COLUMN: March Madness is beautiful
There were 52 games which resulted in 16 teams remaining in the hunt for a national title and 52 others left mourning what could have been.
More than 20 million total brackets were entered in ESPN’s Tournament Challenge, CBS Sports Tournament and the Yahoo Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge. Not one of them was perfect after 25 games, although three correctly picked the 16 teams still standing.
All of this in a span of 80 hours.
I. Love. March Madness.
The first day of this year’s tournament was one of the two best in my lifetime. No. 11-seed Dayton busted everyone’s bracket in game 1 with an upset of “big brother” Ohio State – for those not familiar, their rivalry is eerily similar to that of USU and BYU.
No. 14-seed Mercer stunned legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke Blue Devils and three No. 12 seeds knocked off No. 5 seeds: North Dakota State, Harvard and SF Austin downed VCU.
The three No. 12 seeds fell short in their next game, but joining Dayton in the Sweet 16 is No. 11-seed Tennessee and No. 10-seed Stanford. No. 8 Kentucky knocked off No. 1 Wichita State to get there. No. 7 Connecticut is also still alive, as is No. 6 Baylor.
If games played out according to seed, there would be four of each the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 seeds left. Instead we have three double-digit seeds, and a No. 8, No. 7 and No. 6 seed. So six of the 16 teams left “shouldn’t” be here.
This is why college basketball is so great.
The system is set up in such a way that any team from any conference has a shot at making a deep playoff run in March. Does Cinderella ever win the national title?
No. 8 Villanova is the lowest seed to ever win the title, and it did that in 1985. Since they are a “power” conference school, I don’t think we can count the Wildcats as a Cinderella.
Tennessee and Stanford both hail from “power” conferences, so naturally Dayton is the Cinderella left dancing with the big boys. And yes, odds are the Flyers don’t win the national title – though it would mean my niece would win our family bracket.
The beauty of NCAA March Madness:
The “little” guys get attention they deserve and the best teams in the country win the national title. People who have little to no knowledge of sports have just as good a shot as anyone to win bracket challenges.
We all shirk our responsibilities and are glued to television and computer screens to watch teams we’ve never heard of yet picked to pull massive upsets. We all agonize and celebrate when blue-bloods like Duke, North Carolina and Kansas fall to the Mercers, Lehighs and VCUs and destroy our brackets.
It’s the greatest annual sporting event in the world. The only events that top it are the Olympics and the World Cup. It’s a pity those only come every four years.
You know what all three have in common? The underdog story. People coming from out of the limelight to capture our hearts and instill in us a love of sport, competition and never-say-die attitude.
So I don’t know about you, but even though I still have a legitimate shot at winning my bracket pools, I’ll be on board the Dayton plane. Let’s go Flyers.
– Curtis Lundstrom is a junior majoring in journalism and communications. A passionate fan of all sports, his life ambitions include officiating college basketball and bowling a perfect 300 game. Send any comments or questions to curtislundstrom@gmail.com, or tweet him @CurtisLundstrom.