Place your bets — it’s tournament time!

After the brackets were announced Sunday afternoon, everyone in the country with the least bit of knowledge about college basketball filled out brackets for their office pool, perpetuating the yearly tradition that momentarily makes a group of teenagers and early 20-year-old males the most important people in the world.

At every impasse and break in the day, participants eagerly check the latest tournament updates. The water cooler conversation shifts from old episodes of Seinfeld to No. 12 seed’s upset of the No. 5 seed or speculations of how many No. 1 seeds will make it to the Final Four.

But the inevitable result of every NCAA Tournament is a small mid-major school playing above its expectations to become the tournament’s Cinderella story and reaching the sweet sixteen or elite eight.

In 1998, Mid-Continent Conference Champion Valparaiso upset Mississippi and the No. 13 seeded Crusaders advanced past No. 12 Florida State.

In 2001, nine teams with the No. 10 seed or higher, including Eastern rival Indiana State (No. 13), advanced past the first round.

However, this year, mid-major teams like Creighton, Gonzaga and Southern Illinois have cracked the top 25 in the national rankings at one point during the season.

As Southern and Creighton increase the Missouri Valley Conference’s presence on the national radar, the Ohio Valley Conference remains relatively obscure.

Sadly, the only attention the OVC has received this year has come from the worst team in the conference – Tennessee State.

The Tigers’ tumultuous season began when head coach Nolan Richardson III threatened his assistant coach Hosea Lewis with a fire arm. Then Lewis was given the reigns of the Tigers and his tenure as interim head coach was highlighted by a bench-clearing brawl with Eastern Kentucky. This led to the first woman men’s basketball head coach in NCAA Division I history, when Tennessee State director of athletics Teresa Phillips coached the Tigers to a loss against Austin Peay.

However, the OVC just might have a perfect Cinderella Story in this year’s champion, Austin Peay.

The Governors were selected to finish fifth in the preseason poll conducted with head coaches and sports information directors. Austin Peay made a late-season push to tie early front runners Morehead State and the tie breakers gave them claim to the the No. 1 seed of the OVC Tournament.

Austin Peay has history against them in their fight to become this year’s Cinderella story. OVC teams are 3-19 in the NCAA Tournament and a team from the OVC has not advanced past the first round since 1989.

Austin Peay is one of the OVC teams to have advanced past the first round. In 1987 they received the No 14 seed and upset No. 3 Illinois.

Could Austin Peay become this year’s Cinderella season? Odds makers would say no, but picking No. 13 Austin Peay to upset No. 4 Louisville may yet yield fruitful results.