March Madness

Oh it is that time of the year again. Where everyone person in the world becomes obsessed with college basketball. Everyone has a bracket with desires of making it perfect. March is the time where every one unites around teams they did not even follow. All in hopes of winning the bracket and taking home the prize. Being from Connecticut, the land of basketball, I was fortunate enough to win a bracket off of pure ignorance. UConn men’s basketball had a great team, but was definitely over matched at times.

They would run into speed bumps and lose winnable games. They turned it on in March, managed to run the table and I found myself collecting money.

It seems each year of March Madness is different in some way. The insanity finds a way to sneak into games one way or another. This year managed to have it’s own unique start. For the first time in a while, in every region, all of the top 4 seeds managed to advance to the second round. For a while it was getting crazy, with 15-seeds knocking off 2-seeds. I thought history was going to be made, with a number one seed going down in the round of 64. Turns out I was wrong. But it didn’t take long, with overall number one seed and returning champion, Villanova, to fall in the round of 32.

With the Sweet Sixteen upon us, there has been some serious upsets. But who is to blame? Is it the coaches, the players, the refs, or the seeding committee? The Xavier Musketeers have been proving people wrong, and find themselves still dancing as an 11-seed. They have a tall task ahead of them in the Arizona Wildcats. The next highest seed is the Wisconsin Badgers, who come in as an 8-seed. After knocking off the champs, will they be able to stay alive? Two 7-seeded teams earned their spots in the Sweet Sixteen. The Michigan Wolverines have been on tea ever since their plane accident. Watch out for them, cause this team is playing for something bigger then themselves. On the opposite side, the South Carolina Gamecocks bounced the Duke Blue Devils. This one shocked me. Let’s see how far they can go.

The rest of the bracket followed true to its seeding. A game I am looking forward to is the Kentucky Wildcats against the UCLA Bruins. This has a star-studded lineup, with a bunch of kids who will be playing in the league next year.

My sleeper team is the West Virginia Mountaineers. They are going to give the Gonzaga Bulldogs some fits. West Virginia has a deep team, plays amazing defense and has faced tough competition all year being from the Big-12. I look for them to upset Gonzaga this round.

As this tournament continues to unfold, excitement is going to rise. Teams will rise to the occasion. Other teams will let the pressure overwhelm them. The madness of March is fully upon us.