Nick Lachey is worried about his team's road to the Final Four

By: Jessie Karangu

As a Cincinnati native, former boy band star Nick Lachey has always pledged his allegiance to the Cincinnati Bearcats. So when he looked at the bracket this year, he got a little queasy. His team’s road to the Final Four, it seems, is full of tough match-ups.

“We’ve got UCLA, we’ve got Kentucky, we’ve got North Carolina all in our bracket just to get to the Final Four so we’re definitely going to have to play our best basketball of the season if we’re going to get very far this year,” Lachey said.

Lachey said he’s always been more of a college basketball fan than an NBA fan and he believes March Madness is the second marquee sporting event of the year — the first being the Super Bowl.

“It’s a whole season’s worth of work coming down to hey a chance to get hot at the right time make a run and anyone’s got a shot. It’s the best sporting event of the year,” said Lachey.

Lachey expects the madness to continue this year, picking Middle Tennessee State to beat Minnesota but he also has his eye on Princeton because they play “kind of old school, pick and roll basketball.”

There are at least two schools we know he won’t be rooting for – Xavier and Louisville.

Xavier, a rival of Cincinnati, has “become so good year in and year out” according to Lachey, he believes the school has “supplanted Louisville as my most hated school in college basketball.”

Like most fans though, he’s just mostly excited the big day is here.

“It’s almost an excused absence of work for most people and the chance to sit down and watch four games at once with a cold beer in your hand on St. Patty’s Day weekend. It just feels right.”