in Duke and Wisconsin. Those are the only two times when two top seeds met in national title games in the last five years.

The main reason that top seeds don’t make it far in the tournament most of the time is because every year there are always so many upsets. Every year there is always at least one team that all college basketball fans sleep on and that team ends up beating high seeded teams and makes appearances in the Sweet 16, Elite 8, and possibly the Final Four in some cases.

Freshman Keegan Kapocius has been taking notice of one sleeper team in the tournament this year.

“I think Rhode Island has a good chance at making a run,” Kapocius said. “They come in as a seven seed, but they were ranked in the top 25 earlier this year and they light up the scoreboard with their amazing offense.”

In 2013, UConn won the national title game as a seven seed. Who they beat in the title game, was eight seeded Kentucky. UConn knocked one seeded Florida the game before, and Kentucky knock off two seeded Wisconsin in their previous game. This just shows even teams with lower seeds can still make the title game and knock off very high seeds along the way.

Of course there are always sleeper teams, but who really is going to win the championship this year? Freshman Connor Kramp is going with Duke.

“They always are in position to contend for the championship,” Kramp said. “Every single year they are a high seed, and they commonly make it far in the tournament. Some years though, they do get upset right away. However, I don’t think that’s happening this year.”

March Madness is the best time of the year for college basketball fans. Seeing upsets every day is always extremely exciting for some, but frustrating for most. Although no Wisconsin teams will be participating in the madness this year, it will still be a very exciting few weeks for any college basketball fan.