As the NCAA basketball tournament draws nearer, everyone in the country is gearing up for many days of madness.

However, before the unbelievable action from the court takes your television sets by storm, you can begin savoring the flavors of the tournament by trying to predict the winner! NCAA basketball tournament is the pinnacle of college basketball in the US, with passionate teams from colleges across the length and breadth of the country giving it their best to win and move closer to the pinnacle of the Final Four.

There is no shortage of predictions for who will make it, but the reality is no one can ever know for sure. In fact, no one has ever filled out a perfect bracket–the odds against doing so are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. However, the more educated you are about the status of the teams, the more likely you are to at least when your office pool. Here are three safe picks to start off your bracket, but that won’t be enough, of course. You will need an arsenal of online reports and for real time info and stories related to the tournament, you can find more coverage here.

Kentucky Wildcats – the team everyone’s vouching for

Kentucky will be safe prediction in spite of all the uncertainty in the tournament. That’s primarily because of the big game experiences the Wildcat’s have had. Moreover, several college basketball experts have gone as far as commenting that Kentucky has the best defense (they’ve conceded an average 51 points per game recently), which makes it tough to beat them on any given day.

Then the players in the squad have an observable size and height advantage, something that’s like gold-dust in situations where pressure is at its highest. Great defense, complemented with some game winning shots from Aaron Harrison – sounds like the perfect winning formula. Kentucky has always shown the will to stay in there and fight until the last; no wonder, some people are pinning hopes with the Wildcats.

Duke Blue Devils – the dark horse for the tournament 

The format of the tournament makes it hard for anybody to stick one’s head out and claim a favourite, which also means that Duke becomes a team to watch out for. The current format might not be in favour of the Blue Devils. Even the stature of some of Duke’s competitors might seem massive when compared to this mercurial team. However, with everything said and done, Duke does have the firepower and legacy to be able to compete on a national stage.

The Blue Devils will be seriously hoping for their sharp shooters to come good, because they are going to need them if they want to beat the big names in the tournament. The control over the ball is something that every team covets and Duke does have some ball handlers that does give them the edge. They will need everything they have if they meet up against Kentucky. As to whether the team can paint the court blue or not remains to be seen!

Wisconsin Badgers – the giant killers?

‘Who can beat Kentucky’ will be on everybody’s mind as we move into the NCAA tournament, and the Wisconsin Badgers might just be the answer! The badgers have handled the Kentucky juggernaut with success a couple of times before and may have the size and height that Kentucky brings to the table. But do they have the skill and the flare that Kentucky has?

The Badgers certainly do want to seek some revenge from the one point loss that Kentucky handed them a year ago.