BY BRAXTON STRICKER

After the first weekend of last year’s March Madness tournament there were zero online brackets that remained perfect. This year, Yahoo is offering five-million dollars to anyone who can accomplish that elusive feat.

To be quite honest, chances are that won’t happen.  A person has a one-in-nine million trillion chance of nailing down the perfect bracket, according to the betting website Book of Odds. They have a better chance of being killed by an asteroid (one-in-500,000) or being canonized (one-in-20,000,000).

When filling out a bracket, most people stick to the basics. Rookies either pick the highest seed to advance, their favorite team or whichever team sounds coolest.  For those who consider themselves “experts,” the strategy involves picking a champ, a Cinderella and filling in the blanks. In reality each strategy is equally bad.

“Murray State is going all the way,” says senior Erik Swanson. “They can’t be stopped.”

The Murray State Racers enter the tournament with a 30-1 record and a six-seed in the West Region.  Weak competition has left a blemish on their accomplishments, but junior Isaiah Canaan remains a candidate for the Naismith Award given to college basketball’s best player.

Swanson even goes as far as predicting an upset of the championship-favorite Kentucky Wildcats.

Senior Kaleb Iles plans on attending the University of Kentucky next fall and in his “unbiased” opinion believes UK will be hoisting the trophy on April 2.

“They have so much to offer on defense and offense,” says Iles. “Anthony Davis is a man among boys and no one in the country can shut him down.”

Other local teams in the tournament include Ohio State, Cincinnati, and Indiana.

Ohio State was a heavy favorite entering the season, but has failed to reach those preseason expectations as an injury to Jared Sullinger hampered this team early on. The Buckeyes have picked up steam, however, heading into the tournament and William Buford has proven time and again that he can sink big shots, making this a dangerous team.

“They took some tough losses at the wrong time which cost them the one-seed,” says senior Cole DeCamp.

Ohio State still has a favorable road to the elite eight as a two-seed in the East Region but is set on a collision course to meet top-seeded Syracuse.

The successes of Cincinnati and Indiana have come as surprise to many. Cincinnati was ranked in November but early losses to Presbyterian and Marshall left them out of the “Top 25” for the remainder of the season.  Conversely Indiana started the season with a twelve-game winning streak and struggled late against Nebraska and Iowa.

Cincinnati has had resume-building wins late in the season knocking off Marquette and Georgetown. Likewise Indiana handed Kentucky its only loss of the season.

Sophomore Cal Fries is a fan of Indiana’s match-ups. “When UCONN beats Kentucky we can walk to the elite eight,” he says.

No one is certain what will happen this March but that is the fun of it. “Anyone can come out on top, and that makes every game exciting,” says Iles.