It might be hard to tell, but I’m writing this with a gigantic smile on my face. My favorite time of the year is March Madness. It’s beautiful just to write those two words. Between the brackets, the cinderellas, the predictions, the despair and the euphoria, it truly is everything I love about sports and more.

The memories of watching four games at once in the back of a class while still “paying attention” all rush back to me. Or even when I had my first experience of true heartbreak when I chose Otto Porter Jr. and Georgetown to win it all in 2013. It was my first ever bracket, and they went on to lose their very first game to No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast University — led by then-Head Coach Andy Enfield, funny enough. 

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But since then, I’ve had somewhat of a revitalization when it comes to my brackets. As I like to mention often in this column, I was the winner of last year’s Daily Trojan bracket pool, and I intend to defend my title. So, to level the playing field for everyone, I’ll give out a few hot picks for my bracket. Plus, this way, my mom can read this to help her fill out her bracket for her work pool rather than have my brother fill in his delusional picks for her. 

So, good luck to everybody this holiday season, and may you have the best of luck … as long as it’s a worse bracket than mine.

Duke, Kansas and Kentucky won’t make it to the second weekend

This first one’s a doozy; believe me, I know. Three of college basketball’s blue bloods all ranked as four seeds or higher. But one thing I’ve learned about filling out my bracket is you can’t do what everyone else is doing. No matter how hard people try to pick upsets, the majority will have only seeds one through four in their Sweet Sixteen with one to two outliers. 

These three teams are easy picks for people who haven’t been paying much attention to college basketball this year to go far; don’t fall into the trap. I love Duke (24-8, 15-5 ACC) and freshman guard Jared McCain’s singing videos as much as anyone, but the Blue Devils are cold, and that’s the last thing you want to be heading into the tournament. They have two rough losses in a row, and if they win their first game, they’ll play two ultra-hot teams in Wisconsin (22-13, 11-9 Big Ten) — a team that just went to the Big Ten Conference championship game — or James Madison (31-3, 15-3 Sun Belt) — a team tied with UConn for the most wins in the country.

Speaking of not-hot teams heading into the tournament, Kansas (22-10, 10-8 Big 12) has been as bad as any team in the last month. The Jayhawks have lost four of their last five games, with three being by double-digits. Injuries have plagued them, and they have one of the worst-adjusted offensive ratings of any tournament team. Samford University (29-5, 15-3 Southern Conference), Gonzaga University (25-7, 14-2 WCC) and McNeese State University (30-3, 17-1 Southland Conference) — the three teams in Kansas’ side of the bracket — are all better teams at this point in the season anyhow.

Kentucky has had the same problem all year; they have one of the best offenses (second in points per game) but an abysmal defense (334th in points allowed per game). I never like to trust teams that can’t defend in March; it’s bound to catch up to them at some point. Out of Duke and Kansas, Kentucky is the one I can more likely see making it to the Sweet Sixteen. But I’m avoiding the Wildcats with the red-hot NC State (22-14, 9-11 ACC) potentially awaiting them in the Round of 32.

USC will reach the Final Four for the first time since 1986

Switching over to the women’s bracket, how can you not love the Trojans (26-5, 13-5 Pac-12)? I’ve stuck by USC since the beginning of the season, and I see no reason to waver in my confidence. Freshman guard JuJu Watkins is incredible — enough said. They have a strong defense and a potent offense.

The only question I had remaining about this USC team is what happens when Watkins is not at her best. Can anyone shoulder the load? Graduate guard McKenzie Forbes put all my questions to rest by dropping 26 points against then-No. 2 Stanford in the Pac-12 Conference championship when Watkins was held to just 9. 

The Trojans’ first two games should be no sweat, especially considering they will be on their home floor. The real test for them could be if they see UConn (29-5, 18-0 Big East) in the Elite Eight. However, USC is one of the hottest women’s basketball teams, and I see no reason its dance will be cut short early. Give me Watkins and the Trojans cutting down those nets and moving on to the Final Four.

All six Mountain West teams will win at least one game

Back to the men’s, every year, when the committee picks which teams get the honor of punching their ticket to the tournament, the Power Five conferences are always favored. It makes sense; they typically have more teams that are better than mid-major conferences. But not this year. The Mountain West has a whopping six teams in the tournament, tied for the second-most out of every conference.

And every single one of them is scary good. All six are ranked in the top 40 of the NET Rankings. It also helps that all of them have favorable competition. Starting with my favorite team of the bunch, New Mexico (26-9, 10-8) is coming in super hot — you should sense a theme — having just won the Mountain West Conference championship. They are up against Clemson (21-11, 11-9 ACC), who have played down to subpar competition throughout this season. 

It might be cheating, as Boise State (22-10, 13-5 Mountain West) and Colorado State (24-10, 10-8 Mountain West) are in the first four games, but I like them both to win that game and even come through in their Round of 64 matchups. And as it seems I’m running too high on my word count to go fully in-depth on Nevada (26-7, 13-5 Mountain West), San Diego State (24-10, 11-7 Mountain West) and Utah State (27-6, 14-4 Mountain West), but they all have favorable matchups. They’re all strong teams that have faced strong competition all year, and now, they get easier matchups in the first round.

Obviously, when I look back in a month, half of this will be wrong, and I will have my champion knocked out in the second round, but hey, that’s what March Madness is all about. 

Stefano Fendrich is a junior writing about his opinions on some of sports’ biggest debates in his column, “The Great Debate,” which runs every other Wednesday.