With the last few championship games wrapping up, some teachers and students tuned into ESPN to see the last four teams get their tickets punched to the tournament.

As students and teachers pick their annual team to upset a top ranked opponent, students and teavher with be specualting the last couple of days to pick this year’s big bracket buster team.

With this being Northwestern’s first year a lot of students still think they will not get the hype they need to get far into the tournament.

“Northwestern will at most only make it past the second round, since they will most likely be facing Gonzaga (One Seed), who I have winning the entire thing for the tournament,” senior Ryan Peich said.

Having last year spark a lot of controversy with top ranked teams losing in the early rounds of the tournament, the underdogs should be ruled out just yet. Teams like Middle Tennessee (12 seed), who will play Minnesota (Five seed) in the first round and VCU (Ten seed) verse St. Mary’s (Seven seed), are some of the better picks to be an upset and ruin people’s perfect brackets.

“My big upset games for the first round are Virginia Commonwealth over St. Mary’s, I also have another upset, they beat Michigan State in the first round of last year’s tournament, Middle Tennessee over Minnesota, last upset that I have in my bracket is Wichita State over the Dayton Flyers (Seven seed),” senior Ryan Peich said.

With this year hopefully being the year for a one seed to win since 2015, when Duke (Two seed) beat Wisconsin (Eight seed) by a score of 68-63. A lot of people are doubting that Gonzaga (One seed) will stay up to expectations because of the teams they will play if they make it to the Elite Eight. With a veteran lineup Gonzaga should be going deep into the tournament for this year’s March Madness tournament.

“I chose Gonzaga to win because I feel like since they have dominated throughout the whole season that they will be able to beat any team that comes their way and that is why I have them beating out every team in the West Region of the tournament. sophomore  Same Abourakty said. “Their bid to get to the Final Four is also not as hard as the other regions so it should be easy for Gonzaga to place in the Final Four.””

Another upset team that could potentially buy out their bid to the Sweet Sixteen, is the Michigan Wolverines (Seven seed).

Ever since the investigation with the plane crash that happened while flying to Washington D.C. to play their first game in round one of the Big Ten championship against Illinois, the Wolverines have been winning and winning big.

“I called Michigan to win the whole thing before the bracket came out on sunday. With one big key player on the team, Derrick Walton Jr., the Wolverines will be a good contender in this year’s tournament even with all of the doubters that are out to get my team,” sophomore Patrick Brown said.

There are a lot of key players that will determine how games will go for some teams, having Malik Monk, who starts as a freshman for the Kentucky Wildcats (Two seed), averaging 20.4 points a game, which is outstanding for a freshman, especially starting for a prestige basketball school like Kentucky.

Even though he is hated on by all of college basketball and gets criticized every game another key player for the tournament is  Grayson Allen, a point guard for the Duke Blue Devils (Two seed), who have a good chance of going to the championship game.

“Grayson Allen will be the main component to any of Duke’s wins because he can drive the lane and he can shoot contested shots, but if a team gets in his head Allen will not be able to perform to the best of his ability and the other team will be able to get into his head and mentally throw his game off,” Abourakty said.

With a lot of upsets that could potentially happen and a lot of rising stars that now have their time to shine in the biggest game of their career, this will be one of the biggest and most exciting tournaments than the others in the past.

“Another key player is junior, Justin Jackson, who plays for North Carolina (One seed); he averages 18.1 points per game, 4.6 rebounds per game, and 2.7 assists per game, but after the crucial loss for the ACC championship against Duke,” Abourakty said.”He may not have the confidence to bounce back. If Jackson passes the ball more he will be able to send the Tar Heels to the Final Four.”

Last year Villinova (One seed in the 2017 tournament) had the biggest upset, beating the number one seed the North Carolina Tar Heels, with the hype shifting over to this year’s tournament, the hype should still continue to stay in an uproar as a lot of brackets have big upsets, the hype will all come on Thursday when the main games start.