Burkhardt 5-Year-Old Among Leaders of ESPN Tournament Challenge

How's your bracket doing? 

Odds are that if you're playing against 5-year-old Nicholas Heisler, you're losing.

The youngster is currently in the 100th percentile of all players in the ESPN Tournament Challenge and ranked 313th in the world. On top of that, Nicholas is in first place in ESPN's First Take group (3,277 entrants), first place in the Fans of Wisconsin group (1,973 entrants) and third place in the Big Ten Fans group (22,636 entrants).

"He'd probably be in first place if I hadn't talked him out of picking Morehead State in the first round," said Nick Heisler, Nicholas's dad.

As an annual tradition, members of the Heisler family—mom Michele, dad Nick and son Nicholas—fill out brackets and compete against each other in the challenge. 

"This is the first year [Nicholas] has really gotten into it," said Michele said. "When I woke him up that morning I said, 'It's bracket day,' and he came running downstairs like it was Christmas morning."

resulted in an unlikely Final Four group of second-seeded North Carolina, second-seeded San Diego State, fourth-seeded Wisconsin and 12th-seeded Richmond.

Nick helped the youngster fill out his bracket last week before any games were played. Nick would ask the pre-schooler which team he wanted in each matchup. 

As a Wisconsin fan, it was a no-brainer for Nicholas to pick the Badgers to make it to the Final Four from the Southeast quadrant and eventually win it all. 

He chose San Diego State to emerge from the West quadrant because the school name reminded him of a character named Diego in one of his favorite cartoons Go, Diego, Go!, a spin off of Dora the Explorer.

Out of the Southwest quadrant, Nicholas pushed aside top-seeded Kansas and a very popular Notre Dame team to pick the 12th-seeded Richmond Spiders because they had a cool mascot name and their fans dressed as Spiderman.

He picked Florida and Arizona to make it to the Elite Eight because a Heisler family friend lives in Florida and a relative vacations regularly in Arizona.

Most of the excitement for Nicholas came with just filling out the bracket and he doesn't watch the tournament with as much enthusiasm as Nick.

"Nicholas really couldn't care less," Michele said. "But Nick has his eyes peeled on the laptop checking scores while he's watching."

Nick has been no slouch himself in the ESPN Tournament Challenge. He's currently in the 99th percentile, but he acknowledges that the second weekend of the tournament is what eventually makes or breaks a bracket.

"The first weekend doesn't mean a lot," Nick said. "But it gives people a reason to root for teams when they might not care about. We've got a lot of friends and relatives who are now really excited about basketball games."

If Nicholas's bracket is going to continue to top the rankings, he'll need San Diego State to beat Connecticut (6:15 p.m., CBS) and Wisconsin to beat Butler (8:57 p.m., TBS).

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If you're watching the tournament without much interest this weekend, why not root for Nicholas's teams?:

Thursday
San Diego State (vs. Connecticut, 6:15 p.m., CBS)
BYU (vs. Florida, 6:27 p.m., TBS)
Arizona (vs. Duke, 8:45 p.m., CBS)
Wisconsin (vs. Butler, 8:57 p.m., TBS) 

Friday
North Carolina (vs. Marquette, 6:15 p.m., CBS)
Richmond (vs. Kansas, 6:27 p.m., TBS)
Ohio State (vs. Kentucky, 8:45 p.m., CBS)

Saturday
San Diego State
Wisconsin

Sunday
North Carolina
Richmond