Let the madness begin.

The 68-team NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament field has been released. Games begin Tuesday and about $9 billion of global gambling will be under way.

The Butler Eagle’s annual March Madness contest begins today as well. Last year’s top finishers — Josh Huffman and Leon Sopel — plan to fill out their brackets this week.

Huffman, 25, formerly of Knox, won last year’s contest, topping a field of about 1,200 entries. He is a former varsity basketball player at Keystone High School and moved this past fall to Elizabethtown, near Philadelphia.

“I was never more than a role player, a sixth man at best, in high school,” Huffman said. “But I love basketball, and I love this tournament.”

Huffman, his brother and father play the Eagle’s contest every year. His brother lives in Lisbon, Ohio.

“My dad still lives near Butler, and he’ll get us copies of the contest,” Huffman said. “I rode Wisconsin last year. They were a team everybody seemed to overlook and they got to the championship game.

“I picked up a lot of points with Wisconsin, but I don’t have any special system or secret to filling out my bracket. Basically, I just go with my gut,” said Huffman, who works in accounting payroll at Elizabethtown College.

Sopel, 41, of Butler finished second in last year’s Eagle contest. He works for Harley-Davidson and played intramural basketball during his years at Butler High School.

“I’m not going to give away too many secrets here,” Sopel said. “I do put a lot of thought into this and usually do pretty well.

“I’ve finished among the top 50 or 100 a few times before. That’s an accomplishment.”

Sopel did say he is partial to Pitt and Michigan when those teams get into the tournament.

“I go back to 1989 with Michigan, when they had Glen Rice and Rumeal Robinson ... even predating the Fab Five team,” he said. “I’m a huge college basketball fan. I watch a ton of games and study up a lot.”

That’s in contrast to Huffman, who doesn’t even have cable television.

“I read a lot of sports articles, follow ESPN on the Internet ... There are ways to keep informed,” Huffman said.

Both admitted staying informed may not matter with this year’s bracket.

“For anyone who doesn’t really follow college basketball and just blindly fills out a bracket, this may be your year,” Sopel said. “There is no favorite. I can’t remember the tournament being this wide open.

“You always have to be at least a little lucky to do well in this. It’s going to take a lot of luck this time.”

Huffman agreed.

“There is no dominant team like Kentucky was last year,” he said. “Kansas has been ranked No. 1, and they’ve got four losses or so.

“I can see someone from the ACC or Big 12 winning the whole thing because those are probably the best conferences.”

Huffman also sees a sleeper not too far away from Butler.

“I really like West Virginia,” he said. “They seem to be under everybody’s radar, and I love the way they’re playing right now.”

When it comes to winning money through an NCAA Tournament bracket, Sopel is a realist.

“Strategy, calculations, research ... whatever,” he said. “I just got lucky last year.”