What is the one thing sports fans love most about the month of March? You guessed it — March Madness.

For students interested in participating in the intramural predicting the winner of the 2004 NCAA Tournaments, they had a window of three days following Selection Sunday to register. Brackets came out March 15 and had to be turned in to intramural coordinator Linda Marticke by March 18, or at least postmarked before that date if mailed. Marticke said as of Monday she had received 40 women’s brackets and 77 men’s brackets.

The point system is as follows: Correct picks receive one point in the first round, two in the second, four in the Sweet Sixteen round, six in the Elite Eight, eight for correct Final Four game picks and 10 for the winning pick in the championship game. After it is all over, four students — two for each tournament — will find out April 7 if they won an intramural T-shirt.

In the men’s tournament, only 16 teams out of the original 65 remain now. Of those 16, only two No. 1 seeds remain.

Did any participants in the March Madness intramural predict that top-seeded Kentucky would lose to Alabama-Birmingham, a No. 9 seed? Or second-seeded Mississippi State getting trampled by seventh-seeded Xavier? Or how about 10th-seeded Nevada slaughtering second-seeded Gonzaga in the second round?

Some did and some didn’t. Marticke said five students who picked 11 of the 16 teams correctly are in the lead.

Brad Ott, senior in finance, had one of those games right when he chose Xavier over Mississippi State. Some of his other upsets included Manhattan over Florida in the first round along with Nevada over Michigan State. He predicts that Connecticut will defeat Oklahoma State in the final game.

Melanie Bahls, senior in early childhood development, had Kentucky losing to Duke in the final game. Unfortunately, with that pick, she might not win another intramural T-shirt for March Madness, but she can find some solace in the fact that she won one last year. Two of her big upsets included Manhattan over Florida and Pacific over Providence, both games in the first round.

Though her past successes suggest otherwise, Bahls said her predictions aren’t based heavily on knowledge.

“I can honestly say I don’t follow [college] basketball all year, but I do the brackets,” she said.

One other student also correctly predicted Xavier would upset Mississippi State. Zach Cloe, senior in mechanical engineering, had faith that Manhattan and Pacific would win their first round games as well. Along with Ott, he too has Connecticut and Oklahoma State going to the championship game — only he has the Cowboys knocking off the Huskies.

Cloe said this year’s tournament field makes for a great few weeks of basketball.

“I love the upsets. I like buzzer beaters and close games,” Cloe said. “There’s no dominant team this year, so that makes it great to watch.”

In the women’s tournament, the Sweet Sixteen is now set. There were three huge upsets in the first round: 12th-seeded Maryland upset fifth-seeded Miami, 13th-seeded Middle Tennessee State upset fourth-seeded North Carolina, and 11th-seeded California-Santa Barbara knocked Colorado from the sixth slot in the East. California-Santa Barbara went on to defeat third-seeded Houston in the second round.

The NCAA tournaments will continue with Sweet Sixteen games starting Thursday for the men and Saturday for the women.