March Madness is nearing a fever pitch as we're now gearing up for the Final Four games in the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournament. Both brackets are done with the Elite Eight, and my own tournament picks are doing surprisingly well. I'm actually in first place.

The Final Four is set. It's a battle of No. 1 seeds with Auburn vs. Florida and Duke vs. Houston in Saturday's national semifinals of the NCAA Tournament. Of these four No. 1 seeds, only one will cut down the nets in San Antonio,

In the second round, Michigan State had the benefit of facing No. 10 seed New Mexico, a team which had never advanced to the Sweet 16 since the field expanded to 64 teams. The drought continued for the Lobos as Sparty picked up a 71-63 win as 6.5-point favorites.

The Gamecocks will face fellow top seed Texas on Friday in their bid to become the first repeat NCAA champion since UConn’s run of four straight from 2013-16. The tourney’s overall 1 seed, UCLA, knocked off LSU 72-65 to advance to its first women’s Final Four behind another big game by Lauren Betts.

With wins by Houston and Auburn on Sunday, next weekend’s Final Four will have all four No. 1 seeds for the second time in NCAA Tournament history. The only other time since seeding began in 1979 was in 2008,

The NCAA Tournament is drawing to a close for men's basketball. Here are American-Statesman staff March Madness picks for the Final Four predictions.