With the brackets being released Sunday, March Madness is shaping up to live up to its name once more. 

The obvious favorites this year are defending champ Connecticut and the other No. 1 seeds: Purdue, Houston, and North Carolina. UConn is by far the best 1 seed because they have one of the best backcourts in the country with Stephon Castle, Cam Spencer, and Tristen Newton. 

Although most people pick the favorites to win the tournament, there are some serious sleepers this year that can make runs. Two to watch are 12 seeds McNeese and James Madison, which both won 30+ games this regular season. The 10 seed Drake Bulldogs are also one of the teams that can shock people with the father-son duo of Coach Darian and guard Tucker DeVries. 

The selection committee has been receiving a lot of hate so far with some of their seeding choices and the list of teams they left out of the tournament – including the Pittsburgh Panthers.

Pitt has either as good or better all-around resume than some teams in the tournament, such as Virginia. The Panthers have a higher NET and BPI ranking than UVA, and Pitt beat them by double digits on the road. 

Sticking with the hometown teams, Duquesne has shocked a lot of people by winning the A-10 conference tournament as a 6 seed and earning an automatic bid into the tournament. 

There are some legendary coaches along with some fairly new coaches in this tournament. 

The two most notable are Bill Self from Kansas and John Calipari from Kentucky. These two have been in the tournament pretty much every year they have been coaches. 

Some of the newer coaches are both in the state of Texas: Rodney Terry has had success in his first year at Texas, as had Grant McCasland at Texas Tech. 

This year’s tournament, like every other year, is up for grabs for any team.