Every year, millions of people fill out a NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket and get temporarily infected with March Madness. And like years before, madness has taken over campus.

“I’ve been filling out a bracket for the last six years and I watch a lot of the basketball games every year,” senior Andrew Smith said. “It’s that time of year where basically almost everybody does it and it’s a good way to have more fun while watching all the games.”

If watching basketball teams in the NCAA battle each other on the courts for the Final Four isn’t stressful enough, adding brackets to the picture puts participation in March Madness as a national and schoolwide pastime.

“I actually look and see what the point spread is on the two teams that are playing and see how they did throughout the year when creating a bracket,” AP economics teacher Gary Mumford said. “I analyze the teams a little bit.”

The NCAA announces teams playing in the tournament on Selection Sunday and brackets can be made from then until the First Round starts. After creating brackets, people use their selections to compete with friends and other bracket makers in groups.

“My friends and I in the basketball program are in a group,” junior and basketball player Zach Meade said. “We have our teams stacked up. The first round busted my bracket because I had Michigan State winning it all, but I’m still playing.”

Many students download March Madness apps, using live time scores and points to compare their bracket rankings with other players, and can be seen cheering for their teams in class.

“We all have our brackets on our phones,” Meade said. “We try to watch games during class or at least know what’s going on, so we’re always checking our phones for scores.”

Staff members have also come together to create a schoolwide group to compete for their brackets, as well as smaller groups for departments.

“We have a school-wide group that a lot of teachers get into,” Mumford said. “There are also about eight of us in the department and we all throw in a few dollars. It’s a winner-take-all, whoever scores the highest points gets the prize.”