Prepare yourselves- and your brackets. March Madness is back.

Last year, I wrote an “Ode to March Madness” at the end of the tournament, licking my wounds and lamenting my poor bracket. Once again, if someone would remind me to not always root for the underdog that would be really helpful.

However, this year, I’m changing it up. I’m writing this Ode to March Madness to bring me good luck and fair tiding to filling out my bracket. Either way, I pick Kentucky every year, so they better not let me down.

March Madness is a wonderful time of the year, where you can sit down and watch basketball every single day, practically. You can do that with the NBA, but that’s basically a show. This is college basketball. It’s March Madness. They’re playing with a much bigger chip on their shoulder.

March Madness is a time where friends can come together and have friendly competition over teams that they really don’t follow throughout the year.

It’s a legacy, basically. It’s also a legacy for the viewers. Bragging rights are distributed if you crown the winner. For the past year, my crew that did our brackets (including my friends Jeff, Adam and Kelley) have all bowed down to Kelley for the past year, since she picked Villanova to win last year.

This year, they’ll be bowing down to me and Kentucky (I say with a glimmer of hope).

This year, March Madness will be a little different for people in the Pittsburgh area. With a 4-13 ACC record, the University of Pittsburgh Panthers won’t be making a tournament run. Instead, Pittsburgh fans will have to find another team to root for- whether they be an ACC team or a different conference team.

No matter what team you’re rooting for, this year’s March Madness is bound to draw big ratings, huge surprises and an underdog team (or two). March Madness begins on March 14. Start filling those brackets out!