So it's everyone's favorite time of the college basketball year: March Madness. That time of the year when everyone is a college hoops expert and every tournament pool you enter is guaranteed to be won by your buddy's girlfriend who picked her brackets based entirely on which school's color scheme she liked more in a head-to-head match-up. So in case you've been living under a rock for the last few days, here's what's up with the local teams in this crazy season.

Let's get the minor league stuff out of the way first: the NIT tournaments. The Villanova women (15-15, 5-11) got themselves a bid to the Women's NIT, and they'll play their opening round game at home tonight against American. If they win that, they'll travel to Wisconsin for a game on Saturday. The Wildcats were the only local team to get into an NIT on either the men's or the women's side. So let's move on to the Big Dance.

The Temple women (21-12, 12-2) were the only team from the area to get an invite to the Women's NCAA Tournament. They're in the field as an eleventh seed, and they'll open up against sixth-seeded Arizona State on Sunday. If they get through that game, they'll likely have a second round match-up with Duke, who a lot of experts are picking to go to the Final Four. That game would be Tuesday.

The Temple men (21-12, 11-5) earned their way into the tournament by beating St. Joe's in the finals of the A-10 Tournament to get the A-10's automatic bid. The Owls must have burst a bubble in the process, because they were almost certainly not on the tournament committee's guest list for the Big Dance. Whose bubble would that be? Well, a lot of people thought it might have been St. Joe's (21-12, 9-7) or Villanova (20-12, 9-9). Somehow, though, both the Hawks and the Wildcats got at-large bids to the tournament.

We're guessing 'nova was the very last team to be selected for the tournament, as they're the lowest-seeded at-large team in the field, with a twelve seed. Temple is also a twelve, and St. Joe's is an eleven. Everyone around the country tries to pick which twelfth seed will pull an upset over a five seed, because it happens at least once every year. And we expect many people in this area to be picking Villanova (over Clemson) and/or Temple (over Michigan State) in the first round. We're not so optimistic. Clemson is a team that's taken North Carolina (who we, like just about everyone else in the country, think is the best team out there) to the wire three times this season. And Michigan State is a tough, bruising team that if (and we do mean if, because the Spartans have stunk up the joint a couple times this season) it plays its best, could be a real spoiler and get to the Elite Eight or Final Four. If any of the local teams are going to pull an upset, we think the likely candidate is St. Joe's to beat sixth-seeded Oklahoma, who have definitely been known not to show up for a game or two. So here's the schedule for the first (and second, because there's always hope) rounds for those local teams.

• #11 St. Joe's: vs. #6 Oklahoma, Friday @ 7:10 P.M.; vs. #3 Louisville/#14 Boise State, Sunday @ TBD.
• #12 Temple: vs. #5 Michigan State, Thursday @ 12:30; vs. #4 Pitt/#13 Oral Roberts, Saturday @ TBD.
• #12 Villanova: vs. #5 Clemson, Friday @ 9:50 P.M.; vs. #4 Vanderbilt/#13 Siena, Sunday @ TBD.

Image Credit: Flickr user *Sally M*