As March comes to an end the madness ramps up in the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournament.
Every year when March rolls around, sports fans from all over are looking for the exact energy that the NCAA basketball tournament gives out. The Superbowl has already passed, and the other professional sports are finishing up their regular seasons. The sports world has no other choice but to focus its attention on college students who are competing at the highest collegiate level.
One of the main factors that makes March Madness so exhilarating is the aspect of making a bracket. This year, there were over 22 million brackets created through the ESPN Tournament Challenge that is online, according to AP News. 68 teams enter both tournaments, with four of those teams fighting for their spot on the actual bracket, these are the play-in teams. The 64 teams who make it into the tournament are split into regional groups and are ranked 1-16. It is then up to the millions of people who participate to fill out a bracket based on some sort of inclination.
The brackets are interesting because any person, knowledgeable about college basketball or not, can fill out a bracket and have the same chance as a paid analyst. There is a total of 63 games played throughout the tournament, and the NCAA says that there is a 1 in 120.2 billion chance to have a perfect bracket even with some knowledge of college basketball. Famous investor Warren Buffet has offered one billion dollars to anyone who achieved this preposterous perfect bracket.
This year, the defending champions for the men’s side, the University of Connecticut, returned to the tournament as the favorite to win again. They have stuck to that prediction so far as they have made it back to the final four as a one-seed.
Aside from the betting favorite, this year’s men’s tournament has seen many upsets that left only 2,100 perfect brackets after the first day of games. The reason for so many busted brackets was a school out of Oakland County, Michigan, that being 14-seed Oakland University. Oakland had a major upset over 3-seed Kentucky University on day one. Three 11-seeds upset 6-seeds in the round of 64, as well as two 12-seeds that upset 5-seeds. Lastly, 13-seeded Yale defeated 4-seeded Auburn to wipe out a significant amount of brackets. The later results on the second day were enough to take out the rest of the remaining perfect brackets for the men’s NCAA men’s tournament.
The sweet sixteen round brought the exit of three separate 2-seeds, along with two of the 1-seeds being knocked out of the tournament. A 4-seeded Alabama has carried the momentum of knocking off a 1-seed into this year’s final four.
Throughout the second and third rounds, most of the lower-seeded teams that pulled off first-round upsets lost, except for 11-seed North Carolina State. The Wolfpack have recently defeated the infamous 4-seed Duke Blue Devils, and have reached the final four for the first time since 1983. They were coming off of a conference championship before the tournament, and have ridden that momentum as an underdog far into this year’s tournament.
UConn and Purdue University, the two remaining 1-seeds, have made their way to the final four and are both favored in their matchups leading up to the national championship game. Zach Edey and the Purdue Boilermakers will play 11-seed North Carolina State hoping to continue their “Cinderella Story”. In the second game, the defending champion Huskies will take on a blazing-hot 4-seeded Alabama squad in the final four.
The NCAA women’s tournament has stayed fairly steady with the higher-seeded teams winning the majority of the games. One-seeded South Carolina has remained the favorite throughout the tournament and has not stumbled along the way in their journey.
Additionally, the final perfect bracket in the women’s tournament was busted in the 51st game which saw 3-seed North Carolina State beat the 2-seeded Stanford in the Sweet Sixteen round.
There was one upset that shocked the women’s college basketball world that occurred on the second day with 11-seed Middle Tennessee beating 6-seed Louisville in a game that came down to the wire. They were ousted in the next round by the strong defending champions 3-seedes Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers.
Stat shattering senior guard Caitlin Clark has carried the 1-seeded Iowa Hawkeyes through this year’s madness. Clark scored 37 points to take down the defending champs of LSU on Monday in the Elite Eight round, a rematch of last year’s championship. She has had a record-setting career, becoming the leader in points scored throughout all of college basketball.
3-seeded UConn has leaped through the tournament as they are the team with the most women’s NCAA basketball championships, and looking for number 12. They are accompanied by a talented senior in Paige Bueckers, who missed the previous season with an ACL injury. The Huskies beat the 1-seed USC Trojans in an exciting Elite Eight game where Bueckers took over to seal the deal.
South Carolina has undoubtedly arrived in the final four following an undefeated season. The Gamecocks are set to play Aziaha James and the 3-seeded North Carolina State Wolfpack, who have their second-ever final four appearance. Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes will take on Paige Buekers and the UConn Huskies in a matchup for the ages in the final four.
With the final four in place for both the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, fans can only hope that these college athletes will continue to pour out their effort and deliver fantastic games. The competition narrows and the skill rises with the last few games to be played this weekend to conclude the NCAA basketball season.
Jacob Enscoe can be contacted at
jenscoe@kscequinox.com
