By Adam Wolcott
I miss March Madness. Even as the biggest Yankees fan you know who also loves college football, March Madness is my favorite sporting event every year. College basketball is such a great sport because it cultivates the underdog. The gap between the brand name schools and the mid-majors is rapidly closing, as more upsets happen every year. I was so excited for March Madness this year, as there had been so many upsets every week that the tournament was going to be impossible to predict. Watching these schools that no one has ever heard of become famous overnight as they take down a basketball giant is a feeling that puts a smile on my face every year. College basketball truly shows that one individual can’t carry a team all the way to the end, and even without a superstar, a team of committed players can make a wave in the tournament.
The analytics of March Madness are just as exciting. The chances of having a perfect bracket are slim to none every year, and yet I along with everyone else still try. Even though I still pride myself on winning the family pool the first year I played in 2006, when I was five and I picked the Gators to go all the way (because that was the only team I knew), I score just as well in recent years as my mom who doesn’t watch any basketball all year. I watch many of the marquee games with the blue bloods, and keep track of the mid-majors that are cruising through their conferences that no one is paying attention to, yet my chances are just as good as someone who picked the teams based on what mascot is cuter. But that’s the fun in it, everyone has just about the same shot at picking the winners.
When I was a sophomore in high school (2017), my dad and I went to the first and second rounds in Orlando. Watching six basketball games in two days (including the Gators) was one of the best sports fan experiences of my life. It was so cool to watch the bracket unfold in front of our eyes, as in our particular region 11-seed Xavier reached the Sweet Sixteen in those two days in Orlando. Those three weekends in March and April are a college sports fan’s dream, and I’m so sad to not have it to look forward to this year. But at least YouTube lets the games from the previous years stick around.