Not only are colleges nationwide competing throughout March, but this also brings friends and family together to start their competition to see who can get the most accurate bracket. Freshman Caden Basar has brought together a group of his closest friends and family to compete throughout March as a continued tradition.

“I’ve been doing it for three or four years. I started doing it with my family when I was in middle school and started playing basketball for Chelsea,” Basar said. 

Not only is basketball fun to watch but there is now an even bigger reason to watch the games and stay up to date with different teams: money. 

“Usually everyone puts up money that will go to the winner, it is usually around $100 for the first-place winner,” Basar said. “Sometimes depending on the number of people participating, second or third place will hopefully get their money back.”

But it’s not only the winners that get something out of the experience. Bracket losers are forced to face a punishment for last place. The punishments change yearly based on who participates and what they feel the worst punishment would be. 

“This year we are doing the one chip challenge,” Basar said. “In previous years the losers have had to do something like the milk mile.” 

The one-chip challenge has been gaining popularity through social media in recent years. It is a Carolina Reaper powder covering the chip totaling a blazing 1.7 million Scoville rating, in comparison to a jalapeno being a measly 8000. This challenge is dreaded because of the heat lasting from just a few minutes to over an hour. 

“If I lose I’m worried because I don’t like spicy things and it’s obviously really spicy.” Freshman Gibson Ichesco said. “I don’t think I will lose. I usually do pretty well at these, if I had to guess who is going to lose it will probably be Gus Herter.”