Junior Wassim Benslimane plans to create his bracket for March Madness as soon as it comes out, hoping that this year will be the year he creates the perfect sequence of wins and losses. While millions of brackets have been made over the years, never has one been perfect. In fact, the odds against a perfect bracket are one to 120.2 billion.

March Madness is the NCAA Division One basketball tournament, where 68 teams compete in a seven round tournament. It is a single elimination tournament, which gives opportunities to smaller schools to pull off big upsets. The tournament starts in the middle of March and ends in the beginning of April.

March Madness will be held nationwide and includes cities like Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Indianapolis and Atlanta for the games leading up to the final four, according to NCAA. Both the final four and the championship of the tournament will be held at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

So far, teams have played most of the regular season and Auburn has had the best record, holding the number one seed for the majority of the season with their 22-2 record, meaning they have been the best team in the country. However, their recent loss to Florida shows that they are not unbeatable. Florida, who is now ranked at third in the country with their 21-3 record, took advantage of the opportunity they had to climb the rankings when they played Auburn. “I got Auburn winning because they only have two losses and one of them was against Florida, who is a good team,” junior Andrew Lord said.

In between Florida and Auburn, ranked number two in the country is Alabama, another powerhouse school with a 21-3 record. However, unlike Florida, Alabama is getting ready for their toughest stretch of the season before the tournament where they have to play seven straight ranked opponents to end their regular season. One of these teams isFlorida, which could decide the two seeds in the country if the rankings remain the same. Despite this challenge, Alabama has been strong offensively and have recently put up record-breaking numbers in the past month, which could help this throughout this stretch. “The Tide has broken 85 in eight consecutive road games, something never done before in SEC history,” according to the NCAA website.

To finish off the top four rankings in the country is Duke. Duke has been led by a strong freshman Cooper Flagg, who is projected to be the number one overall pick in this upcoming NBA draft. Duke as a team has been performing well but is coming off a tough loss against Clemson on the road. “This year I think it is Duke’s year mainly because of Cooper Flagg,” Benslimane said.

Our local team, University of Maryland, has barely made the rankings at number 25 with star freshman Derick Queen leading the team by averaging 15 points, 8.5 rebounds and two assists a game, and has led Maryland to an 19-6 record. In his latest outing, he had 24 points with 11 rebounds while leading Maryland to a road victory against Nebraska.

Teams have already faced upsets, with up to 10 ranked teams all losing in one weekend, which previews how March Madness could end up. The official bracket comes out on Mar. 16 and games start soon after, with the tournament coming to an end on Apr. 5.